Designing Music NOW Podcast: Recent Episodes
DesigningMusicNOW
Designing Music Now is an online magazine by composers for composers. It will be a central destination and a portal for all things related to composing music for video games and interactive media. It will be a resource dedicated to the art and technology of composing music, with the aim of sharing that information and knowledge in an open and collaborative manner. We see it as a way to create a community of composers who can support one another in our craft.
Designing Music NOW interview of Tari from Best Service/Sampling Arts by Lawson Madlener
Beep Week at Designing Music NOW! We are honored to have had the chance to talk with Karen Collins, the producer and director of Beep: A History of Game Sound documentary this week. In honor of this amazing endeavor which is a highly anticipated movie for everyone in the game audio community, we are excited to dub this week Beep Week! As of this writing, her current Kickstarter campaign for the Beep Book has still not reached its modest goal, and we hope that this amazing video interview and podcast will encourage you to get your own copy of the movie and the newly announced two volume book, containing around 1000 pages of in depth interviews from the 100 guests on three continents. This may be your only opportunity to get a hard copy of the book, and it is a great way to show your support to this essential project.
About Karen Collins
Karen Collins is the Canada Research Chair in Interactive Audio at the University of Waterloo and an internationally recognized expert on game audio. She received her PhD in Music from the University of Liverpool. She has fifteen years of experience in researching and teaching about game sound, and has published four books on the topic (Game Sound; Playing with Sound; From Pac-Man to Pop Music and the Oxford Handbook of Interactive Audio) as well as numerous research papers on a wide variety of topics such as Interactive Audio and how sound is used in slot machines to manipulate players. She is the director and producer of Beep: A Documentary History of Game Sound and also the author of a new book based on the interviews in that documentary called “The Beep Book” which is running a Kickstarter campaign right now. The Interview Karen, who normally is on the other side of the camera asking all the questions, was gracious in fielding our rather in depth questions. The interview was divided into four parts: Introduction, Beep Movie, Beep Book, and Closing Questions. Here is the video interview, and below that is the podcast, which you can download for free. You can also subscribe to our podcast on Stitcher, and we will be coming to iTunes soon.
Links and Further Reading
Big in Japan : Short Documentary from Beep about game audio in Japan : https://vimeo.com/139395943
Veemix : Free Unity iOS plugin for adding your own music playlists in games developed by Karen Collins and her colleagues : https://veemix.com/
Gamesound: The official site of the Beep Movie, featuring tons of resources and webisodes from the interviewees : http://gamessound.com/ and BeepMovie.com
Leonard Paul's movie on the audio behind the Beep Logo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI5hKnOQAOk&feature=youtu.be
Beep Book Kickstarter is bit.ly/BeepMovie
Twitter : @gamesounddoc
Designing Music NOW: www.DesigningMusicNOW.com
This Designing Music Now Podcast features Brian Schmidt. He is the 2008 recipient of the Game Audio Network Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Brian has been creating game music, sounds and cutting edge game sound technology since 1987. With a credit list of over 130 games and a client list including Zynga, Sony, Electronic Arts, Capcom, Sega, Microsoft, Data East, Namco, SounDelux and many others Brian has used his combined expertise and experience in music composition, sound design and his deep technical knowledge to change the landscape of the game audio industry. Brian is a frequent and in-demand speaker on the creative, technical and business aspects of game audio, having given literally hundreds of educational and inspirational talks at conferences all over the world. Events such as the Game Developers Conference, GameSoundCon, Microsoft’s Gamefest, Sega Devcon, the AES Conference and esteemed institutions such as Yale University, Northwestern University, and Digipen have invited Brian to share his knowledge and insight into the industry.
This interview is filled with tips and advice from one of the most influential members of the Game Audio community. He was awarded the Game Audio Network Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 and has continued to inspire a generation of game audio professionals.
In this interview we start by talking about his musical upbringing, how he broke into the video game industry after receiving a Masters in Computer Music from Northwestern University, and some of the current projects he is most excited about. Then we go into detail about what you can expect from the upcoming GameSoundCon being held in Los Angeles on November 3rd and 4th. Finally, we go into detail about his recent Game Audio Survey and discuss some of the findings there, such as the rise in salaries for game audio professionals, the different areas where composers and sound designers are finding work, and some important tips about how to find your next gig!