Ethan Wilde: Welcome everybody to our first of a series of talks
Ethan Wilde: brought to you by the Srjc. Game Development program. game views. 2,023. We are very lucky tonight
Ethan Wilde: to have as our special guest Lynn Haynes.
Ethan Wilde: who's been a music producer, recording engineer, songwriter, and electronic musician.
Ethan Wilde: with some amazing experiences under his belt. He's performed with Lydia Lunch.
Ethan Wilde: Nick Turner.
Ethan Wilde: Damo Suzuki, David Bowie, brain ticket, and my favorite Gary Newman
Ethan Wilde: Gary Newman, is important to me. So
Ethan Wilde: very glad to have everybody here and welcome, Lynn.
Len Haynes: Thank you so much. And I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, to tell you my Gary Newman story. So and and just for the record, I wish I'd played with Bowie. I actually recorded 3 albums and worked with David Bowie's violin player, who played on the album lodger and the live album stage. He did the 78
Len Haynes: Isolore tour, and his name is Simon House, and he's to play electro violin for a band called Hawkwin, who I have a long connection with. I played with all the different members and different
Len Haynes: variations for many years. So yeah, that's my
Len Haynes: my
Len Haynes: 7 degrees of separation to Bowie so.
Len Haynes: but very happy to be here. Thank you, everyone. My name is Len Haynes, and I am a instructor in the music department. Specifically, the digital audio part of the music department and I teach different music and audio production courses. One of those courses is music 52, which is audio for multimedia. In that class.
Len Haynes: students learn sound design for video. They learn how to record fully and create Foley sound effects. Also they learn automated dialogue replacement. And then we have a couple of projects where students learn with those techniques how to create sound effects and music cues for video games.
Ethan Wilde: Brilliant.
Len Haynes: I'll see you now, Ethan. Okay.
But
Len Haynes: so yes, anybody have any questions. I mean, I have some things I can show you today. But is there just anything
Len Haynes: as we get started today? Any questions for me or well, I certainly have some questions for you, because.
Ethan Wilde: you know, working in games.
Ethan Wilde: There's so many ways that audio can create a richer, more immersive experience. It's like watching TV with the sound off is no fun at all. Yeah. And video games really require a really rich audio environment, I believe, to really captivate and and kind of bring the player into a different world.
Ethan Wilde: And so I'd be very excited to hear about how you think about all the different types of audio that might contribute to kind of the the whole environment. I know we could have musical soundtracks and and sound effects and environmental audio. And I'm just wondering how you how you design those kind of audio environments and what it takes to
Ethan Wilde: to focus on each of those different types of audio that might make that bigger picture.
Len Haynes: Yeah, well, I think one thing that. And when I talk to my students, when we're discussing designing sound for video games.
Len Haynes: many video games, most video games now are very much like going to a movie. There's at the cinematics. There is that kind of immersive content that you also see and hear in a motion picture. And the sound design elements are of that caliber as well. You have to. Basically, you know, there would be competition between
Len Haynes: mediums like motion pictures and television. So with video games. Students need to also using aesthetic principles create sound that will be as immersive as a motion picture.
Len Haynes: Ok, so yeah, what we do in the class is, students use some of the projects they use video gameplay clips, and they'll be silent. There's no sound. We take the sound off, and they do almost like what's called a spotting session, just like they would for a film clip or a video reel.
Len Haynes: And they're trying to figure out what sort of sounds would be appropriate for which sections of the game play scene, and then they have to think about character, dialogue, and
Len Haynes: other things as well. Let's say if it's if it's things like weapons. And we're selecting weapons. So we go through all the different types of like naming conventions as well. And they both create original sounds, and then they'll use like copyright free sound effects to implement the rest of those sounds. So they're doing a combination of creating original sounds, using like Foley, and sometimes even synthesizer plugins
Len Haynes: that we have in. We use pro tools, avid pro tools. We use Ableton live. Those are 2 different digital audio workstation software
Len Haynes: programs that we use in music 52. So they're doing pretty much everything because it is a music department class. So there's obviously a music component to it. But also we want them to learn sound design. So they're
Len Haynes: learning all these techniques and what they do before they even get to the game audio sound design is they're learning film and television production, sound design. And then they're taking those ideas and those aesthetic principles over into designing sound for game audio. So sound effects, music hues, ambience, and also
Len Haynes: when they're putting together sounds, or they're gonna be with, you know, like one shot or is, gonna be a looping sound. So they they'll learn how to create seamless loops in the audio software as well for different sounds that they need to. So so techniques. And it's also the naming conventions. If they have, you know, 5 or 10 different types of sounds. Where is that sound in the gameplay scene?
Len Haynes: And does one sound maybe need some reverb like some effects on it? Or is the other one a dry sound, with no effects? They have to create all the different layers of sounds for one of the videos they use. They get a lot of different video game plays. But one might be where the characters in a cave.
Len Haynes: So we're gonna have this, you know, reverberation off the walls. It's cavernous sound. So so you know, if there's some sort of hits, or anything like that that are in that gameplay atmosphere. Then we need to add effects to that, and that's one. So it might be like, you know, one
Len Haynes: hammer on rock. Yeah. Reverb, you know that kind of stuff. So yeah.
Ethan Wilde: that's amazing. Can can you
Ethan Wilde: share with us?
Ethan Wilde: W, where the where there's common ground between television and film audio and game audio? Or is there some some
Len Haynes: overlap? And the skills and and the approach to those different forms of multimedia. Yeah, II believe so I think many times you can look at almost every video game has a sort of a cinematic introduction. If you take a video game like red dead redemption.
Len Haynes: it starts off where it's almost like the opening to, you know, as you start playing the game, you're at the intro. It's almost like there's credits like you you would have for a movie. There's the theme that is a music cue theme that's going to return at different parts of the game play levels.
Len Haynes: There is basically like a set up. There's an introduction. It's almost like a scene with the characters and the game player's not playing those characters. It's already what's called cinematic. It's already set up. It's like an introduction. And then, once the cinematic is over, then
Len Haynes: you know, if you're the player, you go to the different sections and
Len Haynes: so it's very much like, I think it's very much like
Len Haynes: a film like you're watching a film, or sometimes even a television show. So I think,
Len Haynes: and I think it's kind of deliberately that way. I. So
Len Haynes: my generation, when we played video games is like the 1980 s, so we had, like Pacman and space invaders. And you know, the the really intro pong, you know stuff like that. So it wasn't very much a film world. It was actually very much like animation and kind of like early cartoons you'd see on, you know, Saturday morning, and you know the the industry is is just revolutionized.
Len Haynes: especially as far as sound. But even the way video games are designed now, and the look of video games very much look like motion pictures. And so you know, we need to match the sound for that. Okay. But with a lot of creative
Len Haynes: freedom as well.
Ethan Wilde: I'm glad you mentioned the 80 S. And and those kind of classic
Ethan Wilde: coin operated arcade games. It kind of had that that kind of hot chip. Very limited audio with kind of no chords, no, no multi-track. Just kind of the
Ethan Wilde: little tiny speaker making funny digital digital sounds. And and how you describe that evolution?
