Designing Sound, as the name implies, focuses entirely on the craft of audio from film to games. While there are industry-driven sites devoted to the topic, this blog is entirely the labor of love of composer and sound designer Miguel Isaza, whose writing has also appeared on Spain’s Hispasonic and Monofónicos. (Miguel also tweets to Reaktor aficionados as reaktorlovers.) That personal perspective has imbued the site with the feeling of artists talking to artists.

http://designingsound.noisepages.com/

All week, Designing Sound has focused on Rob Bridgett, who has worked on numerous sound designs for games. Despite the massive growth of the game industry, most top artists have worked largely in obscurity – even less so in sound. There isn’t an equivalent of Ben Burtt, Randy Thom, Walter Murch, or others. (Those greats have been featured in Designing Sound specials, too.) Gaming is a young industry, to be sure, but that’s no excuse for simple ignorance.

In this week’s interviews with Isaza, Bridgett talks frankly about every last detail of what goes into sound production. He’s frank not only about what can go right in a game production – Scarface, pictured above, gets special treatment – but also what can go wrong. The brutal deadlines, fluid production parameters, and tangled production process of games can exact a toll on sound in gaming. The high point of this: Bridgett has gotten to employ the full resources of Skywalker Sound and has been at the forefront of bringing Hollywood-style sonic treatment to gaming.

I’m sure many readers here are curious about the games industry. There’s still time to forward your own questions to Miguel to pass along to Rob Bridgett.

Exclusive interview

Rob Bridgett Special

Ask your own questions

Incidentally, this is beyond what we even imagined for our fledgling noisepages.com, which we’re readying for a full launch as a community and blogging platform. Miguel created Designing Sound without prompting or assistance – it’s entirely his vision. It’s great to have people sharing information in this way. I can’t wait to see what’s ahead.

Max For Live Sneak Peak from max4live on Vimeo.

Suddenly, I have an image of American Ableton hackers patching on their MacBook over Thanksgiving turkey.

After a long, long wait, a public beta of Max for Live is available. The software incorporates the full version of Max/MSP/Jitter – complete with visual output, video processing, and 3D capabilities – with the Live host. Max patches operate with all their usual capabilities as devices inside Live. User interface elements are available to give Max patches conventional Ableton device interfaces, and there are even pre-built elements for useful functions like frequency displays and MIDI patterns. Via the Live API, Max for Live patches are also able to control most elements of the Live interface.

Because of Max’s networking capabilities, Max for Live devices can also be used to route OpenSoundControl data into Live. That isn’t necessarily with the same ease as you might route MIDI, and there’s still no native support in the Live interface, but it is a step forward.

Our friend Michael at max4live.info has been busy documenting the new software. His overview video is at top, and for OSC coverage, see his tutorial [part 1 | part 2].

Updated: Pricing has now been announced.
Max for Live is not included with Live 8 or even (perhaps surprisingly) Live Suite. It will be a US$299 / EUR249 download, available separately, on top of the cost of Live 8 or Live Suite 8. If you already own Max, you’ll have a set of crossgrades available:
1. You own Live. You can add Max for Live for US$99.
2. You don’t own Live, and want just Live. You can get that and Max for Live for US$449.
3. You don’t own Live, and want the whole Suite. Suite plus Max for Live crossgrade, US$699.

Total cost:
Max owners without Live: US$449-699
Live owners without Max: US$299 + cost of the upgrade to Live 8
Max + Live owners: US$99 + cost of the upgrade to Live 8

I think this could arguably be worth the investment, but given the discontinuation of support for developing VST, RTAS, and AU plug-ins in Max – a feature that was formerly free – I expect some resistance. Also, as previously announced, there is no known Max for Live “runtime,” meaning Max patch developers don’t really have a distribution outlet for work made in Max for Live, other than other Max for Live users.

