Report complied by

Smaointe Games

Before i begin i would like to thank you at Quantum-phonic games the opportunity for us to put together this report for consideration. I hope that you will see from the extensi e report into the theory of sound and the actual sound file that we compiled for you that we are ery knowledgeable and skilled in sound production. I also hope that it highlights our inner !thoughts" on the sound design process.

#heory of sound
Let us begin this report by examining the theory of sound. Sound is a vibration in an elastic medium such as air, water. Sound is the physical phenomenon that encourages the sense of hearing. It is generated by vibrated bodies in the form of waves of compression and rarefaction in the air. A full circuit by a displaced particle is called a cycles. The time required for one complete cycle is called period and the number of complete cycles per second is the frequency of vibration. A good way to visuali e some of these terms is to loo! at the following image. The image points out to us the wavelength, compression, rarefaction and amplitude.

wa eform$

The wavelength of sound is the distance between analogous points of two successive waves.

%mplitude$
Amplitude is the ob"ective measurement of the degree of change in atmospheric pressure caused by sound waves. Amplitude is directly related to the acoustic energy or intensity of a sound.

&cta e$
An octave is the interval between two points where the frequency at the second point is twice the frequency of the first.

're(uency$
f#$%T &$' where f # frequency &s($, ) ' T # time for completing one cycle &s' The frequency ( cycles per second ( of a sound is expressed in hert

)itch$
This is how high or low a sound seems. A bird ma!es a high pitch. Alion ma!es a low pitch.

*ert+ ,*+-$
)ert is a term used in audio to describe frequency or tone. It is also !nown as cycles per second and abbreviated as ) . A single )ert is one wave cycle from crest to crest. )uman hearing is sensitive to frequencies or tones ranging from *+ to *+,+++ )ert , or *+) to *+!) . It is named after )einrich )ert , a ,erman physicist. The term !) means !ilo)ert &thousands of )ert ' and m) mean mega)ert &millions of )ert '.

.ecibel le el ,dB-$
A decibel level is a unit used to express relative difference in power or intensity, usually between two acoustic or electric signals, equal to ten times the common logarithm of the ratio of the two levels.

Sound generator ,loudspeaker-$

A sound generator would be used to generate an audio(frequency signal suitable for signaling purposes or for testing audio(frequency equipment or simply a device that converts electrical signals to audible sound.

high 'idelity$
A term used to describe the reproduction of images or sound in their purest form. )i(fi is most often associated with sound, such as music. It means that reproductions are clear, are generally free of bac!ground noise, and offer minimal distortion.

/oudness or Intensity$
Loudness or intensity would is the flow of wave energy crossing per unit time through unit area. Sound intensities are measured in decibels &d-'.

#he sampling rate$

The sample rate, or sampling frequency defines the number of samples per unit of time &usually seconds' ta!en from a continuous signal to ma!e a discrete signal.

Bit resolution
.esolution in this context refers to the conversion of an analog voltage to a digital value in a computer. A computer is a digital machine and it stores a number as a series of ones and eroes. /hen you see analog input devices from various manufacturers called $*(bit, $0(bit, or *1(bit, it means they have an A23 &analog to digital converter' that returns that many bits.

#he history of sound recording$

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." ~ Plato

4any methods are available and have been available to any studio or individual loo!ing to ma!e a game. 3reating music and sound video games or any other visual medium involves a unique combination of technical expertise and aesthetic sensibility. Sound production and capturing has come a long way over the years. sound recording can be done in two ways anolugue or digital.So let us ta!e a brief loo! at the history of sound recording.

%nalogue sound

)honautograph - 0123

In $567, 8douard(L9on Scott de 4artinville invented the phonautograph, the first device that could record sound waves as they passed through the air. It was intended only for visual study

of the recording and could not play bac! the sound. The recording medium was a sheet of soot( coated paper wrapped around a rotating cylinder carried on a threaded rod. A stylus, attached to a diaphragm through a series of levers, traced a line through the soot, creating a graphic record of the motions of the diaphragm as it was minutely propelled bac! and forth by the audio(frequency variations in air pressure.

