Course

Hi guys,
Great jobs once again on the final projects, they're all looking fabulous! I'm looking forward to seeing them in their final versions. Reminder that our final will be Monday 5/7 at 2 pm - should be pretty short and painless.

Here's that "interactive" piece of music I was showing on Friday. These kinds of visualizations for how a dynamic score works are quite useful for helping audition and understand the implementations; I've seen similar graph-looking scores in game audio tools as well.

That about covers it for the semester. As always, if you have any questions about the final projects or final exam, please shoot Vince or myself an e-mail. Thanks!
-Scott

Hi guys,
Here is last week's "lecture" (aka playing a few games and talking about the audio). No slides or anything for these, but hopefully the audio helps jog memories...

4/13/07 Lecture - Audio Case Studies (MP3)
-Scott

Hi guys,
Here are the (last!) lecture notes - see everyone next week, looking forward to seeing and hearing what we've been up to on our final projects!

14. Working in Game Audio (PDF)
14. Working in Game Audio podcast (MP3)

And here's the 3-part article I referenced by Jim Charne on game audio rights and royalties and such.
-Scott

Hi guys,
Here are this week's lecture notes.

Case Studies (PDF)
Lecture (MP3)

Don't forget to bring an audio brief for next week, and to start on an asset-tracking spreadsheet to submit with your final assignment. Thanks!
-Scott

Here are last week's slide handouts - remember that we'll be primarily working on our final projects from here on out, and sharing them either during the last week of class (April 27) or during final exam time (May 7).

10. The Final Mix (PDF)
Lecture part 1 (MP3)
Lecture part 2 (MP3)

-Scott

Hi folks,
For those who want something a bit more mellow than crazy space battle stuff, here is a downloadable sample for XNA Game Studio Express - you'd still use XACT to create the content. There are a few less triggers than in 'Space War', but there's definitely some cool opportunities for expansions and more subtle sound design if you're interested.

http://creators.xna.com/Education/StarterKits.aspx

-Scott

Hi folks,
Sorry this was late getting out - last week's podcast and lecture notes!

Lecture: Part 1 (MP3)
Lecture: Part 2 (MP3)
Lecture notes (PDF)

-Scott

Pointed to by digg.com: Why do we like certain video game songs more than others? Maybe they’re catchy. Maybe they’re more varied than some of the looped sounds in other games. Or maybe there’s another factor no one’s aware of. Link

So as some (one) of you may know, I was there with my Xbox 360 on Monday night at 9...and no one showed up until almost 2 hours later. :) I understand that part of the blame lies on me, as I didn't give proper reminders of it.

In any case, it sounds like a good idea to instead take advantage of open lab time. Specifically Friday 12-2 before class. At that time, we'll have the Xbox 360 and the center speaker set up for your enjoyment!

If you'd like to borrow some games from your friends and bring them in, that'd be cool. I'll try to have a decent assortment of games there waiting for you. Please be careful with them!

Hi folks,
Here are this week's lecture notes and recording.

Week 7 Lecture Notes (3D and multichannel) [PDF]
Lecture recording, part 1 (3D) [MP3]
Lecture recording, part 2 (multichannel) [MP3]

A little bit more on the midterm [insert scary music again] - we'll likely have 3-4 questions short-answer questions from each lecture this semester, so I'd recommend reviewing the lecture notes and drilling down into the podcasts where you want more detailed information. As always, if any questions come up during the review, please feel free to e-mail Vince and/or myself.

The week after the midterm is GDC, so since I'll likely be ranting in a lecture or panel there at the time, we may do a pre-recorded lecture - more on that as we get closer. That would also potentially give an extra opportunity for folks to do the 5.1 listening assignment during that lecture time.
-Scott

Hi folks,
Here are today's lecture notes - see you next week!

Lecture Notes (PDF)
Lecture (MP3)

-Scott

Hi guys,
Here are this week's lecture notes and recording. Hope the lab was clear enough from those screen shots I put in the slides - we'll keep working to figure out a good remote desktop-type strategy as we go.

Lecture (MP3)
Lecture notes (PDF)

-Scott

Apparently the music DSP discussion group I'd mentioned back in the first week's lecture has moved from Cal Arts to another server host. Information below, for those interested in checking it out (note: it gets really technical in a hurry!)

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/music-dsp
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
music-dsp-request@music.columbia.edu

See everyone virtually on Friday!
-Scott

A few students were asking about music sequencers - these are applications that generally work with existing instrument collections and allow copmosers to create performances, with multiple tracks of audio data (often mixing MIDI with rendered wave tracks) and even applying some audio DSP effects.

