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How did the idea for the book come about?
Leading With Sound was inspired directly by two incredible conferences I was fortunate to participate in, back in 2019. First, Develop in Brighton – I had assembled a lot of high level info for the Audio Track Keynote ‘Game Audio: The Big Picture’ which became very useful structurally for the book
Secondly, the ‘Leading with Sound’ conference in Copenhagen which took place at the National Film School of Denmark, an amazing place of open exchange, connection, and long 90+ minute conversational deep-dives.
The material and thinking generated for by both of these conferences heavily influenced the shape and tone of Leading with Sound, and writing the book gave me an opportunity to get some of those ideas onto paper.
What is the book about?
The book is about how the craft of sound has had to abandon the relatively safe confines of the post-production models that we learned about in film school 20 years ago, and instead migrates us into the earlier, more unpredictable places of concept and pre-production where we find ourselves doing very different kinds of sound work. Fix it in pre!
…[the book] is also a call to arms for audio at every stage of production, exploring early with your teams to answer the ‘why’ of sound design on your projects, rather than allowing your audio visions to be led by the ‘when, what and how’ of production and technology
Game creation has never really had a very comfortable relationship with the notion of ‘post-production’, and so audio has always been trying to find ways to do more work in advance, building in layers as the game develops. All this demands we be more collaborative game developers focused on our audience.
The book hopes to inspire and encourage reflection, but is also a call to arms for audio at every stage of production, exploring early with your teams to answer the ‘why’ of sound design on your projects, rather than allowing your audio visions to be led by the ‘when, what and how’ of production and technology.
Good news – here’s your chance to win Leading With Sound:
Leading With Sound – Your Chance To Win Rob Bridgett’s Game Audio Book
Is there an overarching structure to the book?
Yes. The book is structured around the four major food groups of sound for games, being: sound, music, dialogue and mix. The fourth food group: mix, is a very important topic throughout the book, as it is the one food group that can be applied to all others, and also interconnects them and defines their relationships with each other.
It also looks at audio’s place within this transitional production environment – and why we (as sound people) are uniquely placed to offer so much to the concept and early phases of projects as co-directors and concept creatives.
Establishing direction and vision in one food group also necessitates knowledge and potentially influence over the others.
The book also opens and closes with a framing which considers the industry as a whole and our (sometimes) uncomfortable transition from software development environments to entertainment production environments. It also looks at audio’s place within this transitional production environment – and why we (as sound people) are uniquely placed to offer so much to the concept and early phases of projects as co-directors and concept creatives.
Is there a specific audience you have in mind for the book?
No. It is written from a high-level perspective so that anyone, whether a neophyte to the topic of audio for games, or someone already deeply initiated in its rituals can find inspiration in the content. I think there is probably a lot that is relevant too for those migrating between other branches of sound for picture, such as film sound or theatre sound. The four big food group sections also ensure that those broad groups of sound designers, dialogue designers (and performers), as well as composers, mixers and directors can all find resonant topics close to their hearts. Though, I also hope that the book will inspire creative directors, and anyone wishing to put their visions onscreen by having a clear and healthy approach to, and appreciation of, sound.
More about the book:
Routledge’s description: Leading with Sound is the must-have companion guide to working on video game projects. Focused on the creative, collaborative, philosophical and organizational skills behind game sound and eschewing the technical, this book celebrates the subjects most essential to leading with sound in video game development at any level. Refuting the traditional optics of sound as a service in favour of sound as a pro-active visionary department, , this book examines each of the four food-groups of dialogue, sound design, music and mix, not through the usual technical and production lenses of ‘how’ and ‘when’, but the essential lens of ‘why’ that enables leadership with sound.
Leading with Sound is essential reading for aspiring sound designers, inside and outside of the classroom, as well as experienced professionals in the game industry.
Book Length: ~ 91,000 Words
Dev Time: Writing started May 2020 – Final Draft delivered 30th September 2020 (5 Months)
More about Rob Bridgett:
Rob Bridgett is a British-Canadian Audio Director based in Montreal. In 1993 Rob attended Derby University to study cinema and media, and was one of the first to graduate from the ‘Sound Design for the Moving Image’ Master’s degree programme at Bournemouth University in 1999. Having worked as an audio director in the games industry since 2001, Bridgett has become a committed advocate for ‘leading with sound’ and ‘sound as design’.
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I’ve Decided to Make This Small Instrument Free—Enjoy!
Enjoy :)Snow Foley Instrument, a collection of pristine snow footsteps samples recorded with the legendary Sony PCM-D100 in the remote mountains of southern France. To enhance your sound design workflow, the samples are accompanied by user-friendly Kontakt and DSsampler instruments.
Whether you’re crafting linear sound designs, immersive interactive experiences, or dynamic game environments, this versatile library has you covered.Â
Key Features:Â
- 8 Different Walking types
- More than 200 unique samples
- Recorded in real snow, in different depths
- Stereo 96Khz 24bit
- Kontakt & DSsampler
- Midi Controlled Knobs
*Runs in Kontakt or Free Kontakt Player version 7.7.3 or higher, and in DecentSampler 1.9.13 or higher.