The :honograph ( $577

The :honograph was the first machine used to capture analog sound, and was invented by the well(!nown inventor Thomas ;dison in $577. ;dison incorporated various elements into his :honograph that would become staples that can be found in recording devices to this day

Recording
<or a sound to be recorded by the :honograph, it has to go through three distinct steps. <irst, the sound enters a cone(shaped component of the device, called the microphone diaphragm. That sound causes the microphone diaphragm, which is connected to a small metal needle, to vibrate. The needle then vibrates in the same way, causing its sharp tip to etch a distinctive groove into a cylinder, which was made out of tinfoil.

)layback
In order to playbac! the sound recorded on one of the tinfoil cylinders, the recording process is essentially reversed. As the cylinder spins, the needle follows the groove created by the previous recording session. This causes the needle to vibrate, and then the diaphragm. This vibration comes out of the diaphragm, which is now functioning as a sort of sound amplification device, much li!e the bell on any wind instrument. The result is an audible reproduction of the

originally recorded sound.

Gramophone - 0113

The gramophone imprinted grooves on the flat side of a disc. Instead of recording by varying the depth of the groove &vertically', as with the earlier phonograph, the vibration of the recording stylus was across the width of the trac! & hori ontally'. The depth of the groove remained constant. -erliner called this audio disc a =gramophone record=. ,ramophone discs were played on mechanical devices most commonly hand wound with a cloc!wor! motor. The sound was amplified by a cone that was attached to the diaphragm. The disc record fell into public favor quic!ly, and cylinders were not produced after $>*>. The advent of electrical recording in $>*6 drastically improved the quality of the recording process of disc records.

.igital sound

4agnetic tape - 0567

?n 3hristmas 2ay, $>@* the -ritish -roadcasting 3orporation first used a steel tape recorder for their broadcasts. The device used was a 4arconi(Stille recorder, a huge and dangerous machine which used steel ra or tape @ mm &+.$=' wide and +.+5 mm &+.++@=' thic! running at >+ metres per minute &approximately @++ feet per minute' past the recording and reproducing heads.

4ultitrack recording - 0589s

The next ma"or development in magnetic tape was multitrac! recording, in which the tape is divided into multiple trac!s parallel with each other. -ecause they are carried on the same medium, the trac!s stay in perfect synchroni ation. The first development in multitrac!ing was stereo sound, which divided the recording head into two trac!s. <irst developed by ,erman audio engineers ca. $>1@, *(trac! recording was rapidly adopted for modern music

:ompact :assette - 0539s-0559s

-efore $>0@, when :hilips introduced the 3ompact audio cassette, almost all tape recording had used the reel(to(reel &also called =open reel=' format. :revious attempts pac!age the tape in a convenient cassette that required no threading met with limited successA the most successful was 5(trac! cartridge used primarily in automobiles for playbac! only. The :hilips 3ompact audio cassette added much needed convenience to the tape recording format and a decade or so later had begun to dominate the consumer mar!et, although it was to remain lower in quality than open reel formats.

.igital Recording - 0559s on

The first digital audio recorders were reel(to(reel dec!s introduced by companies such as 2enon &$>7*'. They used a digital technology !nown as :34 recording. /ithin a few years, however, many studios were using devices that encoded the digital audio data into a standard video signal, which was then recorded on a B(matic or other videotape recorder, using the rotating(head technology that was standard for video. A similar technology was used for a consumer format, 2igital Audio Tape.

<or consumers tapes and gramophones were replaced by the compact disc &32'. These recording media are fully digital and require complex electronics to playbac!.

The analog tape recorder made it possible to erase or record over a previous recording so that mista!es could be fixed. Another advantage of recording on tape is the ability to cut the tape and "oin it bac! together. This allows the recording to be edited. The advent of electronic instruments &especially !eyboards and synthesi ers', has changed the editing capabilities forever.

In a 32 &and any other digital recording technology', the goal is to create a recording with very high fidelity and perfect reproduction &the recording sounds the same every single time you play it no matter how many times you play it'. 2igital recording converts the analog wave into a stream of numbers and records the numbers instead of the wave. The conversion is done by a device called an analog(to(digital converter &A23'.

