Recording Field Trip Post-Mortem

I haven't posted lately as I've been unexpectedly busy - and so have quite the backlog of topics to post about.

To start with, I went on recording field trip up north at the start of the month.  Just me, a couple of microphones, my laptop and my car.

The highlight of the adventure was definitely the colony of flying foxes.  While I already have a small collection of relatively good recordings of a single flying fox (the result of a combination of far-too-late-nights and a dash of good luck), how often do you have need of a single bat in sound design?  It's almost always a flock of them going someplace.  I hit the jackpot.

They kind of look like seed-pods from a distance!

I turned up around an hour before sundown, and they were already in full swing, chattering and fussing and generally making quite the din.  Unfortunately, remote though it was there was a somewhat noisy bridge a few hundred metres away, a rather excited stormbird, and a stack of ducks having a grand old time, but I wasn't in any rush and neither were the bats, so out of a solid two hours of recording (two SD cards and two sets of batteries...) I managed to get a fair chunk of usable sounds.

Here's a short sample of the spoils:

FlyingFoxes by ReeAudio

Chattery little things, they don't shut up.  I'd hoped to get some decent wing-flapping mixed in when they all took off at dusk, but of course, bats are terribly silent fliers.

I used two microphones, the two native condensers on my Zoom H4n, as well as my Rode NTG2 for narrower pickups.  Not the most high-end setup but certainly got the job done.  While for the most part that particular recording session went well (I remembered plenty of batteries and extra storage space), it was quite windy, and in a moment of poor oversight, only had the standard foam wind shield for the NTG2, which rendered a lot its recordings non-salvageable.  Mental note to pick up a dead cat for that one at the first opportunity - the dead kitten for the Zoom stood up the task admirably.  Quality wind shields are important for field recording.  It's a lesson I apparently have to relearn for each microphone.

Also a mental note - next time I'm recording near a river, or at dusk - bring mosquito repellent.  In the end, I walked away with 32 bug bites.

Totally worth it.

As for the rest of the field trip, I caught a stack of birds and natural ambiances as well, and even hit up the local 'zoo', which had a cockatoo that was microphone-shy (quite happy to screech and talk and me whenever the microphone wasn't pointing at it), as well as some pigs and goats and chickens.

There were also a few very vocal emus, which for the record have one of the oddest bird calls of all time.  They sound almost like a drum.

Emu by ReeAudio

Other highlights included the beach for some ocean ambience, because you can always use the soothing sound of waves, which I won't bother putting here as everybody has heard the ocean a hundred thousand times before.  The surf was unfortunately fairly mild the day I went though.  Here's a lovely picture all the same:

All in all, a great success!  Over the years I have not had the opportunity to do nearly as much field recording as I would have liked, so the chance to spend a couple of days doing nothing but that was a good experience and resulted in some great contributions to my personal library.

Next on the agenda is the Lone Pine Sanctuary I think.  It's not very well known, but koalas make the most hideous sounds that would be perfect for a monster.

At risk of becoming a link farm...

There were some more interesting sound-in-games articles this past week that are worth a read.

First off from Gamasutra is 'I want it to sound chocalatey'.  Fun title aside, I think it hit on some great points - the most pertinent being that as sound designers, we need to encourage feedback even from people who don't feel like they can 'speak the language', and to let them know it's okay to use more emotive or non-technical terms.  I've definitely found that in the past it's been difficult to get any sort of feedback from other departments, who are always quick to say, 'well, I don't know anything about sound.'  It doesn't matter!  Feel free to use what words you have.

To quote Scott Rogers from his book 'Level Up': 'I need this creature to sound like a phlegmy cougar from hell... but make it sound more shriek-ey than growl-y.' Did you do it?  Congratulations! You are now ready to be a sound designer.

I recall once where my one direction for a massive roar was to make it more 'meaty'.  I pitched it down, added some watery elements to make it sound more wet, and modulated one of the layers at high speed to make it sound like it physically hurt the throat, as though bits of flapping skin were being torn loose inside.  In the end, it was exactly what the designer had been looking for, but he didn't need to specify all those individual steps.  That part was my job.

Develop Online also had an article exploring the trend of working for free and the corresponding controversy surrounding it.  You can read it here.

The first half of the article reads more like a PR defence - 'we do pay for our music!' - but later on it tackles a few more of the issues related to crowd-sourcing and the potential effects on the profession.  In a field where the number of people are trying to break in greatly outnumber the pros already working in it, it's a valid concern, and not just for sound designers or composers but artists and writers too.  Unfortunately, I feel that market forces decide this matter, and no amount of debate on the industry's part will change things.  Much like how Nintendo can beg people not to sell their games for one dollar, but that won't stop them from doing it.

In other news, I've been setting up a new desktop PC as an exclusive editing station, mostly so that I don't have my DAW competing for resources with background programs like Steam or anti-virus or chat clients, and the hard drive can be dedicated entirely to programs and sound data, instead of having to compete with games and photos and funny cat videos.  It might do some good things for my productivity besides - there are a few too many distractions floating around on my personal computer...

Another great piece on audio from Gamasutra

Team Audio Relies On You To Let Us Know

Great, if pedantic, list.  I'd say it's worth reading just so other departments know what kind of flow-on effects their asset use and changes have for sound.  VFX especially.  One of my worst nightmares was on a game where the big, massive, damage-dealing steam bursts and fires were then later used in miniature by the hundreds as set dressing.

Very amusing writing style, besides.

On the personal front, I finished up my contract with KMM Interactive Entertainment a week or so ago and have moved back into liquid asset phase.  It's a lousy time of year to be fishing around for studio work, so I'll be looking into some freelancing in the short term.  It would be nice to stay in Australia, but with the state of local industry I've been brushing up on my Japanese and French (for Japan, France, or Canada) and sorting out that American passport too.

Hopefully I'll be able to use the time to do some more field recording as well!  And maybe brush up on some neglected skills.  And do some work on my own indie game projects.  And maybe finally play some of the games I haven't had the time for in recent months.  ...There's never enough hours in the day!

That awful sound a starving buffer makes

I know this was merely meant to be a parody from Dorkly.com, but this is extra funny for all those soundies who've ever had an NDEV kit crash on them while wearing headphones with the volume cranked high.

About Audio Milestones

Saw this piece on Gamasutra today, it is definitely worth a read, as it's a matter I've complained about many times in the past.