Ethan Wilde: do you have any kind of favorite digital technology that that you like to rely on to to create these kind of contemporary cinematic
Ethan Wilde: audio environments.
Len Haynes: Yeah, so in in all the software
Len Haynes: that we use, whether it's, you know, for for teaching purposes, we teach students avid pro tools. There's a lot of different types of instrument virtual instrument software plugins that they can use. Some have very cinematic strings and horn sections and things like that. Others just could have that kind of 80 sound. As a matter of fact, there's even some of the plugins, one of the projects we do
Len Haynes: in class. It's a video game play. And the students actually have a choice where they want to do a more modern video game play scene to create music and compose music, or if they want to actually choose something that is more of like the eighties like, there's like a super Mario galaxy clip and actually have a pro tools. Session, I can show you. And from
Len Haynes: students can utilize plugins actually have that kind of like 8 bit kind of grainy 80 sound. So it's really up to them. They they can either create something that's cinematic and sounds like a scored orchestra, or they can actually do something that's more vintage sounding as well.
Len Haynes: So you know the the tools are there. It's it's how they want to use the tools to create the project, especially for music.
Ethan Wilde: one of one of our our live attendees. Can I call you out? Jason by name? That's fine, Jason, you you said something you? Wanna I should said, it's kind of like a Midi.
Ethan Wilde: Do. Do you find that when you're producing and preparing audio for for video games, is it waveform audio, where you're where you're outputting like an MP. 3. File. Or do you create kind of digital scores that are mini-based?
Len Haynes: So that is pretty much up to. If so, I don't. In my personal life I'm not doing a lot of music composition for video games, because II do music and songwriting, for with, you know, my longtime songwriting partners, and more of like a band thing for and and just so, music 52. We only have, like maybe 2 projects that are video game.
Len Haynes: The rest are like they're also doing a score and doing and creating music use for film clips as well. So we do like 2 small projects where they're doing video games. But for the students actually have their choice, they can do something that's more cinematic and more orchestral and what I usually have them do I can. I can share a session with you. It's oh, yeah, let me. Let me show you something. I'm not sure if I have the
Len Haynes: music set up in it. But let me
Len Haynes: find it. I have my pro tools. Session here. Okay? Oh, I'll just show my desktop. Okay? And then I'm gonna go to. I have pro tools.
Len Haynes: Session. Okay? So here's a can. Everyone see this?
Len Haynes: Yes, yeah. And I'll I'll actually play.
Ethan Wilde: I teach in person again. And I did set this for
Len Haynes: zoom audio device. So oh, I think I'd actually need to change it in my preferences. But let's just kind of look at this. So this is this would be if I open up our video window, one of the video clips they can use, you know, if they want to do something that's more kind of vintage. It's like Super Mario. And what students do.
Len Haynes: They'll usually create a pro tools session, or unless you do it in in a software called Ableton. And what they're doing is they're putting together all of the different sounds, and they're actually spotting it. So these are preexisting gameplay scenes. They're usually like 2 to 5 min, and they can choose different ones throughout the semester. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to match.
Len Haynes: Create also all of this sound, all these sound effects, everything you see like footsteps. If you look at the tracks, foot shuffle, we have like jump. So the Mario character jumps. And then at some point, we're going to have music, so what they can do is they can we create like Midi tracks? This is what's called it's an instrument track and pro tools. And it's a Midi track. So we insert the actual instrument on here.
Len Haynes: and I think I can show you this if you can see it. But we use Midi keyboards to.
Len Haynes: you know we play the different notes, and it'll record the Midi notes.
Len Haynes: And then what the students can either do, what I actually like them to do is convert it to a sound waveform after they've created their music, and they usually do this in 2 different sessions. So this session is more their sound effects.
Len Haynes: an ambience, session, and then what what I'll have them do is I'll just have them do. They'll mix down the ambience and sound effects into a stereo track, and then they'll create the music, because sometimes they'll have many, many instruments. In this case this is a instrument called expand.
Len Haynes: And in this there's different types of sounds. This is just one of many instruments, so I can go in here. I can look for drums. I can. This will turn into like a drum machine with different drum, hits, symbols, kick, snare things like that, or then go into like strings.
Len Haynes: and they can have a big soft strings, and it changes to that, and I'm not sure if I don't think you'll hear this. But you know as they play the sounds, if I were to record this just real quick.
Len Haynes: Let's go do it from the beginning.
Len Haynes: Okay, we can actually
Len Haynes: record different sounds. I absolutely cannot hear this at all, because I I changed this playing a keyboard right now? Yeah. Playing the midi keyboard. It's just it's below me. I'm like
Len Haynes: desks. So we're creating different sounds. Okay? And then let's say and what they'll do is they'll create different music cues for the different gameplay scenes. So if this is, this is actually looks like it's like 2, 2, or maybe 3
Len Haynes: parts, where the character goes at 3 different parts of the game play. And so what we've created right here is just Midi, so they could turn this in. What they usually do is a thing called the Flam, the track, so that if I didn't have this plug and I want to grade their work and evaluate it, then it'll actually turn it into audio, or they can do something like this. If I
Len Haynes: if I create an audio track.
Len Haynes: And I'm going to create stereo because we actually created a stereo instrument track with the strings
Len Haynes: and pro tools has a feature where you just you grab the clip and
Len Haynes: you bring it down onto the you hover over the track. You let go, and it should turn it into auto into a waveform. Okay, that's amazing. Yeah. So they can actually make multiple queues. And then they could rename these as well like, you know, music queue Mario, you know, you know. O 102, whatever it could be, or Mario, running, you know it could be Mario, standing still, you know, could be different music for that. So they do both.
Len Haynes: The sound effects. They're learning how to create the sound effects. And we have a it's not so much a Foley stage. I want you. Does everybody know what what Foley sound effects are?
Len Haynes: Or
Len Haynes: yeah, so fully sound effects? Or were you are looking at the visuals. In this case.
Len Haynes: we're basically following the character. And we're actually trying to in this. So so
Len Haynes: depending on what the gameplay is, students would might actually try to
Len Haynes: follow the footsteps. Okay, this one is probably a little more difficult. And actually, for this clip students tend to use a keyboard, and they'll come up with some like electronic sounds. It's like, and they're actually playing it on their keyboard to try to match the movement of the character in this. And then, if they like, where the character jumped down into the hole here, if I were to go back a few frames.
Len Haynes: I'm basically backtracking by frames, you know we could. We could like, okay. So we know at this point. And if I needed to see this bigger, I can. Just so we actually have. In our recording studio
Len Haynes: we have here
Len Haynes: we have a separate monitor. So we have a control room, and we have a monitor so that students can actually in the sound room, create all the sounds, and then the engineer in the control room can just record the session, and we have, like a separate monitor. So they can see this is at the Petaluma campus. So if I wanted to go, you know, we're gonna listen to this up something.
