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Buggo: Hi Glenn, thanks so much for doing this interview with me! I’m going to be incorporating some community questions as well as some of my own. Can you tell us what your job title is at Relic and describe what your job is?

Glenn: My position at Relic is Audio Lead. My job is to manage the entire audio portion of a project. This includes sfx, speech and music. I work with on staff and external sound designers, editors, composers and programmers. During the initial stages of a project, there isn’t usually an audio “team”, it’s pretty much just the lead. At that stage a lot of planning takes place, figuring out what resources will be needed, who’s going to do what etc. Ideas get proven out through prototypes. As production ramps up, the audio team increases in size. I do a lot of sound design and implementation myself. Music and most of the editing is for the most part done externally.

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Buggo: How did you get into the field and this job?

Glenn: I was working at pro audio store as a sales rep in the mid 90’s. We dealt with most of the big studios in town including quite a few game companies. I got into a conversation with a guy from Radical Entertainment one day and he said I should send in a demo of some of the music I write. So I did, and they called me in and offered me a job as a sound designer, explaining that they had no job opening for a composer, but that I could work into that role. I did eventually do some music in a few games, but felt far more drawn to the sound design and implementation side of things. Implementing sound in a game is a lot like working with a very complex synthesizer. And what’s really neat in this case, is that the synth gets custom made for you, and you get to work with the programmers who make it. If you want some new feature, you just talk with the right programmers, and they put it in there for you. For me, most of the fun is getting to work with the implementation tools that allow us to create really complex interactions between game variables and how sound is affected. As for getting this job, I checked the Relic job board every once in a while, as they made cooler games than anyone else in Vancouver. The instant I saw a sound design position, I pounced on it, and got the job.

Buggo: They really shouldn’t have let you in here. So did you buy/”borrow” any cool equipment from your first job? :)

Glenn: I didn’t buy anything from them, but definitely borrowed stuff from time to time. We had some pretty cool toys over there, as all music there was created in house. My favourite piece of gear there was an old Roland Jupiter 8, a monster of a synth that probably weighs close to 100 pounds. It made all kinds of juicy analog madness that I ended up using in some of my own tracks. There was also a Waldorf Microwave XT there which I used all the time, especially for any synth related fx in games. When something can be created with a synth, I always try to create it myself from scratch, not using any sound libraries. That part of audio creation is just too much fun to skip.

Buggo: Sweet! So what projects have you done at Relic in the past? What are you working on now?

Glenn: I started out here on The Outfit, and ended up being the Audio Lead on that project. I was hired with about 6 months left in production, with not much audio done yet, so it was quite the task to get everything in. I did the majority of the sound design in house. We contracted out Tony Gronick (who now works on staff here at Relic) to do quite a bit of sound design externally, and our Audio Director (Jenn Lewis) managed all of the NIS sequences so I could concentrate on the in game stuff. Doing that game was exciting, as it was my first combat game, but also a little disappointing because there just wasn’t enough time to do any really amazing stuff with sound.

After that, with about 6 months left in the Company of Heroes project, it became clear that sound was pretty far behind, and I was brought over to help out with sound design. On that project there were 4 guys who were just handling speech implementation, which goes to show just how complex speech is in COH. I was pretty much the only one doing sound design, and John Tennant (now Audio Lead on Opposing Fronts) and I handled most of the implementation, along with Crispin Hands (COH Audio Lead). On that project I did the sound design and implementation for pretty much all the vehicles, machine guns, rifles, building builds and production sfx, ambiences, and my favourite by far, the V1 Rocket. I also implemented the distance effects that were applied to the machine guns. John Tennant did the distance effects for the cannons and other larger weapons. This project was great because we had so many audio resources working on it, that there was lots we could do. We also had a mad psycho of an Audio Lead in Crispin who wanted to do everything you could possibly dream of (and then more). So John and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which portion of Crispin’s brilliant ideas would have the most impact. We spent a lot of time in the COH audio room arguing and throwing food at each other over which features would get in. That game was by far, the most fun I’ve ever had on a project.

