The S&V Interview

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The S&V Interview
The S+V Interview: Devolver Digital's Nigel Lowrie Talks Hotline Miami
Timothy J. Seppala  |  Oct 23, 2012  |  0 comments

Hotline Miami (released today on Steam) is a dark and sordid 16-bit trip through 1989 South Florida and its seedy underbelly. It mixes a retro aesthetic with more violence than you're used to (think last year's cult hit Drive). It plays like earlier entries in the GTA series - but without the tedious driving between missions.

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The S&V Interview
The S+V Interview: Guild Wars 2 Audio Director James Ackley
Timothy J. Seppala  |  Aug 28, 2012  |  0 comments

The dragons are back from the ocean's depths. Today marks the release of Guild Wars 2, the new massively multiplayer online role playing game (think World of Warcraft meets Star Wars: The Old Republic) from developer ArenaNet. S+V got a chance to chat with Guild Wars 2's audio director, James Ackley, who told us about the challenges and rewards of designing sound for an MMO.

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The S&V Interview
The S+V Interview: Hitman: Absolution Director Tore Blystad
Timothy J. Seppala  |  Nov 20, 2012  |  0 comments

Sabotaging a gas pump and watching from inside a dumpster as a criminal walks up to it, takes a phone call, lights a cigarette and then explodes is one of Hitman: Absolution's (out today for PC, PS3, Xbox 360) simplest pleasures. Last week I talked to the game's director,18-year industry veteran Tore Blystad, about his latest project.

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The S&V Interview
The S+V Interview: Kevin Bruner on the Tech Behind Walking Dead
Timothy J. Seppala  |  Jun 27, 2012  |  0 comments

Adding color to the Walking Dead universe was a gamble, but Telltale Games nailed it.

At E3 this year I had a chance to preview the latest episode in the series (out today for Xbox 360, PC, and PS3 Friday) and pick the brain of Telltale's Founder and Chief Technology Officer Kevin Bruner.

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The S&V Interview
The S+V Interview: Mass Effect 3 Audio Lead Rob Blake
Timothy J. Seppala  |  Mar 01, 2012  |  0 comments

The Reapers are upon us. Mass Effect 3 is out next Tuesday, and with it Commander Shepard's story is coming to a close. I took the opportunity to chat with the series' audio lead, Rob Blake about his team's work in defining the Mass Effect franchise. Over the course of his career he's worked on everything from feature films to Spongebob Squarepants games, but counts his efforts at developer BioWare as the most challenging gigs he's encountered.

"What we do here dwarfs anything I've done before," he told me.

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The S&V Interview
The S+V Interview: Robomodo President Josh Tsui Talks Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD
Timothy J. Seppala  |  May 30, 2012  |  0 comments

Last week, we told you about all the work that went into the refreshed soundtrack for Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD. S+V also talked with Robomodo president Josh Tsui about the whole range of challenges involved in recreating a classic game for a modern era.

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The S&V Interview
The S+V Interview: Rock Band Blitz Audio Lead Joe Kelly
Timothy J. Seppala  |  Sep 05, 2012  |  0 comments

Harmonix Music Systems redefined the peripheral-based rhythm genre with Rock Band in 2007. Five years, two numbered sequels and a few notable band-specific spin-offs later, their fans have a huge music library at their disposal. Thanks to smart thinking at the outset, almost all of the material from each successive game release has been playable within the Rock Band ecosystem (The Beatles Rock Band notwithstanding). There's somewhere in the neighborhood of three thousand songs in the Rock Band catalog if you count the community-authored tracks available on the Rock Band Network store.

The problem is, no one wants to buy peripheral-based games anymore. The novelty's over and isn't coming back anytime soon. Despite this, Harmonix has been keeping Rock Band fresh by releasing new songs and albums each week for players to download. This is great for hardcore fans, but not everyone wants to go through the hassle of getting the band back together because they want to play a few new tracks. That's where Rock Band Blitz comes in.

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The S&V Interview
The S+V Interview: Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD Soundtrack Revealed
Timothy J. Seppala  |  May 23, 2012  |  0 comments

Late last year during the Spike Video Game Awards a familiar image resurfaced: A lanky towhead skateboarding around a dingy warehouse. The problem was that - aside from the sound of trucks grinding on a railing - the video was silent. Today, the team at Robomodo - the developer behind Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD - breaks that silence. I took the opportunity to speak with the game's producers and audio designer to learn how much work goes into re-licensing a classic soundtrack, picking out new songs and what original track almost had the studio's president breaking out his wallet to buy the rights.

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The S&V InterviewCustom Installation How-ToHome Movie Theaters
The Savant Experience Center
Kim WIlson Photography: Joe Tabacca  |  Jan 22, 2010  |  1 comments

Located in the Soho district of lower Manhattan, the Savant Experience Center is an actual living space complete with a media/living room, home office, master bedroom, kitchen, dining room and a dedicated 800 sq. foot theater. Close to the Apple store, the Experience Center showcases the latest technologies in home entertainment and control to dealers, architects, designers, industry associations, and prospective clients.

