Moritz P.G. Katz

Hello,

Great thing about your music is that it's always got its own kinda Calum-vibe to it.
I agree with everything that's been said, nice tracks!

Cheers,
Moritz

Hello,

Your second version is much better sound-wise!

In my ears, it still lacks the "Oomph" you're aiming for, though - for a number of reasons, including sound choice, arrangement and overall suspense and dynamics.

What usually helps me in those cases is doing an A-B comparison with a track that goes in a similar direction. Ask yourself these questions:
- Are my synth and drum sounds up to par?
- How did the other producer arrange the track to make it sound gripping and dynamic?
- Am I doing too much at some point in the track? Are sounds competing for attention?

Try not to apply compression and EQ willy-nilly, read up on some stuff and give it an almost engineering-like approach, at least for practice.
For example, a lot of "Thump" and "Oomph" can be achieved by applying some good old side-chain compression. (Synths getting ducked by the kick)
Try to use sound shaping tools in moderation, especially if you're not too sure what you're doing yet. If the EQs on all of your tracks look like roller coaster rides, you've probably made the wrong timbre and arrangement choices to begin with. By the way, how is your monitoring situation? Can you actually check the low frequencies reliably?

If terms come up that you don't understand - like triplets and shuffle - Google those, try to apply them to something you're working on, and come back with more specific questions.

In any case, thanks for sharing and being open to feedback!

Cheers,
Moritz

Good going, Nate! Hope we can keep things fun and fair on this board!

Cheers,
Moritz

Hey Ollie,

I'm looking for any help regarding how the acoustic behaviors of sound in the real world are emulated in 3D game environments.  How much of an understanding of reverb is required when designing sound for games?  Does a sound designer ever consider the inverse square law when creating attenuation?

As specialized as game audio may seem, I think people still have very varying focuses.
No doubt there are people whose job it is to consider acoustic details, outlining a realistic audio environment, but that's probably more in the hands of audio programmers. Most people doing the creative work are using tools already fit for the job, especially nowadays: from algorithmic and impulse response reverb AUs/VSTs/RTASs over audio middleware like FMOD or Wwise to dedicated audio engines.

And while I've studied that stuff for a few semesters ("systematic musicology" is what they call it over here), rare is the case where I have to pull out the old calculator to make things sound the way I want them to sound, and I'm very very glad about that.
On the other hand, knowing some basic acoustics never hurt either, even if it's just to set up a proper monitoring environment or to get a good starting point when choosing and positioning microphones in the studio.

But I can only speak for myself, really. Hope it helped though?

Cheers,
Moritz

Hey Nate,

Nice work, the style you chose really fits the art!

As a really small point of critique, I think you went just a tiny bit over the top with the music in the rather whimsical/scary/chaotic part starting at about 0:42 and lasting until 01:15 - it feels out of balance with the sound design and altogether a bit "too much" to me. Might just be my personal taste, though!

Good to know it's OK to share non-game music on here by the way, I'm producing music for a similar animated short soon, and I'd love to get some feedback on that as soon as it's ready.

Anyway, thanks for sharing!

Cheers,
Moritz