Len Haynes: Okay. So if we know that at this point the character we need to come up with a sound for the character going into this section right here, you know. Well, that'll be one of the sounds they come up with, and then maybe they even have a sound for this star that's going kind of like moving around going off screen. Maybe they even have a sound for this character
Len Haynes: over here.
Len Haynes: Okay, moving. And things like that. They even have sounds for this part that's turning upside down like it could be like, a whoosh! Or you know, things like that, so that they're basically trying to come up with sounds for everything, and they're given this clip as a silent clip. There, there's no sound on this when they get received the clip. So
Len Haynes: so in this case this is, we can actually see a lot of the
Len Haynes: sound design that's been completed on this project. And then over here we have. If you can see this.
Len Haynes: It's called the clip in, and we see all the different sounds that this is a student project footsteps, jumping
Len Haynes: pool. Poof! So spinning attack, so it's a spinning sound, but it has a little bit of attack, so it kind of ramps up the sound, or it could be like a seamless loop. It could be a one shot clip
Len Haynes: that every time. And the point is for this project. This is the first project they do the gameplay scenes is it kind of prepares them, for we do a second project at the end of the semester, and it's more of like a workshop tutorial. And.
Len Haynes: Ethan, you might be familiar with this if I can find it.
Len Haynes: it was. Let's see.
let's see.
Len Haynes: actually, let me go back here. Bring up my email. Sorry. We use unity and F. MoD.
Len Haynes: Oh, so actually, you know, I have it in my lecture notes. Let me show you a couple things
Len Haynes: and we'll
Len Haynes: move on. So these are some of the lectures that we go over in class. Here's one for games, sound design, and students learn, you know. So what's similar with game. Sound design
Len Haynes: is, I'll just kind of launch this here we talk about careers as well. But we talk about cinematics like I was talking about earlier and how they're very much like the in game movies. So we learn about that as well. We also learn about digit and non-digit sound, which is a film production term. So you know, digit sound the characters. It could be the voices of
Len Haynes: of the game play characters, those voices are connected to them, or it could be objects that we see. There's like, I show an example from red dead redemption. Where there's
Len Haynes: the character goes into like the western saloon. There's a person playing the piano, and we, you know, we know that's connected to that scene. But then there's other gameplay scenes where we just hear the music, and it's what's called non-digit. It's it's the soundtrack, or it could be a sound that isn't really coming from the game story. Space. This is very much. They're also learning this in film and television post production as well.
Len Haynes: Okay, we talk about different, anyway. So this is one of them. But the one thing I was going to show you was
Len Haynes: at the end. Talk about layers and things like that! They also learn naming conventions, and and how to name sound effects properly like I was saying, if we have different sound effects, we name them, you know. For what is it? Dialogue? Is it sound effects. What type of sound effects. So when they turn in their projects, or actually turn in a main folder with subfolders
Len Haynes: for their audio? Ok, so 7, just being like there's an audio folder. But then there's also Sfx. There is Mx for music. There's dialogue, dia, and all those sounds are also renamed for the characters, Ok? And sometimes they'll even name if it's a one shot sound, or if it's a
Len Haynes: if it is a seamless loop, you know, if if the sound only plays one time when the game controllers and they actually, we don't have game controllers or anything like that, because we're a music department. But when they press down their keyboard they can make it loop, or they can make it just play as a one shot. Okay.
Len Haynes: so and this just talks about once. It's kind of last time, but here one shots and loose. They learn how to do that as well at the very end. Sorry I was gonna go over.
Len Haynes: We even talk about augmented reality and 360 video and stuff and modifications. Oh, yeah. So this is what they for the very final project. We do like a workshop where each student has a, they have like a free unity. We'll have a free unity account, and I create a
Len Haynes: project for them, and they actually learn how to implement and put in some of the sound effects. And they'll create like one music clip and implement that into the Unity game engine using the f-MoD middleware.
Len Haynes: So that's that's one of the projects they they do at the very end of the semester. It's more of a workshop, because we really don't have the the. We don't have a lot of game. We have no game audio software except I do have fmod on one of the school on the
Len Haynes: instructor computers. So they basically like, go through this tutorial and learn how to, because they've they've by this point. They've very learned sound design and creating music. And we even go for that as well. I do a whole lecture on analyzing music for film and video games
Len Haynes: as well. So we kind of like merge it all together.
Len Haynes: So
Ethan Wilde: that's great stuff, Len, that is amazing.
Ethan Wilde: Tommy, stop sharing press that you bring the game engine in for that workshop.
Len Haynes: Yeah, it was. It was something that I started. I'm gonna
Len Haynes: stop sharing. It was something that that I kind of
Len Haynes: thought would be a good idea, and oops
Len Haynes: Telly.
Len Haynes: I'm not on zoom very often all back in person. So yeah, it's something that I thought would be useful, because, you know, using just like a pre existing clip, which is like a video clip of a gameplay scene. And when I would talk about one shots and seamless loops and things like that. I mean it. It makes sense. But to actually
Len Haynes: the why of that, you know. Why do we need a seamless. So why do we need a one shot? Well, because in this game engine, you know, and when you actually have a controller, or even if you're using the keyboard. When you press down on this, it's going to make the cargo. We're going to hear the music, and there's even like a so I don't. We don't get really into coding, or HTML, or anything like that. But there is a real basic copy and paste. HTML, that makes
Len Haynes: in this case. I'm not sure if you've ever used that, it's the one the go kart.
Len Haynes: Ethan, if you've used that for your class. But I realize that it's like they actually learned even a little bit about HTML and and some real basic coding, because they're like, Oh, here's a song I created. And when I do the copy paste. Oh, now it's actually working, you know, with it's linked to my music. MP. 3. File or wave file. Now it's linked to that in the gameplay.
Len Haynes: in the unity game.
Ethan Wilde: That's amazing. That's a really good point. I guess that might be
Ethan Wilde: One of the differences between film and television audio and game audio is that there's all these
Ethan Wilde: real time cues. And and there's there's a human being, the player interacting with the environment. And so there's all these opportunities to sync up audio to those different events. I guess.
Len Haynes: Yeah, exactly. It's it's, you know, different medium. But still the sounds were were. As as so, you know, if you play video games, you're expecting that it's gonna be the sound, you know, not even time about the visuals, because we don't teach that. But you know in music the sound, both the music and the sound effects and ambience and all, and the dialogue are, gonna be of the caliber of, you know.
Len Haynes: professional video games and or motion pictures or anything like that. So
Ethan Wilde: yeah, Mike, somebody has a hand up. Oh, there he is, I'm like, Hey, Len, I was wondering if you could speak to the difference between static versus interactive audio in game design.
Mike Starkey: you know the difference between sort of lining up the sound design with the visual image versus
Mike Starkey: the interactivity of of gameplay. Like, I'm curious if you use python or anything like that to.
