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check can you guys hear me all right
before we forget here tiny Panther
declawed anymore before we begin is that
a sick pet idea hold on we got to amp it
up a little bit
turtle with ya double turtle double
turtle it's like a it's like a double
Dracula like whenever a Dracula bites
another Dracula weird happens
anyway so guys thank you so much for
being here and I'm Matt Pierce all I'm
gonna kind of show you guys my process
and I don't use it exclusively but I'm
working on a game right now for the last
few years called prey and 98% of all the
sound effects were created more or less
in this fashion as like so some more
seasoned veterans in here will know that
the world of like editing based sound
design can be really fatiguing and
uninspiring after say I don't know five
ten years of your career and what I
found is I found my job at one point
became a job and what I wanted what I
wanted to do well backstory my Pro Tools
rig crashed and my computer crashed and
so I had and I wanted to travel and I'm
and I realized one day I'm like I'm a
contractor I don't have to like go don't
have to be tied down to my studio and so
I grabbed this and this and this and
this and I went to Europe for a few
months and just worked remotely and it
was really a great way to sort of
reevaluate what I find important about
game audio and it made me fall in love
with it again so the process that I'm
going to describe today
Who am I I'm gonna talk about myself for
probably twenty two more minutes and
then we can get into heavy stuff I'm
just kidding you know what I like I'm
whatever I'm Matt I make video games you
can ask me my credit list afterwards
backstory computer crashed really really
annoying Pro Tools update I'm sure many
of you experienced that yeah many
crashes anyway so let's just get started
so I have prepared I was gonna do
something today I was thinking like
something that would demonstrate this
process really well and there's really
two phases to this there is a source
creation phase and then there's what I
would consider the compositional faith
so today our focus is going to be on
creating ice magic so that could just
sort of riff on that concept and a lot
of what I do is I tend to stay like I
tend to look at the visual once or twice
try to look at it in-game but I don't
actually vid cap it to begin I wait to
do that and I just sort of riff on a
general concept and then sort of piece
those elements together in the game so
we have some source here I want to start
here it's like this is a way that I
would gather source material right here
we have this is just a sense but this is
a tech death whistle and a wail because
I was thinking like wails kind of to me
like I just go like
stream-of-consciousness so for some
reason the clicky wail thing spoke ice
to me plus I think a few of them live in
Antarctica where there's still ice for
the next couple of years anyway
I want to start there something nice and
gentle just something that you could you
know when you're talking to your mom you
could just sort of say hey mom this is
how I feel about this I'm an individual
mom you don't understand me that's fun
that's dope
I don't care okay so from there I put
these into a drum rack and you guys can
see this here I'll lift up the screen a
bit and we'll focus on this aspect of it
yeah I can't anyway so we've got
this sample in the in the bank now and
let's see what we can do with it so my
process right now this is what I would
consider to be on the top layer here you
can see what I have is I would say
that's my grounding source that's actual
ice but I don't start there and the
reason I don't start there is I feel
like it's best to explore the abstract
before you explore the reality reality
is easy when you're fatigued you can
always base your sound in reality but
when your brain is fresh when your brain
is creative you can handle the abstract
in a much more efficient way so I'm
gonna set a loop point here now I have
basically a running loop and I'm just
gonna start around so this is
some of my source I created about 10
minutes ago all right so
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okay so what I like about this process
so we have this and this is just a
general concept now from here I'm going
to actually switch to what I would
consider a more traditional editing mode
and let's just take a look at kind of
what we have here so I've got this and
we're gonna curl down to what I've built
this is my template so I always have
like a like a SFX what I call sfx group
and i like that because i can just open
the session and it's always ready to go
with no questions so we're just gonna
see kind of what we have here and like
you know it's it's it's weird but
you know maybe we could do something
interesting with a few
great cool I don't think that's reclaim
properly
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I'm going to take that over here and
we're gonna put it pull it back to our
our drum rack so now we can begin there
so in a more clear fashion I'm going to
set one loop okay so we got this okay so
I kind of like that so we start there
now we have this again we're gonna pull
this back in to our more arrangement
view and we've got that going on right
okay so something that I really love
doing and maybe you cats are hip to it
I'm going to like just I feel really
naked and vulnerable right now because
I'm gonna show you guys something that I
