An Interview with Darryl Duncan

What about sound effects? What type of gear do you use there?

We try to get as much live sound effects as possible, as opposed to relying solely on libraries. We use a Sony TCD-10 portable DAT recorder with Sony Stereo Mics to capture as much live location elements as possible. Of course, this also has a lot to do with the budget—I mean, it's not like we can fly to South America to capture a rain forest, but we definitely try to do things that can be done in a local field or park. I can often get a lot of what I'm after with what we like to call G/F, "Garage Foley". Often times there are items in the average garage that are the perfect basis for some pretty bizarre and unique creations. Once we get what we're after we mangle, contort and distort the sound effects in ProTools using a variety of plug-ins and then output a number of versions of the specific sound effects. We also use the Kurzweil or our Triton to work with the samples that need to be laid out across the keyboard chromatically.

When it comes to vocal audio, we love to do a lot of that ourselves whenever possible. Some of the creatures we created for Ultima Online actually started out as ramblings from me or my staff and even more surprising is the fact that a few of the animals in Microsoft's Zoo were created by us humans! And nope, we ain't telling which ones! We have some ProTools plug-ins that are absolutely amazing at contorting the human voice in any direction. I actually used my 5-year-old son as one of the creature voices in Ultima Online, ran him thru a few complex plug-ins and the results were horrifying and simply amazing. We used several other tricks for some of those creature effects—but I can't give away trade secrets, now can I?

Explain your thought process for creating sound effects.

Just like for scoring, we get this from as much visual assets the developer can provide. Everything we come up with is dictated by a creatures looks or habits. If he is a seven foot, green, slobbering, drooling, sloth-footed, enforcer type, with an iron-plated uniform on, then once can imagine exactly what this creature would walk like, talk like and smell like. As you can imagine, the artists' renderings do a lot to tell us just how a creature should sound. The trick is making sure that several dozen creatures are all audibly true to their look but don't sound like each other. This is probably the most difficult task.

Do you have a personal sound effects philosophy which guides you?

Well, "over the top" or "realistic" is usually mandated by the developer hiring us and the type of game. Personally I like to go for realism. This was actually one of the issues that arose while I was doing John Madden Football for EA. When I first started with EA doing Madden 98, realism was the goal, but over the next two games the push was for a more "over the top" sounds. So, with Madden 99 and 2000 the goal was to have Madden sound a bit more like NFL Blitz with the exaggerated sound effects. Some games must maintain the realistic approach, but it depends on the desires of the production team. Often, since the visuals in most games are more "over the top" than realistic, it's a good thing if the audio is the same. I mean, even your complete simulation games should have an element of "over the top," because nothing adds to the gaming experience more than completely immersive and even exaggerated audio.

What considerations do you have for creating ambiance?

Our ambient creations are the most complex because we don't like to rely solely on library loops. There are not that many when it comes to ambientscapes, and those that do exist are probably used by many. We approach it with a "layer it" mentality. The fun part is that there is no reference for an ambient effect for a fantasy, sci-fi or RPG game. We don't like to assume the obvious, since most of the places these artist create are completely fictional and artificial—why use the typical outdoor or swamp sound effects? We try to create an ambiance that is as unique as the visual atmosphere created by the artists. So, we do a lot of layering, and again rely heavily on the many useful plug-ins available to us to create very special and one-of-a-kind atmospheres.

What has been your favorite project?

I'd have to say my favorite project was scoring all of the cinematics in Die Hard Trilogy 2. I had complete creative freedom, as I created the music and sound effects for the 22 cinematics of this game. There was a lot of shooting, and cars skids, and pure action so it was fun to get a silent movie and give it audio life! Scoring cinematics is definitely one of our favorite types of projects to do. I also like creating the Tribal, Jungle like music for the Microsoft Zoo project.

What game platforms do you generally develop for?

Well, what we develop for and what we prefer to develop for are two different answers. We develop for all game platforms, but our favorites are the PC and the newer platform systems like the PS2, of course. This is because they are far less restrictive than some of the older platform systems. We consider audio development on the N64 a frustrating ordeal and only consider it on a case-by-case basis. With the dawn of the newer systems, we are confident that the "nightmare" boxes will soon be a thing of the past. Most of our projects thus far have been PSX, PSX2 and PC titles, but that is beginning to change with the X Box and Game Cube stuff around the corner.