Gamasutra - Opinion: Team Audio VS The Milestone

In my personal experience, another method not mentioned here has been to simply bump the audio requirements for milestone to the next milestone (up until the last one, of course). There are issues with this, however - not least being developers often wanting to 'sell' their current milestone work to the publisher by adding sound. I even worked on a team once where it was common to receive requests to make sounds for assets that didn't exist yet, as a sort of placeholder to cover for them.  Like how cheap animations will sometimes use a still shot of a car careening around a corner and have sound do the work of movement with tyres screeching and engine roaring. This occasionally led to some really awesome developments, where the animator would hear the sound, like it, and then animate to the sound effect.  Much, much, much more often, however, it involved a whole lot of redesign. Which is okay early in the project when you have time to spare, but gets a bit stressful later when you simply don't have the time to redesign sounds.

In that respect, I think the separate 'Audio Milestone' is a pretty good idea... except setting it up like that has the potential to erode any collaboration you can get with the rest of the team as they create their assets.  It's really really easy to become the closeted sound fairy that adds audio to the build you put under the pillow, but the very best sound design comes from working closely with the team, where they can communicate what audio cues they'd like and can in turn meet you halfway in things like firing rates or features or flybys (how much cooler could you make that flyby sound if it were a little slower/faster/came from behind?)

Another way, which has happened more often than not, is that audio doesn't even get included in the milestone schedule. I've never quite figured this one out, but I'll take it as a mark of trust that they believe Team Audio will get it all done in time.

Concert Report: The Music of John Williams

I've been negligent in my posting for the past month or so.  I've been updating my resume and showreel for when my current contract ends, and showreels are one of those things that you can worry at endlessly, making a hundred little tweaks that eventually bring you in a circle.


And so, I am quite overdue on the latest concert report:  A little over a month ago, I headed down to Sydney again for the day for a concert that has long been on my bucket list of concerts.


The event in question?



Again, I can't shake that suspicion that somebody has been reading my diary and making all of my wildest dreams come true.  A John Williams concert in Australia is awesome in itself, but one hosted by Shaun Micallef?  That is right up there with that Professor Layton versus Phoenix Wright crossover.


That said, it actually wasn't so many months ago that I would have quite happily never listened to the Star Wars soundtrack again - I have spent almost three of my six or so years as a sound designer working on various Star Wars and Clone Wars games.  Time can apparently heal all wounds, as the prospect was quite exciting and I bought the tickets before fully registering my actions.

It was held, much like the Distant Worlds concert, at the Sydney Opera House, which is always a treat.



There were cosplayers!  Who I unfortunately did not get pictures of, because we arrived with only ten minutes to spare.  But there was little girl dressed as Princess Leia which was the cutest thing ever (and an equally adorable little Darth Vadar), and a sand person!  A couple of generic Jedi wandering the floor too.

Had fantastic seats, only five rows back, dead centre.  And I'm pleased to say that Shaun Micallef is as amusing live as he is on TV.

THE SETLIST:

Olympic Fanfare - written for the 1984 Olympics, I was more familiar with the 1996 Atlanta Games version, so it was nice to hear the original!  You actually feel like the Olympics are starting when you listen to this piece of music.  While listening, it occurred to me how surprisingly rare it is to hear such boldly brassy original compositions these days.

Theme from Lost In Space - Shortest piece of the set, highly enjoyable, though I cannot remember the television show to save my life.

Theme from Jaws - You wouldn't expect this to be that exciting as a full piece, but there was more complexity to the Jaws Theme than I recalled.  

Highlights from Close Encounters of the Third Kind - a tediously boring movie, with a much more interesting soundtrack.

Adventures on Earth - Concert suite from E.T. (The Extra-Terrestrial) - Very nostalgic, made me want to watch E.T. again.  Though the middle section had the effect of lulling me to sleep like a particularly pleasant lullaby.

Theme from Schindler's List - This piece of music is singularly moving and it is very important to never ever listen to it when feeling sad or depressed.  The solo violin was performed beautifully.

The Raiders March from Raiders of the Lost Ark - Everyone knows the Indiana Jones theme, right?  Sydney Symphony didn't put a single note wrong.

Theme from Jurassic Park - They did however, get some of the timing slightly off with this piece, though honestly, you would only notice if you'd listened to the theme a hundred times before.  In that respect, the Sydney Symphony had quite the task before them.

Theme from Superman - Shaun Micallef has ruined this forever, as I will now be hearing 'Is it a bird, is it a plane, it's Su-per-man!' with every stab of the motif.  This performance I could not fault at all.

INTERMISSION.

The second half started with the March from 1941 - I hadn't even heard of this movie, it was a military piece with a sort of Hogan's Heroes feel to it.  Turned out Steven Spielberg directed the movie, will have to check it out somtime.

Then Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter - I could have listened to this for the whole two hours.  They did a stunning job with this.  I'd heard it performed by the local Pops orchestra before, but it didn't come close to this performance.

Sayuri's Theme from Memoir's of a Geisha - this was a beautiful rendition of Sayuri's theme, and such a departure from John William's usual style, a wonderful meld of asian and western instruments.  Proof that even after sixty years of writing music, he still has something completely new to offer.

Then, for the final run... Highlights from Star Wars.  This section in particular was executed flawlessly, and fulfilled a lifelong dream to hear live.  The very first soundtrack I saved up to buy with my own money was the two-disc special edition of Star Wars: A New Hope - which was fiendishly expensive for the time.  I still have that CD today.

They started off with the Main Title, and dropped the concert hall into darkness... and then the conductor lit up a lightsaber, and conducted the first few notes with it!

The Imperial March was of course next, and the bar staff came out dressed as a very convincing Darth Vadar accompanied by a retinue of Stormtroopers.

Then Princess Leia's Theme.

Then the Catina Band Theme!  True fact - I can listen to this music loop for hours at a time for months on end and not get sick of it.  I know this because I have in fact done this, as I used it as placeholder music for one of the levels on The Force Unleashed.

They finished off with the Throne Room and End Titles.  And so concluded an absolutely mind-blowing concert.

My only complaint is that there wasn't more.  The encore was only a quick reprise of the Superman theme.

Maybe for the best, because then we had to race back to the airport to catch our flight home!


....One of these days, hopefully I won't have to travel 1000km to attend such concerts.  I am trying not to be too cut by the revelation that Distant Worlds is going to play again in Adelaide late 2011, while Brisbane continues to languish in the film and game concert wilderness.

A Reminder To Always Carry A Microphone

On Friday, having changed bags for evening classes, I completely forgot to bring my portable recorder with me.

Normally, not a big deal.  But on this particular Friday...

On the way to lunch, I passed a demolition site.  Where they'd broken out the wrecking ball.

