Sierra’s Evan Buehler: The Sound Behind the Game

From the earliest days of silent movies, music — whether in the form of a lone piano player or the tumultuous swells of a multi-orchestra score — shared the spotlight with the flickering images on the silver screen. Music pulls you into the action, sustains a mood and, oddly, adds to the realism of a projected image, even though real life seldom comes with a decent beat.

Game designers, like their predecessors in films and television, use music the same way. And like films, the games’ need created a new market for composers. Recently, Evan Buehler, a noted Seattle jazz musician and Sierra sound designer, offered Crescent Blues his insights into the music of games — and the game of music.

Crescent Blues: How did a jazz musician end up working for a software company?

Evan Buehler: Basically, I got tired. I worked part time at three jobs, and I got tired of being a starving artist. So decided I should probably get a real job. I’ve always liked computer games, and the opportunity came up to work in Sierra’s technical support. I said well that’s a good place to start — at least I can get my foot in the door with that. I hadn’t really thought of composing for games as a goal, so I started in technical support and worked myself up through the ranks through Sierra. About a year ago I had an opportunity to become a sound designer. But the jazz wasn’t part of it. Jazz is something I play. I wasn’t hired by Sierra to write jazz for a game. It’s really rare that you have the opportunity to write jazz for a game.

But do compose music for games at this point, right?

Oh, yes. A sound designer for Sierra incorporates three functions. I compose music for games and whatever is needed for the project. I also create sound effects, and I do dialogue editing — recording and editing dialogue for the game I’m working on. In a way I’m the audio guru for whatever project I’m working on.

Can you tell us about some of the projects you’ve worked on?

I became a sound designer only recently. My first project for Sierra as a sound designer was an expansion pack for SWAT 3 Elite Edition™, which is essentially an add-on product for SWAT 3™, which was released about a year and a half ago. We updated the product last fall.

When you compose music for a game, do they tell you what kind of sound or theme or mood they want? Or do they tell you what the game’s about and rely on your interpretation of what’s appropriate?

SWAT 3 is obviously a police simulation. Basically, you can play a member of the Los Angeles SWAT Department. When I came to the project, the sound design for the game itself had already been done. In a case like that, you want to write something cohesive with what’s already been done.

But it also depends on the way the game is played. For SWAT 3 there are really two kinds of music, and the appropriate music depends on the mode of play. You play the game in a first person perspective. In other words, your perspective on the game is that you’re looking through the eyes of the character you’re playing.

SWAT officers work in two modes. They use stealth mode when they’re trying not to be detected by whoever they’re after. They go into dynamic mode when they have to take quick action and make rapid decisions in a very short amount of time. When I compose music for SWAT 3 it has to fit those circumstances. So, when I write something for the stealth mode, obviously the goal is to get across that tension. Music for the dynamic mode typifies action and excitement.

For most games, the music must fit the function of what the game is trying to convey. Different games have different functions for their music. The function can be important or dominant. In the case of SWAT, the music is quite secondary. Things like dialogue are much more important.

On your current project are you starting from the ground up, or are you working with a pre-existing sound design?

No, my next project is new, new product that I’ll be working from the ground up. It won’t be anything like an add-on package.

For a game where you’re brought in as a sound designer at the beginning, do you actually sit down and write music like you would for, say, a movie?

What you write really depends on the circumstance. When you’re working on a new project, it is a creative process. A lot of things are involved. For example, when you’re working on a specific level of a game, you really want to write [the music] specifically for that level. It depends on the environment you’re in. A lot of times you want to have an overall theme that plays out through the game.

A lot of Roberta Williams’ games are identifiable by their themes — King’s Quest(r) and Hero’s Quest(r), for example.

In adventure games like that the music is probably more dominant, because a lot of time is spent gathering things, figuring things out, and music becomes an important element to draw you into the game. With other games, like SWAT, the themes aren’t quite as identifiable, because they’re action games, and there’s so many other things going.

In SWAT, you have bad guys running around with guns, and civilians running around and screaming for help, things like that. So even if we had an identifiable theme, most people’s perception wouldn’t pick up on it. So you want to write in a much different style than you would Gabriel Knight® or King’s Quest® where you want to have a really identifiable theme. It really depends on the type of game. A lot of the music I write is specific to the game I’m working on and role the music will play.

You said you do sound effects, what kind of sound effects do you do?

Whatever is required. Basically when we design a level, there are certain elements that will be in it. One of the missions in SWAT takes place in a subway. So obviously a lot of the sound effects will be ones you would associate with a subway — like a subway train. A lot of the sound effects for SWAT are real. Realism is one of our overall design goals for the game, so we try to make a realistic environment. I do a lot of realistic sounds like sounds for air conditioning, fans, plus all the sounds for when you open a door and the door is locked — all those kinds of sound effects, real world sound effects.

