Interview: Assaf Gavron and Oosh Adar of Filter Sound

Gama Network Presents:

Interview: Assaf Gavron and Oosh Adar of Filter Sound
By Aaron Marks
Gamasutra
December 9, 1999
URL: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19991209/marks_01.htm

I must admit, in my travels throughout the gaming industry, I meet some very interesting personalities. These two have, by far, won me over as an engaging and distinctive pair of musicians and sound designers. Working as a dynamic duo, their company, Filter Sound in Tel Aviv, Israel has furnished sound for 7 game projects including Israeli Air Force (IAF) (Electronic Arts, International), USAF (Electronic Arts, International), Soap Opera (Goshen, Israel) and Citycrime (Goshen, Israel) and many other multimedia and musical projects. Their 'can do' attitude and motivation to go to the ends of the earth for great sound has won them several industry accolades. They are hard working and enjoy the creative process. It definitely shows.

I originally ran into them during production of EA's USAF several months back and keep in touch with them often to trade secrets. For a change of pace to my series of interviews, I thought I'd share these two creative beings with you and give a glimpse to what game audio production is like in other parts of the world.

How is your business, Filter Sound, set up?

It's just the two of us. We do everything, from recording natural noises for FX to composing music and also going to the post office and bank. Our studio is in the house of Oosh, and our office is in the house of Assaf.

What is a typical workday for you? Any specific times you take care of the business side of things and creating?

No typical workday, no specific times. It's a little chaotic over here.

What are your current projects?

Currently we are finishing Citycrime for a small Israeli company, intended only for the local market, and Oosh was busy releasing and doing PR for his album. We have decided to slow down a little for the year 2000. Oosh is taking a year off and will wander the Far East and Assaf will continue working on a smaller scale.

Where did it all start for you guys musically and did that naturally lead you to sound design?

We started as musicians. Oosh was a member of "The Top Hat Carriers" - a successful rock group in the late 80s and later an independent electronic musician. Assaf is still a member of "The Hoof and Mouth" - another successful rock group. These are the roots of our sound library. As both of us started to turn more and more into electronic music during the 90's, we discovered the world of sampling, FX and sound manipulation. As a production team, we produced several albums in the last few years, for other artists as well as for ourselves. Oosh has just released in October, his latest album, titled HER. Assaf has studied Multimedia at the Vancouver Film School in 1997.

What influenced you to start doing games?

It happened by accident. We were never very much into computer games, when we grew up, we loved Atari, but we didn't follow from there, but one day, a good friend of ours asked for help. He was serving in a very top secret unit in the military and said he needed a few, very specific sound effects for some project he was working on. At the time we were recording an ambient album and were exploring field recordings with our DAT machine. Unfortunately, we can't tell you what the project was our friend was working on and that's because of the simple fact that we ourselves don't have a clue. But the result of it was that he recommended us to a friend of his who works at a company named Pixel, which is one of the companies that creates flight simulators for EA. By the way, Pixel is managed and staffed mainly by Israeli Air Force pilots.

Do you mainly deal with European or Israeli game companies?

Mainly Israeli. The hi-tech market here is very fast growing and successful and there is a lot of demand.

What game platforms to you generally develop for?

Mainly for PC.

Do you have a particular business philosophy that you adhere to?

Our philosophy is total immersion in the project. That means that we can spend three days out on the field recording jet engines or strange industrial noises without much sleep. For example, in Citycrime, which is not out yet, we had to record police patrol speaker announcements. The police didn't want to co-operate with us, so we had to watch and record a patrol for a whole night, without them noticing us.

How does the score or sound effects normally start for you?

When Sergio Leone asked Enio Moriccone to compose the soundtrack for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Moriccone agreed, but didn't watch even one frame of the movie. The imagination is the most powerful tool. We usually meet the game producers, understand what the games are about, and then start working.

What do you normally base your musical ideas on?

Mainly based on story-board and the time table of events in the story. We create basic pieces, which are long and flexible enough, so we could edit them according to the specific requirements of each part of the game on a red book basis.


EA's Israeli Air Force was Filter Sounds' first air simulation project

Do you have a personal sound effects approach?

Generally, our philosophy is not realistic. We use realistic material in order to create the "correct" feeling in the player, but we take it two steps further into the wild imagination. We believe that human-computer interaction is essentially a fantasy, it is never realistic. It is based on associations and sensory reactions. But at the same time, it is important to us that the sound will contain in it's core, a "true" sound that relates to the object.

We should mention that sometimes, a gun sound is simply a gun sound and nothing else.

What is your method for creating sound effects?

