For my assignment i have decided to take a audio problem that occurs in Mario 64. The problem itself is the laugh track for Boo a ghost enemy that you can find during your play time in Mario 64 the pitch of the laugh may be to high for most players or it can annoy players, However on the topic this may have been intentional by Nintendo it could be a metaphor for how many you have to catch and how ghosts can be up to no good. The pitch is how high or low a object can sound in terms of the boo laugh it is to high to fix the sound we can lower the pitch so its less gaining on the players ears we can also shorten the frequency to a lower hertz(Hz) so that the sound is shorter this means people can get less annoyed by the sound.
The link below will allow you to hear the chosen sound
https://youtu.be/tqUfK1Xyy-o
I have discussed how i can fix the problem but lets go into more detail about how these solutions work. the pitch is the property of sounds that allows ordering on a frequency related scale but we mainly we use it to measure how high or low something sounds. The frequency is the measurement of a sound its also the consistency of the sound we measure the frequency with hertz and it is defined as one cycle per second it was named after Heinrich Rudolf Hertz the first person to provide proof about the existence of electromagnetic waves.
By conducting research i have found that players find the laugh to be annoying and creepy the website i have found is gamespot and people all agree on that aspect.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/198848-super-mario-64/41261171
Another method to fix the sound is to use a different voice actor/actress to record and make a new sound for the game. However the game cartridge itself is very small and does not contain enough memory like games today. Nintendo had actually found a solution for the small space the orignal audio is a man laughing and when sped up is the boo and when slowed down is actually Bowsers laugh and his audio clip when he gives you messages throughout the game sped up is the Boo.
Listen below to see what im talking about.
https://youtu.be/yjtzkoVW_Qg
Timbre is the quality of the sound note or tone. Timbre can distinguishes different types of sound production like voices and musical instruments. Timbre can show how many frequencies that the sound has and with that the more frequencies the better the sound quality. We can use this to find better quality sound for the laugh track.
Another Audio problem i have found is in the game Skyrim the problem is from a snowy area of the game. \when walking through the area players may find if they sprint the sound is the same as the walking sound this can ruin the immersion for players and rip them out of the world Bethesda are trying to create. A solution i have found is Foley allow me to explain.
Foley is the recreation of every day sound in any type of media production. Foley artists use objects to create sound like rain, footsteps, and horse movement. Foley is used to make the production more realistic and engaging. Foley goes back to the 40s when radio dramas when actors would recreate the sounds described in the dramas, Jack Foley was the man who started this and this lead to it being used today.
I suggested using Foley because we can use it to get a real realistic sounding snow effect, we could use things like sand and corn starch to get the sound for snow. Or take it a step further and take a team out to Norway or Iceland to get the capture of snow both for running and walking.
My third and final audio problem comes from another N64 game Banjo-Kazooie the sound comes from Mad Monster Mansion. When giving the gravestones flowers the ghosts will thank the player but for ethnicity the voice actor Grant Kirkhope used a gargle voice to sound more dead this lead to Nintendo to believe he said a curse word instead of "Thank you" after many recording attempts Nintendo finally accepted one. To fix this problem i would have used a voice changer on "thank you" instead of trying to do it in one take this could have fixed the issue of Grant sounding like he was swearing.
https://youtu.be/8Mi4FGck5Eo
https://www.thegamer.com/15-shocking-things-you-never-knew-about-banjo-kazooie/
The link below will allow you to hear the chosen sound
https://youtu.be/tqUfK1Xyy-o
I have discussed how i can fix the problem but lets go into more detail about how these solutions work. the pitch is the property of sounds that allows ordering on a frequency related scale but we mainly we use it to measure how high or low something sounds. The frequency is the measurement of a sound its also the consistency of the sound we measure the frequency with hertz and it is defined as one cycle per second it was named after Heinrich Rudolf Hertz the first person to provide proof about the existence of electromagnetic waves.
By conducting research i have found that players find the laugh to be annoying and creepy the website i have found is gamespot and people all agree on that aspect.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/198848-super-mario-64/41261171
Another method to fix the sound is to use a different voice actor/actress to record and make a new sound for the game. However the game cartridge itself is very small and does not contain enough memory like games today. Nintendo had actually found a solution for the small space the orignal audio is a man laughing and when sped up is the boo and when slowed down is actually Bowsers laugh and his audio clip when he gives you messages throughout the game sped up is the Boo.
Listen below to see what im talking about.
https://youtu.be/yjtzkoVW_Qg
Timbre is the quality of the sound note or tone. Timbre can distinguishes different types of sound production like voices and musical instruments. Timbre can show how many frequencies that the sound has and with that the more frequencies the better the sound quality. We can use this to find better quality sound for the laugh track.
Another Audio problem i have found is in the game Skyrim the problem is from a snowy area of the game. \when walking through the area players may find if they sprint the sound is the same as the walking sound this can ruin the immersion for players and rip them out of the world Bethesda are trying to create. A solution i have found is Foley allow me to explain.
Foley is the recreation of every day sound in any type of media production. Foley artists use objects to create sound like rain, footsteps, and horse movement. Foley is used to make the production more realistic and engaging. Foley goes back to the 40s when radio dramas when actors would recreate the sounds described in the dramas, Jack Foley was the man who started this and this lead to it being used today.
I suggested using Foley because we can use it to get a real realistic sounding snow effect, we could use things like sand and corn starch to get the sound for snow. Or take it a step further and take a team out to Norway or Iceland to get the capture of snow both for running and walking.
My third and final audio problem comes from another N64 game Banjo-Kazooie the sound comes from Mad Monster Mansion. When giving the gravestones flowers the ghosts will thank the player but for ethnicity the voice actor Grant Kirkhope used a gargle voice to sound more dead this lead to Nintendo to believe he said a curse word instead of "Thank you" after many recording attempts Nintendo finally accepted one. To fix this problem i would have used a voice changer on "thank you" instead of trying to do it in one take this could have fixed the issue of Grant sounding like he was swearing.
https://youtu.be/8Mi4FGck5Eo
https://www.thegamer.com/15-shocking-things-you-never-knew-about-banjo-kazooie/
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