Do you use a lot of unusual or different things to create those effects? For example, how did you get the subway sound effect?

Sierra has a sound library I can draw from. So I can grab sounds of an actual subway — where people have gone in and recorded a subway. Or I could do what is called “foleying” a sound effect, where I take something that isn’t realistic and create a sound effect that way. Or I can actual go and do a field recording where I’ll go to a subway or someplace that may have the same kind of sound as a subway and record that environment to use in the game.

When you’re dealing with a realistic game, you want to try and go with a realistic recording or you want to create a sound effect that will sound like the realistic environment. As opposed to working on fantasy game where you’re dealing with elements that are not necessarily realistic at all so there’s no real world sound that you can draw from.

But even with realistic sounds, there’s lots of different ways to create the sound. One of the weird sounds I had trouble with was a glass door in an office. To get the sound of glass sliding down a track I basically recorded myself dragging a stick across the floor in my office. It’s a real short sound effect, but going out and recording something like that in the field is really difficult. The environment really isn’t conducive to good recording, because normally we like to record isolated sounds so we can add whatever reverb effects — and other things like that — afterwards.

When you do dialogue editing, like you did for SWAT 3, do you do the voices too?

We already had a lot of the voices for SWAT 3. The only thing I really did was add more voices for the police officers and some extra dialogue. To get the voices and dialogue, we did a one-day recording session in Los Angeles with actual Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) SWAT officers. They actually provided the voices in the game.

Like I said, realism is part of the design goal, and the dialogue you hear in the game for the police officers you view comes from actual police officers reading the dialogue. My job is to go through and manage the recording session, then after the session is done, to edit all the sounds to work within the game.

How did the LAPD SWAT officers react to being recorded for the SWAT game?

They were very nervous. It surprised me. These guys’ jobs are really very difficult. They’re put in extremely dangerous situations. Yet recording made them very nervous. [Laughs.]

They’re also not actors. I think that’s the thing. Actors tend to be much more consistent in their performance. Someone who is not trained in that, I think, will have much more difficulty replicating something continuously. But they did a great job. They’re very believable. We were able to get them to react in a way they were comfortable with. Thus it was very simple for them to do a good job.

Do most sound designers wear quite as many hats?

Not necessarily. Sierra’s kind of unusual. They like their designers to be well-rounded. They want to have people who can do a lot of different things. I don’t know if there’s a guiding reason for that, but it does work in that you have one person who takes care of the audio for one particular project. It’s much cleaner that way.

So there’s only one sound designer per Sierra project?

Usually. It all depends on the length of the project. If a project goes on for so long, one sound designer will work on it, then pick up on the project again. Other companies tend to have just one person who will work on the sound effects for the game, and they’ll contract someone to do the music for it. Or they’ll have one person do music and another do sound effects. It varies from company to company.

Sierra’s focus on people is very unified. We tend to have one person who is qualified to do everything for the audio of the game.

In a new project, such as the one you’re working on now, how do you start? Do you sit down with the designer of the game first? And where would you go from there?

The experience of a new game is much more fluid. You start with the creative concept, obviously, but not everything is necessarily set. A lot of the work goes into figuring out what the game is going to be about, what role are elements like music and sound effects going to play in the game.

I don’t think there’s anything mysterious about it. These are the kind of decisions you make when you’re creating something new. We tend to try out a lot of things to see what works.

How much input does the sound designer have in shaping the game?

I would say a great deal. At least my role is to make choices, audio-wise, about what would be appropriate for the game. Part of it comes down to what technology we’re incorporating into the game. That determines how much time our programmers will spend creating the sound engine for the game.

A lot of technical factors shape what I can do. How much space on a CD can we have for dialogue and sound effects? What quality of audio can we use given our resources for the kind of computer that will play it? Lower-end systems, obviously, aren’t going to have the computing capacity of the high-end models. And everything has to play on the lowest capacity system that can play the game.

Really, I have a great amount of freedom in what I do. It just depends on being true to what’s appropriate for the game.

Do you play the music for the games yourself, or do you arrange a recording session?

I play everything, actually. It depends on the project. Most of the music for SWAT was ambient music — the kind of music you hear in a movie or TV show behind an action sequence. It’s not music that you really pay attention to.

It runs below the level of consciousness.

It’s something you’re conscious of if you want to be. I think if the music wasn’t there, you’d notice it, but if it is there, you may not.

But I play pretty much everything, instrument by instrument, using a sequencer and samplers. Sometimes I will record something live. At least for the music I’ve done so far, I’ve done everything.

How many instruments can you play?

