Kent:
She does have a nice voice. (laughs) Uh, well, hello, everybody. This is, uh, Kent from Alibi music. And I'm here with my co-host Guy Jones again today. How are you Guy?
Guy Jones:
I'm good. Yeah, really well. I, I enjoy being called a co-host rather than a guest. It makes me feel really important.
Kent:
You are incredibly important. Yeah. Uh-
Guy Jones:
Thank you.
Kent:
... well, and we're fortunate, uh, again, to have, uh, Darren Korb here. This is, uh, part two of our, uh, sit down with him. And I've just, uh, reintroduce, uh, Darren is a game composer, and he's done four titles with Supergiant Games, that's Bastion, Transistor, Pyre and Hades. And he's also got a band control group, which you should definitely check out on Spotify, etc. How are you Darren?
Darren Korb:
Doing well.
Kent:
Great.
Darren Korb:
I'm back.
Kent:
Yeah.
Darren Korb:
(laughs).
Guy Jones:
(laughs).
Darren Korb:
For part two.
Guy Jones:
(laughs).
Kent:
Uh, we, we're kinda pretending like this is maybe a day later, but it's actually just 10 minutes after the first one. So-
Darren Korb:
Yeah. [crosstalk] We should have changed our shirts or something.
Guy Jones:
We should have changed our shirts.
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
But, but would that'd been weird on a recording?
Darren Korb:
(laughs).
Guy Jones:
Uh, would have done it before the recording started shouldn't we?
Darren Korb:
Yeah, (laughs) yeah. We wouldn't change them while they roll.
Guy Jones:
Yeah. I misjudged the situation.
Kent:
Well, will plan ahead a little bit better next time. And we'll do that and trick everybody. Uh, well, cool. Today, we wanted to talk about, um, Audio middleware, and, uh, just about how that can be an important tool for, uh, for game developers. And, um, Darren, uh, from our previous conversation, it sounds like you've been working with Audio middleware, um, since the very beginning, and you just wanna let us know about this, how your experience, and you know, how you got into it, and, um, and just basically, how it helps yeah, you in the game developer to build a sonic world for the game.
Darren Korb:
Absolutely, yeah. So, when I started on my first project, which was Bastion, we were using this free middleware called Exact, uh, which doesn't exist anymore, I don't think. But, uh, you know, it was very basic, but it did, the main stuff you need to do. You can make queues and, you know, add parameters to them and do some randomization and stuff. And, then you could incorporate those queues, you know, have the, have a game, call those queues in script, and play the, the queues and, and to the specifications that you set up in the middleware. And that's sort of the, the basic idea of what the middleware does, is that it, it allows you to set up some parameters for how you want the sounds played back, you know, and, and how you want the sounds loaded into memory, or streaming or whatever. And then, you know, you, you connect that with your game engine and call those sounds and scripts and that's how you, you hear them in the game.
Darren Korb:
And so, there were some things that did, did not do well, uh, because it was so such a basic, uh, like a rudimentary piece of software, but, but we switched, um, on transistor, to FMOD, and I've been using that ever since and, in the middle of we started on FMOD designer, which was kinda more similar to that old style of middleware that I was using. In the middle of transistor, we switched to FMOD Studio, which to me, as someone with a background in music production and recording made a lot more sense because it's timeline based. And so, you can load all of your stuff into an actual timeline, you can have multi channel music queues very easily because you just put them all in a single queue on different tracks like you would in a doll or something. So, so that really, uh, opened my mind up when I could see the middleware, like a DA and use it that way.
Darren Korb:
And so, I could, I, I had a much better understanding of like the, the way the busing system works and the routing of everything and how it all plays and, and how you can sort of you know, take a, take a bunch of sounds and route them through a particular thing that applies some effects to them or a certain reverb state or whatever you want and, and allo- and allows you to use that bus to trigger compression on another bus so that when a sound plays here it ducks this others type of sound, um, and so, so you can do some really, uh, galaxy brain sort of dynamic mixing stuff that, uh, that really just makes, makes the job a lot easier. I mean, on, on exact I had to beg vaguer engineers to like "Please write me a reverb, please pretty please."