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The S&V InterviewAudio Video News
The State of HDMI 2.1
Bob Ankosko  |  Nov 19, 2020  |  0 comments
15 Minutes with HDMI Forum President David Glen

Three years ago the HDMI Forum released the highly anticipated Version 2.1 of the HDMI specification, which paved the way for a major boost in A/V performance with support for higher video resolutions, high-dynamic range (HDR), and increased bandwidth plus important features like variable refresh rates (VRR) for gaming and eARC (enhanced Audio Return Channel) for simplifying system setup. We recently caught up with Forum president David Glen to get an update on where HDMI stands today and where it’s going in the future.

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The S&V Interview
The Super Sonic Adventures of Butch Vig and The Emperors of Wyoming
Mike Mettler  |  Sep 03, 2014  |  0 comments
From the smallest of triggers come great things. I was sitting in the dressing room at Pearl at The Palms in Las Vegas on April 14, 2012 with Garbage drummer and co-producer Butch Vig before soundcheck, and we were looking at an album cover from his lesser-known ’80s band, Fire Town. “You know, one of the guys in this band, Phil Davis, and I have started a side project, a band called The Emperors of Wyoming,” Vig revealed. Initially released in late 2012 by Proper Records, The Emperors of Wyoming is a grainy, smoky spaghetti western come to life — pure Americana through and through, from the defiant twang of “I’m Your Man” to the harmonica-driven singalong jangle of “Cruel Love Ways.” Vig and the EOW gang decided to update the album for a 2014 Deluxe Edition released by Liaison Records (“a Super Duper Super Deluxe Edition,” Vig clarifies) by adding two covers — the Afghan Whigs’ “Rebirth of the Cool” and House of Love’s “I Don’t Know Why I Love You” — plus one original: “Drinking Man’s Town." Here, Vig, 59, and I get down to discussing the Emperors’ recording techniques, his views of hi-res audio, and what to expect from Sonic Highways, the new Foo Fighters record that Vig just finished producing, which is slated to come out in November. Right from the hilt of the holster, Vig and The Emperors sure know how to draw big.
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Reference TracksThe S&V Interview
The Waterboys’ Mike Scott Pours a New Sound Palette for ‘Out of All This Blue’
Mike Mettler  |  Dec 20, 2017  |  0 comments
Career songwriters often find themselves on a perpetual quest to add new tools to their creative toolboxes in order to keep things fresh. Such has been the case for Mike Scott, chief architect of British alt-rock stalwarts The Waterboys, who turned to GarageBand and some interesting plug-in choices to fuel the almost two-dozen songs that comprise his band’s expansive new double-disc effort, Out of All This Blue (BMG).
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The S&V Interview
The Wonder of Elvis and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Mike Mettler  |  Nov 18, 2016  |  1 comments
Elvis Presley would have loved to have taken advantage of today’s meticulous recording standards. Fact is, The King was very much a stickler in the studio. Elvis also had an affinity for orchestral arrangements, something his estate was able to realize last year with If I Can Dream: Elvis Presley With the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RCA/Legacy), which has sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide to date. A worthy sequel, The Wonder of You: Elvis Presley With the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, has just been released. I reached out across The Pond to get album producers Don Reedman and Nick Patrick’s takes on the sonic differences between the two albums, how a certain mantra guided their respective hands and ears, and what aspects of modern recording Elvis would have embraced.
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The S&V Interview
THX Veteran Laurie Fincham on the Future of Audio
Bob Ankosko  |  Nov 01, 2016  |  0 comments
Laurie Fincham has a storied career in speaker design and engineering that began in England in the early 1970s when he worked for Goodmans Loudspeakers, Celestion, and KEF. By day, he delved into speaker theory and design. By night he played stand-up bass in a jazz group to supplement his income. While at KEF, he co-developed the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) system for measuring and modeling speaker. In the early ’90s, he moved to the U.S. to work for Infinity before joining THX in 1998.

Today, as senior vice president of audio research and development, Fincham manages the audio side of the company George Lucas founded to raise the bar for cinema sound...

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The S&V Interview
Tom Bailey, Synth-Pop Songcrafter
Mike Mettler  |  Aug 08, 2018  |  0 comments
Photo by James Cumpsty

Tom Bailey, the chief architect of the super-successful ’80s synth-pop masters Thompson Twins (“Hold Me Now,” “Love on Your Side”) is back with a cosmically named solo album, Science Fiction. We called him during a tour stop in Houston to discuss the sonic structure of the album, how he once built his own P.A. speakers, and reconnecting with listening to music on vinyl.

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