Where do you see game music and sound headed in the future?

Clearly we are headed to full bandwidth 16 bit, 44 kHz music and sound effects in games, but this is still just a little ways off yet. I think that full surround sound in games will grow even greater and there will be little or no limitations of sound designers in the coming years. I also predict, that there will be a software package that will allow game developers to put custom, original music in their game—not needing musicians or sound designers at all. A package, similar to Acid, that will allow developers with little or no musical ability to create the audio for their games. Just key in a few parameters, length of music, style, tempo, instrumentation, mood, etc. and boom! the program spits out a license-free piece of music for the game! Now, if someone is reading this and flies with this idea I want my cut!

What impact will the Grammy Awards have on game scores now that they are eligible to win?

Oh, now this is the fun part. We all want to be recognized for our work and there is no better way to recognized a musical work other than a Grammy. I think this is wonderful! Although the technical achievements should get awarded too because often they are amazing in terms of how much interactive audio can be squeezed into 500K of available audio RAM. Anyhow, I think the Grammy is great and I'm sure game composers will be thinking of this as they work on that epic score! I know I will.

Do you have any advice for current and future game composers and sound designers?

I often get demos and inquiries from aspiring game music composers and the mistake that most of them make is that they prepare their demo primarily in the style of music they personally enjoy. I tell them that to attract attention in this industry you need to show extreme versatility in the styles of music you create. I don't know too many developers/publishers that only develop one type of game. One must learn to be proficient and convincing, even in styles that they may not particularly like. It is this versatility that will catch the ears of the decision makers. Also, and as with every industry, be persistent and do not give up even after multiple rejections. Just continue to perfect your skill and you will ultimately get the attention you are after. Lastly—and I tell this to all aspiring composers—knowing how to compose good game music is one thing, but if you want to truly step into this with the potential for a six figure salary, learn programming also. It will greatly increase your worth in this industry and quadruple the amount of opportunities available to you.

Is that such an advantage for the sound guy—to know how to program?

Well, from a career standpoint, a "sound designer/composer" who is also a hard-core coder literally doubles his worth in this industry. A composer/sound designer/programmer is considered one of the Holy Grails in the game industry. But this species is created more from programmers who moonlight as musicians more so than musicians who learn how to program. One transformation is probably a lot easier than the other. If I ever had the time, that is one thing that is on my list: to learn one of the top programming languages. But, for now we are content with leaving the coding to the coders and doing what we do as good as it can be done.

What's your involvement programming for games?

None! We are not code guys in any way—although the sound tools that come with the console systems might make someone feel like he's a programmer. We create the content and let the code guys implement it into the games.

What are your other business ventures outside of games?

We have also been involved in the development of audio for the Internet. We recently supplied the sound effects for Kraft Foods new Macaroni and Cheese Children's web site (www.thecheesiest.com) and we are also working with one Chicago's (and the world's) biggest advertising agencies to provide the music to some of their TV and radio ad campaigns in development. Since my background is as a songwriter and lyricist, we feel we would do quite well in the jingle and advertising industry. So far things are going well as we get more involved into that side of the industry.

Do you have any TV or Film aspirations as far as audio is concerned?

Yes, definitely. When I was signed as a staff songwriter in LA for many years I had my work featured in a couple of big movies, like Police Academy 4 and Revenge of the Nerds, but that was simply having my songs placed in the movie—it wasn't scoring the soundtrack. As a company we would like to someday transition into scoring music for feature films. We know this is a long road, but as we continue to grow we feel that the opportunities for this will increase.

What do you do for fun now that your hobbies have become your job?

Well, I would have to say it's still music. I am still a mainstream songwriter/producer and I still work with a lot of artist in the mainstream music industry. I have songs on the latest albums of Jeffrey Osborne, Dawnn Lewis and a couple of soon to be released major album projects. I am also negotiating a first refusal contract deal with a major publisher to listen to my new material, so I'm still in the thick of my songwriting and will always be a songwriter first. When I'm not creating game music or sound effects, I'm writing pop or R&B songs. It's always music for me. But I guess if I had to pick something that relaxes me when I'm not doing music it would have to be the WWF-style wrestling bouts I have with my 5-year-old twin sons.

Contact Darryl Duncan at dduncan@gamebeatinc.com