During lunch, a trio of military helicopters flew overhead at speed, to practice for the air show for the River Festival launch the next day.

On the way back from lunch, the demolition crew had moved to some of the side buildings, and were taking out the windows with sledgehammers.

Needless to say, lesson learnt.

For Want of a Plugin

Working in video games, you often get to cover the whole range of tasks in the audio spectrum - mixing, recording, sound design, implementation.  Ambience, foley, voice over, music.  It's good, it keeps things diverse!

Sometimes, though, you feel as though you've turned into Dr Frankenstein as you wield scalpels to painfully perform cosmetic surgery on a face that was already beautiful.

Today was one of those days.  I'm still not entirely sure what happened further up the line, but it turned out the pickups that were recorded for one of the languages used a different voice actor for the main character to the voice they recorded the rest of the lines with.  They went to some effort to use a soundalike, but the result unfortunately remained jarringly obvious, especially as many of the lines are played back-to-back with lines performed by the original actor.

With little prospect of a re-record so close to submission, the best bet was to try and mould the new voice over to better match the original - at least enough to fool an ear on casual listening.

In other words, my goal for the day became to make 25 lines of this:

Sound as much like this as possible:

I can't use the sound files themselves, unfortunately (they would make my point much quicker and more effectively), as I'm pretty sure putting any game assets up, however non-incriminatory, would land me in hot water.  I use the spectral views of the waveforms as examples as my primary tool in this instance was graphic and parametric equalisers and the effects brush tool in Audition - there was some formant and pitch changes, but they were comparatively subtle.  The differences lay primarily in the texture and performance.  I couldn't do much about the performance, but I could at least smooth the new voice out to make a better soundalike.

This is one area I've found Audition has always been pretty good for - this kind of awful corrective surgery.  It's always been a bit weak in multitrack and surround editing (although reports so far indicate that the latest edition of the program have gone some ways into correcting this), but as a stereo editor, once outfitted with some external plugins, it's one of my favourites.

I do wish there were more EQ-matching plugins around, though.  This would have been the perfect moment to have a reliable one on hand.  The few I've tried in the past have hovered between not very good and nightmarishly user-unfriendly.  To the point where I get better results attacking the spectral view with an effects brush and painstakingly fiddling with graphic and parametric EQs, flicking back and forth between examples.

The ideal such plugin would be to load an example waveform in for analysis, then to save that analysis out as a preset that can then be applied to the sound you wish to modify (with adjustable parameters, naturally).  There have been a lot of instances where this would save me so much time - instead of fiddling with EQ, I could focus on other areas like pitch and volume correction.

I've heard there's a fairly expensive ProAudio VST bundle going around with something a bit like this.  But in retrospect, maybe this is actually a bit lazy.  I have, essentially, just made a wish for a plugin that will do half of the mastering process for me.  Next request:  Press button, make soundtrack.

My recorder is the cutest recorder

The standard windshield that came with my Zoom H4n just wasn't cutting the mustard anymore, so I picked up one of Rode's dead kittens for it.

I've found the Zoom to be particularly sensitive to wind noise, since the condensers have very little in the way of protection and somehow manage to be perfectly angled to catch the maximum blast of air whichever way it's moving.  The foam shield that came with it would cut down on most handling noise, but the slightest breeze would defeat it.  I haven't tested this muff in particularly strenuous conditions yet, but so far the prognosis is good - it handles an average day's breeze effortlessly, and I'm convinced it lets more sound through than the foam shield did.

And makes it adorable, besides:

Hans Zimmer's studio

Some incredible photographs of Hans Zimmer's studio:

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/2010/04/18/hans-zimmers-studio/

This is how the current king of movie soundtracks works.  It's almost impossible to be jealous, because it feels somewhat like being jealous of the Queen for living in Buckingham Palace.

Memories of Fantasia Concert Report

Last weekend, I had the privilege of heading down to Sydney to attend Eminence's Memories of Fantasia concert held at the Sydney Convention Centre on Darling Harbour.  I've been a long time fan of games and anime live music performances, and Eminence's in particular, but this particular concert was extra special for me, as the guest composers were none other than Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3) and Kenji Ito (Dawn of Mana, Romancing SaGa, Okami Kakushi, just to name a few).  

The reason this was such a big deal for me is not only because the Mana series is one of my absolute favourite game franchises, but Kenji Ito (along with Yasunori Mitsuda) was probably the first sound designer whose name I went to the trouble of learning.  Ben Burtt is probably the sound designer most soundies mention when asked who their inspiration is (and that's certainly true for me too), but way back as an ickle ten year old I spent even more effort hunting down Secret of Mana's sound effects than I did its music.  It's had a curiously subliminal effect of me throughout my sound design career, and to this day I can recognise a sound from Secret of Mana just as clearly as any from Mario.

I digress.  This is supposed to be about the concert!

 

 

Held at the Sydney Convention Centre's auditorium, the venue was very nice with reasonably good acoustics, though the lack of assigned seating was something of a shame.  Eminence are fairly lax about people recording their performances, but this is the only picture I took as I was more interested in listening to the music than snapping pictures of the musicians.  Actually, the constant camera clicks were a little annoying, similar to someone constantly coughing through a show.

Here's the set list breakdown:  

First set was all Hiroki Kikuta.

Fear of the Heavens (Secret of Mana) - this is the iconic opening theme of Secret of Mana.  They did a beautiful rendition of it, marred briefly by distortion coming through the cello's mike.  Fortunately the stage technician was quick to fix it.

The Little Sprite (Secret of Mana) - Sprite's theme!  Very cute, surprising choice!

Powell (Seiken Densetsu3) - Another really odd choice, considering this was the only SD3 piece, but heaps of fun and very nostalgic.  Flute got rather overpowered by percussion in this one, the dynamics were frequently off actually (unusual, since this is where Eminence normally shines), but I suspect it was more how they'd been miked than anything else.

Meridian Dance (Secret of Mana) - I'd heard this one at Eminence's ensemble performance in Perth last year, and was very pleased to get an encore.  It has fantastic energy, and the violins (where Eminence is strongest) really shone.

TENRYO 2nd Movement (Original) - one of Kikuta's original pieces, it was a two-instrument deal, one synth pad plus Hiroaki Yura (Eminence's founder) soloing on violin.  Very nice, melancholic and mellow.  I am tempted to search out more of Kikuta's original works.

The Magic Bakery (Shining Hearts) - Very cute, all plucked strings.  I'd never heard the Shining Hearts soundtrack before.  By this point, I'd begun to suspect that Kikuta's personal favourites leaned heavily towards the light, cheerful pieces.

