The audio component of a game, representing what the player will hear. Comprised of dialogue, music, and sound effects.
37
votes
1answer
2k views
Why is this beat detection code failing to register some beats properly?
I made this SoundAnalyzer class to detect beats in songs:
class SoundAnalyzer
{
public SoundBuffer soundData;
public Sound sound;
public List<double> beatMarkers = new ...
31
votes
3answers
4k views
How do audio based games such as Audiosurf and Beat Hazard work?
Note: I am not asking how to make a clone of one of these. I am asking about how they work.
I'm sure everyone's seen the games where you use your own music files (or provided ones) and the games ...
15
votes
6answers
599 views
Using spherical harmonics to build complex sound scapes
I was having a discussion at work today on how to improve room acoustic modelling. It was suggested that very little work appears to have been done on the subject yet tonnes has been done in ...
12
votes
2answers
2k views
Playing a Song causing WP7 to crash on phone, but not on emulator
I am trying to implement a song into a game that begins playing and continually loops on Windows Phone 7 via XNA 4.0. On the emulator, this works fine, however when deployed to a phone, it simply ...
11
votes
3answers
3k views
Beat detection and FFT
I am working on a platformer game which includes music with beat detection. I am currently detecting beats by checking for when the current amplitude exceeds a historical sample. This doesn't work ...
9
votes
9answers
751 views
Looking for a royalty free sci-fi sounding song thats 1:00+ long, and costs <= $5
I'm looking for a royalty free sci-fi sounding song thats 1:00+ long, and costs less then, or is $5 usd. I want to have a nice BGM for my engine demo I'm going to release for a game I'm planing on ...
9
votes
5answers
460 views
Dynamic audio score/music
I'm interested in developing a game who's background music changes with the mood and scenario of the game's action. Of course many existing games do this (halo for example), but I was interested in ...
9
votes
2answers
742 views
Can you record raw sound data in XNA?
XNA 4 includes the Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio.Microphone class which can seemingly read the raw sound data off the microphone via its API as documented:
GetData - Gets the latest recorded data ...
9
votes
2answers
2k views
What should audio programmers know?
I'm a music composition student also getting a minor-plus-some in computer science. I love writing music and making sound effects and want to write music for games. But, I also realize everyone and ...
8
votes
4answers
882 views
What is a fair price to pay for music licensing for a commercial game?
What is a fair price range for already existing (not custom-made) music if it's intended for a commercial game?
The music I have in mind is relatively unknown (independent music) and I'm already in ...
7
votes
5answers
987 views
Audio programming resources [closed]
I've been very interested in the last few months about getting in to audio programming (I'm from a musical background). I've been a .NET developer for two years and have also done some objective c for ...
7
votes
1answer
1k views
Difference between Vorbis OGG and M4A/MP4/AAC?
From what i know m4a and aac are the same thing with mp4 allowing video while the former only allows audio.
Whats the difference between vorbis ogg and m4a? I looked it up and it seems that m4a/aac ...
6
votes
2answers
1k views
How to make footsteps sound sync with animation (FMOD/Wwise/similar)
How do you pros out there implement footstep sounds in so that they're synced with character animation?
I have an idea in mind: an FMOD event that has two footstep playback triggers, and a parameter ...
6
votes
2answers
471 views
How was sfxr made?
I figure this is a Game Development question as this is a sound generation tool made specifically for games (in particular, Ludum Dare games).
I have a basic understanding of how sound works, with ...
6
votes
2answers
879 views
Sound emmiters with panning and volume in 2D
How can I create sound emmiters that pan and change volume based on distance from the player in a 2D game?
6
votes
2answers
674 views
How to loop over a part of an ogg vorbis stream?
I'm successfully streaming ogg vorbis data to openAL with the Java library JOrbis, but now I want to loop over a part of this stream, e.g from 30" to 1'30".
I thought that at the end of the loop, I ...