To play bac! the music, the stream of numbers is converted bac! to an analog wave by a

digital(to(analog converter &2A3'. The analog wave produced by the 2A3 is amplified and fed to the spea!ers to produce the sound.

So how is all this rele ant to your games company and games industry in general;

/ell let us loo! bac! through the years and loo! at the evolution of sound design in the computer games industry. /e will loo! at some groundbrea!ing devices in technology and we will loo! at some groundbrea!ing games. Then we will discuss the impact sound has on games.

Simply put sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. 2uring the production of games sound is a hugely important tool. 4any people underestimate the effects that sound can have on a game. 2uring the production of a game many different methods can be used to get the desired effects.There are some things that must be considered when choosing your production method and one of these would be the technological restrictions of the platform you are designing for.

Sound production methods.

In the video gaming systems and computers of the yesteryears, sound effects were generally produced with the help of sound synthesis. )owever, in modern day video game systems, the increase in quality of playbac! and in storage capacity has permitted the use of sampled sound. The modern day systems often use positional audio, accompanying hardware acceleration, and audio post(processing, which could also be attached to the development of @2 graphics. 2epending on the inner nature of the video game, various calculations can be made. This may permit echoes, realistic damping of sound and 2oppler ;ffect. :eople generally accept that we have three ages of sound technology in games which have shaped the evolution of sound production in games.

'irst generation$
The first generation is related to games which were technologically restricted. These are snes atari and ,ameboy games. In this case the sound design is both constrained by the lac! of storage and computing power. The Sound dedicated hardware in these cartridges based consoles is a rather poor midi <4 synthesi er. The sound designer may have been using really poor equipment by todays standard with a low sampling rate and a poor quantification level. 4ost of the sound design is a composition playing with maybe 6 funny and usually very irritating, sound loops stored in the cartridge. These would be stored as midi files and played by the synthesi er. 2uring the $>5+s soundcards and sampling technology were introduced and the dedicated sound chips were replaced by digital audio handled by the main 3:B. It was sampled at incredibly poor bit depths and rates li!e 5 bit, $$C) . To begin with only one or two channels of sound were available, but as computing power grew software mixers capable of delivering 1, then 5, $0 and @* channels of sound emerged. Through the late $>5+s and early $>>+s computer game music and sound eects mirrored the developments in pro studio production, but lagging behind state of the art samplers and synthesisers by a few years because of the

diculty in running audio software on an ordinary 3:B while also delivering graphics. 3ommercial synthesisers and samplers employed dedicated 2S: units and were designed with direct memory access and data pipelines unli!e a general purpose computer.<inding itDs own optimal form, computer game music became sequenced samples using quite sophisticated trac!er formats, a Ele that contains sample data.-ac! in the $>5+s it was still a great &and expensive' novelty using computers in recording studios. These computers were used to either

control equipment or sequence 4I2I.

A good example to examine so we can get a feel for both the restrictions but also the ability at the same time of these machines is to loo! at the commodore 01.

As we discussed above in t the start sound eects and music were generated with chips. 3hips

such as the AF(@50$+ or SI2 were used to produce waveforms and noise bursts. The logic for these Gsynthesiser on a chipG was a mix of analog and digital. This gave the sound itHs own very unique and distinguishable sound. <amous pieces of music and bac!grounds li!e :ac(4an and Space Invaders will be familiar to older gamers. Those were sequenced using time( parameter lists that predate 4I.I.

4I2I is a synthesi er of music 4I2I files are instructions that a synthesi er &usually built into your sound card' can convert into synthesi ed audio. 3omputers that have a 4I2I interface can record sounds created by a synthesi er and then manipulate the data to produce new sounds. <or example, you can change the !ey of a composition with a single !eystro!e. At this time soundcards were not very common and so the sound was often output though onboard computer loudspea!ers or encoded into the video signal for use with a normal TI set.the commodore 01 employed the SI2 chip. SI2 &short for Sound Interface 2evice' is the name of the sound chip used in the commodore 01.The chip combines analog and digital circuitry

:roperties of the SI2J K @ tone generators &voices', frequency +(1 !) &$0 -it decomposition' K 1 forms of waves &sawtooth, triangle, rectangle pulse width modulation , &white' noise %rush' K @ amplitude modulator, until 15 d-

K K K K K K K

@ envelope generators Synchroni ation of the oscillators .ing modulation :rogrammable filters &lowpass, bandpass, highpass, notch filterL' Iolume into $0 steps * A%2(converter &5 bit, low frequency, used for reading paddle input' .andom generator

Second generation$
The second generation then is the li!es of the playstation $ and playstation *. .<rom the late

$>>+s game music moved to recorded trac!s on 32.