The Windy Road (Shining Hearts) - Somewhat embarrassingly, don't recall this one very clearly.

 

They broke here to have an interview with Kikuta, it was quite interesting as he has such an unusual and varied history.  After all, he started out as a manga artist assistant for Shonen Sunday (participating in a doujinshi circle before that).  He also writes, and started out doing sound effects for Square before moving onto music!  He has no classical training, but oodles of talent, clearly.  You can really be jealous of such people.

 

The second set was miscellaneous!

Aerith's Theme (FF7) - Very famous theme.  It's always very beautiful, though it's another one of those I've heard at all of these concerts and am about ready to hear something else.  However, Eminence's pianist really is to be commended for such a brilliant performance.

Memories from days far away (5 centimetres per second) - All of the music associated with Makoto Shinkai's work is beautiful, and the piano in this was particularly lovely.

My Neighbour Totoro Medley - Another one that is always great but is also done to death.  How to solve, though?  Because veteran attendees might have heard it heaps of times, but for the people attending their first anime/games concert, these old staples are so loved!  In any case, it was called Memories of Fantasia, so no great surprise.

Canta Per Me (Noir) - They played this one in Perth as well, it's an awesome piece even without vocals.  Noir had such a fantastic soundtrack, perhaps one day we can beg Salvos Nos from Eminence too.

The Song (Gundam SeeD) - The best thing to come out of Gundam SeeD.  No joke.  Another repeat from Perth that was very welcome.

 

Here they broke the set program to play the amazing Mario medley too!  We were robbed of an encore, I suppose they moved it into the middle of the concert to save time (since they started late.)  By their own admission, they did not have much time to rehearse, perhaps that was why.  (You could hear that they were a little less polished than normal.)
 

Third set was mostly Kenji Ito.  His work often has a very lounge music sort of feel, which is nice but maybe not the sort of thing you expect to hear at a concert.  One nice thing, though, he performed the piano for all of his own pieces!  It's always very awesome when a composer does that.

 

Started out with Gusha no Mai (Dawn of Mana) - enjoyed this one mostly because of my familiarity with Dawn of Mana.  Makes use of a good range of instruments and has a great bounce to it.

Prologue (Culdcept II) - Never played this, and was unfamiliar with the soundtrack.  Nice piano.

Memeto Mori (Wizardry Renaissance) - Also unfamiliar with this, but enjoyed it a lot because it was both evil and melancholic and that's always a plus with me.

Overture-Opening Title - Dawn of the Romance (Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song) - Never been a huge fan of the SaGa music, it's technically very good but a little generic for my tastes.

Afternoon Rain (Okami Kakushi) - Very pretty, they brought out their vocalist at this point.  Someone has uploaded a video of it on youtube if you want to sample it.

Netsujo No Ritsudo (Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song) - A bit more upbeat, everybody clapped along to this one, had some good energy.

 

That concluded Ito's set!  His interview was amusing mostly because it got off-track so often as Hiroaki kept correcting the MC on absolutely irrelevant topics.  Some interesting anecdotes in there, and Hiroaki can name drop composers like nobody's business.  By Ito's answers, it's very obvious he's a longtime workhorse of the industry, and very classically trained.  

 

Then there were two secret-secret original secret vocal pieces that Eminence was being all super-secret about and nobody is allowed to talk about, so I won't, beyond saying that they were pretty cool and I am really looking forward to December.

 

No encore, sadly.  Eminence does always have a signing afterwards, which I unashamedly took advantage of.  All in all, a successful concert!  Looking forward to the next one already.

Some worthwhile links

Have been doing a lot of extra work at home lately, which hasn't left much time for this blog, so here's a quick couple of links worth a read:

http://kotaku.com/5808033/the-unsung-musical-secret-of-great-gamesand-how-some-games-get-it-so-wrong


An interesting piece not so much about music so much as about the rhythm of video games and how good controls feel very much like playing a musical instrument.

http://altdevblogaday.org/2011/06/13/putting-the-audio-back-in-audio-programmer/


This I found particularly interesting, as it highlights misunderstandings I've come across before - certainly there have been times when I've expected to deal with an engine programmer and got an implementation programmer, and vice versa.  I haven't had the opportunity to work with many dedicated audio programmers,  but they definitely need better treatment and understanding all around, and the truly great ones - the ones that truly know audio as well as they know their languages - are precious and rare.  I'm looking forward to more in the series.

Working in a Department VS Working Solo

With the recent resurgence of small indie development teams and a renewed burst of entrepreneurship in games, lately I've been hearing a lot of people espousing the virtues of working solo.  First and foremost, that you have complete creative control over your piece.  The autonomy and freedom involved are also compelling arguments to going it alone.

These are all definitely true.  However, I thought I'd share a different perspective for the sake of balancing the argument.  

In the past, I've always been privileged to work in a fully-staffed audio department with other sound designers.  The most obvious and immediate benefit of this was the ability to split the work and borrow designers on a project during the inevitable tail-heavy end of a game's development.  Ironically, the time when most other departments are focusing on polish and bug-fixing is the window when audio are usually at their busiest - the myriad of 'polish' changes almost inevitably carry changes for or break existing sound, in addition to the catch-up audio has to play on all the assets that were finished in the 11th hour of alpha.  This is also typically the time when cutscenes and FMV video are finished, when localisation audio starts arriving, and somewhere in the middle of all this you have to do the final mix.  With games typically getting larger and larger, with more assets, more physics, more voice and more music, it's no longer so easy to manage this on your own.  You can compensate by doing as much pre-mixing and polish as possible in the early stages of the project, but there is a limit to what you can achieve with that, too.

This is where being able to bring on other sound designers for a last sprint is a huge boon - with most assets already made, a quick induction to the audio style of the game is all that's necessary to get a hand on bug-fixing and implementation and mixing, meaning you can sometimes squeeze in some polish that you wouldn't manage otherwise.

That's an obvious advantage.  The less tangible benefits you don't often notice until they're not there any more.

The most vital of these being, I feel - fresh sets of ears.

It's a well-documented phenomenon that your ears 'get used' to certain sounds after a while. You can stop noticing even obviously incorrect or poorly-mixed sounds, because your brain has made the association after repeated exposure and things start sounding 'right'.  It can be hard to reset this - taking a break is usually the best solution, which isn't really possible during alpha and beta when there are deadlines everywhere.  And much like an artist who has been working on an incredibly complex canvas, after a while it's very easy for your ears to have become so accustomed listening for details that it's hard to step back and listen to the big picture.  Like with artists, sometimes it helps just to have someone point these things out.

