PSE Blog

The Sound Effects of Star Trek Into Darkness

David Forshee — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:00:01 +0000

Here’s a great video from CNET news about the sound effects of Star Trek Into Darkness featuring legendary sound designer Ben Burtt. See what weapon sounds you can create from a dog mixed with a rocket!

Star Trek Into Darkness is now playing in theaters, and I highly recommend that you experience it in Dolby Atmos!

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Interview with David Sonnenschein (Part 3)

David Forshee — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:23:02 +0000

Here is the final installment of our 3-part blog series coming from a conversation we had with author, sound designer, and lecturer David Sonnenschein about his latest project: 3 Deaf Mice. To learn more about 3 Deaf Mice visit http://www.3deafmice.com

3 Deaf Mice is based on David’s book “Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema”, which is #1 on Amazon and the definitive international resource on sound design for film. As founder of Sound Design for Pros, David has produced lots of great sounds, interviews and articles, and offers a 12-hour webinar series as part of the Kickstarter rewards. His experiences as audio consultant for EA’s “Mass Effect 3″, musician, filmmaker and neuroscientist, combine to bring this incredible sensory challenge and unique game play to everyone.

PSE: How do listening modes (source, shape and meaning) work in the real world? Doesn’t our brain move among the listening modes very fluidly in our day-to-day life?

Yes, when we perceive sounds in the real world, the listening modes switch constantly and automatically in our brains. In the 3 Deaf Mice game we are creating various play stages where one specific listening mode can be focused upon at a time. This way our minds are able to understand this form of listening at a cognitive level, and our sensory mechanisms are able to perceive it and then create with it on a visceral level.

PSE: The third and final listening mode is semantic listening or listening for meaning. How is listening for meaning incorporated into the game play of 3 Deaf Mice?

At each stage of the game there will be different uses of the sound including its significance to the game play and the story. In the first stage of game play we’ll want to understand the goals of the Mice, and where and why they’re looking for the source of the sound. The meaning of that sound is going to have an important impact on which sounds the player will select. For example, we know that the Mice have set out to alleviate their stomach aches from the previous verse where they pigged out in the kitchen. Now when we hear sounds in the bathroom scene that have something to do with solving that problem, like finding an antacid relief, we’re going to move towards that, and ultimately that will help us make decisions about which sounds we choose. That’s an example how we listen for meaning in terms of character goals and story elements.

PSE: What about the meaning in the music of Three Deaf Mice? How do we listen for meaning in music?

The song itself is a structure of sounds that has meaning beyond the individual elements. When we put together the lyrics, the instruments, and the sound effects into this song, it’s going to be something that you’re going to get as a gestalt or as a whole. Music in general could be defined as sounds with meaning in a structure that is recognizable by the listener. An isolated sound may have no meaning to us, just a random noise. However, that sound begins to have meaning when you add other sounds to it. In language this becomes syllables, words, sentences and ultimately communication. This is where we develop meaning through language. In music, we develop meaning by stringing notes together to create a melody, by stringing beats together to create a rhythm, by stringing different harmonic structures together to create a chord progression. These are the elements we’ve been listening to for centuries, and our brains are accustomed to finding meaning with traditional musical forms. However, if we listen to serial music which is a intellectual mathematical system where you must play all 12 notes of an octave before repeating any note, the organization is there but it has no meaning to our musically trained brains. It becomes quite difficult to listen to for any length of time because we don’t absorb it as a musical entity and it’s just too abstract. John Cage played around with a lot of these things to explore the meaning of sound and the definition of music. We obviously have found the popular meaning of music with pop music whether it’s rock or hip hop, but when you move into jazz for example, the meaning of the musical phrases becomes much more complex. The listener needs to have a certain background and sophistication to appreciate jazz as much as popular music, and the same with classical music. Some Bach, for example, is very easy to listen to, whereas some of the more modern composers like Stravinsky may be much more difficult to listen to. When Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was first performed in 1907, it literally created riots because the music was so out of the ordinary and not structured like people had been used to. So this is what we’re really exploring in the game. What are the components of meaning in sound, and how can they create music? What is music?

PSE: Are our interpretations of sound and music based more on cultural experiences and training or on physiological principles? For example, the sound of nails on a chalkboard is almost universally regarded as an unpleasant sound.

