Working from a ‘simple and small’ personal recording studio, Matthew Kilford has created a fantasy world – including sound effects, voiceovers and an accompanying music score – for the latest game from Evil Twin Artwork, Man o’ War: Corsair.
Ahead of a planned move to a purpose-built studio, he recently added an Audient iD22 AD/DA interface and monitor controller to his set-up and is already noticing the difference in his workflow: ‘I’m surprised how much it’s helped,’ he reports.
‘My previous interface had been giving me trouble, but I’ve never been one to chop and change easily – so I looked at every interface on the market. With the iD22, it’s great to have everything situated on the unit, and there’s no breakout cable - this was a massive plus for me. The software has yet to give me any problem, which has also been a breath of fresh air.’
Man o’ War: Corsair is a video game of naval combat and exploration set on the oceans of the Warhammer world. As such, some of the more complicated sound effects need to be sourced from Foley studios. ‘I don’t have access to historical weapons,’ Kilford admits, but it takes creativity to design of some of the more obscure sound effects. ‘The sound of the ship moving in the game is actually a windmill, and if my memory serves me correctly, I pitched it and made it into a few loops.’
Based on the tabletop game of the same name, Man o’ War: Corsair gives players the opportunity to take on a character in the gameplay: ‘It’s been fascinating to see all the models, characters and creatures being created in game and then having to think about how they’ll sound – both in voice and movement,’ Kilford says.
He records all voiceovers in his studio, ‘apart from a few bits on location where we were shouting in a field,’ he clarifies. ‘I’ve been using a Shure SM7B for most of the voiceover work. The mic preamps on the iD22 are clean and quiet to my ears, even when cranking the gain up to 60dB – and that’s plenty enough gain for me, as I record quite conservatively.
‘The mic preamps also have a lovely mid-range bark to them, which I’m really liking, and the headphone amp drive has plenty of gain to drive my Sennheiser 650s. Most importantly though, I mix quite quietly in mono, switching between headphones and monitors. Having separate physical volume controls has been fantastically helpful.
‘I’m going to be using the Alternate speaker outs once I move studio so the button selector for that will come in handy. Eventually I’ll expand with the Adat too. I think that’s the great thing about this little unit: it can grow as you do with your home set-up.’
Currently on early access release on Steam and GoG, Man o’ War: Corsair is in development, and the gaming community still has the opportunity to give feedback and suggestions.
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