The main ones used by the game (and other music-related) industries are:
Sonar (Cakewalk)
Cubase
Logic
Pro Tools

There are a few others that I'm neglecting, but these are near the top of the list. There are also a multitude of shareware/freeware sequencers, though you may find that you get what you pay for as far as usability...
Here's a good Wiki list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_sequencer


-Scott

A few students have expressed interest in getting more details on DSP implementation and experimentation. The Spanish university project we saw during this week's lecture is very cool, and I believe there may even be a fully software implementation of it on their website.

As far as DSP authoring tools, a few of the more popular ones include:

Audiomulch
Csound
Max/MSP
Reaktor [Native Instruments]

(Many of these may have free- or shareware versions that you can try out. Also, most of these offer a lot of other cool stuff - a few are programming langues, others do granular synthesis and other fanciness, you can write entire sequenced pieces of music, etc.)

Enjoy!
-Scott

Here are this week's lecture notes - good work on the lab! I'll see you all remotely next week.

Lecture slides (PDF)
Lecture podcast (MP3)

-Scott

Hi folks,
Thanks again for dealing with the challenges of a remote lecture - we'll keep working out the kinks as we go; in the meantime, here is this past week's (unfortunately just one-sided) lecture recording.

1/29/07 Lecture Part 1 (MP3)
1/29/07 Lecture Part 2 (MP3)

If folks had questions or issues working through the lab, please feel free to e-mail Vince or myself.
Thanks, and see you next week!
-Scott

Week 3 lecture slides can now be downloaded here in PDF form. Have fun!

Hi folks,
After this past week's lecture's test tones, I wanted to forward along a few other interesting sites that allow you to test how your brain interacts with your ears, and general hearing perception range. Check these out if you get a chance:

Here's a fairly classic hearing test - the page also has the standard frequency response charts, showing how the perception of loudness varies with the sound's frequency.
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/hearing.html

This one is more about musical perception/memory, and takes a bit of focus:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/IcerC/OnlineScreen.swf

A bunch of other interesting tests (one claims to tell you if you're "tone deaf", for instance):
http://tonometric.com/

And the student who's aggregating the results of these tests has some observations here:
http://jakemandell.com/


-Scott

Hi folks,
Here are the course notes and lecture recording for our second week of class. (Note - I actually ran out of space for the recording, so it's only around the first hour of class. Hey, this is actually pertinent to the lab we did -- next time I'll run at a lower sampling rate and should be able to grab the whole thing.)

Download 1/19/07 Lecture Audio (MP3)
Download 1/19/07 Lecture Notes (PDF)

If you didn't already, please get the first week's assignment (1-2 page write up on audio for a game you've played recently) to Vince prior to this coming week's class - we'll likely start reducing grades after that.

I'll see you all (well, at least via webcam!) next week.
-Scott

Hi folks,
After this past week's lecture's test tones, I wanted to forward along a few other interesting sites that allow you to test how your brain interacts with your ears, and general hearing perception range. Check these out if you get a chance:

Here's a fairly classic hearing test - the page also has the standard frequency response charts, showing how the perception of loudness varies with the sound's frequency.
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/hearing.html

This one is more about musical perception/memory, and takes a bit of focus:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/IcerC/OnlineScreen.swf

A bunch of other interesting tests (one claims to tell you if you're "tone deaf", for instance):
http://tonometric.com/

And the student who's aggregating the results of these tests has some observations here:
http://jakemandell.com/


-Scott

Hi folks,
Here are the course notes and lecture recording for our second week of class. (Note - I actually ran out of space for the recording, so it's only around the first hour of class. Hey, this is actually pertinent to the lab we did -- next time I'll run at a lower sampling rate and should be able to grab the whole thing.)

Download 1/19/07 Lecture Audio (MP3)
Download 1/19/07 Lecture Notes (PDF)

If you didn't already, please get the first week's assignment (1-2 page write up on audio for a game you've played recently) to Vince prior to this coming week's class - we'll likely start reducing grades after that.

I'll see you all (well, at least via webcam!) next week.
-Scott

Here are the slides from last week's lecture (PDF format). Right below is the lecture audio. Have fun!

Download Curriculum and Goals PDF

Download Intro to Game Audio PDF

Download Lecture Week 1 Audio - Part 1 (incomplete)

Download Lecture Week 1 Audio - Part 2