Soothing minimal piano and strings combine together in a harmonious exploration of our world and those that inhabit it. Chaos is the world, and the routes within it chaotic. But examined from within, it can be admired and the complex beauty of all life is revealed.
I had just recently finished playing through Life is Strange, the episodic story-based game by Dontnod Entertainment. It certainly inspired the title, and the emotional mindset the finale left me in lead me to the off-bar piano chords, but it turned into a look upon the world from a wider viewpoint and all the madness that is within it. I do really like small orchestral pieces, especially ones inspired by natural surroundings. Put me in a forest with a guitar and we'll see what comes out!
Ambience
Ambience in the levels act as a base layer of audio, providing location-based sound for when the gunfire falls silent. The wind, birds, and rivers are low in the mix and usually masked by weapon fire, but without it the gameplay area would feel empty and unnatural.
The fun part about game audio is that no matter how realistic you try to make it, it is always entirely fake. Unlike with film where you return to the edit room with some audio from the shooting location, the silent game world is the audio equivalent of a blank canvas. You can apply anything you want as the level ambience, provided it makes sense to the project! In our Pegasus Bridge map for example I use several main wind recordings, mixed with localised bird chirps and rustling trees. The ambience sounds different in each part of the map and you can hear the changes as you are running through it.
While we don’t use a dynamic time cycle in our maps, it was important to create a setup that would cater for it anyway. This means the two different times of day for each of our maps are able to have distinct ambiences that can change just as easily as the lighting, without requiring multiple triggers or map layers.
Foley
There is a lot more to weapon audio than the simple ‘bang’. You want to be able to hear the weapon fire, the casing drop to the floor, the bullet impact, the echo around the landscape, and then the bullets from the enemy whizzing past you as they return fire. It is with all of these stems working together that you get close to the intensity that the game requires.
The bullet impacts are some of the most aggressive sound effects in the game; I wanted every individual bullet to be noticed whether it hits you or not. If you are taking cover behind a crate then expect to hear the wood splinter and crack in front of you. Similarly, hiding behind a car or the metal structure of Pegasus Bridge will cause loud metallic pings to ring out around you, and if a bullet flies past you will hear the ‘swish’ as it whizzes over your head. When this is combined with the visual suppression effect it heavily affects your ability to pinpoint your attacker, and when all of this is combined with our HRTF-based 3D audio, gunfights can be a very tense experience!
Weapons
I set out with an aim to have as much of the ingame audio created by the players as possible. I didn’t want an overly complex atmosphere, instead preferring a focused yet understandably hectic audio mix. I wanted the gunfights and explosions to be harsh and disorienting, but most importantly to be influenced by their real-world characteristics. This is why you can hear every weapon in the game from no matter where it is fired. I have spent far too many hours creating and refining a complex filter system, along with intricate crossfading to make each weapon sound as you would expect it to at 10 meters, 50 meters, and 200 meters distance. This has been time consuming and the parameters are constantly being tweaked as the mix changes, but the outcome is a very dynamic and responsive battleground. I’ve even added a delay that increases with distance, so at range you will see the explosion before you hear it, modeling the speed of sound.
Just like many aspects of the game, the audio is constantly being tweaked and adjusted, and will continue to be refined up to release. Obviously there are many audio requirements that have not been mentioned here, but the weapon audio system has been a large project in itself and thankfully it’s easy enough to expand to additional firearms and equipment in the future.
"Pila is a beautiful, abstract puzzler that looks a bit like ancient iconography at first glance. Its circles and arcs float in a timeless black space brought into the future by crisscrossing wires and an electric blue and orange color scheme." - Gamezebo
PILA is a 2D puzzle game for mobile and tablet devices. It's minimalist art style and addictive levels make for game that is easy to pick up but difficult to put down.
I was asked by the developer of PILA to add some whirrs and squeaks to supplement the beautiful abstract visuals he had created. It is a puzzle game with lots of moving parts occasionally with elaborate solutions, meaning it was important to allow each sound to easily audibly represent what it was linked to, and stand out in their own right. Below is a short demo of some of the audio elements I created for this project.
It was important to keep with the minimalist sci-fi styling, but also work on audio that has a lot of room for experimentation and elaboration upon the visual identity. The various bleeps and buzzes were primarily synthesised, combined with real-world sounds where appropriate. Each puzzle element has its own unique flair which I wanted to embellish through sound, one of the simplest being the intractable buttons. When pressed, these create simple sine tones at a random selection of 4 pitches; creating a musical element that otherwise isn't present. Everything almost 'floats' above the backing drone, which provides consistent audio while the player attempts to plan their puzzle solution.