Guy Jones:
(laughs).
Darren Korb:
(laughs) You know, like, "I need a reverb." Um, but, but, you know, Edmond has, has all that stuff built in. So, so that's, that's sort of the main thing I've been using for the last almost, you know, what is it? 10 years or so, uh, nine years, I guess since Bastion came out 10 years, geez. Um, so, yeah, I mean, it's, it's a, it's, it's been really, um, it's been really great for me to, to really dig in and go super deep. On each project, I feel like I get a little bit more experimental with the stuff that I'm, I'm doing in terms of using markers and to implement music with different sections and, and section transitions and doing dynamic stem stuff where stems turn on and off and, and all that stuff. Um, I, you know, I talked to a lot of people, uh, who use Wwise, which is, which I know is was perhaps the industry standard, and a lot of people use that. And, um, and, uh, and ... but, but yeah. FMOD is sort of the thing that I know the best, you know.
Kent:
Yeah.
Darren Korb:
Also like-
Guy Jones:
Uh-
Darren Korb:
... like Pro Tools is the industry standard of DAWs but I use, I use Logic because I, it suits me better, you know (laughs).
Guy Jones:
Me too. Uh, I love Logic. Lo- Logic is, is my button. In fact, I think, um, Logic, um, I feel like I'm quick-
Darren Korb:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Guy Jones:
... I can be quicker, quick-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... around it. And I-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... I don't wanna say I'm an expert, but I'm, I'm quick on it, which is nice.
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
Um, but if I look at any other DAW at the moment, now I'm just kind of like go blank, and I don't know what I'm doing with it. Um, and that, that's really interesting, though, because I, I was wondering whether you'd actually ever been in a, in a situation where, uh, games company that you're working with had kinda like tried to hard, uh, sort of code it themselves and do it that way, um, because, I have that one of the ... well the first one I did, actually, they were coding it themselves and, they will not mind me saying that it was an absolute nightmare and a disaster.
Darren Korb:
(laughs).
Guy Jones:
Like it was truly that. 'Cause end, 'cause what ended up happening is they gave me very specific ways they needed the audio and I was kinda cutting it up and giving them clips and kinda loads of little things that they could use. And, I was just dumping audio files into this folder, Dropbox folder for them-
Darren Korb:
Yeah. Obviously.
Guy Jones:
... and then I would try to code it and, oh my gosh, it was, it was such a nightmare. And, we got through it and we all survived. Um, but then the next project I worked on was the first time I started looking at FMOD and I think that might have been around the time I messaged you and just said-
Darren Korb:
Yep.
Guy Jones:
... help. Um-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... and, and it, it was sort of a learning process for me then just to kinda get used to it. And, but it, it was fantastic because then there's certainly like a talking point between me and the, the audio editor or the, the developer. There was sort of something that we could kind of go into together and work on together and then it could, uh, work into the game. So-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... I do everything in Logic, kinda dump stuff into a project that they've set up on FMOD and just kinda dumping it into where, what they've set up and then it's, it's all kinda got the destination pass or started and it's good to go. And that, that's worked really well for me. Um, and I've looked at Elias and, and Wwise and I think that it's good for game developers to understand what the different, um, middleware programs are because they cater to different mindsets like for you and me FMOND's perfect because it works as a timeline. It's like, it's like an audio door, really.
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
Um, whereas when I was looking at Wwise, it's, it's basically just like a development tool. Like, it, it looks a little bit like Unity, when you kinda open it up and it's all code in and-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... I couldn't work it out. I managed to get something out of it but, I just couldn't work out I find it so hard. So I think for game developers, it's a good sort of nugget of information if you've never looked at any middleware to understand, are you as a game developer going to be in charge of the kind of audio editing? And if you are maybe like something like Wwise might work for you. If you're not and the, you want the audio guy to work on it or a woman, then maybe FMOD Elias is gonna be the way, the way to go. Ken, do you know much about Fabric as well? Do you know what Fabric is? 'Cause I've, I've never really come across Fabric before.
