Game Audio Hour

After chatting a bit with him during conferences the past year, we had to invite composer and performer John Robert Matz onto the show to chat about what he's been up to lately! He talks about the score for Tchia but also about things back in the day (indie game dev!) and that GAH staple: conspicuous consumption! Other notable mentions include: Udio Artemis: Spaceship Bridge Simulator alt.ctrl.GDC Tchia For The King II Horizon: Forbidden West Community Alicia De Laroccha Helldivers 2 Mother 3 Featuring: John Robert Matz, Michael Gordon Shapiro, Alex May, and Vincent Diamante Recorded April 12, 2024

Another GDC has come and went, and two of the GAH trio were around to partake... but that's not nearly the only game event worth going to early in the calendar year! But the real question for this episode is: Can ANY game event stand up to the inaugural edition of the Game Audio Hour Hot Take?! Other notable mentions include: Women In Games (conference) Lucas Rei Ramos (music composer) True Lies (film) Mirror's Edge (video game) GDC Main Stage: A Developer's Concert Featuring: Michael Gordon Shapiro, Alex May, and Vincent Diamante Recorded March 29th, 2024

We're a little past 10 years now, but we're still celebrating this milestone, this time with another of our cohort from years past. Chase Bethea joins the duo of Alex and Vince to chat a bit about game audio, this time answering some questions from listeners as well as keeping us abreast of all the goings-on in his music career! Featuring: Chase Bethea, Alex May, and Vincent Diamante Recorded March 15, 2024

It's been 10 years and one of our illustrious cohort from the early days, Jack Menhorn, joins the trio of Mike, Alex, and Vince to chat a bit about game audio! The group chat about audio moving between indie and AAA, middleware, and even some of the current anxiety about AI. Other notable mentions include: State of Decay (horror game series, Undead Labs) The Greatest Night in Pop (Documentary, Netflix) Angela Aki (J-pop artist) Pianoteq (Software piano instrument, Modartt) Baldur's Gate 3 (RPG, Larian Studios) Featuring: Jack Menhorn, Michael Gordon Shapiro, Alex May, and Vincent Diamante Recorded February 28th, 2024

The duo of Mike and Vince wax lyrical of their recent Apple purchases... or should I say: Mac-quisitions? Newer tech talk then moves to talk of some older gear that is still supported by its creator, then the ever conspicuous Conspicuous Consumption! Notable mentions include: Apple Mac Pro M2 Ultra (computer workstation) Oeksound's bloom plugin (adaptive tone shaper) RME Fireface series (audio interface) Blue Eyes Samurai (animated series, Netflix) Level with Emily Reese (game music podcast series) Featuring: Michael Gordon Shapiro and Vincent Diamante Recorded February 2nd, 2024

The Game Audio Hour crew is a trio again, as Vince emerges from the vortex of new fatherhood! As befits a New Year's (-ish) episode, the team reflects upon audio creation and production habits, and how to refine them. Also, we learn how effectively RX can remove the sound of a lawnmower outside Mike's studio.

Alex and Mike discuss the heavenly acoustics of Wiener Musikverein, the tribulations (and surprising benefits) of moving one's audio rig to the new Mac Pro, and the utility of the term "genre" in game audio.

The trio of Vince, Alex, and Mike end up chatting about gear for much of this episode: little keys, big keys, and just right keys figure prominently! Games and music do come in as well, but you'll have to listen to the end to hear some of the fun albums that get brought up! Notable mentions include: Yamaha Montage M8x (workstation keyboard) Yamaha Reface DX (mini keyboard/synth reissue) Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (game expansion) Neuromancer (Science Fiction novel, William Gibson) Sail Away (Music Album, Randy Newman) Christopher Cross (Music Album, Christopher Cross) Featuring: Michael Gordon Shapiro, Alex May, and Vincent Diamante Recorded October 15th, 2023

