Interview with Richard Dekkard, Owner, HammerJaw Audio and Media Services Company

Richard Dekkard, Lead Audio Designer for Auto Assault™, talks about the importance of surround sound in the most destructive MMORPG ever.

Dolby: How did you get started in game audio?

I had attempted to retire for a while and found myself bored pretty quickly. So one day I was at a neighborhood garage sale and I met a neighborof mine who was one of the owners of NetDevil, the developer of Auto Assault. I had been playing video games my whole life, so this intrigued me, and we began to talk. We exchanged some ideas and plans for me to see the game, and I put together a presentation of what I could do for them, and we went from there.

So what had you retired from, before your work with NetDevil?

For the previous fifteen years, I had been a songwriter and record producer in the music industry. It had been pretty grueling, and I was quite burnt out on it. I had known the many limitations of audio in games from playing them in the past, so I never thought that they could provide the kind of canvas I wanted to paint audio on. However, the technological progress that Dolby has brought to games and NetDevil’s cooperation with my ideas have made it so very few compromises need to be made. We can do almost anything now.

How does surround sound affect Auto Assault?

Auto Assault comes alive with surround sound. Where physics has added depth to the visuals and action, surround sound added that depth to the listening experience. The action is just so intense, and with surround, you are immersed in it and all the more likely to believe the visuals.

In your experience in the music industry, had you used surround sound?

No. I had only ever worked in stereo, so I was really excited to make use of surround sound. Coming from the music industry and working in stereo, I had no preconceived ideas of limits or the “proper” way to do things, and it allowed us to push boundaries like never before.

Can you talk a little about the use of interactive surround sound versus pre-encoded surround sound in Auto Assault?

Anything that moves in the game is panned dynamically in the surround field. This includes all vehicles, enemies, explosions, etcetera. There are also stationary sound-emitting objects that are panned dynamically. There are many “George Orwellian” propaganda towers all around that you will hear panned interactively. In addition to these interactive elements, we have six levels of “prebaked” surround sounds. These include weapon sounds, music, weather, environmental audio, interface sounds, and your own vehicle explosion is in surround sound. We have taken it to every extreme we could.

Can you explain some of the techniques you used for “prebaking” the surround audio?

Well, for example, we “prebaked” the weapon sounds. We didn’t have a lot of time to do field recording, so I needed to be able to use my previously recorded sounds and library sounds. It’s important to be able to create unique sounds from these. One of the techniques I use is to split up a sound by frequencies. I’d take an effect like a machine gun and want to make an original sound in surround. I’d frequency compress the sample and take the clicking of the gun as well as other high-frequency sounds and pan them to the Center channel. I’d then frequency compress the sample to isolate the middle frequencies and pan them Left and Right. I’d also take the sound of shells hitting the ground and pan them to the Surround channels. This creates a whole new sound effect that puts you into the middle of the action. This would be one step in the process, and then you layer and layer from there.

What gear can you not live without?

Apple® Logic® Pro is about ninety-nine percent of what I use. Unfortunately, no program can do it all so I use a variety of programs including A. Pack. I use Genelec® monitors for everything. It’s an absolute necessity to have a good monitoring setup. I’ve also been using a Kyma system for synthesizing surround sounds.

What formats did you use in Auto Assault?

We used a multichannel Ogg Vorbis format as it works well with the variety of soundcards and motherboards equipped with Dolby® Digital Live. Soundcards add a variety of menus, sliders, and other settings. In an ideal world, everyone would use the motherboards with Dolby Digital Live because then I can be one hundred percent certain of what they are hearing.

In closing, how do you like working in the games industry?

During the process of doing the audio for this game, I received several offers to work on albums, but I turned them down because working on games, and especially in surround, provides an unmatched creative opportunity for my music and sound effects work. I don’t think I will ever go back to records.