5
votes
4answers
474 views
How to choose a success and failure sound
I create a math game where the user has to solve an equation. If the user is right, the application plays sound A. If he's wrong, it plays sound B.
What criteria should I use to choose sounds for A ...
5
votes
4answers
501 views
Speech synthesis book?
When I was a kid, everything had a speech synthesizer in it, more or less. A couple years back I started to wonder where the technology is going after all these years, and after some research found ...
5
votes
1answer
625 views
Techniques for creating sound effects in a browser based game?
The <audio> tag and the <object> tag are (somewhat hard to use) ways to embed audio on a page... ...but what about creating sound effects in a browser-based game? E.g. if the game becomes ...
5
votes
1answer
148 views
Physics-based dynamic audio generation in games
I wonder if it is possible to generate audio dynamically without any (!) audio assets, using pure mathematics/physics and some input values like material properties and spatial distribution of content ...
4
votes
3answers
797 views
Using modified copyrighted music in non-commercial games
Background: I'm making a retro style game for both fun, and an unofficial contest.
I have bought a song, song X. However, I then found notation for song X, and all the instruments. So basically, ...
4
votes
2answers
320 views
Recording equipment for game sounds
I was wondering if anybody knows about any good pieces of equipment fit for recording sound effects for games.
If you can, also tell please me the price range for professional equipment.
4
votes
3answers
1k views
Which API for cross platform mobile audio?
This question focuses on the API's available on phones.
I'd been planning to use OpenAL in my game for maximum portability. It runs great on Linux so I can quickly iterate while developing as well ...
4
votes
1answer
176 views
How important is music to mobile phone (smart PDA) games?
Specifically iPhone/iTouch, Droids, and the new Windows Phone 7? I don't know how to quantify this, or if any research has been done. I am wondering how important the music is to the gaming and what % ...
3
votes
5answers
697 views
Recorded Voice or Synthesized Speech?
I'm interested in adding to my game either recorded human or synthesized speech. I'm interested in what game devs have to say regarding the value of recorded human voice over voice synthesis. Thanks ...
3
votes
4answers
953 views
How can I make “small” (file size) background music loops/tracks?
I recently purchased some short (approx 3 min) background music tracks. I have the tracks in three formats: AIFF, MP3 and WAV. How can I compress these files such that the quality remains intact ...
3
votes
1answer
335 views
Implementing Positional Sound
I am trying to put 3Dish audio in a game I'm developing, and I'm unsure how to do positional sound. I want to be able to adjust the volume of the audio's channels depending on how far it is and the ...
3
votes
2answers
142 views
How does professional audio fit into game design?
Do game designers typically seek the help of specialized music/audio specialists for soundtracks and sound design? Is there a general need for professional audio work in game design, or is that ...
3
votes
2answers
192 views
music for an arcade game?
I'm thinking about music for my brick breaker game, but I don't know how to choose any.
If I'd make a loop from a few seconds, I think it would get annoying very quickly. I also found some longer ...
3
votes
1answer
114 views
Is there any game engine capable of true binaural positional 3D audio? [closed]
I am by no means a game designer, so I apologise in advance if I fail to use the proper jargon. Feel free to correct my mistakes.
My understanding is that, at the moment, in most if not all ...
3
votes
1answer
86 views
Are Xna XACT audio cues accurately timed enough for a loop sequencer?
Would it be possible to make an audio seqencer using XNA that works by triggering XACT cues periodically using a timer. Would the timing be precise enough to synchronize several audio clips into one ...
3
votes
1answer
289 views
Implementing audio for a game made using JMonkey?
Is it possible to implement music/SFX in game made using JMonkey? If yes, how did you do it? What did you use?
3
votes
1answer
288 views
Xaudio2 XAPO Effects
I've been working with XAudio2. After looking at the samples, example code, and sparse documentation available from Microsoft and the MSDN, I've found that there aren't any easy-to-find resources on ...
2
votes
4answers
471 views
Javascript Audio solution
still has issues. Flash works but... requires flash (an issue for iOS). What do you use in Javascript for audio?
