Video Game Music

Game Audio

Get ready for the game audio revolution. It's been a truism for years that game audio is neglected, overlooked, underbudgeted, and otherwise given a short shrift. With the most recent wave of gaming platforms, audio capabilities are more closely matching visual power, allowing for improved sonic standards that we've long enjoyed in other media. Game audio is an exiting and underexplored field ripe for new talent.

Game Audio Salary Info

Low: $45,000 (1-2 years experience)
High: $68,000 (6+ years experience)
Average: $57,500
Highest: $130,000

Audio Sub-Types

Sound Engineer/Designer
Composer
Audio Programmer/Engineer

Sound Engineer/Designer
Like a sound designer in the film world, the game sound designer creates all the audible material in the game, except music. You'll generate the game's sound effects, both for environmental ambiance like wind, water, or dogs barking, and for events that happen in the world, like footsteps or car crashes. To create all of these sounds, you will work with the design and programming teams to achieve the best style and execution. Typically, you will also be responsible for recording the voiceovers of the character actors, and perhaps even recording the musical score. For every file you create, you will spend a lot of time editing, correcting, sweetening, and compressing it to play well in the game. Some new innovations in audio synthesis are making their way into the game field: three-dimensional audio, realtime sound synthesis (imagine a car engine revving realistically when your foot steps on the gas), realtime interactive music, and even voice synthesis. Most of these techniques aren't yet in wide use, so there is a lot of room to innovate.

Composer
Because of the extreme stylistic diversity from game to game, the game composer is often hired on contract to a game company for a specific game, although there are also many full-time audio people who compose music in addition to other duties. Different projects have widely differing musical needs, ranging from orchestral to techno to pop-punk, and there continues to be a need for synthesized music for handheld systems like Game Boy. The best game composers, whether contract or full time, need to be able to write music in any style needed by the game, and must be able to work with the latest composing and recording software. For cost reasons, most game music is created using synthesizers or samplers, but whether it's real or electronic, a background in instrumental performance will help you create the richest quality of music. And for almost any style you compose in, you'll need training in cinematic scoring, since game music needs to generate emotional reactions much like film music. A solid technological education will be important if you hope to someday use the latest cutting-edge technologies to create player-responsive interactive music. Lately, creators of games in a few genres (particularly extreme sports) have been forgoing specially composed music altogether in favor of popular music tie-ins. These projects need a music licensor to negotiate with the music labels, collecting the permissions and rights to the work of popular or upcoming artists.