-ut

memory based audio systems were not capable of reproducing full length high quality music.

2uring the >+s the soundtrac! of a game was played bac! exactly as an ordinary audio cd would be. This is the time when so called Gaudio enginesG began to appear. An audio engine, as the term is used today, is really an elaborate buering and memory management system. ;arly audio engines did not cater for streaming music so the playbac! of game music relied on a direct connection between the 32(.?4 and the sound card. Mow, a powerful game console or :3 can load several minutes of audio into memory in a second, replay hundreds of channels simultaneously from .A4 or stream and mix many audio channels from secondary storage using 24A. This is partly due to the advantages of compressed audio li!e <LA3, 4:@ and Iorbis and $1 hardware decompression, but primarily its a simple function of improvements in system power.

The sound design is still limited by two main factorsJ there is a little percentage of the processing power which can be used by sound real time effects, moreover the .A4 allocated to samples is still limited and you end up with a mix of recorded music treated as a continuous stream in non interactive animations or dialogues, recorded short loops used in the ambiance music, recorded or generated foley effects with a very simple real time treatment. ,ames li!e ,ran Turismo @ and Silent )ill * give interesting examples of several !inds of sound design in this context. The

#hird generation$
The third version of technology that started to be used in games on the latest &*++*' :3 generation. In this cases there is much more power to sound synthesis and as a result there is a trend to replace a part of recorded by real time generated sounds and music. This will allow, for example, altering voices or foley effects according to the game context.

Games that broke new ground$

<diting and post production effects$

So with all this power available to us to ma!e your games today let us loo! at some of the options available to us when we are editing or compiling your sound file.

A digital audio wor!station &2A/'J

This is an electronic system designed solely or primarily for recording, editing and playing bac! digital audio. 2A/s were originally tape(less, microprocessor(based systems such as the Synclavier. 4odern 2A/s are software running on computers with audio interface hardware. 3ommon examples are reaper and audacity.

R<%)<R &Rapid Environment for Audio Production, Engineering, and Recording' is a digital audio wor!station created by 3oc!os.

,ame music and sounds are created in several ways, for example some games use a technique !nown as <oley art, which is the manual creation of sounds for things such as films and video games, where as others "ust use pre manufactured sound libraries that they "ust gather.

<oley artistryJ

The <oley technique are named after Nac! <oley, a sound editor at Bniversal Studios. <oley effects are sound effects added to the film during post production &after the shooting stops'. They include sounds such as footsteps, clothes rustling, etc.

<oley artists match live sound effects with the action of the picture. The sound effects are laid =manually= and not cut in with film. <oleying is an excellent means of supplying the subtle sounds that production mi!es often miss. The rustling of clothing and a squea! of a saddle when a rider mounts his horse give a scene a touch of realism that is difficult to provide using other effects methods. A great example and visual to picture when thin!ing of how a foley artist wor!s is to consider how a steamy sex scene was probably created by a foley artist ma!ing dispassionate love to his or her own wrist.The good <oley artist must =become= the actor with whom they are syncing effects or the sounds will lac! the necessary realism to be convincing.

Sound libraries$
A sound library or sample library is a collection of digital sound recordings.!nown as samples . The sound files are loaded into a sampler ( either hardware or computer(based ( which is then used to create music. Sample libraries appear in a variety of forms. 4any people still use this method to source their files while other would simple combine their own sound library from the files they have made themselves using all the above techniques.

'ile storage and compression$

?nce we have a our files no matter how the sound is created or stored it needs to have its own file format before it can be used or edited on a computer. This data can be stored uncompressed, or compressed to reduce the file si e.

=ncompressed audio formats> such as ?%@$

Bncompressed audio files are the most accurate digital representation of a soundwave, but can also be the most resource(intensive method of recording and storing digital audio, both in terms of storage and management. ;xample include ?%@ and AI<<.