In the West, we are accustomed to listening to 12-tone scales like what we have on a piano, but in India they have 22-note scales. Their ears are sophisticated enough to hear those microtonal changes, whereas when we hear it, it may just sound like something is out of tune. So music itself has a certain level of training that we must have when we get to that level of sophistication. However, there are some fundamental principals that go beyond the cultural references that have to do with harmonic structure. The fact that an octave feels whole, right, simple, and grounded is not just founded on a cultural basis. It’s because the actual frequencies of the octave and its fundamental physically and mathematically fit into each other, and when it hits our ears and our brains process it, we’re going to feel that there’s something very symmetric and balanced about it. So that in and of itself creates a kind of physical and emotional balance in our beings. You mentioned scratching on a chalkboard, and that’s something more physiological because of the intense mixed frequencies in a high range that can actually irritate the hearing system. We can go into each sound that we hear and discuss it as potentially a cultural reference or a physiological stimulus, and as sound designers we want to become very aware of how to use each sound effectively for an audience. For example if you’re watching children’s TV, you may notice that the sounds are extremely simple and intentionally designed to be pleasant. Very few sounds will make you feel nervous or agitated. But you also need a certain amount of stimulus contrast and surprise. On the other extreme with a horror film, people go in there expecting to be scared. So you deliver to them what they want by attacking their nervous system with sound. I’m not saying just loud sounds, and sometimes it’s just silence and then a shocking or weird sound to create a lot of anxiety.

PSE: Ultimately what skills do you want a player to come away with after playing 3 Deaf Mice?

Communication skills have to do with listening and projecting your ideas: it’s a two way street. So first of all, mindfulness is extremely important in our educational system. This is becoming a key word for students to become better learners. Mindfulness means that they can absorb material and then create and present their own material when they become more conscious of their environment. We’re becoming more aware of these different listening modes and how we hear sounds through their source, shape, and meaning. Of course when you begin to communicate and use sound effectively this way, your communication skills will obviously become stronger and the results of your communication will get you closer to your desired intention. This could apply to an academic presentation, a creative piece of music, or creating a game or a film.

PSE: How would you continue to develop 3 Deaf Mice? Any future plans for the game?

There’s another goal that the 3 Deaf Mice game is aiming to accomplish, and that is developing community. Inside of this idea that we can listen and communicate with sound, we can also share our insights and our sounds with one another in very creative ways. This will become a platform in the future for people to share their sounds with one another in ways that are very expressive and creative. Specifically, the current game structure of the ten tracks and verses will be able to be unlocked and remixed, which should be lots of fun. In the future, we’ll be able to allow people to share new sounds, new lyrics, and new pieces of audio clips that can then be remixed into the song structure. Ultimately, I’d like to see a game like this become an open source platform for other people to create their own songs that are very interactive. Just like Karaoke became a whole medium in music, this could become a whole new medium of creating songs and participating with other people in really fun, interactive, and dynamic ways. I see the game can also be re-purposed for specific groups in education, training and health, for example helping people with dyslexia, sight impairment or jobs requiring highly developed listening abilities like sonar operation. I’m excited to explore many new possibilities and open to unforeseen applications.

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That’s all folks! Be sure to follow the progress of 3 Deaf Mice at http://www.3deafmice.com

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Interview with David Sonnenschein (Part 2)

David Forshee — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:05:25 +0000

Here is part 2 of our blog series coming from a conversation we had with author, sound designer, and lecturer David Sonnenschein about his latest project: 3 Deaf Mice. To learn more about 3 Deaf Mice visit the project Kickstarter page at http://www.3deafmice.com

PSE: How do you integrate into Three Deaf Mice “causal” listening and identifying the source of the sound? Why is this type of listening important?

In our daily lives, we’re surrounded by sounds that really impact our well-being. If we become aware of these sounds, we can actually live a fuller life in terms of our own health, safety and joy. For example, if a sound in your environment is making you irritable, but it has passed into your subconscious, you may not know why you are feeling that way unless you stop for a second and say, “What’s going on right now?” Then all of a sudden you hear a refrigerator hum that is very dissonant and is creating this very low-level anxiety that you haven’t been aware of. That’s a simple example. In architecture, people speak of feng shui to get the proper energy flow. The position of the doors, furniture, and the lighting is very important for the well-being of the people that live in that home. And in that sense becoming aware of the feng shui of sound is equally important whether it’s the sound of a little water fountain that gives you a sense of quiet peaceful lulling or whether you’re actually putting up a sound baffle on the window that might block out the roar of the traffic. These are some areas that people specialize in, but we don’t usually pay attention so much in our daily environment. Three Deaf Mice will hopefully broaden and enhance people’s perception of our sonic environment.

