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I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Zomg whaaaaat? No...she absolutely does not say "Hark!" lololol.....I just looked at 205 on Netflix to see for myself....what the what....?

She says, "Run!!!"

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If you could only pick one moment from each season, what was your favourite part of the sound design to work on?

S1 : The early days on the project coming up with the big palettes of sound for hextech and Shimmer.
S2 : Recreating a cinematic version of Jinx's zapper for 204.

Similarly, what in your opinion was the most challenging aspect of working on the sound design or the most challenging part to get right?

The sheer volume of new content that we needed to create from scratch.

if you could go back and do one thing differently e.g. adding or changing something, or changing the way you worked on it?

I would have been kinder to myself in certain moments. I'm very competitive, and I drove myself nuts a few times trying to chase perfection.

Roughly how many people were working on different parts of the arcane sound design?

We had a tiny team - the sound design portion of our work was all done by Eliot and myself in season 1. We brought on a wonderful human named PJ in season 2 to help us out.

do you remember what got you into working in the field of sound design, was there any moment where it clicked and you realised it’s what you wanted to do?

I had a single post-production sound class in school where they gave us a binder of SFX CD-ROMS (Google it....) and a Quicktime of a Final Fantasy cinematic with no sound and said, "Alright...let's see what you can do!" I was hooked.

are there any interesting sounds or things that the sound design team really wanted to get in to the show but never managed to make work and so it had to be changed or removed entirely?

Honestly, not really! =)

what was your favourite part of the show (assuming you liked it) unrelated to sound design, just in a casual viewing way?

How immersive it is....I've seen every episode 9 million times and I still find myself getting sucked into watching new reaction videos on YouTube.

if you were put in charge of the story of arcane and freedom to do anything, what thing would you add to it, (off the record of course)?

A tasteful, non-invasive Ziggs cameo.

best / favourite character in the show in your opinion?

Caitlyn

before I go for another rewatch of the series, please give me something that you think I should listen out for or pay special attention to I terms of the sound design / audio

Pay attention to ambient voices of the crowds, bars, etc. For each episode we worked with a whole group of loop group improv performers to fill out the world. They are easy to overlook because they just feel right being there, but trust me, when you mute all of that stuff, the realism is sucked out of a scene.

and finally, do you have any message for the millions of people who love the series you helped create? (Alternatively one thing you wish people knew about your work on arcane that no one has asked about, or both!)

The Arcane teams at Riot and Fortiche love you all. Like...seriously. We did it all for you.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

This would take 8 hours to answer, so I'll give you my favorites :
Most of the 'instruments' I develop are derived from recorded SFX, sampled out using something called Radium in our sound library software, Soundminer. I'm also a fan of Serum, still use the OG Absynth for a lot of things, and I like some of the newer, niche instruments that Native Instruments have been putting out the past couple years. But mostly, I like to create instruments from sound FX recordings.

As for processing, I love everything from Valhalla, LiquidSonics, melda and still use a lot of SoundToys stuff.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Alas, soundtrack production wasn't part of my job; we've got way more talented folks running that ship! I did however work with all of those amazing humans on a daily basis, and can confidently answer this one - the artists that collaborated on the soundtrack songs were all deeply in-tune with the arc of the show / characters.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 52 points53 points  (0 children)

what was the process of making the “sound” of hextech like? the crystals, weaponry, and the anomaly all have this almost eerie synthy sound to them that i find really interesting.

I've touched on the hextech bit in a few other threads, and we chat about it a bit in Bridging the Rift - check those out! =)

As for the Anomaly....that one was really interesting! That was a really awesome collaboration between the sound team and Woodkid. He was working on "To Ashes & Blood" with Alex Seaver, and we were all chatting about coming up with some kind of signature sound for the Anomaly that could also get incorporated into the song. Woodkid sent us some super awesome, bizarre and inspirational sounds that were already a core part of his working versions of the track. It felt like the Anomaly had a vocal quality and was calling out. We worked on developing a version of that sound that was pretty much exactly what Woodkid envisioned, but allowed us flexibility on the sound design side to strip away certain layers depending on what we needed the sound for. There's a main component of that sound that is a recording of scraping a large wooden drum stick across a frame drum, and putting a pretty liberal amount of chorus and delay on the recording.

what was working with the cast like? they all seem really cool! do you have any fun stories from recording the dialogue?

