When was the last time you had fun with this audio/game audio thing?
I hope it was recently – perhaps even today. Because I know it can be a slog.
There’s seemingly so much to do and learn – right? Double or triple that if you’re looking for a job, perhaps your first one. You feel like you need to:
- Learn all the game engines
- Learn all the middleware
- Learn all the programming languages
- Learn every part of sound design
- Make a sick demo reel
- Make a beautiful website
- Make a perfect resume
- Go to all the networking events
- Find the contract where you sign your soul away for a job
Somewhere in there you’re bound to lose all semblance of what made you fall in love with audio in the first place – it’s fun and awesome!
I’d gotten to that same place with programming earlier this year. Every learning hill I climbed up seemed to help me gain knowledge, but get no closer to my actual goal.
Then I opened up ChucK – the “music programming language” – and within a few lines of code I remembered this whole thing is supposed to be fun. If it isn’t at least a little fun – I wouldn’t be doing it.
That’s one of the things I’m hoping to convey with Like Magic – programming doesn’t have to be stilted and complicated, it can be a lot of fun.
I got this message from a customer, as an example:
“Just wanted to say thank you for providing these awesome resources! I’ve already worked through the guide up to the drum machine, and it’s been so fun and smooth so far.”
That feels great to hear of course – but it’s even better to know people are having fun with it.
If you’re interested to see how fun and easy programming sounds can be – you should take a look.
On the product page you’ll find 3 example videos:
- Playing with a simple sine wave
- Making a “fauxcedural” drum machine
- Building your own MIDI instrument
I promise you, it was fun to build those things. If you’ve ever thought it would be fun to do something like that yourself but you’ve been scared to try – this is the unbreakable sandbox you’ve been looking for, as you literally can’t screw it up.
Okay, here’s the last time I’ll mention this for a while – check out Like Magic, my new guide to programming your own sound with ChucK.
Copyright 2016-2021, NIR LLC, all rights reserved.