PSE: This reminds me of a study I read recently showing that noise pollution can actually impair reading comprehension skills in children (Read study).

Good example, the other extreme is that they are using music now to help newborns with different physical ailments to actually recover quickly (Article). Talking about the power of music and health, this is not the only article of course. There are just so many examples of how we can become more aware of sound and music in health and well-being.

PSE: How will the game play be structured to guide the players to become more aware of their environments?

The game structure is based on a song called “Cheatin’ the Trap,” which tells the story of how the mice began their careers in psych labs and wild fields, and ultimately met up and found different objects in their environments to create music. The mice ultimately built a career in music and get to the huge stadium rock concert. This story is told in the song with 10 verses, each one at a different stage of their careers. In each of those verses, we dive into what’s happening with them and discover different environmental sounds that we have to explore. There will be a series of treasure hunts for specific sounds inside the environments where they have to identify a sound and where it’s coming from. When that’s correctly solved, the player will move deeper into the environment seeking and finding sounds within sounds. So we’re going to be employing what’s known as “masking” where certain sounds will be louder and other sounds will be hidden inside them. We’ll be training the player’s ear to listen for sounds within sounds and to identify what makes a sound different than another sound. So by discovering what those sounds are, it’s training the player in their “causal” listening skills for identifying the source.

PSE: Would you walk us through an example of one of these sonic treasure hunts?

One example from the game is in the bathroom, where we first hear the sound of water running. Once we’ve found that sound which is the shower, we then hear a sound inside that’s kind of like a squeaky sound with a higher pitch and shorter envelope. We find that it’s the medicine cabinet door squeaking open. Inside there we find some bottles, and by shaking the appropriate bottle you’ll hear the sound of the pills inside of it. Once you find the pills and open the bottle, you drop the pills into a glass of water and hear the “plunk plunk”. This causes the final “core sound” of the effervescent fizz of antacid in the water. So that’s an example of how we will travel through an environment of sound effects that are linked to the story and song lyrics. Once you’ve found what I’m calling this “core sound”, then it becomes the focus of the next part of the game, a sonic transformation through digital sound processing.

PSE: How do you define “reduced” listening? How is this type of listening encouraged in Three Deaf Mice?

In this environment we’re also going to identify what makes the sounds different by their shape or their actual physical waveform, called “reduced” listening. In other words, if we have a sound that has a higher pitch but is “inside” a louder sound, you can hear it easily because it’s popping out with the different pitch. Then we can identify that as being the sound we’re looking for and move into the environment where that sound is what I’m calling the “central sound.” Then inside of that sound we’re going to find other sounds.

Reduced listening refers to the shape of the sound waveform, and identifying its physical qualities. If we have a flute playing a melody and we have a violin playing the same melody, the pitch and rhythm might be identical, but what would be different is the timbre or frequency spectrum. Manipulating through equalization is one of the tools that we would use to shift the timbre of a musical instrument. The more complex the timbre, the more harmonics and overtones that exist in that sound and the rougher the waveform would look visually. If you go towards a sine wave, which is a pure tone, you’ll see a very smooth curve. The other extreme, white noise, is extremely complex and randomized so that it looks like a very rough, chaotic waveform. The game will have a visual equivalent of what the sound wave is doing as I just described. So if we’re going to change the pitch, we’ll see the waveforms getting shorter or more frequent. Another example, if we sharpen the attack by clipping or gating it, then we’ll see that attack being a more sudden impact on the visual waveform, as opposed to a gradual buildup. So those are things that will help people begin to understand how sound is structured with the aid of visual stimuli.

PSE: How does this processing transform the sound effects into musical sounds? Will there be other types of processing in Three Deaf Mice?

For example, we’ll multiply tracks, shifting pitch and create harmonies. We can also create beats by looping different effects. There’s a tremendous amount of creative work with rhythms being done by DJs and hip hop in general, a super creative form. This is the kind of thing that we’ll make accessible in the game through the different kinds of sound processing so that people can explore these creative musical paths.

Check in later this week for Part 3 where we will discuss semantic listening, meaning and communication, and will wrap up the blog series. To learn more about 3 Deaf Mice visit the project Kickstarter page at http://www.3deafmice.com

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Interview with David Sonnenschein (Part 1)

David Forshee — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 01:32:34 +0000

Today we are beginning a series of blogs coming from a conversation we had with author, sound designer, and lecturer David Sonnenschein about his latest project: 3 Deaf Mice. To learn more about 3 Deaf Mice visit the project Kickstarter page at http://www.3deafmice.com

PSE: What is 3 Deaf Mice?