Unfortunately, I've found that sometimes people can be reluctant to give negative feedback in an area they don't feel qualified in.  It's an understandable sentiment, though an unfortunate one.  Other sound designers are much less likely to hold back. 

Continuing on, while you may have complete creative control over a project, you're also losing the benefit of a diversified skill set.  Rare is the sound designer who is equally brilliant in all fields.  I've met a great many who are excellent at music but lack the light touch for subtle foley.  I've met some who are stunning at ambience but frequently get stumped when working on abstract UI sounds. Others are brilliant at mixing but weaker at asset creation.  Some can work wonderfully in gritty realistic styles but struggle with arcade or cartoon, or vice versa.  Most will be competent enough at all fields to get by but the improvement rendered by collaborating with those with a knack in a diverse range of specialities is enormous.  It's the same sort of quality you get when you can bring in a lightning specialist, a texture artist and a modeller to a level mesh, as compared to having the mesh artist do the whole lot (even if they can).  Not to mention, such diversity is a great vehicle for learning, raising the skills of all the designers involved.

Still, the above point does push a designer out of their comfort zone - as much as such collaboration can lead to improvement and be used as an opportunity for learning, it can also become a crutch.  Luckily, most sound designers, by nature of the way we develop interest in the craft (just ask any random sound designer how they first started learning about sound), tend to be autodidacts, so working alone is unlikely to cause stagnation.  But it is always harder to learn and improve in a vacuum of feedback.

In the end, I think the pros and cons to working alone versus working in a studio or audio department probably stack up fairly equal.  Although we'll see if I still feel the same after seeing out my first completely solo major project.  Wish me luck!

Hearing Voices

Was having a discussion with the audio programmer yesterday, and we had a moment of commiseration on the prevalence of voice over in current-gen games.

VO, done correctly, can certainly add a lot to a game - not the least being making it more 'movie-like', which seems to the ambition of a great many games developers.  But I'm growing ever more of the opinion that the payoff is not commensurate to the cost.  VO can be a hugely expensive endeavour, particularly if you're hiring big-name actors.  On top of that cost is the extra manpower required to implement, test, localise - and we can't forget the game memory it takes, particularly on older hardware.  That's memory taken away from sound effects, music, and potentially a whole range of other assets.

But is it really worth it, when hardly anyone is going to sit through the character telling you what button to press?  I guarantee you the vast majority of players will be reading the text and skipping it before it's halfway through.  I certainly do, sometimes even on games with voices I really like.

It seems at times that nearly every game I've worked on winds up having voice over everywhere. The characters will exchange witticisms at every point in their journey, taunt their opponents, encourage their friends, react to every obstacle or event.  This is not even including shops, or cutscenes, and let's not forget the last-minute monster that is tutorials.  

If you implement every bit of it, your characters become chatterboxes who don't shut up for more than five seconds.  They're talking over music, over sound effects, over action.  How many action movies have the hero delivering one liners every second time he does something?  Wait, scratch that - how many good action movies?  

This will also get repetitive very very quickly - and if it's a frequent enough action, no number of variations (more expense) will rescue it.  

Sometimes, with sound design, what you leave out is just as important as what you leave in.  It should be okay to have moments of silence.  Those moments lend more dynamics to your mix - they make the moments of frenzied cacophony have so much more impact.

Some food for thought.  The trend is unlikely to go away soon.  But I hope in the future we will be able to exercise restraint with voice over, much in the same way games have to learned to restrain themselves with bloom and coloured lighting.

Soundtrack To Life

Something very cool about walking home with a clear view of the full moon and Clint Mansell’s Moon soundtrack playing in your MP3 player.

Upcoming Eminence Concert!

I have mentioned before that I am a regular stalker of Eminence - an Australia-based orchestra specialising in performing music from anime and video games.  Their performances are unparalleled, and they regularly bring in absolutely A-list guest composers.  Essentially, in the relatively small corner of the world that is Australia, they are a godsend to games and anime music fans long-resigned to their jealousy of the events held overseas.

Thus, I come with great news!  After a year of silence, Eminence is returning to Sydney to perform Memories of Fantasia on July 16 as part of the SMASH! anime convention at the Sydney Exhibition Centre.

There's no news on a setlist as of yet, but based on the title it is very likely to be a rehash of previous Nights of Fantasia.  This is not a bad thing.  I have my fingers crossed for an encore showing of Secret of Mana's Meridian Dance.

As a side note, Eminence badly needs help with their marketing.  Not even a  mention on their website!  This is the second concert is a row I've discovered through purely accidental means.  I am upset at your lack of advertising, Eminence.

Feet, and the Sounds They Make

There's a fantastic long-term thread of discussion running on footstep sound implementation in games going on here:  

http://www.gameaudioforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2014

Every sound designer working in games should definitely give it a gander at some point.  It's one of the basics that rarely gets much thought or attention, and is in fact often considered something of a chore, like the grocery shopping of sound design.  Some people, of course, elect to simply eat out, while others go shopping at the fanciest deli in town.  It's fascinating to read all the great justification behind all the different preferences and viewpoints.

I myself belong to the school of thought that footsteps should be very low in the mix and inaudible 90% of the time.  To paraphrase one of the posters that put it best, in real life you only really notice footsteps when:

1.Staring at your feet

2.Wearing hard soled shoes on a ceramic or tile floor

3.When someone's wearing high heels

4.In the snow (marshes/mud/puddles would also apply here I expect)

5.On a catwalk (though truthfully, that's more the catwalk's movement than the foot impact)

6.If there's a squeak or some other audible abnormality in the shoes

7.When running

Only half of those are likely to apply in any given game - and I would even argue that running footsteps, depending on how far back the camera is, could be done away with.  Of course, you have to take into account a lot of other influencing factors such as gameplay and style and overall mix.

But for NPCs especially, I think the mix works better with no footsteps (again with the exceptions, barring oversized NPCs).  It's valuable memory (and voices) spent on something you'd want to mix out of existence as soon as more than two NPCs wander into the vicinity, or anything happens at all.

If you're lucky enough to be working on a game with ninjas, of course, the point is moot.  :)

Advertising An Audio App for Android Alliteratively

Pimping this Android app for our awesome audio programmer at work.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.singlecellsoftware.caustic&feature=search_result

It is, as some of the comments say, like having Reason in your pocket.  Definite value for money here.

...Lately I mostly seem to be using this blog to shill links.