use and it's a little hacky anyway let's
jump right in
so kick this is my favorite kick of all
time this is a sound morph kick those of
you that are familiar
yeah that's it okay so I take this and
so for now I'm gonna just slice this
tiny bit and then leave the rest okay
and I think spiritually and emotionally
we can agree that's a decent idea so
we're gonna like give it another step
here right okay now remember the thing
we recorded earlier so I'm thinking like
like like I'm just riffing here but I'm
thinking about that that screen II thing
you know the whole mom thing and like we
that was a journey that we went through
together and I could feel so close to
you guys so I want to bring that back I
want to find that again somewhere in all
of this madness that's it
okay cool and what's beautiful about
this is like these these things can like
fairly seamlessly work together when
you're not mildly nervous let's see you
know what guys
I thought about it and I thought about
you know like where how far we've come
and I'm just gonna rerecord it it's that
easy
cool alright let's let's drag this back
into our concept here and cool we've got
this we'll call this the mom you don't
understand me sound we're gonna pop this
here yeah now okay I like that so I kind
of want to add a little bit more sort of
high-frequency content so to do that I'm
going to pull up an operator and what's
great about operator is again this is
all kind of on the fly here we can go
into operator and we're gonna select
white noise that's what white noise
sounds like in my heart okay
filter cool alright so we'll grab that
okay cool so once I have this I'm just
gonna drag it as MIDI into the sound
right now and it's obviously not working
very well for timing so we're just gonna
record it make it a fire cool okay
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there's a tool that I like to use a lot
it's called sy q are you guys familiar
with this it's a soundtoys plugin and
what it allows you to do is distort or
harm on use harmonic distortion only on
certain frequencies so we're going to
add harmonic distortion in the 900 range
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cool is something else that I've that's
kind of exciting this sort of off topic
on topic that I've been into and that is
this bill built this this it's like a
granulator I don't know if you guys know
granulator but you can take any sound
source and essentially loop it it's a
very simple granular tool now if you
notice see how the akyüz going wild
right now what I've done is add max for
live plug-in on this called randomize
and it just takes your whatever plug-in
you want and just literally randomize it
like a crazy person now when you first
launch it the preset is sort of set to
dude on speed but this is like dude kind
of
down from speed so let's see how this
sounds and it's kind of a cool way to to
create some interesting source material
let's get off that so yeah so just just
one button will allow like has a lot of
movement but now when you add in the
file positioning in granulator as well
as this diffuse eq which is essentially
like a dub style spring reverb so let's
record a few of those and try those in
the mix you know it sounded really easy
to do sound design in front of people
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all right
I like that last one that has a nice
flow to it I thought that again seeing
is how we've been through so much
together that one sort of is more
representative of us as a couple
oh by the way side note pet peeve people
that over prove how happy they are in
their relationship on Facebook they're
like I had a friend and it was he's a
funniest thing I've ever seen
when everyone maybe I should tell the
story not here it's really good though
he is trust me it does involve nudity
and social media
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okay so for now we're gonna leave that
but the cool thing about this is that we
can go riff on this and absolutely make
a hundred hundreds of iterations the
reason that I like the drum rack is
because once I have this so for example
I'll title is ice magic I can save this
rack and instantly pull it up so for
things like sounds that you make like
consistently you can have basically like
a little drum rack library of quick acts
quickly accessible things and I think I
have a few in my laptop crashed recently
so it might have lost some of them but
in within my user library
um I've got these patches here can you
guess - her me okay presets
sounds good okay John Mack okay yeah
like this is stuff I've made quite a
long time ago let's see this is called
thirty seconds left I have no idea what
this is oh yeah yeah yeah okay this is
all stuff I'll I've recorded actually
trying to making some sort of stinger
things so it's stuff like you know like
really simple stuff but but what's cool
is like you know I could just pull that
up and just have that instantly to mess
with so I wanted to show you guys one
other thing that I really enjoy doing so
first we're gonna create some source and
then we're gonna a quick concept it
creature sound so this could go like
this is I want you to guys to know this
could go really wrong but we're gonna
give it a go
we're gonna be better friends okay all
right
so let's begin let's let's say we're
doing some kind of I don't know some
typical space-saving type so for
now
that's not really space satan e-enough