DS: 3 Deaf Mice is a music puzzle game that is based on the rock band of three mice who’ve been playing loud music for so long that they’ve lost a great deal of their hearing capabilities. And now the player of the game has to help them put together their next hit song. So the goal is to first find the sounds in the environments that the mice will be in, and next transform those sounds into musical elements and then finally put them together in the structure of the song. In this way the player gets to experience the full spectrum of listening and creating with sound to make music.

PSE: Could you give us an example of a sound effect in the game and how it is transformed into a musical element?

DS: An example would be in the storyline and the lyrics of the song where the mice went into a very glutinous experience of over-eating in a restaurant kitchen and now have to help relieve their stomach pains. They find a stomach antacid that they plop into the water which creates a fizzy sound. This fizzy sound then becomes what I’m calling the “core sound” inside other masked sounds in the sonic treasure hunt. The player will have to choose the right kinds of audio processing on this core sound, trimming, EQ’ing to create chunk of sound which actually becomes what is known as a phoneme in language. A phoneme is the smallest element of our speech, smaller than the syllable, there are something like 40 of them in the English language. And so the fizzy sound is going to be creating the phoneme of the ‘ch’ sound in a word that is part of the lyrics. So that’s one example of how the sounds fit into the lyrics. They’re also going to be fitting into the rhythm with beats and loops, and into the harmonic structure by pitch shifting the different sound effects so that they actually create chords.

PSE: Who is the target audience for 3 Deaf Mice?

I think our target audience is fairly broad, starting with gamers who can be kids of any age that are sophisticated enough to play a game that has specific instructions to find and transform audio. I’m guessing that the average 12 year old should be able to play it. However we are also designing the game to be challenging enough for professional musicians, composers, audio engineers and sound designers so that they can really dive into the aspects of sound that they work with on an everyday basis in a playful manner. They will discover a surprisingly fun way to explore sound that they may never have done before. The game levels will increase in difficulty so that pretty much anybody can do the first couple of levels in order to get a feel for how to play the game and then move into harder challenges. For those that are already sophisticated in audio, they may breeze through the first few levels, but I guarantee it won’t be so easy as the game goes on.

The game is also aiming towards those interested in music as a performer, composer, theorist, and as general music education. The game will also appeal to anybody interested in developing listening skills and developing what I call mindfulness. Mindfulness is the ability to be aware of your world and your own thought patterns about that world in a very clear way. And so this game is going to develop skills that help people in their daily communication, and also in their abilities to work with New Media. Nowadays everybody has a smart phone that’s like a mini movie studio, but it also has a microphone. When you’re working with sounds and editing sounds and creating some form of communication, whether it’s a film or game or just a Skype call, what are you going to do with your sounds that is going to help the listener really get what you want to transmit?

PSE: I understand that the game is structured around the three listening modes that are well known in sound design theory. Can you explain what those are and how you are using them in 3 Deaf Mice?

In sound design theory we talk about three different listening modes which are traditionally called casual, reduced, and semantic. In this game I’m using more accessible terms. When we talk about causal, it’s truly about the Source of where the sound is coming from and what’s causing that sound. When we talk about reduced listening we’re talking about the Shape of the waveform or really how is it formed in a physical manner for us to analyze it as an audio engineer. For example, the pitch, volume, and EQ or timbre are all ways to actually measure the sound waveform and become aware of how it’s actually transmitting its energy and information.

And then thirdly we talk about semantic listening or what is the Meaning of this sound. And of course when we speak the sound has meaning of the words and the phrases, as well as the intonation or the prosody of the voice. And then we can detect the meaning of musical instrument sounds. Do they make you feel excited or happy or sad? We also have the meaning as well for sound effects. If we hear a dog barking it could be angry that somebody is invading its territory or it could be happy that its owner has returned home. So there are a lot of different levels of meaning and context, and that’s how we’re structuring the game play of 3 Deaf Mice into these three different listening modes.

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Check back next week for Pt. 2 of our conversation with David Sonnenschein!

Be sure to check out the 3 Deaf Mice Kickstarter page at http://www.3deafmice.com

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SoundWorks Collection: The Sound and Music of Oblivion

David Forshee — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:47:17 +0000

Here’s a cool new video from the SoundWorks Collection covering the sound and music of Oblivion. Very impressive sound design work on this one!

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Sound Design of Jurassic Park. Try it for yourself!