Kent:
You know, to be honest, the, it's on the list and I haven't worked with it. I don't know, Darren, have-
Guy Jones:
Yeah.
Kent:
... you worked with-
Darren Korb:
No.
Kent:
... it or seen it? Okay. Anyway.
Guy Jones:
Yeah.
Kent:
We don't know.
Guy Jones:
(laughs).
Kent:
Yeah. Um, well, yeah, you know, one of the, the things, uh, that I wanted to bring up too, is that, um, I think all of these, um, companies that have the software, they actually, will let you use it for free if you're, uh, you know, low or no budget. Again, which I think is incredibly useful.
Guy Jones:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally.
Darren Korb:
Absolutely.
Kent:
Is it-
Darren Korb:
And, and what you were saying earlier Guy, uh, about trying to hard code all that stuff yourself, it's just like, if, if there is a tool for it, it's like, why would, why wouldn't you use a hammer to hammer in a nail? (laughs) Like instead of like creating your own hammer, like every time you use (laughs) like ...
Guy Jones:
Oh, no.
Darren Korb:
... because it doesn't, you said, uh, yeah, anyway. E- especially if the hammer is free (laughs).
Guy Jones:
(laughs).
Darren Korb:
Here, I mean, you can borrow, this hammer to hammer that nail, no (laughs).
Guy Jones:
(laughs).
Kent:
(laughs).
Guy Jones:
I'm gonna, craft my own piece of words.
Darren Korb:
(laughs).
Guy Jones:
I'm gonna cut my own piece of words in there.
Darren Korb:
Yeah, yeah.
Guy Jones:
Yeah. Uh, that, uh, that's, but that's, that's really interesting. I think it, it's definitely something that people can think about and, it, it's so true. I, I think there's, I think there's an ego to ... and I'm not saying that, that first project there were full of ego or anything like that, but they wanted control over it. And I think-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... they thought, maybe moving into a software, it might have an a- added cost, and they might lose a bit of control over their work-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... what they want to do. These, these sort of programs are really carefully set up to cater to those editors. And, I, I bet you know, FMOD far more in detail than I do know. Um, and I, I'd love to know how you progress using FMOD from like, Transistor, how you started using it-
Darren Korb:
Yep.
Guy Jones:
... and then how you kinda utilize the program even more.
Darren Korb:
Yeah, I mean, [crosstalk] for sure, I, you know, that the, when, when, at the time we started Transistor, we were working with an engineer who had worked with FMOD on some other projects before. So he was this sort of FMOD expert, and he taught me what he knew, um, and so, you know, we set up the project in a particular way, and we use, you know, state like the states, um, thing, where, where you take a snapshot, um, of a particular state and use that for all your mixing stuff and, and we still use that system a little bit. Um, but we have it spread across like the states, and then then parameters on individual queues and stuff. So, um, but since then, you know, I've, on each project, I've just tried to experiment a little bit more and see, like, if I have an idea of how to implement something, I'll try whatever, whatever my first idea is for how to execute that.
Darren Korb:
And oftentimes, it's not the way we've done in the past, or it's something new ... Well, what if, wouldn't it be simpler if, if we just did this, and I'll try and like kinda rejigger the system, um, uh, in a new way that's like, slightly more streamlined or elegant or allows me to, you know, I'll come up with like a weird edge case scenario where, well, I want there to be a vocal track on this that I can bring in and out but I want that track to be processed totally separately from all the rest of the music. And I want you to be, I wanna be able to put a low pass filter on only that and blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever.
Guy Jones:
Yeah.
Darren Korb:
And so, then it's like, well, then I have to route it to a bus and have the automation occur on the bus instead of the actual thing and I can process this one way, and then that the other way, okay, got it, you know.