Mike, Vince, and Alex are back for another episode and are still wading in the wake of big business moves. Unity, Unreal, Bandcamp... there's all sorts of uncertainty on the horizon. Still, there's plenty of straightforward game audio and music talk to be done! Notable mentions include: Bandcamp (acquired by Songtradr from Epic) Tron (film, Disney; soundtrack by Wendy Carlos) Starfield (role-playing game, Bethesda) The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (role-playing game, Bethesda) North by Northwest (film, Alfred Hitchcock) War of Being (progressive metal album, TesseracT) Run with the Wind (anime, Production I.G.; soundtrack by Yuki Hayashi) Featuring: Michael Gordon Shapiro, Alex May, and Vincent Diamante Recorded September 29th, 2023

Vince and Alex commiserate and discuss some of the major issues hitting the game dev and music world right now. However, not even the double-whammy of Unity's latest changes and fraudulent DMCA claim soundtrack takedowns can dampen their enthusiasm for games, audio, and game audio! Notable mentions include: Two Feathers Studio (game audio design studio) Unity (game development platform) Starfield (role-playing game, Bethesda) Eternights (dating sim action role-playing game, Studio Sai) Metal: Hellsinger (rhythmic first person shooter, The Outsiders) BPM (roguelike rhythmic first person shooter, Awe Interactive) Featuring: Alex May and Vincent Diamante Recorded September 15th, 2023

Just like the previous episode, Vince recounts going to a big video game show and Alex reels in excitement! This time, it’s the California Extreme classic game show and Vince talks about all the fun retro and modern video games he came across… but eventually, the duo get to talking about straight up audio design, mixing, and some of the tools and techniques that go along with it. Notable mentions include: California Extreme (classic arcade show and auction) Tempest (vector shooter, Atari) Xevious (scrolling shooter, Namco) After Burner Climax (3D flight action game, Sega) Bazille (modular synthesizer, U-he) The ProResu 2 (pro wrestling game, Yuke's) Celestion Speaker Shaper (modeled speaker plugin, Softube) Featuring: Alex May and Vincent Diamante Recorded August 25th, 2023

Alex and Vince are at it again! This time, Vince starts off by chatting about cool things happening at the EVO fighting game tournament in Las Vegas, while Alex grounds things with some of the sound design work he's currently doing. Synths, workstations, and even some Japanese manga figure in the discussion as well! Notable mentions include: EVO (fighting game tournament) Twinbee (scrolling shooter, Konami) Sequential Pro-3 Synth Roland Fantom-6 Workstation Doepfer Dark Energy Desktop Synth Witch Hat Atelier (manga, Kamome Shirahama) Mirror's Edge Catalyst (EA) Featuring: Alex May and Vincent Diamante Recorded August 11th, 2023

Austin Wintory joins the trio of Mike, Alex, and Vince to chat a bit about game music! From the beginning of Austin's game scoring to his latest work on Stray Gods and various forays in-between, the crew have a rollicking good time that, yet again, pushes the GAH to consider naming the podcast after another unit of time rather than a mere hour. Notable mentions include: Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical (Summerfall Studios) Buffy the Vampire Slayer Thomas Was Alone (Mike Bithell) Ape Out (Devolver Digital) Age of Ash - The Kithamar Trilogy, Part 1 (book by Daniel Abraham) That Total Age (album by Nitzer Ebb) Donut Dodo (pixel.games) Tacoma (Fullbright) The War On Music (book by John Mauceri) Music for Prime Time (book by Jon Burlingame) Featuring: Austin Wintory, Michael Gordon Shapiro, Alex May, and Vincent Diamante Recorded July 28th, 2023

Alex and Vince are at it, this time with the former making the latter quite envious with tales of roasted wild boar and hot takes on EQ plugins! Vince's Mac is back in the conversation, but plenty of other things also figure, including a decent amount of game playing on Vince's part! Notable mentions include: Midsummer (Swedish Holiday) Acoustica (Audio software / Icon Digital) Claro (EQ plugin / Sonnox) Backbone One (Mobile phone controller) Aether Gazer (Mobile action game / Yostar Games) Vampire Survivors (Action game / Poncle) Featuring: Alex May and Vincent Diamante Recorded June 23, 2023