Len Haynes: you know, create the sounds in real time based on the on the user. Yeah, so so and that's that's a good question, Mike. So basically, we're using the nonlinear
Len Haynes: audio editing. You know, we already have a pre-existing clip, and they're learning how to spot. So it's like, I said, music 52 is a little bit more. It's like film production with a couple of video game
Len Haynes: type project. So if it was like the whole class was at, I would definitely have more. So that's kind of why I use the unity and F MoD software together, because then they can actually plug things in. They can create some of their own sounds. They don't create the car. I use this one that's like a car driving through a race track, but they can create some of the other sounds for that, you know, the gear shifts and things like that in class, and they also can create one or 2 music cues and place them
Len Haynes: so that's about as far as we go in that class. If we had, like an entire semester of game, sound design that probably then we could probably get more into that. But we're also kind of limited with, there's other projects they have to learn which is film production and film post production as well. So yeah, if I have those, I'd probably definitely use that. But I think
Len Haynes: learning both things or their students are gaining a good overview and an introduction
Len Haynes: into game, sound design and music for video games as well.
Mike Starkey: Yeah, you mentioned of the fully work. Sound design for film is is, of course, a classic art form and that's, you know, kind of similar to what you were showing there earlier, just matching the audio track to the visual track. And what you know sort of the next level is is the interactivity of
Mike Starkey: of actual gameplay, because there's no way to to predict what sounds are gonna be called out when. And all of this, you know, is also exciting, because it connects to this whole new, the Regional Virtual Production Academy that we're working on with the other schools in the Bay area. The fact that film making is now being built on top of game engines. It really is the next.
Len Haynes: yeah, I call it digital media 2, it's really the next frontier. Yeah, yeah, well, and I definitely go over how the game developers will work with the sound design team as to the different types of sounds that they'll need
Len Haynes: and music as well, and and sometimes they'll hire even like a well-known composer. So there's music cues. Also, there's soundtracks. So many times the game developers will license commercial pop tracks or commercial music tracks, and that's part of the game as well. So
Mike Starkey: yeah, I think a lot of people don't even realize the scope of the game industry. I mean it. Really, it's really much bigger than you know we think of Hollywood and the Oscars, and all of that. But there's a whole nother world happening in game design.
Mike Starkey: Because, as you mentioned.
Mike Starkey: game design has really video games. Now, look like films.
Len Haynes: Yeah, which is fascinating. And it's not just that they look like film, we're interacting with them
Mike Starkey: as a film. So it's a, it's a whole new. It's a whole new world for this stuff.
Len Haynes: Yeah, yeah. And and and also the and the way things are mixed as well. They're they're learning different techniques for mixing and mastering sounds and things like normalizing clips, you know, making sure that if we have 5 different sounds that are similar, they're not all different levels in in loudness, and that
Len Haynes: they're learning how to normalize the clips, adding different effects, using compression and Eq. Techniques as well for both the music and for oh, and also for different platforms. And so not only file formats for different. If it is
Len Haynes: on my phone. If I'm playing a video game on my phone, generally, you're talking about like Mp 3 files. Maybe if it's something on my computer, there might be wave files. So the different deliverables for the different types of platforms and what they're played on, and the different sounds as well. Which is actually why I like using Fmod, because F. MoD has some different templates where it actually like. Oh, if we're playing this on a smartphone.
Len Haynes: This would be the way the reverb would sound in relation to the sound effect and that kind of stuff. So I think that's really useful, because that's kind of like. Also going beyond just mixing and mastering for film production and also thinking about, like, you know, loudness, metering and standards and stuff.
Mike Starkey: I also like that. You did a throw back to the eighties and nineties. You know the early game development. Very good friend of mine. Grew up together. His name is Don Becca, and he is an audio director who was at Ea for about te 18 years, and did all the big releases there, and he's been at activision since then.
Mike Starkey: The reason I mentioned it. I was just gonna put a link in the chat here. When when I talk about sound design and audio in my media classes. The the one game that it's an older game. But it's it's a classic. If you remember the game? Dead space?
Mike Starkey: He talks about the audio design for dead space. And what's interesting about it is when we were kids, you know, Bart was being put into the Bay area, and we we we remember the walking between the cars specifically in the tubes, you know, under under the bay, and
Mike Starkey: he recorded the sounds for the he talks about recording the sounds for the game to create his own audio library, which is part of what you know sound designers do at a higher level.
Mike Starkey: and that that screeching sound of of the the wheels on the tracks in the tunnel is part of the monster sound that is, in dead space, which is kind of an interesting story. And he he just talks more about, you know, sound design creating the sounds. And there's another link
Mike Starkey: for a movie called, why sound matters if you, if anybody really interested in audio hasn't seen the movie, why sound matters it's it's actually called making waves. And it talks about all the what, what, all the work that goes on for audio. And II always feel like an apologist for audio, in a sense, because I think it gets under appreciated. But like even said in the beginning, you know, if you tried to watch something without sound.
Mike Starkey: It just doesn't work, so, no matter how good the visuals are, the audio is half of the viewing experience. And I think that I I'm I'm glad to see that, you know, in, you know, the modern awards and more current things that audio is really gaining the respect that it deserves cause. It truly is an art form.
Len Haynes: Yeah, yeah, I've my, my long time. So I've played in different bands throughout the years, and a former bass player in my band. We're old friends who've been playing together for decades, and at 1 point kind of like me
Len Haynes: decided. Well, well, you know.
Len Haynes: being a touring musician is fun, and being a recording artist and music producer is great. But sometimes, you know, you wanna do other things. And why? And he started working at Sony Playstation. This is like back in the nineties, and just went from one video game company. He does sound design. So his name's Paul Fox.
Len Haynes: and every year he comes to San Francisco, for I don't know if they still do it. The video gaming convention
Len Haynes: absolutely game developers conference. And that's it. Yeah, Eddie, and and yeah, and and about 5 years ago he had an offer cause he was still living in La. He had an offer from Peter Jackson's Post Production Company, and they moved my friend Paul and his whole family to New Zealand. He's been working there ever since, and and doing game audio. I think Peter Jackson might have a division of
Len Haynes: the post-production. And of course they're developing all kinds of amazing AI plugins. They did. If you saw the Beatles get back and all that demixing audio software, you know. So all this future of the way audio is going in and stuff. And it's pretty exciting even with the AI. You know, it's like, there's.
Len Haynes: you know, there's argument as to.
Len Haynes: you know, is the song just gonna mix itself. And and we're not. Gonna or is it gonna be, you know, are we just gonna use those tools to, you know, maybe speed up our workflow and that kind of stuff. So
Mike Starkey: I'm glad you mentioned get back, that is, if you have not seen that documentary. It's one of the most incredible films in recent times, and that the fact that they had
Mike Starkey: I don't know 50 plus hours of of raw footage that have not really been sorted through, and even in the end, after it's still a 9 h show or something like that. It's 3 parts, and it's it's phenomenal. It's even if you're not a Beatles fan, this will make you a Beatles fan just to see the real what they it's it really shows them working together on the audio is incredible. I mean, the film's amazing. And the audio is incredible.