Guy Jones:
(laughs).
Darren Korb:
And so it's all, it's all problem solving, and just trying to figure out based on having an understanding of how the system works, trying to use the tools available to you to solve whatever creative-
Guy Jones:
Yeah.
Darren Korb:
... problem you, you come up with. Um, and the more you do it, I think, the more solutions you have in, you know, under your belt, and you can sort of grab one of those, you know-
Guy Jones:
Yeah.
Darren Korb:
... and, and, and, and don't have to resolve that problem over and over again, once you, once you do that some, then, then you have, you know, just more options, I think, going forward.
Guy Jones:
Yeah. The, uh, uh, I think it's, it's a good point. I think it really is just all about solving, uh, coming up with a solution to a problem. And, that goes with any kind of audio integration to any game. And, we're, we're coming at, well, you and I are coming across as EthMod, Fanboys a little bit because it's what we know, best. But they're the other forms of middleware that can be used is exactly equivalent to the different DAW that we can use. Like, I, I-
Darren Korb:
Yep.
Guy Jones:
... you, can you use a different DAW to Logic, don't you? What, what DAW do you use again? I can't remember.
Kent:
Um, I'm Digital Performer.
Guy Jones:
Yeah, yeah.
Kent:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
And then, then, and then you got Cubase, and Pro Tools, and, uh, Reaper and Studio One. So in the audio world, there are all of those things. But really, all that matters is you make really good music, put it into a little wav file or an mp3 file, and then people listen to it. That's all-
Kent:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... that matters.
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
That's exactly the same. Like, at the end of the day, if you've got music and sound effects and dialogue in your game, and you release the game, and people are playing it, and they enjoy it, it doesn't matter what you use.
Kent:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
Um, and that goes if you want to code it yourself, or use any of the forms of middleware and I think that's something that's really important for people to remember that just because we're talking about FMOD, FMOD is a really good one, particularly if you've got a composer who's gonna work with you and do some of the editing and stuff and the audio integration. But if you haven't got that, like you can look at Wwise and all kinds of other things as well. Um-
Darren Korb:
Yeah. And, and, and in terms of capability, all these are super powerful pieces of software-
Guy Jones:
Yeah.
Darren Korb:
... they're just all sort of work a little differently, but they're all gonna, gong to allow you to do the same kinds of things.
Guy Jones:
Yeah.
Darren Korb:
Um, and, and have, have the same kinds of features. So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's just kind of whatever your, whatever your preference is. Yeah, I think it really is a lot about like, like choosing a DAW, where it's just whatever suits your workflow the best. That's way to go.
Guy Jones:
This way if you get it right, but you're around for long enough and you-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... learn by accident. (laughs).
Darren Korb:
Yeah, yeah.
Kent:
Yeah. So, I'm just curious of, so in terms of actually working with the developer, like how does that workflow, how does that using that middleware, help out that process?
Darren Korb:
Yeah. Well, for, for me, you know, I'm, I'm integrated into the team. Uh, so, but, you know, what, what it allows me to do is set up the playback of these files exactly how I want it to occur in FMOD. And I can set up all the parameters myself, I want the ability to control the volume of the three music stems, individually, or whatever. And I want the ability to control a low pass filter on the piece, for example, right? And, so I'll set those parameters up, I'll, I will give them to, uh, either what Greg does a lot of that kind of integration, or Gavin, or, or, meaning, uh, one of our engineers, he really helps me, um, initially set up all the music system stuff, is on the script side. And, so I'll be like, "Here are the parameters, you know, I want it, I want it to behave like this, ideally." Uh, and then he'll, he'll set up a system for that and then Greg, and I will usually be the ones to, to figure out how to integrate that stuff in a way that makes sense.