As for what I’m working on right now? Sorry, it’s a big secret, can’t tell you. Too bad.

Buggo: I know, I can’t wait to tell the community about that project! Anyway, in other news… what kind of programs do you use at work?

Glenn: I work on both a Mac and a PC here. I use the Mac anytime I’m doing multi-track audio design, which I do on Pro Tools. When I’m just editing individual tracks, I usually use Sound Forge on the PC. I have the same plug-ins on both the Mac and the PC. My favourites are the Izotope plugins (ie: ozone, spectron, and trash). I find I can do pretty much anything with these. I use the waves renaissance compressor quite a bit, though I’m finding I go to the Digidesign Smack compressor much more now. I have a 5.1 setup here with Alesis Monitor One mkIIs (I’ve been using the monitor ones for over ten years now and know their sound inside and out, so I have no desire to switch). I also have a Yamaha sub which fills in the low end. When making sfx with synths, I really like the G-Force Imposcar, Minimonsta and Oddity, though the Imposcar is by far the best one. It’s great for synthetic ambiences and drones, crazy engine sounds, special effects etc .

Buggo: Here’s a question from PULSTAR in the community: “One of the things I enjoy about Company of Heroes is the rich, situationally-appropriate environmental audio (distant gunfire when your troops are engaging the enemy, for example). Assuming this is dynamic - which I think it is - how difficult was it to record, and to implement?”

Glenn: Yes those environmental effects are dynamic, and are probably one of the most successful audio features on Company of Heroes. Almost every review I read mentioned them, which was so exciting to see, because audio so often get left out of reviews. There are two types of distance effects going on there. One was created by John Tennant, which was used on the cannons, artillery etc. In this case, two sounds were used, a distant cannon sound, which was common to all the large guns, and then the actual sound of the gun. Both sounds were hooked up to each large gun, with distance effects that cross-faded the two sounds at about 150m away. This is the first part of the effect. If this was all that was used, it would have been pretty obvious when the cross-fading took place, so there’s also quite a bit going on with the main gun sound to make it sound closer to the distance sound as the user gets further away from it. Multiple EQs are used to dull the sound as it gets further away, and we usually put some distortion on when you get really close up to it. The way this works, is we go into our game audio tool, and just draw the relationship between the different EQ bands, and the distance of the object from the camera, in a graph. We then go into the game, spawn the right gun, set it to fire, and then take the camera far away. As the sound is playing in the game, we can at the same time adjust the curves so that the transitions sound natural and smooth.

The other distance effects were the ones used on hand held guns, which I did. I had a lot of trouble getting it to sound good, until Crispin came in with Band of Brothers one day and played me some machine guns in the distance (during one of the forest scenes). I then kept that sound in my head and used a bandpass EQ filter to create the effect over a distance of about 200 metres. So with the machine guns, there’s no secondary sound, it’s just the original sfx getting modulated by EQ over distance. I also did the implementation on the snipers, which is pretty much the same as what John did with the cannon distance effects. A second sound was used, EQ was applied to the original sound to get it close to that second distance sound, and at some point, the two start to cross-fade over about 50 metres or so.

Buggo: What’s the process for making custom sounds from scratch? How often do you buy sound files vs. building it from scratch?

Glenn: I’ll start by downloading YouTube videos of the model of weapon, object or vehicle I’m doing the sound for. Usually it’s a pretty bad recording, but I can get the idea of the type of the sound. I’ll then go into our various sound libraries and pick out a bunch of sounds that have similar qualities. After I’ve picked out lots of stuff from the libraries, I’ll start bringing them into Pro Tools to create the final sound that’ll get put into the game. I might take just the attack from one gun, just the highs from another, on another I’ll filter out everything except the lows etc. So while I’m using libraries to make the final sounds, pretty much nothing stock gets into the game.