Its that time again! A new showreel featuring recent and memorable projects including my original sound design and composition work. All the projects are listed in the description (links to be added soon!). The showreel features my abstract Particles sound design, a dabble into trailer soundtracks and some in-game recordings from the audio implementation of Traction Wars. Combined with some more traditional composition I have completed over the last year!
For more information or to find out how you can get me to write music or sound design for your project, please CONTACT me.
After working on the Particle project, those damn abstract waves have just been placed everywhere. I put them in my header, various icons across the internet... Well now I have also put them on clothing! And other products of course, if you don't like clothes or if perhaps you don't wear any, I'm not here to judge.
The waves! They're everywhere!
I have put several of the designs used or created in projects I have made or been involved with on some physical products that you can now see here:
All of the designs have come from projects I have worked on; mostly particles because they are colourful and pretty. There are also t-shirts available from Shapeway, which I am very happy to be able to offer.
I haven't added any logo-based swag yet, maybe for the future...
A delve into some abstract sound design, with very abstract visuals. The particle effects were created over several months in After Effects, with many hours of trial-and-error and rendering time. Pleased with the results though; it is colourful and full of moving things that don't make a lot of sense but who cares when it looks pretty!
For more information or to hire me to paint random waves of colour in your house or in a gallery or on your pets, please CONTACT me.
For my BSc Sound for Media dissertation, I looked into how game audio is created, along with how the requirements have evolved and how the technology has progressed to allow designers to creatively to enhance the gameplay experience of the player. Research included the history of game audio, how it can be compared to the sound design of film, problems designers face in creating game audio and a brief look into the future.
Abstract:
Interactive entertainment is an expressive art form that engages and inspires millions worldwide. The audio of games must enhance the visuals, while also helping to immerse the player in an entirely virtual world. Ever since computer chips have been able to produce basic tones, audio has been a vital part of gaming. Arcades awash with various hardware-produced bleeps led to home consoles and PCs that are capable of extremely rich and diverse experiences. Designers of such audio now have few limitations on what they can create, while programmers have tools at their disposal to implement the audio in a believable and creative way. Middleware has made it possible for the designer to become the programmer, allowing greater control over audio implementation while also supporting creativity. The interactive nature of games causes problems, especially when compared to the long-standing conventions of the film industry. Technologies such as real-time HRTF-based 3D audio is an exciting possibility for game audio, but as it is not primarily supported by any widely available game engines, the implementation of it is currently minimal at best.
Jump, move, die, dodge, die, speed and die your way through ShapeWay. You die a lot.
ShapeWay! A game about shapes and, erm, way?
ShapeWay is a puzzle platformer developed by Paperbox Studios, with a focus on two components; building a solution and then playing it. The game has been in development for a while, but is now released on mobile platforms!
Following the launch of the mobile versions, the game was submitted to Steam Greenlight where its campaign was successful. Shapeway will launch on Steam in 2016!
This was the first game I worked on with Paperbox, which started way back in 2014. My role was to compose background music and create sound design that would compliment the games visuals and gameplay, including all of the dying. As everything tries to kill you in the game, it was important for the sound to not demean or insult the player. Every mode of death has its own unique sound, from being squished by a crusher to breaking on the spikes.
Every sound was designed to feel 'real', yet downgraded. The seemingly simple pixel-art visual style lent itself well to 8-bit sound effects, however from fear of being too predictable, I thought it was best to stay away from this. Instead, real world sounds were used and distorted to give a downgraded impression; to provide extra depth to the world while being in tune with the visuals. For example the real-world boots for the footsteps, or an angle grinder for the saw blade, and the smashing glass for the poor character getting spiked.
You solve the puzzle, and then platform your way out!
On the other hand, the soundtrack is almost entirely reliant on an 8-bit sound. Initially the four worlds were to be named after shapes - circle, square, triangle and pentagon. It was my intention to therefore have a different tune for each world, based on the relating audio waves - sine, square and triangle, with pentagon involving a combination of all three. This gave each world a distinct musical sound, while remaining in the 8-bit realm. The menu music was the exception, and includes bells with additional percussion to make it just that little bit different, and hopefully not too annoying!
It has been great to see this game finally release, and I look forward to seeing it on Steam in the future. There is room for expansion, so I'm sure this isn't the last we'll see of Mister BlueCube.
Another year, another game jam. Once again I teamed up with Paperbox Studios to make a game in one weekend under the theme of Your Are The Monster. You can see the games Ludum Dare page here.