Mike and Vince chat about June announcements... or in Vince's specific case, a lack of ability to announce when one of the not-E3 venues to emerge from the ashes of E3 is shut down. But Apple's WWDC has got both these composers thinking about their newest top of the line entries in computing. Notable mentions include: Mr. Coffee Apple Mac Pro Synful Orchestra The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour Humanity Featuring: Vincent Diamante and Michael Gordon Shapiro Recorded June 9, 2023

Alex and Mike chat about a diverse range of gear, as well as an even more diverse range of relationships with their gear. Music competitions, old plugins, and new DAWs figure into the discussion as the two consider what make their tool and instrument choices the ones for them. Notable mentions include: Eurovision and Melodifestivalen (music competitions) Luke Black (Serbian musical artist) PSP 2445 EMT (reverb plugin) Bitwig Studio (live performance oriented DAW software) Silo (TV/Book SF series) Front 242 (Belgian 1980s electronic music group) Featuring: Alex May and Michael Gordon Shapiro Recorded May 26, 2023

The duo of Alex and Vince wax philosophical... but not before chatting about various bits and pieces of audio fun. Mic preamp buffers, iLok dongles, and germanium (atomic number 32) figure among the topics as they eventually wind their way through another GAH episode that is (of course!) rather longer than an hour. Notable mentions include: Tierra Audio (pro audio manufacturer) Alesis MidiVerb II (1980s Digital Effects Unit) Cliff Williams (Bassist for AC/DC) Cities: Skylines (city-building game by Colossal Order) Rachmaninoff Vespers (choral work) Scriabin Op. 8 Etudes (piano cycle) Featuring: Alex May and Vincent Diamante Recorded May 12, 2023

Alex is back from a trip from Reboot Develop Blue and the remaining crew of Mike and Vince have to imagine the wonders of a beautiful town in Croatia playing host to a few hundred game developers. From there it's off to the races as it's an episode of Game Audio Hour that is... only an hour long? What a surprise! Notable mentions include: Dragon Age (RPG / BioWare) Cuberpunk 2077 (RPG / CD Projekt Red) Skullgirls (Fighting game / Hidden Variable) Gods (Platform game / The Bitmap Brothers) Brown and Friends (animated series / Netflix) Succession (TV series / HBO) Featuring: Alex May, Michael Gordon Shapiro, and Vincent Diamante Recorded April 28, 2023

Vincent has NAMM happening in his backyard, Alex is moving forward by looking back at some 90s arcade classics, and the two connect for further topics and ponderings on game music in this episode! Notable mentions include: Future Music Magazine Time Crisis (arcade game by Namco) Radiant Silvergun (arcade/Saturn game by Treasure) Overwatch 2 (esports game by Blizzard Entertainment) Death Stranding (PlayStation 4 game by Kojima Productions) Expressive E Osmose (synthesizer/MIDI controller) Featuring: Vincent Diamante and Alex May Recorded April 14, 2023

Vincent, Alex, and Mike are back to chat about stuff the week after Game Developers Conference, and the trio have some thoughts about how they've extracted the most value out of that conference. Then it's on to the latest flavor of AI making the rounds, and then the stuff that the guys have been not-so-conspicuously consuming. Notable mentions include: Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical (game by Summerfall Studios, soundtrack by Austin Wintory) The Victorian Music Development Office Star Trek Picard - Season 3 (Soundtrack by Stephen Barton & Frederik Wiedmann) Turrican II: The Final Fight (Soundtrack by Chris Huelsbeck) WavTool (https://wavtool.com/) The Tale of Onogoro (VR game by Amata Games) Last Labyrinth (VR game by Amata Games) Featuring: Vincent Diamante, Alex May, and Michael Gordon Shapiro Recorded March 31, 2023