“Step sounds in a game is a sample being repeated, and then people start to make little variations in pitch of this sample. And then they became increasingly sophisticated with middleware, and so a whole set of software emerged, a type of software game, audio middleware, that serves only the purpose of making sound, usually sample-based sounds, pleasurable to use in an interactive context. And there are many different strategies, layering, adaptive mixing, even spectral shaping and stuff like that. And, of course, generative approaches as well are coming in, and that’s so interesting.” – Daniel Hug

This episode is the second half of my conversation with sound and interaction designer, researcher, and head of the Sound Design MA at Zurich University of the Arts, Daniel Hug, as we talk about what the Avengers and Matrix movies can teach us about sound design, how video games helped pave the way for audio-first UX, and the importance of learning not just music but the language of sound.

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:00) - The Evolution of Sound Design

As we start the second half of our discussion, Daniel and I talk about how Hollywood blockbusters have shown that a strong first impression can have diminishing returns, and how video-game design demonstrates the value of planning for repetition when it comes to sound. “Game sound, I always say, it has taught me probably the most about interactive or use-oriented sound design,” he explains. “Although you would not expect it from there, it’s not product sound design, it has nothing to do with cars or appliances or whatever, but it’s the [same] basic mechanisms. It’s about interaction.” We talk about his work on electric vehicle soundscapes and the sound designs in sci-fi movies that helped shape his design philosophy. “The sound of the car changes based on the way I press the gas pedal,” he says. “So if I’m being too aggressive, the sound can actually tell me, make me feel that, oh, now you’re overdoing it. And that’s what a film sound designer would do in a science-fiction film.”

(0:14:37) - Empowering Sound Design for Everyday Life

Daniel tells us more about the considerations that go into automobile sound design, including legal concerns that go well beyond the car’s interior. “In Europe,” he tells us, “they have this regulation that from zero to thirty you have to have some noise generator. So even Teslas have, since, I don’t know how many years, but eventually they started to make noise as well.” We talk about how COVID and the shift to virtual spaces and online content brought more attention to sound design, and how the language to describe sounds is still evolving. “We have all kinds of visual languages that are established and normative, so to say,” he explains. “They tell us how to think, or to think of a certain image. In sound, especially if it’s non-musical, this is often missing. We have to come up with something.”

Episode...

“And I read this book, it was about acoustic communication. It was about how sound in everyday life mediates our relationship to the environment, and how we use it to communicate with each other, and so on, and that opens really a totally new field for me. So this was kind of the ignition, probably, for me to enter the non-musical sound world, which I’m still in. So there’s the world of noises, of everyday sounds and so on, and that’s how it started, basically. And from there I then came into interaction game design more or less by accident, and they had no one that knew anything about sound. And I kind of built up in this relatively new field of interaction game design at the time. This was in the early noughties.” – Daniel Hug

This episode’s guest is a sound and interaction designer who co-directs the Master’s in Sound Design at Zurich University of the Arts. His work explores how sound shapes our experiences, from health technology to movement and education. He’s a leader in Sonic Interaction Design who serves on the steering committees for key sound design conferences and awards, and through research, teaching, and hands-on design, he bridges science, creativity, and business. He’s also a fellow jury member of the International Sound Awards, which is how we met. His name is Dr. Daniel Hug, and we’ll be exploring how sound can influence how we feel, move, and interact with the world around us.

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:01) - Exploring Early Sound Memories and Design

Our conversation starts with Daniel’s earliest memory of sound, a lightning bolt striking a river one night when he was child. “It was like somebody just jumping on top of a huge church organ,” he says, “with the whole body, like really all the keys playing at once… it was really amazing, [and] I have never heard this again.” We talk about how he got into sound, from jazz school and piano lessons to his early work on video-game sound design, and he recalls how a book by composer Barry Truax changed his perspective on sound and music. “It was about acoustic communication,” Daniel recalls. “It was about how sound in everyday life mediates our relationship to the environment and how we use it to communicate with each other and so on, and that opened a totally new field for me.”

(0:13:19) - Creating Environmental Sound Innovations

Our discussion turns to his work with Caru, a medical company whose devices use an audio-first UX, and the importance of considering how such work contributes to and fits into the user’s soundscape. “That’s our sonic environment and that’s our relationship to this environment,” he explains, “and by designing it, we design experiences or we contribute to experiences which are multi-sensory all the time. So even if there is no sound, there is a sound, but it’s one that you didn’t design.” We talk about how he draws inspiration from such wide-ranging sources as nature sounds to sci-fi movies, and how quickly those sounds can become integrated into our everyday...

“I said, ‘this is a tsunami that is coming, and I'm either going to be crushed by it and drowned under it and it's going to destroy everything I've built, or I'm going to learn to surf the big waves, and I'm going to do whatever I have to do to surf this wave,’ which is what I did sort of at the dawn of online video. I was sort of one of the first probably one hundred agencies in the country that were consistently making online video back in 2008 or 2009. So was a brand new thing, right? And so, I just decided, okay, I'm going to do that again. And once I made that decision, I actually got excited again, and my entrepreneurial instincts kicked in, and it was not fun. I sort of had to set off a grenade in the middle of my own business and say, okay, I'm going to start over.” – Wil Seabrook

This episode is the second half of my conversation with singer, songwriter, and Light Touch Media Group’s founder and chief creative Wil Seabrook as we talk about where the AI revolution is leading the music industry, the one mistake small-business owners and freelancers make when it comes to finding clients, and how a retro-themed ad campaign made a splash in the TikTok era.

As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com, where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, along with other interesting bits of audio-related news. And if you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help, and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.

(0:00:01) - Navigating AI in Changing Business Landscape

The second half of our conversation picks up with a look at AI’s growing impact on the music industry, and where Wil sees it all heading. “I am an eternal optimist as a person,” he explains, “and so I think we are in so many ways we're actually headed for a golden age. I think we're going to solve a lot of logistical problems, a lot of medical and health problems.” He tells us more about how we might eventually get to that point, and some of the hurdles we’ll need to overcome, and the role human artists have to play. “It needs artists, it needs creative people guiding it, shaping it,” he says. “If you're going to change the system, essentially change it from the inside. I think that's very important.”

(0:10:29) - Evolution of Technology in Business

Wil shares the biggest mistake he sees when working with voice talent: “The number one mistake that I see small business owners of all kinds make, but this absolutely goes for voiceover artists [and] other types of creative people, they just don't promote remotely enough.” He offers his tips on getting your name and brand out there as an artist, and the value of human creativity, even if it seems like AI can do it all. “If you have an innate talent that moves people,” Wil says, “that people gravitate toward, it's special and it's worth cultivating. It's worth persisting, it's worth learning and stumbling and scraping your knees and getting back up again, because that's not a gift that everybody's given.”

Episode Summary

• AI's impact on the music industry, and how business models have begun to adapt.
• How COVID-19 democratized audio production and where things might be...