but we're gonna bring the evil
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okay
we've got this loop going there's a
reason for this and the reason is sure
you guys already got it but this is our
core tone now let's take that core tone
we're gonna mute it for right now and
this is going to be the mic channel so
yeah this is terrifying yeah
let's see alright this is gonna be our
main channel now cuz the other ones are
not working gang right I mean that's
pretty space save me
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so you take this and don't do that we're
gonna pop it here okay so we're gonna
pull up our old friend the vocoder and
we're going to use the space Satan tone
as our carrier tone or one of the other
I don't know I'm not a scientist
dudes I'm a I'm a barely functioning
adult anyway so audio from and that's
SFX one so let's just see it's not gonna
sound great just yeah but listen we'll
just see cool that's not as bad as I
thought it would be it's a little on the
digital tip but it's you know it's I
don't hate it that's another thing that
can help you as a sound designer is just
kind of jet in general just like your
stuff you know you know like I mean it
like it pays to be a little cocky quite
honestly like I'm just gonna say protip
but this goes beyond sound design if you
don't like what you're doing go
yourself seriously why are you doing it
anyway but I mean that like a love it
it's like a loving go yourself not
like a go yourself idiot it's more
like a
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okay so this is the some whale source
material that I pulled in and we're
gonna use a trick that I'm sure you guys
all know but I'm just going to show you
kind of this is against my process we're
going to gate this on and off side chain
from SFX 3 which is our space Satan
voice okay we're gonna take the attack
up a bit and pull the release and again
just see what we can get okay right now
here's the issue what what is the issue
the issue is that you right we're
running into that problem where you
layer so many things that it sounds like
animal choir well that's a great bad
name animal choir I mean there's already
Animal Collective but I don't it could
be like a whole different deal you're
welcome
worth the money right okay so we're
gonna I'm gonna pull something in to try
and make this more cohesive and this is
tough you know because honestly this is
something that I would sort of sit down
and do and like think about and not have
to like like I didn't have diarrhea
while trying to speak anyway yeah when
it went great mom
we're all best friends now okay so I'm
pulling up crystallizer and I'm doing
this because I find that like when when
you have a group that sort of pitches
together its stitches together it just
came up with that that down money
money baby okay I will do detune will go
doublers on this and we're gonna pull
our mix so I want to make up for some of
that high-end EQ that we lost so I'm
going to go back to soundToys here and
pull up psych you really really in a
distortion right now
it's something that I used to stay away
from but I've been able to get some
really good results from it okay I'm
gonna say like for doing that in seven
minutes
it's not the worst thing I'm gonna do
something I wasn't sure that I was gonna
do but I really love you guys
oh do you like this my name of the my
session is sick GDC Prezi ice magic dude
recently got a hold of me named ice mage
and I was like we gotta be friends so
this is a project I've been working on
and I'm gonna look through here and I'm
gonna find some of the more like I'm
gonna find a sound and kind of run you
guys through how I did it cool yeah okay
I don't know oh I don't I have two
minutes nevermind I'm not gonna run you
through it does anyone have any
questions
hey you know what it I'm gonna I'm
gonna open a session and just show you
guys very briefly oh yeah okay this is
the into fear state so basically big
monster comes you're like oh man that
monster is really scary and then you're
like camera start shaking and you can't
move your character very easily this is
a very simple Jam here and yeah it's a
very similar process this is all based
on the drum rack and let's see what we
got yeah dude I must be way into space
state space Satan stuff okay so I'm
gonna just run you guys through my
bounces and it kind of like you as you
see from top to bottom you'll notice
that sometimes they're randomized but
typically it's like idea one idea to
idea three idea for I put those in a
random container see what works best see
what sticks
so here's fear in I think this is a
concept for like the loop at the
beginning of right before you get feared
it's like to believe to bring tension
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that's just my voice being weird
I don't know what this is never mind
this dope it's another element that I
layered on and that's essentially the
final with the additional layers I think
I you know in retrospect now that I'm
looking at this something time is the
biggest teacher something that I didn't
do in that final that I wish I would
have done is pushed the two elements so
that there's a high-end element and
there was a low-end element and I wish I
would have been more ballsy with those
elements because I feel like they got
buried in the mix anyway thank you guys
so much for having me
we can talk after and thanks again I
really appreciate it