David Forshee — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:29:10 +0000

We recently ran across this super-cool visualization of the sound design components of the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park:

How’d They Make That Jurassic Park Dinosaur Noise? A Handy Chart

We thought we’d make it just a little easier for you to take a shot at designing the sound of the T-Rex yourself.

Click the images below to find sounds in the PSE Online Library!

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PSE Sponsors the International Music+Sound Awards 2013 (Update)

David Forshee — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:43:33 +0000

UPDATE 4/17/13: The international entry deadline for the Music + Sound Awards has been extended to April 19th, 2013. Take advantage of this opportunity to showcase your work in music and sound design!

Pro Sound Effects is proud to sponsor a fantastic new awards program for music and sound. The International Music+Sound Awards will recognize outstanding work in categories that have been created to include the widest possible use of music and sound in visual media. They invite entries from television and cinema commercials, non-broadcast or viral advertising, branding and title sequence, feature films, television programs and computer games.

Film, Advertising, TV, and Gaming professionals worldwide are invited to enter their work into the inaugural International Music+Sound Awards before the entry deadline: March 31st, 2013. Entries can be submitted at www.internationalentries.masawards.com.

The International Music+Sound Awards are the first and only worldwide awards program to recognize and celebrate the indispensable role and outstanding contribution that music and sound design play in the world of visual and audio media. They were set up to establish the criteria and standard for international excellence in music and sound in this field.

“The International Music and Sound Awards is the first of its kind. A giant melting pot for the incredible talent that provides Music and Sound Design to the Media Industries on a global scale.” -Nick Payne (co-founder)

The awards are being judged by an impressive panel of industry authorities including Klaus Badelt (composer, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’), Roc Chen (composer, ‘Chinese Zodiac’)Mary Ramos (Music Supervisor, ‘Kill Bill Vol.2’), Jessica Dieraurer (Executive Producer of Music and Creative Content @ Y&R, New York), Tim Mellors (Chief Creative Head @ Grey Group Worldwide) and Dave Pettigrew (SVP, Head of Advertising and Games @ Warner Chappell, New York).

For a full list of judges, entry criteria, or more information, please visit www.masawards.com/international.

Pro Sound Effects will also be at the International Music+Sound part on La Goeland beach in Cannes on Friday, 21st June 2013. There will be plenty of PSE Library Cards on hand!

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PSE at NAB 2013

David Forshee — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:29:29 +0000

Pro Sound Effects at the 2013 NAB Show in Las Vegas, showing the online library and the Library Card with Blastwave FX and Killer Tracks. Our 2013 NAB party was hosted by PSE, Blastwave FX, and Killer Tracks at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in the Foundation Room and featured three NYC Rockettes!

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AVID Announces Pro Tools 11

David Forshee — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:35:10 +0000

Since the announcement of the latest version of AVID’s industry standard DAW Pro Tools, the professional audio community has been buzzing about the new features and improvements. There are many “under-the-hood” improvements including:

New Avid Audio Engine
64-bit architecture
Offline Bounce
Low-latency input buffer
Dynamic host processing

But at Pro Sound Effects, we are most excited about a slightly less publicized improvement: the workspace browser. All of our sound effects libraries at Pro Sound Effects have metadata embedded into each file with descriptions that help you to find the sounds you’re looking for. In previous versions of Pro Tools, the workspace browser performed well when performing searches on smaller sets of files; however, if searching a large sound effects database, the performance of the workspace browser often disappointed.

With Pro Tools 11, AVID promises to deliver better performance from the workspace browser, and enhanced “search-as-you-type” features (much like a Google search). We are very excited about these new features as this could vastly improve the workflow of many audio professionals that haven’t invested in 3rd party sound library management software.

What features of Pro Tools 11 are you most looking forward to trying out?

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Blastwave FX Party Like a Rockstar Contest!

David Forshee — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:42:14 +0000

Here’s a great opportunity for you to join the Pro Sound Effects team, Blastwave FX, and Killer Tracks at our VIP invite-only party at NAB in Las Vegas. The contest ends tonight, so you better hurry!

Wanna party with Ric Viers, members of the Rockettes and some industry cats in Las Vegas? Here’s your chance to score free tickets to the VIP invitation-only party at the Foundation Room on Tuesday, April 9! Submit a creative pic of the Blastwave FX sonar rings on the Blastwave FX Facebook page. Best pic wins FREE tickets for you and your friends, an autographed set of Ric’s books, a Chop Shop T-Shirt, stickers and The Zombie Apocalypse Sound Effects Library! Contest ends on Wednesday, April 3 at midnight. The winner will be announced on Friday, April 5. Good luck!

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