Ethan Wilde: Yeah, I know we're all geezers talking about the Beatles, but I think it really does show the creative process in a really really powerful way. You actually see them composing the songs together, working out
Ethan Wilde: how to get all the
Len Haynes: instrumentation and and all the parts out. And it's really that is amazing. You see, their families coming in out of the studio. I mean, it's a very real. It's a real inside look, that is incredibly rare. Yeah. And and just the technology. So my understanding is Peter Jackson's
Len Haynes: production company actually designed this new type of demixing software. AI, because I think all they had was like a mono phonic optical audio track. Maybe they had some stereo things, so they had to, you know, many times you couldn't hear the dialogue, or you can hear the music or the and vice versa, and they're able to get that and do that demixing software. And just did. Amazing and and make it in stereo. And
Len Haynes: so yeah, it's it's really amazing. I'm not sure if the blu-ray is 5.1. But my plan is to buy the blu-ray cause I still
Ethan Wilde: collect blue race. Now
Len Haynes: I'll get off here. But the I did put the links in there into the chat for the article with with Don Becca, and also the the trailer for the movie making waves
Mike Starkey: definitely a good.
Mike Starkey: a good watch if you have very good watch, if you have time.
Len Haynes: Thanks a lot. There's a I. Usually a lot of my students are really fascinated and have a lot of interest, obviously, in Sky Walker's Sound. So I found a really good video that I think it was made by apple or something, but they toured skywalker. They talked to all the fully artists, the sound mixers. One of the sound mixers is Bonnie Wilde, who's actually spoken to some of my students at Sf State and
Len Haynes: and even actually, in the music department, we have an advisory committee and some of the people from our advisory committee actually work at Scott. Walker sounds so yeah, it's it's actually good to be able to talk to people and and get them to speak to students. And
Len Haynes: when they're available, yeah.
Mike Starkey: I actually called Don back. You know, when we were first starting the digital media program he was. I brought him as in as an advisor, because the audio track for the digital media program to Jc. Started with audio. And so he was there at the very beginning, just kinda looking at what we were doing. And I really appreciated his help because it was.
Mike Starkey: you know, his. His input was really valuable then, cause it wasn't really my specialty. But he's
Mike Starkey: historically a part of what we've been doing.
Len Haynes: Exactly. Have a question, Wyatt Wyatt. Did you want to ask a question.
Ethan Wilde: Take it away.
Ethan Wilde: oops. I think you're muted. Wyatt
Wyatt: hit the unmute button there real quick, and then, oh, no, okay, there we go perfect my questions about the the creative process, and I haven't been part of your class. I attended the Jc. A while back. But
Wyatt: how do you approach, or how do you teach even the creative process that's involved with trying to come up with an idea that actually matches what someone's interacting with, or what someone's seeing on screen, either in a video game or a film. Audio sense. I've seen a couple of different ways that people approach it, and it's always fascinated me. Seen people who work with dummy tracks. They just take other music they like, or other sounds they like and plunk them in them first.
Wyatt: and then often
Wyatt: have to recreate something like that. Or there's people who just don't even look at
Wyatt: the movie or the the video game at all. They just get an idea. And then they kind of work off of that and then start to match whatever they create to the screen.
Len Haynes: How do you approach that? How do you teach that process? Yeah. So great question. Why? So II what I'd like to do first of all is because we're a music course. And it's it's music department. Although we're digital audio. II do really like to let the students kinda have their own imagination creativity. We go over the different aesthetic elements.
Len Haynes: So that's kind of like part of it. We talk about different things like aesthetics and digest sound non-digit sound. But as far as creating things, if I'll usually give them some ideas, I'll say, Well, if it's this sound for this game play video. Maybe you do something like this. If we're in outer space, you know, if it's if it's a game like that, then
Len Haynes: I'll usually like play him some different ideas. We have a huge library of different sound effects. Even some of the Lucas sounds Hanna Barbera cartoons things like that. So students can access different sound effects and kind of plug things in. But I think you know, just really letting them
Len Haynes: do the project first. They do the sound effects, and any sort of ambience, and then dialogue, and then later, they do the music, and and they add the music where they think it's appropriate to have the music tracks, and I do find that, like majority of the students do have at least played one video game in their life. Some are video gamers, and
Len Haynes: just like films when you watch films. And I teach film production and post production, or they're putting those sounds together. They already kind of have an idea what things should sound like, you know, if it's footsteps, you know, even if we're gonna relate this to a video game, if the character's walking, it's red, dead redemption. They might put on something like they have a hard heel. So that and they're gonna
Len Haynes: go into. We have one area that has a hard floor, and then another has carpet. But they're going to record that as fully footsteps. If they're using the red.
Len Haynes: a red, dead redemption video, or if it's
Len Haynes: something like underwater. They can add the sounds, and then later use filters and any cues. But as far as teaching the creativity, I mean, I think
Len Haynes: I just saved my own background.
Len Haynes: been a music composer and songwriter and music producer for years, and I would just say that sometimes it's just a matter of sitting down looking at something for the video, the gameplay scene they're gonna like, do a spotting session where you know, what? What do they think? The types of sounds. Usually, if they know the types of sounds
Len Haynes: that are needed, then it's just a matter of either creating those or sourcing them, trying to source them from existing library banks, or they're going to create it themselves. What has to be fully, what has to be sound effects?
Len Haynes: Ambience? Well, there's a scene where Laura Croft goes into a cave. If that's going to be that sound, then maybe they want to either use plugins like reverb and delay, or maybe they actually want to. We have a hallway outside her classroom. That's very cavernous sounding. I've actually had students because we have the Zoom digital recorders, and they'll actually go outside and like record some footsteps. And what they do is they have
Len Haynes: the Zoom recorder in one hand, and they have they download the video onto their phone so they can actually watch it and match. It's kind of like a diy type of Foley, or they'll go outside and they'll record the wind or traffic. Let's say they're doing a video that has
Len Haynes: cars and traffic and things like that. So they're they're basically they know they have to do ambiance dialogue, sound effects. They do all of that first, and I think to me it just seems like the creativity tends to come naturally, and if they're stuck on something, then I usually step in and say, Well, what kind of sound do you think would match for whatever this part is it a character is, we're selecting a weapon, and it's gonna
Len Haynes: the dial's going to turn. And we have that sound. And then like that, you know, if I'm just making up sounds. Sometimes I actually have students who do. They use their their voice and make some of their own sound effects and just kind of layer it and add effects to that.
So
Wyatt: thank you.
Ethan Wilde: That is really cool. To share that story. And, Len, do you see anything like what's the next big thing in in audio and music for for film and television and and games. Do you see anything
Len Haynes: technology wise or from a creative inspiration standpoint? Where do you think the world is headed? Well, I mean, I just if we're gonna talk about the future, I guess we can talk about just I mean a couple things. I see, as far as some of the AI technology and plugins you have, you know, AI music creation apps. Now, that will basically copy
Len Haynes: almost like reference tracks, you know, a type of song. So I know, like some of my students, talk about that a lot. Well, I want to create a song like Taylor Swift. But I just want to. Isn't there an app that will actually create that song for me? And I don't need to, you know, record all the different parts and stuff like that. There is software. It's kind of getting that way. Now. Also, there's mixing and mastery type of plugins. We use a plugin I teach. It's called ozone isotope, a lava isotope. Brand
Len Haynes: plugins have a lot of this AI
Len Haynes: where you can use reference tracks. Let's say my song. Let's say it's an electronic song, and I'm really not quite sure if the low end is powerful enough, I can grab a reference track that I know the low end is powerful, and drop that and match it in this ozone, 10 or ozone 11. I think they're up to now.
