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It is widely acknowledged that the Mac is the platform of choice for graphic design professionals and for anyone producing visual imagery for print or screen; however, the Mac also holds a lofty reputation in the world of audio creation and production. Just ask Thomas Bärtschi.
You may not recognise the name — yet — but it’s possible you may have heard some of Bärtschi’s work without knowing it. With commissions for Pixar, Warner Brothers and Sony under his belt, Bärtschi is part of a new generation of interactive audio specialists who use technology to create soundscapes that can be deployed across multiple media and multiple platforms. And his software of choice is Logic. Bärtschi recently put his talents to use creating the soundtrack for Crytek Studios” Far Cry, the first-person shooter game that has had the critics purring since its Windows release earlier this year. Bärtschi also had a hand in creating the Sound Effects for Far Cry, a process that involved working closely with Crytek’s SFX department, who also favoured the use of Logic in the creation of the SFX assets. “In a game like Far Cry, the audio needs to be a bit over-the-top, a bit Hollywood-ish, to complement the action”, explains Bärtschi. “Logic was invaluable here, especially combined with third-party plug-ins like Waves’ Gold TDM, which was brilliant for tweaking gunshots and whizzing bullets. Looking back, we couldn’t have done what we did without Logic, and Logic running on the Mac is an incredibly stable and powerful tool”. 
“The EXS24 element of Logic allowed me to have up to 30 tracks open at the same time”, he says. “Previously, I’d have had to use hardware samplers and upload all my sounds from different storage media — a very laborious job. The convenience of EXS24 makes the creative process much easier and faster”.“All the SFX were produced and implemented in such a way that you feel as if you’re really there, in the middle of the jungle”, says Bärtschi. “In a game like this, it’s not enough to have SFX playback using conventional stereo loops. The SFX were based on a random playback engine that picks from a pool of sounds and plays them back without any predictability. This adds to the realism”.  Another key feature of the audio is its integration with the game’s action. “The SFX engine was used to make sure the SFX were played back at the right time and in the right place. Depending on the location and what actually happens in the game, the SFX engine will react accordingly: ‘if this happens, play this here’”, explains Bärtschi, who worked closely with his partner Steve Blezy during the whole development process.
This degree of integration is also true of the soundtrack. “The soundtrack playback is very interactive, thanks to the Interactive Music System (IMS)”, says Bärtschi. “The soundtrack reacts to the gameplay not just by changing between basic gameplay states such as combat and non-combat but by making complex switches between a range of audio moods. It’s very cinematic and very exciting and it’s the Mac platform that has allowed us to make such a success of it”. Next page: “An Incredibly Stable and Powerful Tool” |
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