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Bicycle Sound Effects City Bicycles – Complete Bundle Play Track 633 sounds included, 330 mins total $120The complete package bundles all available City Bicycles-packages and is fully UCS compliant. The ‘Various Passbys + Bicycle Handling’ package is added as a free bonus!
This is a unique bicycle library that captures four characteristic bikes in clean, quiet, nicely performed true exterior rides. Including multiple perspectives, speeds and actions. From fast passbys on asphalt to slow onboard recordings, smooth or skidding stops. This package contains everything you need to create convincing sound design for a City Bicycle.
Contents:
Four bikes with distinct characteristics:
1. Good bike: a smooth sounding retro bike that doesn’t rattle or squeak, really nice tire noise.
2. Bad bike: an old worn bike with severe rattles and cranking, tends to let the chain fly off.
3. Ugly bike: this bike gets you from A to B… but it won’t win awards for it’s looks.
4. Racer bike: a vintage racer that’s pre-owned but still super slick.
Five perspectives:
1. Onboard Front: captures the whirring tire and surface sound.
2. Onboard Pedal: nice overall combination of pedaling, crank creaks, chain rattle, tire and surface sounds.
3. Onboard Rear: close up sound of the rear axle, with chain, sprocket and switching of gear.
4. Tracking shot: mono recording of the passby, keeping the bike in focus while passing by.
5. Static XY shot: stereo recording of the passby that emphasizes speed.
Five perspectives:
Overview of perspectives and mic placement*Onboard recordings are 2-3 minutes long depending on speed. Higher speeds > shorter duration. All 3 onboard mics are edited in sync with one another to make layering easy. All Passbys, Arrivals and Departures move from Left to Right.
Speeds and actions:
Three speeds for every bike and every surface (see below). Departures from slow, medium to fast getaways. Arrivals from slow stops with gently squeaking handbrakes to heavy stuttering skids.Five surfaces:
We’ve recorded all Bikes on asphalt from all perspectives (onboard and roadside). Additionally, our most quiet bicycle (the Good Bike) was used to record 4 other surfaces from onboard perspectives.
Five Surfaces:
1. Asphalt: nice and clean, with smooth singing sound.**
2. Large Bricks: nicely textured surface that makes the tires purr like a cat.**
3. Gravel: a fresh crackling surface sound that you might find in a city park.
4. Grit: classic bicycle path surface sounds that layers perfectly with the other surfaces.**
5. Icy road: frozen asphalt with sparkling textures of ice crystals snapping under the wheels.
**these surfaces are also recorded from Roadside Perspectives (passby: static and tracking)
BONUS files:
There are some sweeteners and extras to give your bike that extra layer of grit:
1. Exterior recordings of various actions in multiple takes from rattles, bounces, shakes to roll-bys. Enough to make your bike sound just a little different.
2. We also recorded 21 additional single passbys of various bicycles, from severely rattling to smooth riding bikes on small brick streets and alleys. Enough to expand your options to create a distinguished sound design.Metadata & Markers:
Because we know how important metadata is for your sound libraries we have created a consistent and intuitive description method that adheres to the Universal Category System. This allows you to find the sound you need easily, whether you work in a database like Soundminer/Basehead/PT Workspace work, or a Exporer/Finder window. We made a video that helps you navigate the library ans find your best bicycle sounds faster and easier.
CategoryFull
A quick way to filter out sounds you don’t need: like handling sounds or vice versa bicycle onboards.
UserCategory
Fastest way to find the type of action you need for all bicycles. Passby needed, just click and voila.
OpenTier
Once you’ve selected the bike you can open up OpenTier and audition and select the perspective you want to use.
Scene &Â Performer
This field contains the type of bicycle to quickly navgiate to the bike you like.
iXMLTrackLayout
This is a neat little identifier you will find in the Waveform displays and you can see in a glance what Listening position you are.
MicPerspective
We have another way to find perspectives but it is more limited to distance to the recorded subject.
So passbys are MED – EXT and handling are CU – EXT. Exterior? Of course: we recorded everything outside!
UserComments
We used this field to create the UserData and give you the minimal set of information about the recording in the filename.Additionally, we added Markers making specific sonic events are easy to spot in Soundminer and other apps.
If you have any questions about this, please contact us info@frickandtraa.com!
Single Bicycle packages:
We also sell single packages for all the bicycles in this library.
Here’s a handy comparison table:
Reviews:
344 AUDIO: ‘City Bicycles has a plethora of content, for a great price. The perfect balance between a great concept, great presentation and outstanding execution, lands them an almost perfect score of 4.9.‘The Audio Spotlight: City Bicycles is worth getting if you are in need of great sounding and well edited bicycle sounds.
Watch a video created by Zdravko Djordjevic.
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