Stealing Like An Artist

Wanted to share this cool link.  It’s for artists, really, but I think it applies to sound designers too – there’s just as much art as there is science and technology to our work.

http://www.austinkleon.com/2011/03/30/how-to-steal-like-an-artist-and-9-other-things-nobody-told-me/

Otherwise, very busy at work.  No matter what you try in order to get ahead, the sound work always explodes at the end of a project, you just can't get around the conundrum of late design changes and everyone else doing their final implementations at the last minute.  Consequently, I am not allowed to get sick/injured/experience creative block for the next three months.

Awesome Cue Tool

Just thought I'd share this awesome tool I found a couple of days ago for marker management!  Managing and exporting markers has long been a bug bear for me - it seems like hardly any DAWs do it well - but only recently did my need for a proper solution become pressing.  Hence, I stumbled upon this tool:

http://www.stefanbion.de/cueltool/index_e.htm

It will read any markers you've placed in a wav file, and you can then transfer those markers to a new wav file, or output as a text file, and edit them!  I've been using it to output the marker timecodes to text file, it's very customisable which has been great and has eliminated the need for messy reformatting.

And the best part is, it's free!

Distant Worlds Sydney 2011

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to attend the Distant Worlds performance (a Final Fantasy concert touring the world) on its inaugural Australia appearance at the Sydney Opera House.

I'm a big fan of attending video game concerts - a regular stalker of Eminence, and lucky enough to catch Play! back in Sydney a few years ago and Press Start! in Japan one summer.  These inevitably feature at least one or two tracks from Final Fantasy - with 14 games with music, not even counting the spin-offs, it has amassed a truly impressive array of themes, and its popularity is large enough that it's usually guaranteed a spot on the setlist.  But a dedicated Final Fantasy performance was something rather special, and something I never imagined would ever make it over to Australia.

And at the Sydney Opera House too!  Play! was held here a few years ago, but there's still something rather exciting about seeing a poster for a video game concert amidst advertisements for famous musicals and operas and ballets.

One and only shot from the inside.  Technically you're not supposed to take pictures, but the rule seems very poorly enforced.  I am always surprised by how small the Concert Hall in the Opera House is.  Had a fantastic seat, worth paying the premium price.

The vibe of excitement at this concert was unbelievable.  There was an absolute crush of people at the merchandise stall the minute the doors opened!  They were selling the CDs of past performance recordings, as well as a DVD, T-shirt, posters, the usual paraphernalia.

Nobuo Uematsu came out and sat in with the audience, the clapping and cheering when he turned up was amazing.  He played up the crowd very well, no doubt experienced at concerts by now (seems like every single concert on the Distant Worlds tour has him there as a guest, wonder when on earth he gets the time to write FFXIV's soundtrack).

The big screen set up played relevant footage for each piece of music, which was a nice touch, and occasionally hilarious when they turned back to old-school graphics.  The symphony was being performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, accompanied by the choir 'Cantillation'.  And sponsored by BigPond, which was vaguely baffling but whatever it takes.

They opened with FFVII: Prelude - which is a darn good choice of a rendition for the classic main Final Fantasy melody.  It's always a very emotional experience hearing such familiar music orchestrated and performance.

FFVIII: Liberi Fatali was amazing to hear live, and surely a track that would have been worth holding on to until later in the concert.  Though I will break away here with my one small complaint from the concert - everyone would get super-excited when they recognised the piece (Despite the set list in the program, a lot of people apparently don't know the track names and so were somehow surprised) and would start cheering and clapping, and while I can't blame them because I kind of wanted to cheer and clap too, guys, you're drowning out the music.  It's not a rock concert!  

This was especially prevalent in the following Victory Theme, which was so short as to barely warrant a place on the program and the entire thing got drowned out by excited applause.

Fortunately somewhere halfway through the first set everybody mostly got their giddy impulses under control.  If nothing else, it must have been novel for the Sydney Symphony.  

Next was FFX: To Zanarkand.  This is a beautiful piece, and the extra texture rendered by a live performance makes it nearly heartbreaking.

FFVIII: Don't Be Afraid (better known as the FFVIII battle theme) was awesome, but that surprises nobody.

FFV: Dear Friends slowed things up a bit.  This piece has a very Greensleeves sort of feel, but it's very pretty and the symphony made me like it a lot more than I used to.

FFIX: Vamo' alla Flemenco: This one was the big surprise of the night for me.  I recalled the music quite clearly from the game, and while I liked it, didn't expect much from the orchestration.  I was sorely mistaken.  This track fairly exploded with energy, the original version is now forever trash.  This is a lesson in adaptation.

FFVIII: Aerith's Theme.  Dammit, even Nobuo Uematsu is spelling it Aerith now.  There's never any words to do this one justice.  You just say 'Aerith's theme' and everyone understands.

FFVIII: Fisherman's Horizon: A fun, more light-hearted piece.  Brilliantly done, but not my favourite.  Sort of an odd choice, really.

Especially when it's immediately overshadowed by FFV: Clash on the Big Bridge!  FFV's music was largely forgettable for me, but this track is far and away my favourite, and they did a fantastic job with it.  It was so bombastic!  Sydney Symphony were absolutely perfect in their execution and dynamics.

Chocobo Medley 2010 was kind of hilarious, mostly because the video guy clearly had waaaaaay too much fun mixing his rather selected clips of chocobo footage together in interesting ways.  Had both the traditional chocobo theme and samba-de-chocobo!

Then to close out the first set - FFVII: J-E-N-O-V-A.

*INTERVAL*

Second set opened with perennial classic FFVII: Opening - Bombing Mission.  This piece never fails to send shivers down my spine.

...They sure had a lot of FFVII pieces.  Not that I'm complaining.  But we missed out on anything from FFI-IV....  Fans are greedy.  (Next on the wishlist is The Price of Freedom.)

Then - Surprise guest!  Japanese pop idol Kanon turned up to sing Suteki da ne and FFXI's Memoro de la Stono.  She did a fantastic job, I'm always surprised whenever I hear a pop idol sing so beautifully live!  Don't know why, must be all the lip-syncing scandals we normally get. 

They took a brief break from Uematsu to play some of Masashi Hamauzu's work - specifically FFXIII: Fabula Nova Crystallis (which truth be told was a fairly non-descript and very short piece - normally associated with Serah).  Would have preferred to hear the Oerba Village theme, really. Next was FFXIII: Blinded By Light (much more awesome piece better known as Lightning's theme, or the main battle music of FFXIII.)  This was perhaps the only piece where they may have dropped the ball slightly with the arrangement - the dynamics didn't feel quite as punchy live as on CD, and percussion kept crowding out the main melody.  But then, they've likely had far less time to perfect this arrangement compared to the rest.  Still very enjoyable.