2
votes
2answers
206 views
Adjust treble and bass on Audio in XNA
I am trying to "muffle" the sounds that are being played in my game and the best way I can think of doing this, is by lowering the treble of the sound.
I have looked through all the members of the ...
2
votes
1answer
313 views
Does SoundEffect.CreateInstance load from file everytime?
This is something which has been bugging me. If I create a SoundEffectInstance via SoundEffect.CreateInstance() I'm meant to dispose of it when I'm finished with it. SoundEffect.CreateInstance() does ...
2
votes
2answers
434 views
Optimal Compression for Speech
I'm designing a game that depends heavily on audio; I will have some 300+ speech files (most of them just a word or two long). This can very quickly escalate the size of my final game.
What's the ...
2
votes
2answers
271 views
What are some good audio pieces that worked well for puzzle games?
I'm looking for some quality audio/soundtracks as inspiration.
Can you think of some really good puzzle games that went above and beyond in the audio category?
If you're an audio guy, is there ...
2
votes
2answers
494 views
Audio Design and XAudio2 Performance Issues
I have a very basic understanding of audio and was hoping I could get some help to resolve a problem with the audio design in my engine. Let me give you a run-down of how I've currently got it fitting ...
2
votes
1answer
238 views
How do I play music at half speed?
I'd like to slowdown music playback, say at half speed. I'm currently using SDLmixer. I assume I'd need to tell SDL that I have a 44KHz music and want to stream it at 22KHz, but when I pass in 22Khz ...
2
votes
1answer
147 views
Audio Thread as daemon thread
I'm looking to set up two threads in my puzzle game, one for logic/graphics, and one for audio.
Am I correct in thinking that the thread that handles the audio should be set as a daemon thread, ...
2
votes
2answers
262 views
Flash game size and distribution between asset types
I am currently developing a Flash game and am planning on a large amount of graphics and audio assets, which has led to some questions about Flash game size.
By looking at some of the popular games ...
2
votes
1answer
271 views
Portable sound and music for XNA / MonoGame?
What is the best (recommended) way to integrate audio (both sound effect and music) in a game project (using C#/XNA) targeting multiple desktop platforms (W7, W8 Metro, Linux, OSX, ...) via MonoGame. ...
2
votes
2answers
536 views
Playing NSF music in FMOD.net
So, as the title says, I want to be able to play NSF files using FMOD, because my project already uses FMOD and I'd rather not replace it. This will involve figuring out how existing players and ...
2
votes
0answers
74 views
Difference between multiple AudioUnits and one AudioGraph with a MultiChannelMixer
I'm porting my game to iOS using MonoTouch, and I'm having some trouble getting sound output to work. SystemSound/AVAudioPlayer is way too simple for my needs (I need looping and multiple simultaneous ...
1
vote
3answers
193 views
Proper audio formats in low resolution without gaps for a game
I'm a music composer and I have to give my first job for a game. They are working in Objective C in Xcode, it's a game for iPhone/iPad.
I need to know the proper audio format to give programmers ...
1
vote
1answer
54 views
Continuous / speed affected sound effects. What is the industries de-facto solution?
There are various types of audio material we require in games.
For instance, footsteps - these are very straight forward.
We take some boinking sounds over metal, plastic, concrete and add to our ...
1
vote
2answers
91 views
How can I select an audio output device in directshow
I was wondering how I can select the output device for audio in directshow. I am able to get available audio output devices in directshow. But how can I make one of these to be audio output device. ...
1
vote
1answer
77 views
Legal concerns with orchestrating a music submission contest
My team and I are getting pretty far along in the development of our latest game and have been thinking about audio. We decided to host an audio submission contest where we will offer a little cash ...
1
vote
1answer
200 views
How can I get a set of raw samples from an audio file in XNA 4.0?
In particular, I'd like to know how to get a set of audio samples that are compatible with the XNA's Sound API classes, such as the DynamicSoundEffectInstance class.
I've used the ...
