Salford City CollegeEccles Sixth Form CentreBTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGNUnit 73: Sound For Computer GamesIG2 Task 1

Produce a glossary of terms specific to the methods and principles of sound design and production. Using a provided template, you must research and gather definitions specific to provided glossary terms. Any definitions must be referenced with the URL link of the website you have obtained the definition.

You must also, where possible, provide specific details of how researched definitions relate to your own production practice.

Name: Jamie Shepherd RESEARCHED DEFINITION (provide short internet researched definition and URL link)

DESCRIBE THE RELEVANCE OF THE RESEARCHED TERM TO YOUR OWN PRODUCTION PRACTICE?

SOUND DESIGN METHODOLOGY

Foley Artistry "A sound effects technique for synchronous effects or live effects"http://filmsound.org/foley/

We have used this to record some sound effects for our game audio

Sound Libraries “a collection of sounds stored on file (for example on CDs, DVDs, or as digital audio files)”http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/sound-library

We have created a sound library to create the game audio

SOUND FILE FORMATS Uncompressed “Uncompressed audio files are the most accurate digital representation of a soundwave, but can also be the most resource-intensive method of recording and storing digital audio, both in terms of storage and management”http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/guide/uncompressed-audio-file-formats

.wav “WAV (or WAVE), short for Waveform Audio File Format, is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs”http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV

The pieces of audio that we recorded were saved in .wav

.aiff “Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices. The format was developed by Apple Computer in 1988 based on Electronic Arts' Interchange File Format (IFF, widely used on Amiga systems) and is most commonly used on Apple Macintosh computer systems.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.aif

This was not used

.au  “the standard audio file format used by Sun, Unix and Java. The audio in au files can be PCM or compressed with the ulaw, alaw or G729 codecs”http://www.nch.com.au/acm/formats.html

This was not used

.smp “a motion picture accompanied by synchronized recorded sound”http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sound%20motion%20picture

This was not used

Lossy Compression “Lossy file compression results in lost data and quality from the original This was not used

1

Salford City CollegeEccles Sixth Form CentreBTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGNUnit 73: Sound For Computer GamesIG2 Task 1

version.”http://www.techterms.com/definition/lossy

.mp3 “MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) is a lossy data compression format for audio.

Using it makes smaller computer files containing digitized music and other

sounds.”

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3

This was not used

AUDIO LIMITATIONS Sound Processor Unit (SPU) “The SPU is the unit responsible for all aural capabilities of the psx. Ithandles 24 voices, has a 512kb sound buffer, has ADSR envelope filters foreach voice and lots of other features.”http://psx.rules.org/spu.txt

There is sound card in the computer so that we could replay the audio back

Digital Sound Processor (DSP) “Short for digital signal processing, which refers to manipulating analog information, such as sound or photographs that has been converted into a digital form. DSP also implies the use of a data compression technique.”http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/DSP.html

The DSP is in the computer used

Random Access Memory (RAM)

“Random access memory (RAM) is the best known form of computer memory. RAM is considered "random access" because you can access any memory cell directly if you know the row and column that intersect at that cell.”http://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm

RA would have been used to run reaper which was the program we used to edit the audio

Mono Audio “Mono or monophonic describes a system where all the audio signals are mixed together and routed through a single audio channel.”http://www.mcsquared.com/mono-stereo.htm

We recorded in mono because the audio was being fed into one audio recording source

Stereo Audio “Stereo or Stereophonic sound is created by two independent audio channels or speakers and provides a sense of directionality because sounds can be heard from different directions.”http://stereos.about.com/od/introductiontostereos/a/soundformats.htm

This was not used

Surround Sound “Surround sound audio is, simply put, sound that completely surrounds you. It means a speaker in virtually every corner of the room, projecting high-quality digital sound at you from all angles just as though you were in a theater.”http://peripherals.about.com/od/speakersandheadphones/a/whatis_ss.htm

This was not used

Direct Audio (Pulse Code Modulation – PCM)

“Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers,

This was not used

2

Salford City CollegeEccles Sixth Form CentreBTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGNUnit 73: Sound For Computer GamesIG2 Task 1

Compact Discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the amplitude of the analog signal is sampled regularly at uniform intervals, and each sample is quantized to the nearest value within a range of digital steps.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-code_modulation

AUDIO RECORDING SYSTEMS

Analogue “Analog (or analogue) recording (Greek, ana is "according to" and logos "relationship") is a technique used for the recording of analog signals which among many possibilities include audio frequency, analog audio and analog video information for later playback.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_recording

This was not used

Digital Mini Disc “A compact digital audio disc from Sony that comes in read-only and rewritable versions.”http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/47064/minidisc

This was not used

Compact Disc (CD) “A compact disc [sometimes spelled disk] (CD) is a small, portable, round medium made of molded polymer (close in size to the floppy disk) for electronically recording, storing, and playing back audio, video, text, and other information in digital form.”http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/compact-disc

This was not used

Digital Audio Tape (DAT) “DAT (Digital Audio Tape) is a standard medium and technology for the digital recording of audio on tape at a professional level of quality”http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/DAT-Digital-Audio-Tape

This was not used

MIDI Pronounced middy, an acronym for musical instrument digital interface, a standard adopted by the electronic music industry for controlling devices, such as synthesizers and sound cards, which emit music.http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/MIDI.html

We used these to record audio directly onto the computer, we used ones pre-loaded onto reaper

Software Sequencers A sequencing software package designed to be loaded into a computer. Software sequencers usually have more features and have the advantage of showing you a lot more information at once because they use the computer's screen and aren't locked into the knobs or buttons or display of a hardware sequencer.http://www.wannaplaymusic.com/get-started/keyboard-terminology

This was not used

Software Plug-ins There are three broad classes of audio plug-in: those which transform existing audio samples, those which generate new audio samples through sound synthesis and those which analyse existing audio samples. Although all plug-in types can technically perform audio analysis, only specific formats provide a mechanism for analysis data to be returned to the host.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_plug-in

We used plug-ins to edit our sounds and also to record them on reaper

MIDI Keyboard Instruments A Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) keyboard is a musical We used the MIDI keyboard to

3

Salford City CollegeEccles Sixth Form CentreBTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGNUnit 73: Sound For Computer GamesIG2 Task 1

instrument like a piano keyboard. The MIDI portion indicates that the instrument has a communication protocol built in that allows it to communicate with a computer or other MIDI-equipped instrument.http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-midi-keyboard.htm

record sounds directly onto reaper

AUDIO SAMPLING File Size Constraints - Bit-depth

In digital audio , bit depth describes the potential accuracy of a particular piece of hardware or software that processes audio data. In general, the more bits that are available, the more accurate the resulting output from the data being processed.http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/bit-depth

We rendered the audio at 16 bits

File Size Constraints - Sample Rate

The rate at which the samples are captured or played back, measured in Hertz (Hz), or samples per second. An audio CD has a sample rate of 44,100 Hz, often written as 44 KHz for short. This is also the default sample rate that Audacity uses, because audio CDs are so prevalent.http://www.voxforge.org/home/docs/faq/faq/what-are-sampling-rate-and-bits-per-sample

The bit rate depended on the different types of the file

4