Who is Earbash Audio? What are some of your past credits and current
projects?

Earbash Audio is an audio production company specializing in sound design, music and voice over work for the video game industry. We are based in Los Angeles, California. Earbash was formed by audio professionals who are former employees of Electronic Arts in Los Angeles. Because of our extensive experience working on a game development team, our company is very unique in the audio outsourcing business. We know what is necessary and what's required in order to successfully develop audio content for games. Our past credits include the Call of Duty franchise, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Transformers, Silent Hill, Command and Conquer 3, The Matrix: Path of Neo and many more. We are currently working to finish Silent Hill 5, Legendary: the box, and an unannounced project with EA.

How did you first get involved with sound for video games? Tell us about
your history in the industry before starting Earbash.

Before forming Earbash, my partner and I worked at Electronic Arts as sound designers. At EA we worked on the Medal of Honor franchise starting with Allied Assault and finished with Pacific Assault before we formed Earbash where we started to consult and work on Call of Duty 2. I really enjoyed working at EA, I personally learned a lot about audio development for games as well as game development in general. I really enjoyed working with everyone and am now still friends with many of my former colleagues.

You are both a composer and sound designer. Are those two roles closely
tied together on most projects, or do you find yourself putting on a "sound
designer" hat one day and "composer" hat the next?

Most of the time when I work on a project I'm either doing sound design or music. There have only been a few occasions where I've had to do both. I really enjoy those opportunities where I have control over both sound and music because I can really use audio to create the effect that I want. What I mean by this is that I can create a counter point with sound and music to create the appropriate soundscape for the project.

Often times when sound and music are being worked on by different people they tend to accentuate the same event. This results in two parallel sonic elements having the same effect rather than working together. It's sad for me to see that the first thing many people do is turn the music volume off when they start to play games. One of the reasons for this is that some of the players find music to be distracting during game play. I believe the reason for this is that sound effects can accentuate realism as well as heighten perceptual messages such as distance, time, and danger. On the other hand, I believe that music can only create emotions and it takes you out of reality. Today, most of the games simply can't support the strong emotional messages that music can create. Or, the music is too dramatic for the games that they are written for.

For something like the Call of Duty series, sound design plays a huge
role in the realism of the games. What are some of the things you did on
Call of Duty 4 to compliment the overall vision of the game with sound?

Before I work on a game, I always meet with the game designer, art director, producer and the internal audio director or sound designer to talk about what we want the gamer to feel and how we want to focus the gamer's perception when they play the game.

For the Call of Duty franchise, since it's a first person shooter, my focus when doing sound design has always been to create the feeling of aggression and fear. I do this by making chaotic but composed ambience, powerful weapons and explosions, as well as psychological effects such as indicating the presence of a heavy armored vehicle with low-end rumbles or by creating sharp bullet whiz-bys.

You worked on a lot of the weapon sounds in Call of Duty 4: explosions,
bullet impacts and the like. What are some of the things you do when you're
working with game sounds like this? Are they all based on actual recorded
weapon sounds? How do you treat raw sounds when you're designing game sound effects?

When I design a weapon sound for COD, I make sure that the sound feels right with the animation and and the look of the weapon. Although I do go out to record real weapon sounds and I do use them in my design and/or as reference, ultimately my focus is not on making the weapons sound like they do in real life. I put most of my focus on how the player perceives how the weapon feels overall. With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, all of the weapons are much sharper and much more tactical sounding compared to the previous COD games.

What are some of the specific ways you use audio effects, like Trash and
the other iZotope plug-ins, in your work?

I use Ozone 3 religiously to finalize all my assets, sound and music before I deliver them to the developer for sound implementation. I use the limiter to make sure that there are no overs and the "Intelligent" limiter mode's range from transparent to clip is very useful depending on what I'm working on. For example, explosive sounds often get a little clip treatment from the limiter to add a little more bite to the final sound. On the other hand, depending on the style of the music, the transparent setting on the limiter is great to get more loudness and preserve the sonic integrity. Ozone 3 is my go-to processor for sound mastering. With all of it's great sounding tools in one place, Ozone is the most natural and logical thing for me to use.

With Trash, I was able to create convincing radio transmission and loud speaker broadcasting effects while keeping the dialogue intelligible. Spectron is what I use to add a little color to make a sound pop and/or to inject life into an ordinary sound by completely transforming its spectral make up.

Do you ever have a need for noise reduction or audio restoration tools? If so have you had a chance to use iZotope RX?

I have used RX for noise reduction on dialogue, it worked beautifully and left no perceptible artifacts. I used to use another program for noise reduction but the UI is a bit clumsy. With RX, its user friendly UI and visual feedback helps me get the desired results much more quickly. What I'm most amazed and excited about is RX's editing capability in the frequency domain. I use it during sound design/editing to get rid of unwanted elements in sound effects or production recording from a film set. With my limited time with RX, I see that its creative potential extends beyond sound restoration into sound and music design.

With the latest generation of consoles and computers, are you running
into any new audio challenges now that games have become so intricate and
complex? How do things like surround sound factor into how you work?

On the most basic level, my job is to solve creative and technical problems for my clients. The tools I choose to use give me the ability to do this efficiently. Even though there are many software choices on the market, I find that only a few work well in my workflow. The challenge is to have software engineers understand how professionals work and to focus on workflow as well as excellence in sonic quality while designing software.

I try to keep my system as simple as possible. I use Mac as well as PC; they are networked together. I use a Metric Halo mobile IO 2882 as a master converter, my Pro Tools 96 I/O is connected to it via optical cable. I save digital patch bay settings in MIO's internal software mixer for when I work with Logic Pro or Pro Tools in stereo or in surround. Session along with IO templates are specifically created for Logic and Pro Tools as well. I don't have a console and I use a SPL speaker management system to control my speakers. I do want some kind of controller with a surround panner that I can use with Logic.

Are there any games that you consider influential? What is a game you've
played that really stands out in your mind as having great sound design or
score?

There are lots of good sounding games out there that I learn and get inspiration from. Right now, I really like the overall feel of the audio work on the game BioShock.

What games have you most enjoyed working on?

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Sound for games seems like a very competitive field. Do you have any
advice for sound designers/composers who want to get into this kind of work?
What can they expect from the industry and from the job?

This will sound extremely cheesy and obvious but I believe it to be true. My advice for people who want to get into any profession is to understand what they truly love to do and then do what they love. Any industry will provide tough challenges today. Do what you think is right at the time and regardless of whether you succeed or fail, learn from every challenge. Over time the success and failure will be less important, it will just be fun.

Visit Yuan Liu and Earbash Audio at www.earbash.com