CALLUM COLLINS:
Exegesis Working Doc
GAME AND SOUND DESIGNER
Logic Pro X
I found working with logic pro x very easy compared to the other software I have used in the past (Pro Tools, FL Studio). I created a small synth-wave 8 bar piece as that is the main genre I have worked in. It was very easy to take the samples and combine them to get a composition together making the task of starting a sound piece a lot less daunting.
I wanted to use this technique to learn how to use Ableton, so I got the trial version and added some samples and automation to create a similar project. I found Ableton confusing and complicated and trying to link it with my hardware (Maschine Mikro) was difficult.
I decided to go back to FL Studio but may continue to use Ableton alongside Logic Pro in an attempt to apply my learning of Logic to Ableton weekly.
City-Scape
After listening to the recordings of the city I had taken the week before, I decided I wanted to heavily master the tracks by applying lots of effects. The other reason for wanting to explore this process was the recent live-stream I watched with Mick Gordon, the composer for the soundtrack to DOOM(2016). In his live-stream, he talked about compression and how he used it with reverb to create some of his signature sounds.
​
I started by adding reverb and compression to the cityscape but this made the original sound overwhelming, so I added some fuzz to it and this converted the busy cityscape into an ambient noise track with lots of texture.
After this, I took the recording I had to the church choir singing and pitch-shifted it down and added reverb to make it sound as though it was coming from a large room, like a church.
The final part of the piece was adding in the different guitar elements and tweaking the eq and reverb on those.
Halo 5 TRAILER
The idea behind the sound for this piece was to use samples and effects to change it from a fast-paced action trailer, into a more traditional, sci-fi tension-building trailer. To that end, we picked lots of weird sci-fi sound effects and layered them with each of the characters as they appeared on the screen. This, combined with the ambient sounds, creates interest at the beginning of the piece and when the text begins to appear, we used the ticking sample and the boom effects to really build that tension and make the text more impactful.
We used simple effects for a lot of the piece, using reverb and pitch shift for the voice recording, and eq, and reverb for the boom effects.