The idea of the project was simple, the scope not so much. You play as a simple mutant beast who just wants to get through life by feasting on the blood of innocent city dwellers. But because you are a clever mutant, you can transform yourself to look like one of the locals. That way the police won't shoot you. And when they are not looking, you simply transform into your hideous true self and devour the population. You can play it for yourself in a browser here, or download a standalone for Windows here.
In terms of sound design, there was a lot required. So much so, that I ended up creating most of them with just my own lungs. (In comparison so Kid Got Lost - the game we made for a Ludum Dare last year - Downtown Devourer featured ten-times the amount of individual sound files.) My vocal work can be seen on the townspeople, but where my unquestionable talent primarily lays in the making 'slurpy' monster noises. Everything from the sliding movement to the hideous transformation gurgles of the monster made for a very sore throat the next day. I also had fun creating the sounds for the bumbling townspeople. I repeat their happy little mumbles so much perhaps we should all communicate by 'blub-blub-blubbing' to each other...
As soon as I saw early prototypes for the game I knew it had to have a rock soundtrack. Early ideas were thrown around such as 'horror' and 'tense', but for some reason the idea of rock music matched the monster perfectly. It became apparent very quickly that this wasn't going to work as a tense horror game, mostly because of my interpretation of the audio. However, the slow human music creates the calm atmosphere that the townspeople all bop along to, and the heavy monster music raises the stakes and intensity for when they should be running for their lives.
It is a difficult game, but a fun one to work on nonetheless. My high-score is about 10, which I imagine is easily beatable.
In BallTopple, you must use the powers of tilt to collect the right colour balls in to their matching bucket. Hone your skill over 3 difficulty levels and 2 gamemodes until you can call yourself the Emperor of Balls, or something.
The challenging modes and addictive gameplay will have you entertained and hooked until you are seeing red and blue balls in your sleep.
This game probably won't change your life, but should keep you entertained for a while. Can you set a new high score?
BallTopple started as a small side-project during the development of my my Interactive Showreel. This was the silly, fun and annoyingly addictive project that is really the first real game I have produced myself. I wanted to give players a choice with the final game, which is why there are two versions. The full version includes 3 levels, 2 gamemodes, public leaderboards, 15 achievements to collect and is entirely ad free. The free version features the same levels and gamemodes but has ads, makes sense really. The choice is yours!
Here are a collection of images to you in the mood for collecting balls.
One project for my final year of university involved the replacement of all audio in an extract from a professional production, be it a film or TV series. My choice was various scenes from the first season of The Walking Dead. The project required the complete removal of all audio from the original footage, including sound effects, dialogue and music. All of these had to then be redone, without reference to the original audio. The outcome is an entirely original audio track, all of which was recorded, treated, edited and mixed by me. The final output was two separate mixes in stereo and 5.1 surround. The project can be watched in full below.
The project was a challenge for many reasons, but mainly the lack of access to a Foley studio and all the props that would entail. I did my best however but feel some of the Foley effects such as the footsteps would have been improved otherwise. (There is only so many feet sounds you can make from 3 pairs of shoes!) The surfaces were also a problem, and meant recording all the steps freehand and syncing them later on, an incredibly tedious process I must say. Dialogue was also a bit of a pain, in the sense of not having the original actors to dub themselves - which is the usual method of ADR outside of foreign language dubbing. However the people I worked with were wonderful and given the difficulty in matching professional actors I am happy with the results. (Even the Monty Python-style lady.)
Designing the smaller sounds was very interesting, including the laboratory scene and the hospital movement at the beginning. The fine detail needed to bring those moments to life was a challenge but also produced interesting scenes. Working on the gunshots, the zombies and the huge explosion at the end was the most fun overall, and difficult in the sense that I was unable to go out and record some shotguns or C4. The explosion itself consisted of 34 different tracks, made up of thunder, heavily processed noise, concrete bricks, concrete debris, breaking glass and shreds of paper processed to sound like massive lumps of concrete. An awful lot of work went into that, but as a final climax of the extract I think it was well worth it. Making sound that actually requires breaking stuff is the best bit of being a sound designer!
Overall the piece is pleasing to me, and a good representation of the work put into my final year. The actual grade it received is yet unknown.
CRUX was a final year short film project created by myself and three other Sound for Media students. Given the course, we wanted to give the film a heavy focus on sound, be it designed, recorded, processed or synthesised. The project lasted the whole academic year, with pre-production starting as early as June 2014. The whole film can be seen below.
