GDC

Events, Game Music

GDC 2015 Game Audio Talks Now Available Through the GDC Vault

April 2, 2015 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on GDC 2015 Game Audio Talks Now Available Through the GDC Vault Share this

The Game Developers Conference, or GDC, is a great place to meet people within the game’s industry and to check out talks on specific disciplines and subjects. One of the big categories that gets discussed is game audio. Topics on the subject can include sound design, composition techniques, and orchestration/arrangement. However, not everyone gets the opportunity to attend the event. Luckily, the GDC Vault is offering up viewing of several of this past year’s panels and talks for free.

The GDC Vault has a number of audio talks up for anyone to access, whether you attended GDC 2015 or not. While a portion of them that are restricted to subscribers only access, there’s a decent number of videos that non-members can view. These include Peter McConnell’s “Dj vu All Over Again? What We Can Learn from ‘Classic’ Game Music,” Devon Newsom’s “Creating an Interactive Musical Experience for Fantasia: Music Evolved,” and Mike Niederquell’s talk,“Hohokum: Adventures in Music and Sound Design.”

There are also a few audio related talks that were on the Independent Games Summit list, like C. Andrew Rohrmann’s talk titled “Creating Hyper-Adaptive Music on an Indie Budget.” You can, of course, check out the free-to-watch talks from the other categories and disciplines as well. So if you’re someone who is interested in learning more about game audio or just want to get brief look at what happens at GDC, these videos will be right up your alley.

GDC Vault (2015 Audio Track) – Website
Chip Music, Featured

GDC 2011: 8-Bit DOPE Chiptune Concert Impressions and Photo Gallery

March 8, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | 3 Comments Share this

It’s hard to believe that GDC 2011 has already come and gone, but the conference definitely went out with a bang. The monthly concert series, DOPE, decided to get all 8-bit to celebrate the Game Developers Conference being in town, and it was quite an evening to remember… or not, depending on how much you had to drink!

Performing were WDUWSTS, starpause, crashfaster, our friend Zen Albatross, and minusbaby. I hadn’t heard many of these guys before, so it was a real treat to be exposed to their music as a part of the GDC festivities.

Missed the concert? Well, don’t worry, we have impressions and a nice photo gallery courtesy of Emi Spicer for you after the jump! (more…)
Game Music

GDC 2011: Mitsuto Suzuki Talks Freedom of Expression (Photo Gallery)

March 5, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on GDC 2011: Mitsuto Suzuki Talks Freedom of Expression (Photo Gallery) Share this

Square Enix composer and synthesizer operator Mitsuto Suzuki was on hand at GDC this week to talk about the differences in approach to two Final Fantasy titles, Four Warriors of Light and Final Fantasy XIII, both of which featured Suzuki as an arranger. While the technical content of the talk was light, Suzuki expressed his philosophy on music, asking the audience, “Is music bound by fixed concepts? Theory?,” and telling us that his goal is to be free of these kinds of limitations. It was interesting to see from the opening slide above, too, that Suzuki is really his own brand.

One of the best parts of the lecture was a live demonstration of Cyan, a Japanese live performance software that Suzuki tinkered around with for a good 15 minutes on stage, giving us a cool live performance of sorts. It contained bits of “Recall” from Neurovision among other original works.

We have a small gallery of some of the introductory slides after the jump. (more…)
Game Music

GDC 2011: 3DS Development, Koji Kondo in Lipstick?

March 3, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on GDC 2011: 3DS Development, Koji Kondo in Lipstick? Share this

Here at GDC, there’s a lot of talk about the upcoming US release of Nintendo’s 3DS. A panel was held yesterday about the development of the handheld by Hideki Konno, who traditionally has worked in software, and tried his hand at hardware this time around. He spent time talking about the team involved along with showing some of the prototypes of the system, and how they were used to win over the team that 3D would be a good idea for this system.

I enjoyed seeing the prototypes, but got the biggest kick out of the organizational chart that Konno showed near the beginning of his speech. It shows Koji Kondo as a sort of second-tier creator at Nintendo EAD, right beneath Shigeru Miyamoto himeslf, which was cool. I found the bright red lips on him to be a little odd, however.

Hit the jump for our photo gallery from the talk. (more…)
Game Music

GDC 2011: Intergalactic Redux is Invading GDC?

March 3, 2011 | Jayson Napolitano | 3 Comments Share this

So, Josh and I are here in San Francisco for GDC 2011, and I was surprised by the first thing I saw at the door. Don’t those angular, rainbow-colored designs look vaguely familiar? They should, as we just reviewed and held our Intergalactic Redux contest in the past month and week, respectively!

Do you think it’s just a coincidence, or do The OneUps have fans in high places?

Hit the jump for another shot. (more…)
Game Music

A Blast From The Past: The Original No More Heroes With Masafumi Takada

July 15, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | Comments Off on A Blast From The Past: The Original No More Heroes With Masafumi Takada Share this

[Left to right: Masafumi Takada, Jayson Napolitano, Jun Fukuda (wearing Suda51’s badge!)]

Yes, it’s that time of month! “A Blast From The Past” is a series that rediscovers interviews I conducted while at Music4Games. The interviews are no longer available online, so I thought it would be appropriate to give them new life each month here on OSV.

This time we take a step back in time to GDC 2008 right after composer Masafumi Takada delivered his talk about his work up to that point. He spoke mostly about Killer 7 and No More Heroes, but we were able to sit down with him and discuss some of his other projects at Grasshopper Manufacture as well. I thought it was a good time to bring this one back after our awesome interview with Jun Fukuda and Nobuhiko Sagara back in May. I also have to thank Tommy Ciulla for contributing the majority of the questions to this interview, as I wasn’t really familiar with Takada’s past works at that point.

Hit the jump for a blast from the past! (more…)
Film, Game Music

GDC 2010: Osamu Kubota’s Past and Philosophy on Videogame Music

June 3, 2010 | Jayson Napolitano | 4 Comments Share this

Remember when I told you there was more to come from our busy time at GDC 2010 this past March? Well, this is the last of it! Sorry that it’s taken so long, but I think it will be worth the wait. We talked to Osamu Kubota a couple years back, where, yes, we ran that fateful photo of him wearing lipstick. When we saw him at GDC, however, he was without the lipstick, and looked rather professional.

This time we sit down for a chat about his work on Granado Espada, his interactions with IMC Games director Kim Hakkyu, his philosophy on music in games, his history with a J-pop band in the 1980s, and what his plans are for the rest of 2010. He has a lot of interesting things to say, so join us in our interview with Osamu Kubota after the jump! (more…)