Ari Pulkkinen » Audio

Vuvuzela is ruining FIFA World Cup 10

artz — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 11:47:59 +0000

I never thought I blog about football (soccer in states). I really love the athmosphere of big sporting events and other such epic crowd events. As audio wise, a cheering mega crowd with drums and songs are something you cannot audio design in a studio.

But now.. those hundreds of vuvuzelas are ruining everything! Cannot hear the crowd cheering, cannot hear commentator, cannot hear referee whistling – cannot hear nothing but that annoying bee-horn-sound. Constantly. Never ending. Even when national anthems are playing, you cannot hear the music – hundreds of morons are giving a middle finger to everyone. They are like bad little children wanting to annoy the shit out of everyone.

[EDIT: I find it great to watch the games with TV mute on, playing AriTunes Spotify playlists! Click and listen official AriTunes Spotify playlists! ]

FIFA, please ban vuvuzelas. I waited four years for these games and now I have to watch these games with muted sound! They say it’s cultural thing to play these 8$ chinese plastic toys – OK – would it be fun if these games would be held in Scotland and they would play bagpipes the same way? No.

[EDIT: Tired of Vuvuzela while watching World Cup? Watch the games on mute, click to listen AriTunes official Spotify playlists! ]

Over 4 million have heard AriTunes

artz — Tue, 18 May 2010 11:52:25 +0000

Sometimes you get fame from things you don’t expect, much. Angry Birds has now sold over 4 million copies on iPhone and Nokia (and AB light under million) thus all of those customers have heard all those wacky sound effects, vocals and catchy (/ slighly annoying) Angry Birds theme music that I composed while drinking beer in my summer cottage. Now this is comedy gold. Aritunes.com site visits have came usually via Trine, Super Stardust HD and Shadowgrounds but Angry Birds seems to be the most linked project today. I don’t mind ofcourse, some might be interested about my other work also.

I do enjoy playing Angry Birds myself too, it’s bloody catchy game for sure. Those damn pigs, grinning and smiling when I fail.. luckily the birds have some luck!

(edited this 12.06 – Angry Birds has sold over 4 million copies)
This year I will be announcing at least two big projects that I have been working on. One is a new product for a familiar game series, another one is a new IP. I’m sure they will be great addition to my growing AriTunes empire – world domination, here I come!

Trine, pricing, soundtrack

artz — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 12:07:36 +0000

Trine OST was recently revealed officially and there has been some writings about the price. It is unfortunate that some products are priced wrong, or seem to be too expensive for their value. With Trine it all begun with the pricing of the game itself – it was certainly not mine or Frozenbyte’s doings. I think the “huge mess” that it had created have now followed the price of OST.

As for the Trine Soundtrack, I am sorry if it seems to cost too much. I did so much extra work with this title, umm, like a month? Lets face it – Trine Soundtrack is over 70 minutes long with the bonus tracks (that’ll be available shortly for owners of the OST!), and it’s available in HQ MP3 and even lossless FLAC format! The pricing is still below soundtrack average.

And where all the money goes? I was aiming for a Ferrari (not)… I cannot go into the small details of my contract but let’s say that I’m hoping that the sales coverage my expences and time spent with Trine. I think I’d be happy to get new music work station that would help me to create even better music – let’s say, if there would be ‘Trine 2′ on the horizon.. you never know.

Those who have and those who will purchase the soundtrack – I thank all of you! Those who won’t be getting it, I thank you for the interest and praises you have given in the forums and such!

edit: oh, to my fans at $ country, I didn’t realize dollars were so crappy against euros right now. Please US, stop printing more cash

Cheers!

Sound Design that sells

artz — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:51:16 +0000

Last saturday I went to watch the new Star Trek movie, which I enjoyed much. A great reboot for the series!

But what was the most amazing thing about that night was Transformers 2 trailer. I remember how I praised sound design of the first Transformers movie but this trailer blew my mind! Most of the sounds I heard were truly unique, amazing sounds that I left me wondering how they were made. I’m definetly gonna see the movie just to hear the sounds.

In most of the movie trailers and even movies that I’ve seen, there’s sounds that I spot taken directly from a certain sound fx libraries without even a single change – this have always bothered me. Is it because of the limitations of the budget or the lazyness / lack of skill of the sound designer? For me, audio design is also an art form, and when I spot ‘important’ sound assets from a sample CD, it really doesn’t feel good. OK, I know most of you will never notice any of these but still…

By important sound asset I mean a sound that is one of the key elements of the movie or a game – a sound that should be unique. One example of this can be heard in a TV-serie “Heroes” – you know when Hiro is twiching his face and going time travel? Yeah, there is a sample taken directly from a sample CD called “Sound Designers Toolkit”. Meh! That’s one of the most used special sound fx in the series!

So, speaking of Transformers and audio, seems like there can be sound design that sells. I’ve always believed that only music can do that. The trick is the usual – make something unique sound design that nobody else have made. Doesn’t sound easy, doesn’t it?