I can play piano somewhat. My expertise is as a jazz vibes player, but I also have a KAT midi controller which is like a vibraphone or mallet kind of controller for recording. I can also play drums, as well, and pretty much any percussion instrument. But sequencers and synthesizers make it quite easy to “play,” in a sense, a lot of instruments.

How long do you think the project you’re working on now will take from start to finish?

If I could tell you exactly how long it would take, I would be a genius. It’s difficult to say. When you’re tackling a project, part of it depends on what new programming needs to be done. If you’re starting really from scratch, obviously, it will take a lot longer, because you’ve got a lot of interesting new technology to work with.

Games now tend to be over a year in development. It can even take up to two years for a game to be developed, whereas it used to be a much shorter time frame. You used to be able to put out a game in about nine months, but now there’s generally a lot more work put into games than there used to be.

Because they tend to be more complex?

More complex, and games tend to be very trendy and technology-driven, and the technology changes very quickly. A lot of times — even mid-stream in a project — you may want to add new features that weren’t originally planned and which will obviously take time to complete.

A lot of the functions aren’t really a question of sound or musical effects. Like anything, the more time you take on it, the better it will usually be.

What’s it like working for one of the biggest gaming and software companies in the world?

It’s great. It’s fun. I guess it’s like working for any other software company. It’s really project-driven stuff, cyclical work. You start with regular hours and eventually you begin putting in a lot of extra hours, because you need to get the project out of the door.

It tends to be a very creative environment. You have a lot of programmers, artists, sound designers and animators all working together. It tends to be a very competitive but playful environment. But also, like any work environment, there are a lot of serious things, and a lot of work gets done. We just happen to make games.

How do you view composing for games in the context of your other musical interests?

For me, music for games is like commercial art. Like any commercial art, it’s not a mode of personal expression like playing jazz. Playing jazz is something I do, because I want to do it. There’s no other mental requirement than that. Whereas writing for games is writing for a specific function. It’s a different way to work. I guess it’s the difference between being an artist and making a living, if that makes any sense.

What are your plans for the future? Do you see yourself composing music for Sierra in five years, for example?

I don’t know. I would like to, obviously. It depends on what kind of circumstances the industry is in. I tend to like to work on computer games versus console games like Dreamcast®. And that’s really where the industry is headed — towards console games. Computer games tend to be more complex, and I enjoy that more. But yeah, I’d like to be working where I am.

What do you do after hours?

I try to have a life. I spend a lot of time playing with different jazz groups in Seattle. I also play a lot of games too. I spend a lot of time playing games.

Sounds like you fell into the perfect job then.

Yeah. I work at Sierra, because I love games. Most people who work at Sierra do the same thing. Even the programmers there, I would say, are there, because they love games. That really typifies the approach there. I don’t think a lot of people go to work for a game company, because they see it as just a job. It’s more of a passion for people. They like to make games, because they want to play them.

What would be the ideal game to work on?

Unrealistically, it would be a true virtual reality simulation. What we create now is a representation of the world, where we try to be absolutely realistic or seem real. The game industry would love to create the kind of simulation like the holodeck on Star Trek, where you walk into an environment where everything you touch and hear and smell seems real.

But realistically, I’d like to work on a game that would incorporate a lot of different elements and styles, like an adventure game — like King’s Quest® — yet it would also have a lot of action elements. Yet it would also be a very seamless environment.

More along the lines of a Role-Playing Game (RPG).

It could be, but not necessarily. I like the story, and a lot of action games tend to be short on story. I like the kind of game that’s interactive, where you play from your perspective, and you feel like you are the one who’s driving the story. When I play a game, I like to feel I’m part of the story and I’m driving the story, even though that may not really be the case.

What kind of games are you playing these days?

I’ve been playing a lot of RPGs like Baldur’s Gate®. Those games are a lot fun. I play a ton of Sierra games. Homeworld Cataclysm™ is one I’ve spent a lot of time on recently. I’ve been getting into the racing games a little bit. But the big one for me right now is Tribes 2™. Just ask my wife.

I tend to play games for a while, then put them away.

I know our readers will really want to know: do you get free games from Sierra?

Well, sometimes. But we also get them at the employee store with a discount. I get free copies of the games I work on now. So if I work on a game, I’ll get a copy of it.

Anything you’d like to add?

Buy more Sierra games.

Teri Smith

Raising hell for fifty years from Alaska to the Azores and all points in between, Teri Smith (nee Dohmen) was an Air Force brat who never stopped traveling. She was also a mother, a grandmother (of ten!), a help desk wizard, a financial assistant, acquisitions editor for Samhain Publishing and, most importantly, the Queen Nag of the Known Universe. A multi-published short story writer, her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Jean Marie Ward, was published in 2007. Contrary to common belief, she never stopped living.