Sign up for the public beta on Ableton’s site, and you’ll be able to grab the downloads (details below). You must be an Ableton Live 8 owner, though you don’t need to own Max 5:
http://www.ableton.com/maxforlive/beta

Autonomous bassline generators? Wireless, modular, infrared sync? Tiny drum machines networking together? Welcome to Texas, and the minds of Eric Archer, Bleep Labs, 4ms Pedals, the Church of the Friendly Ghost, and Andromeda Space Rockers.

One look at a floor full of blinking circuits, and most ladies and gentleman might assume they’ve stumbled upon some alien technology. “Imagine the things we could learn from this civilization – advancements far beyond our own,” as the stock line from sci fi goes. “Man and woman are not meant to learn such things. You’re meddling in things beyond your comprehension.”

In other words, you couldn’t build something like this, right?

Or could you?

In Austin, Texas, Eric, Dann, and Dr. Bleep are launching a new Handmade Music series, kicking it off with kits and classes so that anyone – including beginners – can start building stuff. For the 101 crowd, there’s a free beginner class even if you’ve never touched a soldering iron, so you can build your own analog drum. “I’m no n00b,” you say, “impress me.” Sure – the “upper division” gets to talk more advanced synth design and walks through the full-blown modular, networkable kit.

At the end of it all is an open jam and featured performance.

If you’re anywhere near Austin, Texas – or can find a bargain plane fare – you’ll want to clear your calendar for October 18!

Full Event Details, October 18 Handmade Music in Austin [Handmade Music @noisepages]

That’s just the first of more events to come, so stay glued to the Handmade Music site for events in Austin, New York, Portugal, Germany, and beyond.

“That’s right / you’re not from Texas / Texas wants you anyway.” For those of us in New York, Lisbon, Rio, Sydney, and Jakarta, there’s still hope. The kits will be online, and I”m looking at ways of putting together a full Handmade Music curriculum of projects online for all of us on the site we’re developing this fall, noisepages – ideas welcome.

I certainly didn’t expect to get deep into these geekier topics in high school while I was busily trying to fail Calculus and screw up science lab results in ways that baffled my teachers. But it’s a glorious age we live in, in which we get to assimilate alien technology as our own. Stay tuned.

“UP” Sound for Film Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Miguel Isaza has created a must-read new blog for anyone interested in sound design, and much to our delight has put it on noisepages. He’s being incredibly prolific with posts, covering creative projects to get your ideas flowing, terrific overviews of leading people in the field with links to interviews and resources for learning about their work, and tons of links for learning your craft technologically and artistically.

http://designingsound.noisepages.com/

Naturally, Pixar figures prominently, with some of the best sound design on the silver screen in recent years. I’m looking forward to finally seeing UP; Michael Coleman offers the video above. See Miguel’s site for more links and interviews and an overview of the all-star team that did sound for Pixar’s latest.

Thanks for this great resource, Miguel; I’ll certainly be reading daily.

Reminder: we’re meeting Saturday in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District to chill out, hear some music, and share strange and wonderful and hacked hardware controllers for Ableton Live as part of DubSpot’s Live Sessions tour. If you’re in the NYC area, you won’t want to miss out on music-controlling ironing boards, handheld controllers, and folks like RJ Valeo (Isomer Transition) above.

Full details
Facebook event

But if you’re not in New York, DubSpot and CDM are working together to make sure the weekend gets videoed, and we’re doing some work online.

Friday afternoon I’m chatting and answering questions as I work with the Live API to hack in OSC support for Live, and build a simple app for Google’s Android phone (which can be ported to other platforms, as well).
irc://irc.freenode.net/cdmblogs

Join the Noisepages Ableton Live hacker group for bleeding-edge discussion of some of these topics, too:
http://noisepages.com/groups/ableton-hackers
(I’ll be doing some link dumps with resources later today)

And Sunday, I’ll be giving a workshop about some controller secrets, with more to come online. (Sign up with promo code CDM for a discount if you happen to be registering at DubSpot; otherwise, hang out here.)