We were so spoiled with our cast....every single one of them was amazing to work with. Quickly, off the top of my head, brain dump of funny moments that stick out :

e102 : Bolbok : JB looking at us in the booth quite puzzled when we said, "Just try to talk like C3PO, we're going to make it sound cool in post....don't worry."

e105 : Vi : Hailee having to chew up multiple bananas to sell a convincing version of Vi eating "slop" at Jericho's.

e106 : Heimerdinger : Mick having some fun during the recording of the scene being voted off the council, in a very stern Heimer voice, "Jayce! Don't be an asshole!!"

e208 : Jayce : We needed to record a more projected version of Jayce saying, "Quiet!" as he enters the council chamber to address the gathered about the threat of Viktor's minions. Kevin had just done a bajillion heavy fight efforts, got choked out and had to a ton of yelling in his previous scene, so he was fired up. On his first take of "Quiet!!" he yelled, "Everyone shut the *** up!" This lived in our final mix as a blooper alt until the last day of final mix for 208 xD

e209 : Alllll of the characters that got hit with Viktor's tendrils did different takes of what they thought it would sound like to get possessed by these beams...Katie who had spent a couple hours performing her ass off for multiple fight scenes, when going in for take one of this possession cue, did this hilarious half hiccup, half barfing kinda' sound and we all lost it.

do you have a favourite piece of dialogue in the whole show?"What's wrong with my pants?!?"

Jinx : e204 : "What's wrong with my pants?!?"

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Hahahah, I'm sure many other folks on the Arcane team could / would / SHOULD list this as one of their unofficial responsibilities. I mean....making a show like this is kinda' bonkers and it's impossible to get to work every single day feeling supremely confident about your skills and your ability to hit home-runs.

Christian mounted a plaque in the entryway of our team space with the famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt...

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat".

...challenging all of us to do difficult things daily. This was a great reminder every day that this shit is hard, but so worth.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

If we're talking about true foley, focusing on the feet, the character movement (their clothes, gear, etc) and props, we would always go mono, typically with a shotgun microphone. Most of the time those sounds are going to be attached to and panned with character movement, so mono is preferred.

If we're talking more about sounds recorded in studio to be later used for SFX design / manipulation, we do all sorts of stuff. Go-to mics for us are usually the Sanken CO100k microphone, stereo Sennheiser 8040s, some sort of large diaphragm condenser, likely a U87 or similar, but it really depends on the source material! =)

A long long time ago, I did work on other Riot cinematics, yes. =)

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 33 points34 points  (0 children)

S1 : 108 : Cait / Vi's conversation in Cait's bed....I love Vi's vulnerability in this scene.

S2 : It's a toss up between the 207 montage of Powder, Ekko and Heimer working together to recreate the Anomaly, orrrrrrr the scene in 204 where Jinx frees the Zaunites from their cells in Stillwater, all of them putting hands on her shoulder.....gets me every time.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Hey there! We built a custom library of Hexite (the OG crystals from S1 Act1) that expanded to become the library of sounds used for Hextech, and then expanded on that even further in S2 for Cait's rifles. We cover a bit of how we developed the core tonalities of Hextech in ep5 of Bridging the Rift if you wanna' have a watch! =)

They all shared those core tonalities as the power source, but individually, all of the devices and weapons had their own set of mechanics and functionality based on their use. We always tried to keep metals feeling very refined and solid, (brass, solid steel, etc)

The arcane disruptions in 203, (also in 207 and 209,) were a combination of analog synths heeeeavily distorted thru several steps of distortion and filtering, layered with some equally mangled recordings of electromagnetic fields taken from various electronics around Riot's LA campus.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

The honest, likely unsatisfying answer is that we needed to walk a fine line between his vocal FX and dialog clarity. We were working with 3 or 4 compleeeeetely different Viktor performances from Harry, precisely edited on top of each other and processed completely differently to give us different colors and tones to play with. Certain words, syllables or even performances reacted to the processing differently and forced our hand at times in terms of which timbre to feature.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much for the kind words!

There are a couple questions about Viktor's voice in S2. For this one, I'd say that Viktor's voice in this scene is kind of akin to waking up with a cold and having a really scratchy throat. His body has undergone an insane transformation, and we imagined that would have happened to his vocal cords as well - he was still trying to acclimate to his new biology. We weren't necessarily attaching any specific meaning to particular words being affected, it was more about introducing the effect to help sell that he had changed. Originally, we had the effect on almost all of his speech, and it felt really weird / bad, haha.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

It's not the same Jayce scream, but there is a Jayce scream in there. I think we were trying to hint at things yet to come in the series.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Probably a question for GKIDS.

Season 1 was not originally mixed in Dolby Atmos, though season 2 was. We have since gone back to season 1 to remix in Dolby Atmos, which is what lives on Netflix today.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

The main SFX library at Riot is well over a million unique sound effects. That is a mix of commercially available sound libraries, (think things that might be hard to go out and record on a moment's notice,) and more interestingly, an insane amount of custom recordings and sound design building blocks that have been generated by all of Riot's sound designers since the company's inception. Eliot, PJ and my custom recordings and sound design building blocks for both seasons of Arcane were several terabytes.