Len Haynes: Plugin, and what it does is it tends to change the Eq. Settings and the compression and limiting, and you know, saturation and all that to kind of like sort of match it. I've actually used it myself because I do a lot of mastering projects of old
Len Haynes: records and old Cds and things that just recently
Len Haynes: I've had a lot of my earlier music from the early 90 S. Get reissued by record label in LA. On Vinyl, and it was only ever on CD, and maybe Cassette. And so I have to like remaster. All that from, you know. Unfortunately, from like, you know, wave files or actually digitize it, because that's some of the analog
Len Haynes: future has been vinyl for a long time. So one of the things I did for many years I worked in music retail. So I was. I worked at amoeba music. I worked at Tower records strip back in the nineties. I was one of the original employees at Amoeba Hollywood. And basically, I was like, touring, like, you know, when you're a touring musician. And you know, it's one of the jobs you kinda have to have.
Len Haynes: because they'll give you a month off to go to Europe or Japan, or Australia, or somewhere like that. And you still have a job when you get back. So yeah, I did that for many years. And I appraised rare Vinyl, actually. But yeah, I actually saw that
Len Haynes: Cds and Dvds less sales. But Vinyl just through the roof and use Vinyl as well. So yeah, a lot of the projects I just
Len Haynes: just last week a project I did back in 1,995. I just got the double vinyl of it from the record label. He sent it to me. And yeah, it's really satisfying. Wow, I always wanted this to be on Vinyl, because, if you can look behind me like thousands and thousands of records because I worked in music retail. So
Len Haynes: that's my favorite medium as far as music. And it's just to me it's really rewarding to have some of the stuff I did decades ago being reissued on. Vinyl, that's that's amazing. Because you're really going from digital to analog, then, aren't you
Len Haynes: sometimes? And well, yeah, well, yeah. So
Len Haynes: so some of the projects I actually had the original half inch 2 track analog mixes so. And if if you all know Jake Stillman Jake, a good friend and colleague, has at his studio. He has a analog, real machine. So we actually transferred the 2 tracks
Len Haynes: into pro tools, highest quality, and then I mastered everything from there. I'dx. Then I exported it out into a 20 four-bit, 48 kilohertz way, file side one and side 2. Actually, this was like 4 sides, but you know, side a side B disk, 2 side a side B, and then you send that to the
Len Haynes: record label, and then they send it to the plant to make the masters for the for the vinyl. So that's actually how they wants that. I mean, it didn't used to be that way, because when I started as a I was a recording engineer in Hollywood at a major studio back in the mid nineties, and when I started working there. It was.
Len Haynes: you know, 24 track analog tape. After a couple of years. By the time I left they were already on like adats. And they were just about, I think maybe one recording session. So they actually came in with a computer. And they were using like, maybe New Endo, one or Qbase, or something like that. But just you know, you see
Len Haynes: the way that, especially in the audio engineering and audio production industry, how the technology just changes so quick. And yeah, and and obviously, I always have to keep up on it
Len Haynes: the latest sorry I tried to. So
cause I have to teach it.
Ethan Wilde: That's that's a great observation. You share. The the industry of audio has really been buffeted by technological revolution in the last 40 or so years, hasn't it?
Len Haynes: Yeah, absolutely. And and unfortunately, like one of the issues I had was, I don't have all those analog tapes anymore, because they either don't play anymore or so, but you know, just oh, I'll never need this anymore. And then I realize, you know, 10 years down the road
Len Haynes: row the label contacts you. And they're like, Oh, well, you know, we want to reissue your second or third or fourth, or whatever album I've done like about 100 records, but with different people. And you know I'm like, Oh, no. Well, now I am going to have to like now. I only have the digital. Maybe I digitized things like years ago, even off cassettes and all kinds of different mediums that I had. But some things I only have a CD of it, and unfortunately, you know, even for Vinyl, at least I can master to make it sound better. But some projects I literally have to
Len Haynes: rip the tracks off a CD. And and then put them into like pro tools and master it that way. So it's just
Len Haynes: the way it is, and and some of these. There's like a famous I don't know if you've heard about this Warner Bros. Whether major of music vault studios in Burbank like burned down some years ago, and they lost
Len Haynes: they lot like a Nirvana album, but they lost all the multi tracks to some of the most famous albums out there, so they no longer have those source tracks for any future medium cause right now streaming Vinyl Cds. Who knows what the future medium is going to be? How we listen back to music. So
Mike Starkey: then I just wanna throw in. Yeah, we're we're from the same generation. I was playing in bands in the eighties and nineties as well. In fact, I really wanna say, congratulations on getting your music on Vinyl. That is something that I always hope to do to and have a actually have a record from the nineties that I would like to see on Vinyl. So I'm re-inspired to to do that. There's just something about
Mike Starkey: that, especially if you have the source
Len Haynes: tapes, which is, you know, yeah, harder to preserve all this stuff as we go forward. Yeah, I was a one person in all the different bands I played in over the years that I was just all about keeping all that stuff, because, you know, I was working in studios. As an engineer. I kind of knew I would see bands come in and not have their source tracks, and I mean, I forget what band was. It was one of those 60 S. Garage bands.
Len Haynes: I forget the Druids, or something like that. They came into the studio I worked at in Hollywood once, and they literally just had an acetate that they
Len Haynes: had from the, you know, and this was like a record that came out 65, 66, and they still had the acetate, and they had, like one vinyl copy. But you know they no longer have the master tapes or anything, and it was going to get reissued by one of those labels like Sundays, or something like that. So you know, it's like where you do the best you can with what you have as a source material. You know, same thing in video production as well.
Mike Starkey: I think what people lose is, you know, we talk about resolution. We talk about analog versus digital. You know, the
Mike Starkey: the resolution or the sound of the album is always going to be the best. And and the resolution of film is always going to be the best, and everything that we do digitally is we're just trying to simulate and emulate. You know what already existed in a different form. So we we sort of sacrifice the convenience of digital at a loss, a little bit of the soul of analog.
Mike Starkey: But you know, that really is the old guy?
Len Haynes: Well, I you know, also see? Like mass communication courses. And I teach a radio production course. And we're actually looking at the latest sales figures for audio and for
Len Haynes: for music and vinyl. It's like Number One. Vinyl is outselling compact discs for the first time ever. That's cool, and that's why. So even the major labels have caught on. They know they have to put out Vinyl releases for all their major artists. And yeah, it's amazing to see that Cds are
Len Haynes: Whoa, you know. So it's either streaming or vinyl. Now, you know what's old is new again, you know. So yeah, exactly. Cassettes. Cassettes are coming back, too.
