Field recording is an element of Sound Art I am really drawn to and hopefully I can build these skills into a practice for employment in my coming DPS year. With Field Recording, you can’t really expect anything… Which is part of the fun, but like Ben Burtt has explained whilst talking about Sound Design for Star Wars, maps plays a part. You must plan each location, like a field or forest that’s miles away from main roads for isolating Forest Sounds, or an abandoned school for a derelict property etc.
European sound design, is centred more around this concept of location based sound capture and western sound design is historically where Foley art was developed in radio productions and war movies. Nicholas Becker, sound designer for Sound of Metal has worked on countless productions and believes in location based sound effects capture in order to capture the acoustics of the given space and has fundamental issues with artificial reverb. This could be very tricky when applied to video-games but raising a valid argument I think for capturing in the field whatever you can logistically capture in the field and filling in the gaps with Foley. However when you add the spatialisation element of game design. You are going to need to be capturing with Ambeo, Binaural and 3D microphones.
In this video for Sound capture within Halo: Infinite, we see some very interesting utilisations of Field Recording techniques and microphones;
We can see that the 343 Industries sound development team got really creative in their audio capture expeditions. Alongside the pretty bog-standard recording guns and rockets in the desert. We can see what look like Ambeo microphones being set up in large mechanical rooms to capture surround sound machinery and the capturing of a pug in a studio for alien noises. I also find it incredibly meta that sounds of an Xbox factory could make their way into an Xbox game captured with a mixture of what looks like contact microphones, shotgun microphones and electromagnetic microphones – which are great for futuristic electronic sounds (Elektrosluch 3+ by Lom).
I recently bought an electromagnetic pick up from MicBooster for £20. I tested it around my house and was surprised with the range of sounds possible. It’s often surprising the results which you will find.
This video shows very impressive sound capture. Using rare expensive microphones and the pistons on show and industrial line are very cool. It would be interesting to know how these sounds might’ve been used in the final game… The first time I saw this video I was quite overwhelmed by how impressive it looked. It’s quite nice that now as a year 2 student, I now know some of the gear and functions of what they are using and how it could be used. Halo mostly takes place on these gorgeous vistas of planets, with vehicles and unique alien weapons. Their use of field capture is very interesting and whilst a little out of my price range. It’s also interesting to see areas which they have improvised. As an xbox exclusive title, using factories for Xbox consoles is an in house source. The use of someone’s pet for create monsters and a trip to the Zoo for monster capture, these are all quite achievable creative sound capture goals for us as students potentially. As opposed to trying to mic up rockets, guns and speeding, skidding jeeps and muscle cars.
I really like this informative break down of sounds from The Last of Us Part 2. What I like about this specifically is its breakdown of creative and budget stretched examples of sound design. Capturing throwing sticks against mud, grass and metal. As well as using pitched down voices for zombie sounds and the creaking of a violin tuning peg as a taut bow sound.
This video also showcased the really interesting concept of an inbuilt heart-rate to a character. Where certain proximity to enemies, weather or exhaustion metre will effect which breathing sample will trigger in-game. This video is modest and incredibly helpful for any beginners in sound design showcasing useful concepts to help with immersion. Thinking about how each sound interacts with different objects is very important psychoacoustics that stop the audience breaking that immersion.
This very informative video went into more depth about the kinds of programming in place in these games.
This video made me aware how unnatural some of these soundscapes are when you are made aware of it. However if I were to play this game whilst experiencing the story and my mind preoccupied with navigating the world. I may not notice a sudden fade as I come in contact with the ocean once I’ve left a doorway, as opposed to leaving the door but it’s interesting how limited these systems of triggering sounds are, and how little they resemble the natural laws of acoustics without being guidance.
It’s in these moments that these Hollywood style linear video games take on a kind of Hyperreality where the effect is like a bolstered reality. The nature of waves sounding better than it may sound to someone in front of them due to the technology, but working in a kind of unreal way. The sound source tricks us because it’s so natural but it behaves differently within the spatiality.