Aaron Marks' Complete Guide to Game Audio For Composers, Sound Designers, Musicians, and Game Developers

Whether trying to land that first big gig or working to perfect the necessary skills to fill a game world with sound, Aaron Marks’ Complete Guide to Game Audio 3rd edition will teach the reader everything they need to know about the audio side of the multi-million dollar video game industry. This book builds upon the success of the second edition with even more expert advice from masters in the field and notes current changes within the growing video game industry. The tools of the trade excerpts will showcase what professionals, like Marty O’Donnell, Richard Jacques and Tom Salta, use to create their work and to help newcomers in the field prepare their own sound studios. Sample contracts are reviewed within the text as well as helpful advice about contractual terms and negotiable points. These sample contracts can also be found as a downloadable zip for the reader’s convenience. Aaron Marks also explores how to set your financial terms and network efficiently along with examples of how projects can go completely awry and achieving the best results in often complicated situations. Aaron Marks’ Complete Guide to Game Audio serves as the ultimate survival guide to navigating an audio career in the video game industry. Key Features New, full color edition with a complete update of information. Added and expanded coverage of field recording for games, creating voiceovers, adaptive and interactive audio and other cutting edge sound creation and implementation techniques used within games. Update/Replacement of interviews. Include interviews/features on international game audio professionals New and expanded interview features from game composers and sound designers of every experience level such as Keith Arem, Bradley Meyer, Christopher Tin and Rodney Gates including many international professionals like Pasi Pitkanen, Henning Nugel and Christos Panayides. Expanded and updated game console coverage of the Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3 and PS4. Includes new scripting and middleware concepts and techniques and review of powerful tools such as FMOD and Wwise.

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Game Audio Chapter 2: Essential Skill Sets and Tools Chapter 3: Getting Organized and Ready for Business Chapter 4: Finding and Getting the Jobs Chapter 5: The Bidding Process Chapter 6: Making the Deals Chapter 7: Setting the Stage Chapter 8: Creating Music for Games Chapter 9: Creating Sound Effects for Games Chapter 10: Voice Overs for Games Chapter 11: Blending the Total Soundscape Chapter 12: Scripting and Middleware Chapter 13: Game Platforms and Their Audio Development Issues Chapter 14: The Developers Guide to Audio Content Chapter 15: Game Over? Not Hardly Appendix A Game Audio: Getting the Help You Need to Succeed Appendix B The Grammy’s and Other Game Audio Awards

Aaron Marks has been active in the games industry as a game composer, sound designer, field recordist, voice over artist, audio director, author and consultant with credits on over 275 game titles. He has worked on most game platforms and systems for most major developers and publishers in the past 20 years. As the President and owner of On Your Mark Music Productions, Marks has also created music and sound design for film, television, radio, sound effects libraries and numerous multimedia projects as well as an independent musician and recording engineer. In addition to Aaron Marks’ Complete Guide to Game Audio, he is the lead author of the book Game Audio Development and has written for Game Developer Magazine, Gamasutra.com, designingsound.org, Music4Games.net, and the Society of Composers and Lyricists. For many years, he has authored and taught accredited college courses on game audio, interactive media, production sound, and field recording at The Art Institute of California – San Diego, was the chair and member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Technical Committee for Games, was a founding member, advisory board member and education committee vice chair for the Game Audio Network Guild (GANG) and has been a presenter and speaker at various industry seminars including the Game Developers Conference, Audio Engineering Society Game Audio Workshop, LA Music Productions game audio seminar and the Game Audio Network Guild workshops and panels, guest lecturer for the University of Michigan and Edinburgh Napier University game audio courses, among others and interviewed by Rode Microphones for the Rode Rage series.