How to communicate effectively with a game audio professional
I get it: discussing music and sound with a professional can seem daunting, especially when you know close to nothing about how music and sound work. Fortunately, you don’t need a degree in musicology to express what you need, give feedback, and maintain a healthy line of communication with the audio professional(s) you’re working with. Here are some tips to get you started:
Don’t worry about the jargon
This is the scary part: you may have heard audio people talk about “secondary dominants”, “frequency shifters” or “actor-mixer hierarchy” and thought they were speaking a different language.
The good news is, you don’t need to worry about any of that stuff. In fact, unless you have a solid background in music theory or sound yourself, I recommend staying away from this highly technical language: at best, it’s not needed, and at worst, it could lead to misunderstandings. Instead:
Focus on the feeling
When you boil it down, you want audio in your game because of its potential to make the player feel a certain way, from the intense dread when that final boss music kicks in, to the warm, fuzzy feeling when you hear the sounds this cute little creature makes. An audio professional’s job is to use the tools at their disposal to elicit such feelings. Making it as clear as possible how you intend the player to feel will make their job a lot easier, not only for setting an initial direction but also for course-correcting. Take this feedback message I received from a developer while working on the boss music theme for their game:
“What’s bothering me is the sound of the melody that plays over the
beat (0:14-0:28). It feels eerie and oppressive. I know that the boss theme
should carry some menacing sense of urgency, but these parts bring dread
and isolation into the mix that doesn’t feel right for a challenge that is also
meant to be fun and to feel great to overcome.”
Notice how the developer used several words related to emotions: “eerie and oppressive”, “dread and isolation”. When I read this message and the word “isolation” especially, I immediately thought to myself: “I made it sound too much like Metroid”, and I knew immediately what I needed to change to get things back on track.
For you, this means that you may have to ask yourself questions you hadn’t thought about before. Take any game with a combat system: do you want the combat to feel rewarding and make the player feel powerful, or make them think twice about fighting by highlighting how fragile they are? A competent audio professional will find a way to translate these ideas into sound, and would create drastically different soundscapes in both of these scenarios.
When trying to get at this one very specific feeling you have in mind, don’t be afraid to use analogies to get your point across, no matter how ridiculous or nonsensical they may sound to you. It might not work the first time, but you’ll get there eventually! As an example, here’s another message from the same developer:
“In general the music should feel like a cool pillow on a bed of nails. The
gameplay can get pretty tough and challenging and the music is there to
drive you forward even when it gets hard, it should motivate the player and
not be so pushing that it adds to the stress level.”
The image of the “pillow on a bed of nails” can seem a bit out there, but it made sense to me and proved to be very useful when it came to understanding what the developers expected from the music.
Use references, but don’t overuse them
References are other sound effects, music tracks, or even whole games that can serve as examples or inspirations to communicate how you want the audio in your game to sound.
References are very powerful and can be very useful, especially when language alone proves insufficient to communicate your ideas clearly. They can get you out of a bind when you can’t seem to get on the same page with your audio professional. When using references, try to be as precise as possible about what it is about the reference that you like. If it’s a specific passage in a music track, include a timestamp; if it’s the UI sound effects of a game, make sure to point that out. There’s something tricky about references though: they’re, by definition, from other projects, and overusing them comes with the risk of having your game sound like someone else’s game. In most cases, that’s not what you want!
To mitigate this, avoid using just one reference, e.g. “I want the spell sound effects to sound like the ones from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.” This implies that you’ll be judging the sound effects against that one reference, which can lead to unnecessary pressure and stifle creativity. Instead, use multiple references, and try not to expect your game to sound exactly like any of them. Leave room for your composer or sound designer to use their own voice.
To set the audio direction for a game, consider using a lot of references – for example, a playlist of 20+ music tracks. Think of it as a musical moodboard, whose goal is to set a mood and provide inspiration. And finally, don’t be afraid not to use references at all. Your audio professional
might have something in mind that you hadn’t considered, and as long as you make it clear how you want the player to feel, and what you want to say with that game, you might be pleasantly surprised by the result if you let them work without providing too much direction.
Be as precise and constructive as possible
Giving feedback and asking for revisions can be difficult for both sides. To ensure things go smoothly, try to be as clear as possible. Simple things such as including a timestamp for music can go a long way, even when you think it isn’t needed. “The instrument that sounds like a trumpet that plays short notes starting at 0:38” is a lot more helpful than simply “the trumpet”, especially if no trumpet was actually used in the track! If all else fails, ask your audio person to share their work session with you via Zoom, so they can isolate the different elements for you.
Do your best to provide constructive criticism. While feedback such as “Track #1 is good; track #2 is bad” might be how you’re feeling, it really isn’t helpful when it comes to fixing the issue. It might be hard for you to pinpoint what it is that you don’t like about a particular asset, but do your best to express it in the clearest way possible. Otherwise, you’re asking your audio person to take another shot in the dark.
Finally, don’t hesitate to include positive feedback when the opportunity presents itself! It doesn’t need to be every time – you don’t need to systematically sandwich your criticism between two slices of praise, as that can come across as inauthentic. But a genuine comment to demonstrate your appreciation of the other person’s work once in a while can go a long way when you’re trying to maintain a sustainable professional relationship. Like all creatives, audio professionals are particularly prone to self-doubt and impostor syndrome, and we really do appreciate when our work is recognized.