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Cut SceneGame Sound SpecialSpeciald Game Sound Sound SpecialSpecialGame Sound SpecialSound Game Game SpecialGame Sound Sound Game SpecialGame SpecialSound Game SoundSpecSOf Aliens, Apes, andPsychotic RabbitsWhen you get to do the Foley for a rabbit that burps so loud,Paris crumbles, and enjoys taking on the world with onlysink-plunger guns to work with, you know you’ve made it.Yoan Fanise talks to Audio Media.Yoan Fanise, Audio Director, has beenworking in game audio at Ubisoft since2001, starting with the acclaimed BeyondGood & Evil. He’s worked on plenty ofgames since, such as Peter Jackson’s King Kong,which gathered multiple awards for its audiocontent and had its sound effects approved bythe WETA Workshop team several monthsbefore the film’s audio post was done. Thatgame was especially notable for its early use ofdynamic group mixing in-game.Yoan is still very proud though of the BeyondGood & Evil work which, he says, overcame alot of PS2 graphical limitations by making upfor it in the immersive audio experience, withdetailed, streaming atmospheres.Most recently though, he and his team havebeen working on the incredibly successfulRaving Rabbids series, derived from the Raymanfranchise, and is, as you read, working on thenext incarnation: Rabbids Go Home. The beautyin the Rabbids audio is the comedy it brings tothe game, complementing the very silly antics ofthe cute yet psychotic Rabbids. Their signature“Bwwahhh!!!” scream and huge range of cartoonlike‘almost-dialogue’ comes from the mouthof one Yoann Perrier, a Graphic Programmerat Ubisoft. “I give him ideas, sometimes withFrench dialogue, and record one minute of eachsmall expression. We cannot work for more thanan hour as he loses his voice.” Sound EditorJean-Marie Viollet then does a massive editjob on the recordings, and leaves the rest to athree semitone pitch rise (the only processingnecessary). In 2006, Rayman Raving Rabbidsscooped the IGN Game Of The Year Wii Awardstrophy for Best Use Of Sound.The studios at Ubisoft’s Montpellier, France,studios consist of three isolated rooms, includinga main recording area where the voices and Foleyare recorded. Equipment-wise, the main weaponis Steinberg’s Nuendo. Previously a Pro Tools userin film post, Fanise switched to Nuendo for gamesound. “It was a huge saving of time and money,”he says. He cites many reasons for the choice,such as the range and cost of plug-ins, and thefreedom to choose any hardware he wants toaccompany it. However, he does mention thecalculated bouncing and ability to open severalsessions simultaneously as the two biggest draws.His day is no longer punctuated by waiting forbounces after changing small elements in layers.Fanise claims to have ‘converted’ quite a numberof colleagues to the Nuendo way. His currentcontroller is a Mackie Control, and the otherequipment around the studios includes an AKGC414 and SPL GainStation (with AD conversion)combination – a set-up that Fanise prefers ashe can move it around without worrying aboutinferior interfaces on other systems. There are nosuch worries with the studio’s RME Hammerfallinterface. Monitoring options are Tannoy RevealPassives, Adam ANF10s, and Audio-Technicaheadphones.Fanise has a number of favourite plug-ins,including the PSP mixpack and PSP master Q(with the mix saturator pulled out for specialpraise with regard to dealing with fast transientFoley work), and the SIR Convolution reverbplug-in. He has recorded his own substantiallibrary of impulse responses for the latter. ∫............................INFORMATIONwww.ubisoft.frYoan Fanise working on Foley.STEINBERG NUENDO 4Delivering a next-generation audio productionenvironment for audio post, studio productionand live recording, Nuendo 4 empowers audioprofessionals by elevating creativity andproductivity to new heights. Technologicallyadvanced yet extraordinarily intuitive and fullycustomisable, Nuendo 4 offers streamlined,precision tools that save time and boost creativityfor audio professionals in today’s media, recording,and film industries. Nuendo 4 provides scaleable,cross-platform systems that integrate easily andfully with premiere components by industryleadingplug-in and hardware manufacturers.Steinberg technologies provide power, flexibilityand speed – accelerating recording, mixing,editing and sound design workflows to anunprecedented level.Nuendo 4 offers a state-of-the-art automationsystem, which combines with new recordingfunctionality and TrackPreset managementfeatures to speedup audio productionworkflows. A nextgenerationVST3 effectplug-in suite, theinnovative MediaBaydatabase, new editingcommands and the Track Quick Controls raiseproduction efficiency and quality to new heights.With the introduction of the 4.2 update Steinbergrefreshed Nuendo by introducing extensivesupport for Yamaha KS and Yamaha Motif XSseries, as well as for the Steinberg MR816 CSX/XAdvanced Integration DSP Studio and the CC121Advanced Integration Controller. Nuendo 4.2 isa major maintenance release for Nuendo 4, andincludes several workflow enhancements andimprovements.............................INFORMATIONSteinberg www.steinberg.netAUDIO MEDIA JULY 2009 – PROMOTIONAL FEATURE41