It changes. When looking for an jet air-brake sound for USAF, for example, we searched for many days after any sound that had an air-pressure element to it. We recorded a fire extinguisher, wind blowing through a car window in high speed, and a sample from an old recording, that we don't even know of what it was. We used all of those in the creation of our air-brake.

That's an example of one sound. Others are developed much differently, depending on what we need.

Are there any secrets to your creativity?

Yes.

You funny. Which effects libraries do you use? Have you developed your own or do you plan to?

We are developing our library all the time but don't have any current plans to release it. About once every month we take all the DAT tapes we recorded that month and try to burn CD's in a logical order and themes. When we can't get our own sound, we use the common libraries such as The Hollywood Edge.

Do you have any interesting stories to share about how a particular sound effect was created?

In flight simulations there is alot of mid frequency activity in the cockpit. Most of those sounds are being processed by filters and a bit of distortion. We had to create a "G" effect (heavy breathing in a "over G" situation) that needed to sound like you were hearing yourself over the headphones, the sound being in the same mid-range area. We didn't want to repeat the same software treatment as in the radio connection because it's a bit different and it's better to avoid a crunchy mid range overload. We decided to record it live.

Oosh made a heavy breathing session and listened to it. It sounded oddly like phone sex. Every detail of the breathing was so clear and it was not even sexy, it was dirty, full of "aahhcchh's" and "ffff's". There was nobody else around to replace him except his girlfriend and we all know that fighter pilots are males. Staying away from the mic and other usual tricks didn't work either, it was too dynamic no matter what we tried. So, we closed the mic in the closet to imitate claustrophobic air pressure ambience and brought a long plastic tube (1 1\2 meters) and connected it to the mic. The plastic tube acts as a natural band pass that creates the illusion of distance. Now, if someone was looking through the window it looked dirty but sounded perfect. The breathing was far away but still close and it sounded filtered but not software generated. The "resample" to 22.50 plus some fine tuning tricks made it sound right.


Filter Sounds' effects can also be heard in EA's USAF

How do you ensure consistency throughout the entire project?

A few ways: we try to work on a project in one go and not in parts. When recording, we also try to finish in one or few sessions, with the same recorder, microphone etc. For each project we create different set of master effects, and we batch-process all the sound through them. We also create psycho-acoustic backgrounds that are taking place in each sound effect. That gives the player an unconscious feeling of the game.

What do you see as the best type of relationship between the audio team and the developer/publisher?

Maintain as much independence as you can, but always remember - they are the creators of the whole project, and they pay your rent. We leave the "total-control" attitude for our own musical projects.

What musical or sound effects considerations should developers/publishers be concerned with when hiring composers and sound designers?

They should take sound as top priority! They should think about it in the early stages of the project and not in the last minute as happened to us in the past. Hire your people and give them a wide time table and involve them in the creative process. Some ideas cannot be created without co-operation of the different creative minds of a project.

What are your hopes for future game music and sound?

First, we would like to see sound and music getting more focus in today's computer games. We would like to see games that revolve around the sounds and the music as much as they depend on the visuals. We feel that music doesn't get enough credit or money. Our feeling is that everyone is after total-realism like in the sports games. We think that as in the video-clip world, games should remain a fantasy, but we fear this attitude might be too romantic for the future. Also, Internet in obviously turning into a huge market for sound environments.

Do you have any other business or personal ventures outside of games?

Assaf is a writer. An anthology of short stories by young Israeli writers, including himself, that he edited was published a couple of months ago and is currently on the best-seller lists in Israel.

Oosh is a recording artist and a producer and just released his debut solo album. It is mainly European oriented techno, kind of eclectic, you can find electrical 80's elements in it as well. This electronic music is what introduced me the world of sound creation. Many musicians in this territory are doing music for multimedia and games because it's a hard world to part in financially.

Are there any TV or film aspirations?

Not at this stage. Our hands are too full with games and the internet at the moment.

What has been your favorite project thus far?

Every time we move into a new area it is exciting and thrilling. The first flight simulator (IAF) was a great experience. We had an almost impossible deadline and worked for weeks around the clock. Also, the post-production process was made in a very unconventional way. Another fun project was Citycrime. That included crazy assignments in parts of Tel Aviv that we didn't know.

Besides wandering the streets of Tel Aviv, what do you guys do for fun?

Both of us are semi-professional backgammon players. Actually, we met in an important championship in the Old City of Jerusalem 8 years ago. We still play all the time. This is the best way to clear the mind in breaks between sessions. In that championship, Assaf won the bronze medal.

You can reach Filter Sounds at mouth@netvision.net.il

Aaron Marks, when not interviewing game composers and sound designers, is actually one himself as the proprietor of On Your Mark Music Productions (http://members.aol.com/aBmajor). He can be reached at aBmajor@aol.com.