Game Audio Mixing
When it came to mixing the audio tracks for this project the main focus was to blend the ambience audio with the music in such a way to seamlessly merge the two into an evolving and varyingly detailed arrangement of sound. With the music tracks consisting of multi-track instruments, I first ensured the levels between each were level and consistent throughout each of the rooms. This was then smoothed between transitions through transition markers on the two recurring music layers for Room 1 and 3, as well as with the AHDSR to transition the multi-instruments between each loop.
This AHDSR faded in the opening to each audio track with attack time adjustments, and sustain / hold settings adjusted to the duration of each. TO add some more valence into the track layers, I also added multiples of the same audio file to the multi-instruments and transposed to different keys which still fit the composition scale. The playback of these returned sections also played back at different speeds to the originals, I considered cutting them at the same time however I found that the syncopated loops added to the variation I was aiming for with the music, and created an evolving quality which I thought was suitable.
For the footsteps I aimed to emphasize the directional qualities of the source by incorporating reverb to the track to help reinforce the room image the player character and sounds are based in. This was done by creating three group sends for each rooms own reverb, which was adjusted to fit the characteristics of each room with the longest having more distant reflections in the wet mix and vice versa with more near reflections in the smallest room. For the console room I added in some extra flange effect to add a different subtle variation to emphasize the heavier modulated timbre to the audio of the final room.
Transitions were added and mixed in, these were triggered at the entrance of each room and would not loop. They consisted of reverb with long impulse responses that gained in volume after a few seconds to create a wash which would fit the musical synth / string washes of sound. This was added into the ambiences and mixed in through some reverb built into FMOD’s mixer. The mixer was utilized to group all the audio tracks coming in through each event group, with the final levels and compression applied here to bring the mix together before being sent to the playback in unreal.