With weapons like machine guns, individual shots are created, and then we set the rate of fire in our sound tool (which then triggers the sounds within a container randomly at the desired rate of fire). With vehicles, the sound you hear is really shaped by the sound tool. The engines are made up of multiple elements, usually 2 main engine loops (low and hi), a load loop (for when they’re going up an incline), a rumble loop, idle loop, track loop, suspension rattles (usually two kinds, hi and lo) gear shifts and turrets etc. These sounds change dynamically based on various game variables, such as the velocity of the vehicle, the RPM value, the gear the vehicle is in, the surface being traveled on etc. Various effects are mapped to each sound based on the values of these variables. So EQs change the engine to get brighter as it gets faster. The rumble, tracks and surface loops all come up in volume as speed increases. When the vehicle start to go up a hill, we’ll pitch all the engine sounds down and then bring up the volume of the load loop (whining engine sound) which makes it sound like the engines are stressing out. Each individual loop is constructed in Pro Tools from multiple sound sources, all from libraries. So much has already been recorded in libraries that give you a good starting point, that for the most part it’s not necessary to go out and record custom stuff, unless it’s a sound that could be done way better that way, or one you just can’t find in the libraries.

Buggo: How big is your sound library?

Glenn: Well there are the stock libraries which we pull a lot of material from to make sounds. I’d say we have about 30 separate libraries here, totaling probably 300-400 CDs. I’ve also got my own library of sounds. Whenever I make sounds, I usually make about 10 for every one I end up using. So anything else goes into my library. I have no idea how big it is now. Maybe 100 gigs or so. It’s spread out all over the place so it’s hard to tell.

Buggo: What is working at Relic like? What are the people like?

Glenn: Relic is awesome. People here like to have fun. They don’t work 18 hours a day all the time (except when finalling a project), so they actually have lives. Actually Relic has some of the craziest people I’ve ever worked with, and that’s a good thing.

Buggo: What do you typically do for breaks when you’re not working?

Glenn: Play Foosball, Pool, and if I’ve got a little extra energy I’ll try running around the office jumping and waving my arms in the air while making strange animal sounds.

Buggo: Haha yeah I’ve seen and heard that before. Here’s a question from Riess: “Do you end up imitating sounds with your mouth a lot, for example when communicating how exactly something should sound?”

Glenn: Sure, unless there’s a sound readily accessible that’s close to what I’m thinking of. It’s pretty easy to mimic the quality of the sound you’re going for by vocalizing it. Usually though, it’s just other sound designers that you do this with, because they figure out what you’re thinking about. With people not in sound, it’s always more effective to just spend 10 minutes creating the sound you’re talking about, otherwise they’ll just end up thinking that the awful sound that’s coming from your mouth is exactly what you want it to sound like. But mostly I like to snort like a pig and eek like a monkey when I’m kicking your butt at foosball Buggo.

Buggo: As if you ever beat Hubbard and I. What’s the coolest sound you’ve ever recorded?

Glenn: I’d say the V1 Rocket in Company of Heroes is my favourite sound (at least that I can think of). I wasn’t really understanding why it was such a big deal, but JJ (John Johnson, producer of COH) came in a said that it was one of the most important sfx in the game, and that when he heard it, he wanted to @##$ his pants. I spent way too much time on that sound, and every time I played it for JJ he said it wasn’t having the desired effect, until one day I asked him to come in and have a listen. He started to shake and said he was #$%&ing his pants, so I knew he was happy. The Nazis often used sound as a tool of terror (MG42, V1, butterfly bombs), and the V1 had the most terrifying sound of all of them. Funny thing is, the most terrifying part of that sound was actually a defect in the rocket. When it tilted down far enough during its descent, the fuel would go to the front, starving the rocket. So when people heard a V1 coming, as soon as it went silent they knew they had about 3 seconds before chaos erupted.

Buggo: Any last words for the community?

Glenn: It’s great to see such interest in the audio portion of what we do at Relic. After you put that post up on the forum, it was amazing to see how many questions came in so quickly.

Buggo: Thanks Glenn, and thanks to everyone for reading this and for the questions from the community!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.