In 2012 I was approached by Rhys van der Waerden, a software programmer, to design the sound and music assets for the iPad game, Trouble Tower. Eventhough the sound design for the game involved traditional sound recording and production techniques, I decided to explore more experimental techniques to create the modifications to sounds heard throughout the game. In retrospect, this approach was quite useful. With little to no budget for hiring professional voice artists, then, the process for creating a large pool of sounds was achieved by modifying them in interesting ways. As an example, for the rewards sounds, balloons and stars, stochastic techniques were applied to single sound samples to create a rich and dense environment at varying pitches. Spectral transformations were applied to voice recordings to shift, mix and modulate, creating a variety of voices from a single source. Granulation was also used to construct sounds. The sound of the truck engine as it accelerates into view and moves across the screen uses this technique. This approach was certainly more time consuming, however the process offered a higher level of granular control, that otherwise could not have been achieved using standard signal processing effects. 

 

Trouble tower was funded by an RMIT Learning and Teaching Investment fund grant.