sound design

a couple of days ago i visited microsoft’s millenium campus, where they have their “soundlab”. this is where the sound designers who work for microsoft record and edit audio for video games.  i had the privilege of sitting down and talking with the manager of soundlab about how to become a sound designer and what he looks for in a potential employee.  i also got a tour of the amazing facilities at soundlab.  they have two mix rooms, one studio tracking room with three foley pits, one theater room, four editing suites, and four testing rooms.  for those of you who don’t know, a foley pit is a hole in the floor in which you can put different textures of flooring (like dirt, concrete, mud etc.) and record the sound of someone walking on or interacting with those textures, and there is a floor cover so that if you aren’t using the pit you can still work on top of that space.  each of the rooms has very high quality sound proofing and are dead silent inside.  the theater room has two or three foot thick walls on each side, with multiple layers of sheet rock and sound proofing material. that way if someone wants to use the editing suite next door while there is a producer previewing a game trailer in the theater room, they can both be listening at full volume without hearing each other.  each room (excluding the studio tracking room) is equipped with 5.1 surround sound, and are easily linked together for interaction between rooms with video and audio.

i also got to see some pictures of some of their field recording adventures.  field recording is when an audio engineer goes outside of the studio, into the field, to record different sounds.  this is the hardest kind of recording because there are so many ways a recording could be ruined, like wind, a buzzing fly, a car driving by, someone coughing in the background, and many more sounds that most people don’t notice while sitting outside.  this can be really frustrating because it can easily ruin a recording, or even a full day of work.  the pictures i saw were really cool though.  i saw pictures of when they recorded the tesla electric car with microphones attached to the wheel well with suction cups to capture the squealing tires, and when they went to wenatchee, washington to record explosion sounds, and when they recorded an uzi by literally taping a microphone to the gun.  it looks like a really fun job, and hopefully i can learn enough and improve my skills enough to get a job as a sound designer with microsoft. at least meeting the manager is a good start.  so don’t be surprised if you start seeing posts about my new sound design demo reel.