Ethan Wilde: I still have all that stuff as well. We have a question here from the live audience.
Ethan Wilde: and I was watching video game making like with World of Warcraft and all that. And they they often go over the early stages is like story story storyboard making and all that. Where does the
Ethan Wilde: where and and what happens with that process at that time frame for sound artists?
Len Haynes: Well, if if the if the sound artist does. It really depends if or if they're creating the sound for the entire game, they probably have a narrative. They know what that story is, they've also probably met with the game developers and the game developers tell them, well, we're gonna have this section, you know. They basically know all the different gameplay scenes that are gonna be part of that. So if they know the story, actually, a lot of times, just knowing the story can even help with the music composing
Len Haynes: of the queues of the different areas. Because, you know, if it is a emotional gameplay scene, maybe that's could be different music than a scene that has like a lot of action to it and stuff as well. So, yeah, is that kind of what you're asking. Yeah, yeah, as it really helped me imagine myself in the field when I saw the storyboard process. So I was like, that was kind of interesting because they would put in scripts, and then
Ethan Wilde: kind of put in like
Len Haynes: captions for themed music, or something like that, I guess, because you can't really have it scored yet. But yeah, right? Right? And a lot of times, just like with the film industry, game developers will have temp music as well. So it's like, okay, there's a scene where this monster is going to attack. But we don't see the monster, and they'll just like drop in
Len Haynes: the jaws. Theme. Yeah. So if you could do something if you can compose something like the jaws theme, or like the Darth Vader March, or whatever it is. So that's used a lot. And actually, I don't compose music. I write songs, but you do hear from a lot of composers that
Len Haynes: that's like the most annoying thing is when video games as well, because it's like, well, no, let me think of something. Let me create, or they'll put in like Beethoven. You know that kind of stuff the most kind of generic type of thing, and they use them as reference tracks like temp music. And just to. And that's actually what a composer does is they decide. I mean the
Len Haynes: game developers, or the director will say the tone they want, but you know the composer will come up with different variations of a theme or music cue, and then the director can decide. Oh, I like this one, or maybe yeah, we're taking the wrong approach, or I'm looking for something fast. You created something slow, you know. Slow tempo. Maybe we're looking for something or fast pace, or you know things like that.
Ethan Wilde: Any other questions in the live audience tonight. I just had a I had a question, actually, so as someone aspiring to work in the game development industry coming out of college, would you say? Cause it sounds like you've done a lot of different things in your career. Would would your recommendation be to kind of
Ethan Wilde: try to work somewhere, because it's such a
Ethan Wilde: a desirable position for a lot of people. And so there's a high volume of people buying for the positions. Would it be a good idea to maybe not put all your eggs in that basket, and rather try to do something near what you're trying to do in games, whether it be sound design or animation, or whatever it is. To kind of get, gain that experience so that you can kind of put that on your resume. And then later, maybe go into game design.
Len Haynes: Yeah. So yeah, I mean, exactly. I mean, like, I
Len Haynes: I kind of use my my background as kind of like an example. When when I was in Community college, I went to Los Angeles City College in the Ninetys. And
Len Haynes: basically I was taking recording engineering courses and back. Then we didn't have the Internet. This is how long this is so like to hear about job like internships at recording studios. There was like a ton of recording studios, because it was Hollywood, right? So you would like, look in the paper, or maybe hear about something. Or maybe another professor would put up. You know, something on a job board they would have in the you know audio department. And that's actually how I got my first.
Len Haynes: A foot in the door was at a recording studio. I went there. I said, oh, I'm taking classes at La City College, and you know I know a little bit about audio. II actually had recorded and mixed our first bands record
Len Haynes: by this time. But you know I was still learning. And yeah, you know, they took a chance. So yeah, we can really use someone as like an intern. Then eventually they hired me full time. And actually, I had to drop out of school because I was literally working 60 HA week of this recording studio, as as what's called a second engineer in-house. So I was like an employee of the studio.
Len Haynes: and I did everything there was to do there. And yeah, so that's a way also. But then I also.
Len Haynes: you know, learn music, production, songwriting, live sound. I even learned live because, you know, our bands would play different clubs in Hollywood. Sometimes you'd show up. There would be no sound person. So oh, Len knows how to do it, you know. So it'd be like that kind of thing. So I always tell my students in the digital audio courses
Len Haynes: learn everything. You know some. Just since, you know, they just maybe well, I just want to create music. That's that's gonna be my life. But it's actually good to even know things like video as well like I have students. And I even know people in my industry who start off playing in bands. And now they're at like Coachella, or they're at outside lands, and they're doing all the video graphics
Len Haynes: and effects which has nothing you wouldn't think has to do with music. But they learned some video production as well. So it kind of like, you know. Nowadays you kind of need to know both audio and video production together. And a little bit of
Len Haynes: so something like pro tools or Ableton know how to use all of the different types of techniques that the software offers. So if there's instruments, learn Midi production, so that in case somebody were to ask you, oh, we can't really afford to pay for someone to create some music for this game we're designing. Do you know how to use that? Do you know how to use, you know. Can you create some music whether it's Midi like in the box? Or it might be like, Oh, I can bring some musician friends over, and they can record a few things, and
Len Haynes: so you know. So it's kind of good to know everything is, I guess. What? My best advice.
Mike Starkey: hey, Len? II have one question actually, for for both you and Ethan. I have some students ask me
Mike Starkey: what schools we recommend, you know, when people complete the certificates into jc, wh. What for your schools? So what would you recommend for audio? And Ethan? What would you recommend for game? And I have an idea of some of the film schools. But I always like to stay current because I know these things change. So while we're here, I just thought I'd ask you that.
Len Haynes: I guess. Let me start first. Ethan.
Len Haynes: Okay. Well, okay. So I'm a bit biased because I teach at the California State University system. So I teach audio production, sound design radio production at Sonoma State. And I teach audio production and also mass media courses at San Francisco State. So I mean I
Len Haynes: for me, I think the Csu is a really good
Len Haynes: A,
Len Haynes: you know, for unless you're trying to go to like maybe a university that is East coast or somewhere else other than California. Boston is Ucla, Usc.
Len Haynes: Csu. One of the reasons that I would would recommend that as well is, they have a thing called the Csu Entertainment Alliance, which is for all 23 campuses. It's a way for students to try to get media internships, and you sort of take it as a class, and you know you have to be a media student. But you have to be enrolled in a Csu. So I think csus are great. I would say.
Len Haynes: any school that has any sort of audio or video program and accommodation of both. I'm a bit biased against some of the private schools like in La. There's like the La. Not to signal
Len Haynes: some of them out. There's like, you know, like the LA film school like things like that. Some of the private schools.
Len Haynes: even for audio and stuff like that. I just sometimes question whether
Len Haynes: you know, you're gaining maybe a better education than you would at a public school. But that's that's just me. So
Mike Starkey: well, I appreciate you saying that, because, you know, that's again, part of where our digital media program into Jc, came from was an alternative to the private schools. That. We wanted to prevent a space or provide a space where people could. You know, really try things like audio production and film making and animation without the risk and expense of going to the private schools which you really used to be the only option.