As a production group this was our second shortfilm production, the first being EPHEMERAL. There are certainly a lot of similarities between the two, primarily that both heavily feature questionable realities. We got a lot of feedback from EPHEMERAL about it being confusing, or overly complicated, but I'm not sure that was really the case. We wanted to encourage the participation of the audience, to make them see the actions on the screen and draw their own conclusions. The best bit as a creator of that film was to see the responses after it had finished; to hear peoples completely different ideas of what happened. And that is the main thing I tried to capture while writing this follow up, while also trying to counter the issues of it being "too complicated". (One response we had to EPHEMERAL was that it was "too complicated to appreciate" which, to be honest, made me want to write something even more involved. But I was encouraged to not do that in the end.)
The beach of Shoeburyness provided shots for the title sequence. But it was cold. Really cold.
The initial brief stated for CRUX it should be a short film of between 10-15 minutes, which we naturally exceeded a little. That was really the only main restriction, along with the minor ones we had to include for grading purposes such as dialogue, different locations etc. Basically as long as we had things that every film has then we were free to do as we saw fit, which included monsters, rooms of red and special effects. All of these allowed us to be creative and to experiment with the audio as much as possible, which was the main purpose of the film.
The project was tremendously fun to work on, with a cast that was truly a delight to film with on a cold rainy beach in Southend. I'm sure it isn't the last time I work with the crew and cast, and certainly not the last visual work I produce.
Orchestral Invasion is essentially a film soundtrack for a hypothetical film. In other words it is an album in the style of a film soundtrack, but with no film. If there was a film, it would be expensive and have aliens and spaceships and explosions, but there isn't. It's just the music. You get what I mean... The album can be streamed on this page, and also downloaded or purchased through Bandcamp. I wanted to write the album as a showcase, to put new skills to use and to attempt to tell a story with music alone. I'm happy with the result, and along with the small story for each track, the music aids the plot in this - admittedly quite short - 12-track album.
The album tells the story of Simon, and his progression during the fictional alien invasion. The story is told in the individual track descriptions, or from the bonus image you get if you download it. The album is free to download, though any form of payment is optional and will greatly appreciated - have to eat, after all! I hope you enjoy the album as much as I enjoyed making it. And don't forget to pray for Simon, or something.
Battle Stations was an experiment in cramming as much orchestral action into the music as possible. The result is both short, dramatic and the perfect track for an alarm clock; for if you can arise from bed prepared to battle an entire alien army, Monday morning shall kneel before you.* This piece also forms part of an album which can be found here. to be released in the new year: an orchestral album designed to accompany a conceptual film about an alien invasion. Each track has it's own story and everything! *Disclaimer: This piece of music nor the composer does not encourage the fighting of an alien army, especially not on a Monday morning. In fact this is probably the worst time to do so; perhaps a Friday afternoon would be better. I can not be held responsible for any injury caused by fighting aliens.
An experiment into ambient music, where everything is peaceful and lovely sounding. Oh, but with a twist! It is based on the experience of waking up where something isn't quite right; something is missing.
I got quite into the whole 8-bit style while I was working on the Shapeway soundtrack (*cough* promo *cough*). I got so into it in fact that once I'd finished, my Muse adoration fell out and I just couldn't stop! I started playing around with the idea and playing various Muse riffs through Famisynth 2 and this popped out. All of the songs medley-ified are in their original key and similar tempo. It was a long and difficult task and cannot recommend anyone to attempt it.
Alright, it's not strictly 8-bit, it's just an 8bit style!
If you can name all of the tracks I'll owe you a high-5.
The Ludum Dare is an online game jam; a competition to create a game within 72 hours based on a particular theme. The theme for this 30th competition was 'Connected Worlds'. It is a fast, intense experience that really puts skills and workflow to the test. The friendly chaps at Paperbox Studios requested me for the weekend, to create some noises and music for their idea, Kid Got Lost.
The game has received many positive comments from other Ludum developers, and the guys at Paperbox and myself are very pleased with the creation. Many of the comments on the Ludum page praise the sound, how it creates an atmosphere fitting with the visuals, and something I'd like to expand upon in this post..
The most commended sound was that of the ghosts. These spooky little whines you hear from the ghosts are directional and proximity triggered. What makes them more frightening is that you can hear them in both worlds, which means they cannot always be seen. This means their sound plays a vital role in the game, and once mastered can make escaping from the mazes less frustrating.
The ghosts kill you. A lot.