They also called it a preview, which is kind of hilarious for a game that's been out in Australia for over a year now.

Then FFXIV: Navigator's Glory - The Theme of Limsa Lominsa!  Great piece.  A real tragedy that I will never play FFXI or FFXIV.  Fortunately that doesn't stop you from enjoying the music.

Also FFXIV: Primal Judgement.  Equally cool.  Seeing the nice hi-def trailer footage was neat.

Followed by a real treat...

FFVI: Opera 'Maria and Draco'!  Complete with opera soloists!
This one just blew me out of the water.  It gave me chills.  This is the thing I like best about game concerts - when they take older games with less sophisticated soundtracks but still beautiful melodies, and give them the big budget orchestration they deserve.

It was also a little eerily fourth-wall breaking.  As though you're attending the opera scene yourself, one of the many NPCs in the audience.

They closed out the program with FFVI: Terra's Theme.  They also ran a credits sequence for the performance during this, which was a fun idea and a good way to give appreciation to the performers and everyone who worked behind the scenes.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the encore was FFVII: One Winged Angel.  I just don't get sick of hearing this one live. (Though it is reaching the point where they should seriously consider shelving it for a few years to give some other pieces a slice of the limelight).

Only the one encore, unfortunately, despite some very insistent clapping and whistling and even a standing ovation.  That is the difference between Sydney Symphonic Orchestra and Eminence - Eminence are in it for the love of that particular music and will keep coming back until they run out of encores/get too tired/get kicked out of the venue.  (*Never misses a chance to plug Eminence*).  But I cannot fault them.  It was a nigh flawless performance.

Another one crossed off the bucket list.  Attended a Final Fantasy concert.  \o/

Great Audio Toys

I thought I'd share a link that was shared with me today that should be of interest to any audiophiles.

http://lab.andre-michelle.com/

As a warning, many of the flash apps may only be viewable in Google Chrome.  Pulsate is a neat little toy you could spend quite a while playing with, and his Audio Tool has a plugin that is very much like a soft-synth version of the Blipatronic which is a fun easy-to-use little device if you want to make a quick electronic tune.  (There is quite a bit more to leverage in the tool, and its simulation of a real-world interface, down to drawing in your inputs and outputs, makes it more accessible than the average soft synth.)  And that's only the tip of the iceberg!

Putting Yourself to Sleep: Ambience

Does anybody else get really sleepy when working on background ambience for outdoorsy levels?  After a couple of hours going through wind and water and bird sounds, I’m ready to have a nap right there in my chair.  There must be something to those relaxing nature CDs after all.

Book recommendation: John Powell's 'How Music Works'

I have a book recommendation!  How Music Works by John Powell.

I picked it up originally thinking it was written by the composer John Powell (responsible for the scores of Happy Feet, Bolt, and How To Train Your Dragon, among many others), but this turned out not to be the case - though there's no explicit mention that they are not the same person, it's hard to imagine any bookseller or author who would be able to resist leveraging such impressive credentials.  Regardless, the story has a happy ending, as I found the book an unexpectedly entertaining and educational read.

The book focuses on the science of music - the history and science behind modern keys, what makes some tones harmonious and others not, how people develop perfect pitch, explains the differences between western and eastern music, and the mechanics of several different types of instruments, and the basics of acoustics, just for starters.  Of particular interest was the section on 'loudness', which explained how the rather messy measure of decibels came about and detailed several better options that were bypassed and are mostly lost to history.

I'd consider it a must-read for any music enthusiast without much formal education, any beginners, or even established musicians looking for a refresher on the theory of their craft.  It maintains a light sense of humour and a conversational tone throughout that makes it an easy read, and keeps to laymen's terms as much as possible, rather than becoming too bogged down in technical nitpickery.

It also dispels some common myths about music, the most surprising being that outside of the minor and major scales, there's no particular mood difference between which key you pick - for example, A flat major is no moodier/happier than, say, D major.  (Obviously choosing major or minor will influence the mood, simply for how the scale is arranged).  I'd long subscribed to this notion myself, so to see the myth broken down was a surprise but rather enlightening - it is in fact a self-perpetuating myth, in that composers will often choose their key for a sadder/happier piece based on this long-held belief.

All in all, not bad for $20 (and probably a lot less if you buy it online/in a country other than Australia).  It's certainly a good deal cheaper than a level 1 course at the Conservatorium of Music.

The Great DAW debate

My desktop PC recently died, so with the new PC I've been contemplating new software for home.  I currently use Cubase and Sound Forge combo, and while they have their strengths, neither are quite working out for me.  Now that Pro Tools 9 finally supports any ASIO soundcard (instead of just Digidesign), I've been giving it some serious consideration, despite the comparatively exorbitant cost.

It seems like a no-brainer - Pro Tools is so entrenched in the sound design industry that any other DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) might as well be mud.  The Churchill Trust did a very interesting report on the state of sound design worldwide and how Australia measures up recently, and the DAW section in particular I found interesting: http://www.churchilltrust.com.au/fellows/detail/3401/john+kassab

It basically reiterates what we all know - Pro Tools is pervasive, and few others DAWs get a look in, despite the fact that the days where Pro Tools was far and away the industry leader are long gone.  I've sampled a great many DAWs, Pro Tools included (thought not yet the latest version), and the differences between the market leaders grow ever smaller. 

In fact, aside from the branding, the only thing Pro Tools is truly holding over its peers these days is its native plugins, which becomes a moot point if you have one of the external plugin sets such as WAVES. In terms of usability, it's become a bit of a dinosaur - Sony Vegas, primarily a video editor, is more pleasant to use.  In fact, I'd argue that most professional-level DAWs can claim better usability.  And they often offer better value for money, too - Sony Vegas being one example, but there's also Adobe Audition, which in addition to multitrack has quite a robust stereo editor as well - to the point where it has become my favourite application for any audio surgery.

Reaper is one to watch, too.  It's ridiculously small, lean, fast, with an incredibly intuitive interface, and most importantly, dirt cheap - yet can do almost everything you expect of any other multitrack editor.

The question then becomes - in the interest of keeping abreast of the latest Pro Tools, do I continue to perpetuate its market dominance, or do I take the high road (and save some money) on a lesser-known DAW that might very well do almost the same job?

In the end, the issue has probably had more importance placed on it than it deserves.  Good artists are not defined by their tools.  If you've used one DAW to an expert level, it's an easy leap to acclimatise to another. Even if you're using clunky freeware like Audacity, if you know what you're doing, you'll be able to make great sound no matter what.