Darren Korb:
Um, but, yeah, basically, it allows me to fully set up the system all by myself and, and, and I ... if I were more, you know, i- interested in being better at scripting, I'm sure I could do the other part myself too (laughs). Uh, it would just it, you know, it's just a little bit of e- e- extra mile. But, but I, I enjoy collaborating on that, on that part of it. Um, but that being said, it's, it, it, it's, it allows me to have, have everything set up exactly how I think it should be set up and if you just cl- and the way we do it is we keep all the parameter names the same, we have sort of a template for each piece, for a particular context. We set them all up with the same parameter names and the same everything else. And so, whenever a particular piece is playing, all that stuff just automatically works no matter what pieces playing, uh, because all the parameters have the same names, and, and they're referred to in script in the same way, if that makes sense.
Guy Jones:
Cool. Yeah.
Kent:
Yeah. I mean, it seems like a [crosstalk], also, I think, from the composer's point of view, um, you can actually try things out on the fly in games-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Kent:
... as well, right?
Darren Korb:
Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, there's, there's ... and, and, I really, like, um, there's a feature where you can live sync, you get, if you're running the game, in a development, you know, whate- whatever a development mode, and, uh, and you have FMOD open at the same time, there's a kind of a way you can connect FMOD to the game live and then you can change stuff in FMOD and it will affect the game, like changing, mixing parameters or whatever turning stuff on and off. So, uh, so it's ... I really use that a lot for, for tuning sound effects, uh, and tuning the mix of sound effects is, you know, I have a test map open and I'll be, you know, using, you know, doing the whatever power that I have a sound effect hooked up to and I'll be like, "Oh, well, this, this component of it's a little bit loud, let me turn that down. Lemme decrease the sound size, because I'm hearing too far away.
Darren Korb:
You know, when I'm across the screen, I don't really wanna hear that things. So I'm gonna ..." And I can really like live tune the sound radius and all that stuff, uh, that way. So that's really, really, really helpful for me, actually, 'cause, 'cause on Bastian (laughs), what would happen is, I'd make a, a theoretical change that I couldn't test, I'd have to build banks for 45 minutes or whatever and then (laughs), and then I could check it and see how it, how it works. So, so the, the ability to see, to check my work live is really a huge, huge time saving. Yeah.
Guy Jones:
And I think that's the advantage for any game developer giving a bit of control to the, to the audio, um, whoever's working on the audio as well, because it just allows you to test it on the fly that's so valuable. And, and it saves so much time.
Darren Korb:
Yep.
Guy Jones:
And it's, it's so much of your time, it saves so much of their time. And just sort of letting that part of the game go and be in someone's hands that you trust, makes a huge difference because, it, it can just be like a small volume trick or like you said, the distance of like, where, where things are going or how 3D want, the si- the sign to be and all that kind of stuff, it makes such a big difference to how the game is perceived when you got headphones on or playing with speakers, those big, big, big changes.
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
Um, and that's one thing that we found recently with ju- just kind of, sort of, um, bringing in the sort of how, how far the stereo field could go when, when a sound sort of drops or something has happened in like, we realize how wonky it sounded to have that parameter set so wide, um, even though you think wider is e- especially as an audio guy think it just make everything as wide as possible, it's gonna sound fantastic. It's just not the case with games-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... 'cause you're-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... you're getting the [inaudible], uh, when you're kind of right on top of something, uh, uh, you don't have any control over highlight that could-
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
... be if you're, if you haven't got it set properly.
Darren Korb:
Yeah.
Guy Jones:
So, we just kind of put it right there, kind of as close, as close as we can get away with and then we can kind of gauge what the volume if things are easier. Um, but, yeah, I think that's, that you've given some really good answers to all of this. Darren, I really, really appreciate it. I think, and I think that kind of wraps up what we need to talk about with middleware, isn't it?
Kent:
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, again, thank you so much, Darren, for being here and, uh, giving us your insights and experience. And, uh, again, check out uh, Darren's band Control Group and, uh, yeah, hopefully, uh, we'll have a chance to sit down and chat again Darren. So, thank you so much.
Darren Korb:
Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Guy Jones:
Yeah. Cheers Darren.
