Salford City College Eccles Sixth Form Centre BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games IG2 Task 1

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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: 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 “Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film, video, and other mediums in post-production to enhance audio quality. These reproduced sounds can be anything from the swishing of clothing and footsteps to squeaky doors and breaking glass.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(filmmaking)

Used in sound design to give an effect of realism to what the sound’s being used in, whether it be a games cutscene or soundtrack.

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

This makes it possible to have multiples of sounds in one area, usually .wav files and effects to access more conveniently

SOUND FILE FORMATS Uncompressed “Uncompressing (or decompressing) is the act of expanding a compression file back into its original form.” http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/uncompressing-or-decompressing

Giving us the ability to have RAW recordings as a smaller file and open them up as if they were regular

.wav “Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or more commonly known as WAV due to its filename extension) (rarely, Audio for Windows) is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV

WAV is commonly used to render out edited files from reaper sound editing software

.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 Inc. 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.”

Salford City College Eccles Sixth Form Centre BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games IG2 Task 1

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.au “The Au file format is a simple audio file format introduced by Sun Microsystems. The format was common on NeXT systems and on early Web pages. Originally it was headerless, being simply 8-bit µ-law-encoded data at an 8000 Hz sample rate” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_file_format

.smp “SMP files are GIS Files primarily associated with Reason NN19 Sampler Instrument Patch (Propellerhead Software). Additional types of files may also be using the SMP file extension. If you are aware of any other file formats using the SMP file extension” http://www.solvusoft.com/en/file-extensions/file-extension-smp/

Lossy Compression “"lossy" compression is data encoding that uses inexact

approximations for representing the content that had been

encoded”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossy_compression

.mp3 “An encoding format for digital audio which uses a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio streaming or storage” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3

Used to commonly store music files and regular data for working with music

AUDIO LIMITATIONS Sound Processor Unit (SPU) “an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_card

Used to play sounds from the computer, useful for all forms of sound engineering and it’s possible to have multiples of them, making reaper easier editable being able to hear the end product as you work with it

Digital Sound Processor (DSP) “The goal of DSP is usually to measure, filter and/or compress continuous real-world analog signals. The first step is usually to convert the signal from an analog to a digital form, by sampling and then digitizing it using an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which turns the analog signal into a stream of numbers.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signal_processing

Random Access Memory (RAM) “Random-access memory is a form of computer data storage. A random-access memory device allows data items

Normally usable with multiples of processes coming from the computer and it’s

Salford City College Eccles Sixth Form Centre BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games IG2 Task 1

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to be read and written in roughly the same amount of time regardless of the order in which data items are accessed.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random-access_memory

programmes, such as running multiple sound recording, uploading and editing in an instance.

Mono Audio “Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or (in the case of headphones and multiple loudspeakers) channels are fed from a common signal path.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monaural

Used with most songs and have lack of ‘pan’ or sound direction.

Stereo Audio “Stereophonic sound or, more commonly, stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that creates an illusion of directionality and audible perspective.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonic_sound

Used when editing ‘Pan’ in reaper sound production/editing to give an effect of realism and sound passing differently as it passes

Surround Sound “Surround sound is a technique for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with additional audio channels from speakers that surround the listener, providing sound from a 360° radius in the horizontal plane (2D) as opposed to "screen channels" originating only from the listener's forward arc.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surround_sound

Surround sound comes In all directions, giving more realism than stereo sound as it is in all directions as we detect where it’s coming from.

Direct Audio (Pulse Code Modulation – PCM)

“Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-code_modulation

AUDIO RECORDING SYSTEMS Analogue “Analog recording 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

Digital Mini Disc “The MiniDisc (MD) is an obsolete magneto-optical disc-based data storage device for 74 minutes and, later, 80 minutes, of digitized audio or 1 gigabyte of Hi-MD data.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc

Compact Disc (CD) “Compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format. The format was originally developed to store and play back sound recordings only, but was later adapted for storage of data.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc

Usable to obtain, burn, save and download sound and audio files onto, making them transferrable.

Salford City College Eccles Sixth Form Centre BTEC Extended Diploma in GAMES DESIGN Unit 73: Sound For Computer Games IG2 Task 1

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Digital Audio Tape (DAT) “Digital Audio Tape (DAT or R-DAT) is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Audio_Tape

Usable to transfer sound files or play them back

MIDI “MIDI is a technical standard that describes a protocol, digital interface and connectors and allows a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers and other related devices to connect and communicate with one another.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI

Using midi in reaper allows virtual instruments to be made/customized

Software Sequencers “A music sequencer (or simply sequencer) is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically MIDI or CV/Gate, and possibly audio and automation data for DAWs and plug-ins.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_sequencer

Using these makes it possible to make sequenced music with a virtual instrument, commonly synthesisers

Software Plug-ins “In computing, a plug-in (or plugin, extension, or add-on / addon) is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing software application.”

This makes it possible to add more VST and VSTi’s to reaper, as well as JS plugins

MIDI Keyboard Instruments “A MIDI keyboard is typically a piano-style user interface keyboard device used for sending MIDI signals or commands over a USB or MIDI cable to other devices connected and operating on the same MIDI protocol interface.”

Simulates sounds given from a keyboard and plays them within computers applications such as garageband or reaper.

AUDIO SAMPLING File Size Constraints - Bit-depth “In digital audio using pulse-code modulation (PCM), bit depth is the number of bits of information in each sample, and it directly corresponds to the resolution of each sample.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_bit_depth

File Size Constraints - Sample Rate

In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous signal to a discrete signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave to a sequence of samples. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(signal_processing)