?%@A /aveform Audio <ile <ormat is a 4icrosoft and I-4 audio file format standard for storing
an audio bitstream on :3s.

:ompressed formats with lossless compression> such as '/%:$

Lossless compressions are generally based on redundancy reduction and typically concentrate on more efficient ways of encoding data. The main thing about lossless compression is that no information is lost in the process. It wor!s similar to how a Oip wor!s. The common .flac format is an example of lossless compression.

'/%:A <LA3 stands for <ree Lossless Audio 3odec, an audio format similar to 4:@, but
lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in '/%: without any loss in quality.

:ompressed formats with lossy compression> such as 4)6$

Lossy compressions are based on irrelevancy reduction strategies but will usually also employ some redundancy strategies. Lossy compressions transform and simplify the media information in a way that gives much larger reductions in file si e than lossless compressions. A typical lossless compression can be expected to cut file si es down to three quarters or two thirds of the original. In contrast, a lossy compression can reduce the file si e to as little as $P of the original. The tradeoff, however, is that a lossy compression is by definition irreversible ( it permanently disposes of information. A common example is an 4)6.

4)6A4:@ is an audio(specific format that was designed by the 4oving :icture ;xperts ,roup
&4:;,' as part of its 4:;,($ standard and later extended in 4:;,(* standard.

)sychology of sound

The psychology of sound in games is the ability of sound to trigger an emotive response of the gamer. It is often used to set the mood in the game.A good music score or some very well placed effects can ma!e or brea! a game. Sound has become an integral part of how we connect with the character that we are controlling. It draws us into the story. It enables us to hear what the character hears.

4usic as communicationJ In computer games music serves as an important component of sound that includes the music score, ambient sound and sound effects.

)orror games are a good example of sound setting the mood and atmosphere. These tend to have a lot of slow low end rumbles to set the scene and help to build up the atmosphere and tension. This can then be compared to films that would use the same approach li!e the classic Alfred )itchcoc! movie :sycho. In this movie here is a scene where a woman is stabbed in the shower by a !nife the sound is very minimal as it is "ust the sound of the shower until the !iller comes into the room and pulls bac! the shower curtain and raises the !nife, then as soon as the !nife is brought down the sound changes dramatically to this high pitched sound that repeats every time the !nife is brought down again. A very similar method is used in the Q Silent )ill Q titles where you are alone wal!ing through a corridor, you enter a loc!er room, the room is dar! and there is only the sound of your footsteps. As you search the loc!ers only a gentle squea! but then a sudden noise and a cat "umps from thee loc!er to scare the player. The use of quiet in both film and games then a sudden "olt wor!s great in this horror genre.

A recent survey done o the website httpJ%%scienceblogs.com% on the impact of music running in the bac!round of a game was very interesting in the detail it revealed. They had volunteers play three different segments from The Lord of the .ingsJ The Two Towers, either with or without the music that was composed by )oward Shore to accompany the game. A third group listened to the music alone.

.atings were made using a slider on the computer monitor, and then converted into a numerical scale ranging from + to $++. )ere we see that the level of annoyance depends not only on whether the music was being played along with the game, but also on the particular segment of the game. ;ach game segment had different music, presumably designed to enhance the experience, but in the QAmon )enG segment, players found the game more annoying with the music than without, while in the other two segments, the non(musical versions were more annoying. 3uriously &and probably coincidentally', the annoyance ratings for the music alone were statistically indistinguishable from annoyance ratings for game played without music.

4ales rated the game as significantly less QdangerousG when music was not being played compared to when music was played, but women found it equally dangerous in either case. So at least along this dimension, music matters much more for men than for women.

:onclusion$
After discussing all the theory of sound and the various ways to capture edit and store sound we can as! a simple question. Is sound really that important to a gameL The answer for me is clearly the impact of music on the gaming experience is complex and is something which needs to be chosen very carefully during game design. /ith all of this in mind however this evolution is still limited by compatibility goals &a game is designed for several platforms and not only the most powerful :3', the lac! of investment for sounds in game production, and the lac! of interactive composition tools and good game sound engines.