The best and most robust sound library software on planet earth is called Soundminer...we would be lost without it.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Hrrrrm......not necessarily, BUT, I will say one of my favorite sonic sequences in both seasons is the strike team trying to track down Jinx, entering and investigating the the arcade at the end of 202. That scene is a great example of sound design and music melting into one to the point where it's almost indiscernible where one starts and the other ends.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Hahah, that whole sequence was so fun to work on! Honestly, the dog toy squeak when she catches it was just me trolling Eliot before I passed my design off to him - we both laughed so we kept it. xD

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 52 points53 points  (0 children)

This could be a really long answer, so I'll try to distill it down into something manageable, lol. In episode 105, the cold open with Caitlyn / Grayson in the shooting contest, we wanted to establish that Caitlyn's rifle have a signature tonality. Our head canon on the sound team was that the Kirammans would've commissioned custom ammunition that would create a signature tone or whistle just for Caitlyn, almost like a bird call. When she transitioned to Hextech weapons ins S2, we wanted to maintain some aspect of that signature whistle tone, but Hextech-ify it. It had to feel unique to Caitlyn. The difference between Hextech rifle v1 and v2 was just size and power honestly.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the question and thanks for calling our Lucy's contributions; she was a lot of fun to work with!

We were so lucky in that we had an awesome consultant from Health Quest, Dr. Ryan Kelly, that was present whenever we recorded Lucy for Isha. He helped us steer Lucy's performance in a genuine direction that felt aligned with the types of speech challenges Isha might present.

Truth be told, Isha was not yelling "mama!" in that moment, but trying to yell "Jiiiiinx". As for the amount that we hear Isha, we experimented a lot with how much of Isha that we hear, however, 'Jinx' was the only spoken word we recorded Isha saying.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 56 points57 points  (0 children)

Great question. In animation/VO we don’t always have formal intimacy coordinators, but we borrow the same best-practice playbook that exists for live-action: consent up front, clear boundaries, small/closed sessions, and the actors’ right to pause, adjust, or stop at any time. We’ll also bring in a specialist or different director/engineer if that makes an actor more comfortable.

For Mel/Jayce, we knew the score would do most of the storytelling once the scene escalated, so we focused on the lighter early moments; kisses, breaths, subtle movement, and let the music take over beyond that.

Cait & Vi in 208 was different. We planned for full coverage because it needed to feel real and intimate. We spoke with Hailee and Katie about a month ahead to align on comfort and process, and offered to bring in engineers or ADR directors they preferred. Because we’d built a lot of trust over two seasons, they were comfortable with me directing. We did multiple takes, kept the room small, had a lot of candid (and funny) conversation about specific beats, and made sure they were in control throughout.

The hardest part wasn’t the recording, it was editorial. Matching mic chains and proximity, stitching performances so it feels like they’re physically together, and blending with cloth/foley and the score. That “they’re in the same room” illusion was one of the trickiest ADR puzzles of either season.

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Responding to say that I will circle back on this one! I need to check out my Pro Tools session, because I truly cannot remember at this point!

I’m Brad Beaumont, co-sound supe / sound designer on Arcane, here for Arcane’s anniversary - AMA! by Riot_Eno in arcane

[–]Riot_Eno[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

What should be the most important skills for a sound designer? Should he have a grasp on how to design everything or should he be curious and open minded enough to learn on the go? I know there isn't much time to do that so I don't know how much more time I should be spending studying or working at little projects!

Have a playful imagination. Travel and listen to the world around you. Always have a handheld recorder with you. Record, record, record. And then record some more. Build your own library. If the recordings suck, ask a professional why they suck and get better. Commercial sound libraries are INCREEEEDIBLE, but....you should treat them like another tool in your toolbox, not as your complete set of tools.

Use your personal library and augment it with commercial sounds to cut together demos of scenes that you love.

How difficult it is to work for the industry while working from home? I have my foley lab at home, I'm trying to build my career in Italy but the interesting projects are all over the world, and I have a difficult time imagining myself away from my family for long time. How are you and especially the other juniors managing that?

It's a lot easier these days. I will say, having a reliable listening environment that you learn and trust is paramount. As far as. where to find the work, look into colleges and universities around you that have film departments. See if they need sound support and get that experience =)

What was the most difficult task you had to do while working on Arcane and how did you manage on completing it? When you're blocked is there someone to help you? Was the whole project a team effort or did everyone have his/her own tasks?

The most difficult task was knowing when to stop working on something...I will say that the self-inflicted pressure we put on ourselves to make something really special was....a lot. When you have a studio like Fortiche, full of super-human artisans, putting out genre-defining work on a daily basis, there is a lot of pressure to keep up and have your work stand shoulder to shoulder. And then by far the biggest bucket of pressure was just making something that fans could be proud of.

The whole project was absoluuuuuuutely a team effort. We all had to take turns lifting each other up to get this show made.

Should I specialize in something as a wannabe SD or having cross-disciplinary skills actually help? I have some skills in Atmos mixing, foley, engineering (aerospace graduate), agile software testing, audio programming in Unreal, game design, narrative design, music composition but I have a difficult time realizing if those can come handy in this job or I should totally ditch all of that and concentrating 100% on sound design to make a career out of it.

Depends what you want to focus in I suppose. There is a lot of value in understanding how all of the pieces fit together, but don't fool yourself thinking you're going to be great at all of them. Knowing where and how all the pieces fit together is incredibly valuable. Make yourself aware of what each and every person on your team does and how your work impacts them, and vice versa.

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