Perhaps more frightening - for me, at least - is that the sound of these ghosts are actually me. I recorded myself whining into a microphone, to sound as pained, as ghostly, as dead and as scary as possible. They were then pitched, layered, and treated with various reverb and delays. And the result is creepy, unnerving and seems to give tremendous threat to these hovering little bastards that kill you all the time. Still, at least I'll be good at haunting people in the afterlife.
The music was an interesting challenge as game was aimed at a horror mood. I haven't written anything like that before, so to do so in such short time was tricky. However the result is a very inconsistent mash of piano and harp chords, set always against those two repetitive harp notes throughout. A tremolo violin floats over the top of both, culminating in a very inharmonic tune that makes you feel very uneasy.
Twinned with this is a second layer, which is heard only when the player looks into another dimension. This is in theory time synced, but even if that doesn't always happen the effects is similar, and with even more subtle variation. As this part is only heard under certain circumstances, Kid Got Lost actually has the fundamentals of an interactive score. Not bad for a game made in under 3 days!
It was a great experience working on this project. The short time scale was certainly a challenge, but I feel pressure can push you to other creative levels. I of course take no credit for actually putting the game together, but I am incredibly satisfied with the sound and music. The combination of both of those things match seamlessly with the visuals and create a successfully eerie atmosphere. Play it alone with headphones, in the dark. I dare you.
In order to make this music video I had to clone myself, as you can see. It was a successful cloning procedure, however there was an accident after filming involving their cages and there are now three Callum clones roaming the wilderness. If you encounter them, do not engage with them in any way. They aren't exactly dangerous, but will probably annoy you in their search for guitars and keyboards to play. So while I meet with NATO to discuss the best way of re-capturing these menaces, enjoy a music video made by me and my clones.
'Crash on Planet Felis' is a radio drama in the style of German Hörspiel, featuring a story told primarily through the use of sound effects, which IS BEST LISTENED TO THROUGH HEADPHONES! It also features dialogue provided by the marvelous Scheiffer Bates, whose Youtube channel is here and you should go to it.
The piece is about a spaceship captain awakening to find his ship is crashing, and who does everything in his power to stop the inevitable. It was produced as part of my second year Sound for Media university course.
All the sounds present were recorded, designed, edited and mixed by myself.
Originally I planned to release this in April. Yeah. But that kind of didn't work due to busy times with university. But now it is here. And with a video to match!
Rise of the Forest was written a rather long time ago and only recently has been finished up and polished. Then, just to make it take longer to release, I wanted to make a video for it too. The video is an experiment with different editing techniques and effects.
The track can be downloaded from my Bandcamp page, along with the other 3 April tracks.
"Pila is a beautiful, abstract puzzler that looks a bit like ancient iconography at first glance. Its circles and arcs float in a timeless black space brought into the future by crisscrossing wires and an electric blue and orange color scheme." - Gamezebo
Its that time again! A new showreel featuring recent and memorable projects including my original sound design and composition work. All the projects are listed in the description (links to be added soon!). The showreel features my abstract Particles sound design, a dabble into trailer soundtracks and some in-game recordings from the audio implementation of Traction Wars. Combined with some more traditional composition I have completed over the last year!
One project for my final year of university involved the replacement of all audio in an extract from a professional production, be it a film or TV series. My choice was various scenes from the first season of The Walking Dead. The project required the complete removal of all audio from the original footage, including sound effects, dialogue and music. All of these had to then be redone, without reference to the original audio. The outcome is an entirely original audio track, all of which was recorded, treated, edited and mixed by me. The final output was two separate mixes in stereo and 5.1 surround. The project can be watched in full below.
Orchestral Invasion is essentially a film soundtrack for a hypothetical film. In other words it is an album in the style of a film soundtrack, but with no film. If there was a film, it would be expensive and have aliens and spaceships and explosions, but there isn't. It's just the music. You get what I mean... The album can be streamed on this page, and also downloaded or purchased through Bandcamp. 
Battle Stations was an experiment in cramming as much orchestral action into the music as possible. The result is both short, dramatic and the perfect track for an alarm clock; for if you can arise from bed prepared to battle an entire alien army, Monday morning shall kneel before you.*
In order to make this music video I had to clone myself, as you can see. It was a successful cloning procedure, however there was an accident after filming involving their cages and there are now three Callum clones roaming the wilderness. If you encounter them, do not engage with them in any way. They aren't exactly dangerous, but will probably annoy you in their search for guitars and keyboards to play. So while I meet with NATO to discuss the best way of re-capturing these menaces, enjoy a music video made by me and my clones.