Oscars

Inception picked up both Sound Editing and Sound Mixing awards at the Oscars!  I read a fascinating interview with the team behind the sound on it at the New York Times website - now seems like an appropriate time to link it.

Of the other contenders, Tron I thought had a good shot at Sound Editing, and True Grit wouldn't have been a poor choice either - I thought it was particularly interesting how they accurately pulled off the echo delay for gunshots in the distance without jarring the audience, who are long used to physics being ignored in movie soundtracks.  Surprisingly strong field this year!

Though I have often had a hard time taking the Academy Awards seriously since 2008, when The Dark Knight beat out WALL-E for sound editing.  Not to say The Dark Knight wasn't deserving of the accolade, but it was nowhere near the feat of a movie where sound design carried more of the script than actual speech.  But perhaps that's just being jaded. :)

But Will It Blend?

Looking at the prospect of moving house again soon, and came to the realisation that sound designers have the potential to be the very worst hoarders.

It's not just keeping cables of every sort - because you never know when you might need another midi to midi cable, or a midi to usb, or an XLR to stereo plug.  Or those old speakers, either - you need a backup, and they're an extra set of reference speakers, after all.  Or synths, or mixing desks, or microphones... yeah, there's a lot of gear involved in sound design.

But it's not really the gear I'm talking about.  People understand not wanting to throw out or resell some of that - it was expensive to begin with, and can still be useful.  The real danger is all the random bits of bric-and-brac you discover.

This random bit of plastic tubing.  Those old vacuum hoses. That burnt out lightbulb.  That tub of styrofoam.  That broken slinky.  Those glass marbles that used to sit in the fishtank.  That blunt, gaudy, fake sword with the loose handle.  That child's boomerang.  A random piece of leftover balsa wood.  Thirteen different rulers you never use.  Silly putty.  Empty jewellery boxes.

I'm either going to have to have a marathon session one day to record every possible use of these things so they can finally be thrown out, or accept that moving house is going to remain a nightmare forever.

Sticking Up Acoustic Foam

Received four big rolls of second hand acoustic foam for the office!  \o/  It's kind of like Christmas! However my office is unfortunately both my recording and mixing environment, so I likely won't need all of it, but it should take a bit of the bite out of the current echo.  I have a feeling the rest of the team think the foam is soundproofing, not sound deadening - although it is probably soundproofing to some degree... for them, that is.

After finally getting some room treatment materials (aside from the ever-faithful mattress), the challenge now is mounting the foam on the wall - without either terribly damaging the foam or the wall.

Spray adhesive is typically the best for this sort of thing, but without that option I've had to get a bit creative with double-sided mounting tape:

These are works in progress.  After a bit of trial-and-error, this seems to be the method that's finally held up using the available materials on hand. It's not beautiful or tidy, but it gets the job done.  That's packing tape, glued directly to the foam (since packing tape won't stick to foam), and then double-sided mounting tape stuck to the back of that (since mounting tape won't stick to foam either.)  Turns out once you rule out spray adhesive, getting anything to stick to foam is a real challenge! 

I should have used glitter.

Outrage Bandwagon

Stephen Tolito of Kotaku recently posted an article:  'The Year I Gained the Courage to Ignore Video Game Music'.

I couldn't let this pass without comment.  He's missed the point.  If he can play the game without music and feel as though the experience has been uncompromised, there's something wrong with the music, not that music is 'unnecessary' for the game.  It can't lose something it never had.  Music should be creating mood, warning of danger, reassuring the player of safety, building tension, rewarding them for good performance. And that’s not just for RPGs or survival horror or shooters – puzzlers, platformers and racing games should all be doing this.  If it's not doing these things, something has gone wrong.  How much of the high from finding a rare collectible or fighting a tough battle comes from the victory sting?  How much tension from a puzzle game, when the music changes as you get too close to the top of the screen?  How much energy in a racing game, when the music speeds up for the final lap?

The only games I can think of that are improved without music are those who use the absence of music for effect - much like how the starkness of the aural landscape throughout most of Ico further enhances the player's loneliness.  And if you're listening to podcasts in games like that, you're losing that, too.

An excellent response was written here on Cruise Elroy - he eloquently covers a number of other issues in regards to Totilo's article, and is worth reading.

As one last note, so as to avoid beating a drum everyone else has already had a fairly good whack at, I'm not too sure if I want video game opinions from somebody who is more interested in multi-tasking than immersing themselves in the full game experience.  It's rather like reading movie reviews from a reviewer who watched the movie on TV while talking on the phone and baking a cake.  He has things to do, sure - everyone does.  But if you're so worried about all the things you have to do and resort to listening to podcasts while gaming to maximise your time, is it still recreation?

Libraries VS Recordings - the Never-ending Sound Design Debate

After my last post, I was giving a bit more thought to library sounds versus original recordings.  Conventional wisdom in the sound design industry is 'if you have the time and facilities, always record your own first'.  It's a good adage, and proves true 90% of the time.  But it also feels like a bit of a beat up of library sounds sometimes.

For the most part, sounds are put into and sold in libraries because they are great recordings, and often also because they are recordings that would be difficult for a lot of designers to collect on their own (exotic animals, gunshots, fire, ice, large impacts, etc etc).  Yet collectively, sound designers tend to look down their noses at them.

I've used library sounds a lot - more than I probably should have, in fact, since time is nearly always an issue.  Even for basic foley I could easily record myself, the temptation to grab a sound from the library and modify it to fit the intended purposes is strong.  But considering hardly any sound designers plonk a sound into a multi-track without editing it first, why is it such a problem?

Perhaps the source of the issue is that sound designers as a block wind up drawing from the same libraries too often.  Series 6000 is an amazing sound collection - which is maybe why it's been so overused that now its sounds are stale. The same way X-Ray Dogs' snippets of music have been so terribly misused by so many TV stations, movie trailer editors, and advertisement agencies.  Beautiful music - but less so when the new Narnia movie is using the same track as a discount travel agent advertisement.

Libraries are expensive, and not always as useful as you think (Wild World of Animals comes to mind, where a good portion of recordings are only useable for ambience due to the constant presence of interfering wind, background birdlife, or insects).  I've been seeing a lot more specialised sound libraries pop up lately, though, which I think is a great step to curtailing this problem.  The increasing accessibility of the necessary software and hardware, not to mention the new ease of distribution thanks to the internet, is providing more choice in the sound library market.  This is going to be a great boon for the designers without the facilities or time to build their up their own stock of custom recordings.  

Recording your own sounds will always be a source of pride for sound designers, but we should be careful not to let it become a form of snobbery.