Mike Starkey: I'm very happy to hear you promote Sonoma State in San Francisco State in particular, I mean, especially considering where we are. And Ucla and Usc. Are are good additions as well. So, thanks thanks for that, appreciate it.
Ethan Wilde: and I'll share some choices for for game and and starting with the public schools.
Ethan Wilde: We're we're very lucky to be just north of Uc. Santa Cruz, Uc. Santa Cruz has 2 different 4 year degrees in game. They've got kind of the left brain and the right brain. They got a computer engineering Bs degree in game design. And then they've got a Bachelor of Arts in in playable media. And our students
Ethan Wilde: can get guaranteed admission to Uc Santa Cruz through the tag program. If you work with the transfer center counselors, they will help you jump through all the hoops and dot the i's and cross the T's, and you'll get guaranteed admission to that campus. So that's a great gateway to what is right now, I think they're in the top 5 ranking nationally for their game programs.
Ethan Wilde: Another great school is a Csu is Chico. Yeah. Chico has an array of of degrees related to animation and game that are all clustered together in the same division. And that's a really strong school, a little younger. Csu. That is interesting, for multimedia is Monterey Bay.
Ethan Wilde: and they they have some interesting multimedia and digital media stuff going on there and then, I think.
Ethan Wilde: you know, if if we'll throw in a couple of private schools, obviously, Usc. Has a a game program that's nationally known.
Ethan Wilde: So so does. And Nyu, if you want to go all the way back East.
Ethan Wilde: and then, you know, a local private school with really good industry connections, but very expensive tuition would be the San Francisco School Academy of Art University.
Ethan Wilde: They have basically that school is made up of moonlighting professionals. almost all the faculty. There are working professionals. So they have a lot of kind of Aaa studio industry connections.
Ethan Wilde: But that's that's kind of a medley.
Mike Starkey: That's great, Ethan. Thank you. And and thanks again, Lynn, for that. This conversation actually happened today in my class.
Mike Starkey: I and I said that I was gonna come back to this next week. So that really I really appreciate all those recommendations cause. That's exactly what students are looking for. And you know, I also remind them how fortunate we are to have the programs that we have at Jc, because we are. We are rare. Our our digital media program, I think, is exceptional and stands up, you know. I don't wanna say against any other program. But it's
Mike Starkey: certainly an incredible opportunity for people to find out if this is right for them at a community college level before they, you know.
Mike Starkey: go on or invest in
Mike Starkey: something that's longer term. Because you can really get the experience with programs we're offering which.
Mike Starkey: thanks to you guys, you know, this makes it possible. So just to just to give you a plug, Mike, really quick. You know, we're sitting in the Doyle Media Suite theater. Live audience is in the theaters space. We've got our 8 or 9 shares and the huge screen. So we, we can thank you for helping make that a reality. And these spaces here are really great.
Mike Starkey: Yeah, thanks, Ethan. II noticed that I think that's very cool. You know, it's it's it's one of my hopes and goals is to maybe find a way to create the digital media space there in the library where you guys are to become a working studio for students. And I, you know, we use like when we did 50, 32 together. That was a great opportunity for film and audio students to work with clients, and
Mike Starkey: Ethan continues that with with web projects. But I think, having that bridge as a place where students can do sort of their own freelance work, but have the studio facilities on campus, and have a place to meet with clients and have a little support from faculty in in kind, of an unofficial way, not being a class. But, you know, help. Make the connection between the community and the students that have all these skills that are coming out of our program.
Mike Starkey: Grahams as well.
Ethan Wilde: Totally. So you know, Len, II wanna thank you for for taking the risk
Ethan Wilde: and and spending this time with us tonight to really open the doors to all the game students about the amazing stuff that you're doing in the music department here. I hope that some of the people that got a chance to be here in the live group or on zoom, are inspired to go take music 52,
Len Haynes: and to start exploring the kind of the audio side of multimedia production. And I hope we'll have a chance maybe to have some of our students work together like Mike is saying, yeah, yeah, Ethan, thank you so much. I mean that that'd be amazing. And actually, I do want to say that I'm not the only instructor who teaches music 52.
Len Haynes: Barry Blum also teaches it at the Jc. Main Jc. Campus, and I teach it at the Petaluma campus. We have, like a full recording studio there, which I think Mike has seen anything. You have to come down sometime. If you haven't seen the PC. 246 Petaluma.
Mike Starkey: Well, while we're here. Let's plug our record label as well, cause I'm working with Jake with the record label class, which is also the petal of using that studio we just signed. We signed a new artist. Every fall. We're in our third year. We just signed our our new artist for 2023 last week. We're very excited about that. And so they get a 2 year record contract. They get audio recording from the audio students. Then I bring in film students to make a music video. They have a full social media team to get them on
playlist.
Mike Starkey: So it's it's got a lot of cool things going on here.
Len Haynes: That's II didn't even know about that, Mike. That is amazing, awesome. Well, actually. I could share my screen real quick. I was, gonna show you something.
Len Haynes: if we go to
Len Haynes: right here. So we're part of the music, the digital audio department. But if we go to schedule classes. These are the classes we teach in digital audio. I'm just putting a plugin. So music, 50 introduction of music, technology, music 51. I also teach this one
Len Haynes: electronic music? 52. That's audio for multimedia. We have a songwriting course. Now and then we have audio recording one and 2. And then this is the class that Mike is referring to music industry 70 A and 70 B, which is learning all about the music industry. And that's for the record label
Len Haynes: comes in right.
Mike Starkey: Yep, that's it.
Mike Starkey: It's great offerings.
Ethan Wilde: Well, we we kept you past the hour that I promised you. I keep it to Lynn, but you're very generous with your time and your and your knowledge and your experience. I really wanna give a big shout of gratitude out to you. We'll stay in touch for sure.
Ethan Wilde: So thank you.
Len Haynes: Yeah, thanks. And really, really appreciate this. And thank you, Ethan, for putting it together and let us know about it absolutely.
Ethan Wilde: Thank you. Well. I will. say goodbye to our colleagues. Thank you, Lynn, for being here. I'm Gonna
Ethan Wilde: do a little plug real quick here. If I get my screen share to work for our for our next speaker coming in. November, we've got a really interesting
Ethan Wilde: opportunity. If I get this to scroll. That's the wrong page. That's my sense thrilling.
Ethan Wilde: So our next speaker is Warren Davis.
Ethan Wilde: who is we are talking about 80 video coin off video games. This is the creator of Qbert.
Ethan Wilde: one of the quirkier and and more unusual titles from that era, and he'll be joining us remotely to tell us kind of some of his stories from his career, working on classic coin, operated games, and as a Perk for folks that are still listening, I have a signed copy of his book.
Ethan Wilde: creating Qbert. That will be giving away to the live audience. Somebody in the live audience in the November eighth session will get a copy of Mr. Davis's book. But again, thank you. Len. Amazing stuff!
Ethan Wilde: We will see you all later. Have a good evening. Everybody.