Last Wednesday, Killer Instinct Xbox One composer Mick Gordon and Double Helix Sound designer Jean-Edouard Miclot held a Killer Instinct panel at the Games Developer Conference (GDC). Polygon has written an article summarizing what was discussed about KI’s audio at the panel, which includes things such as the inspiration for the musical Ultras, what was used for specific sound, etc. You can read a brief portion of their summarization article below, so click here for the full article.
Figuring out what Killer Instinct’s brand essence was started, perhaps unsurprisingly, with its series-defining announcer. Originally voiced by Rare producer Chris Sutherland — who’s still with the UK-based developer — Double Helix thought to re-record him and be done with it. But after 17 years, Sutherland’s voice had changed enough to cause difficulties. To assist with recapturing the essence of the original, Rare sent DAT recordings from the original Killer Instinct’s voiceover to Double Helix, which were then re-processed for the 2013 release.
Miclot talked about building the audio identity of the game and its characters, explaining that he recorded 1,700 audio takes, starting in Double Helix’s kitchen. These were then processed in ProTools using various plugins, and categorized for low, medium and heavy attacks.
Each character also has a melodic theme behind some of their character-specific aspects. Miclot used cougar sounds with echo applied for Orchid’s special moves, for example, and her standard attacks have processed elements lifted from tesla coils and steam off of oven burners (from the aforementioned Double Helix kitchen). Sadira used female whispers for her background ambiance, while her web-based attacks are based on pitch-shifted sounds of duct tape being stretched and pulled. Miclot went on to explain the challenges of designing the vocalizations of a character without a mouth, referring to the alien Glacius. He eventually settled on the sounds of water injecting into a steam iron for the alien’s breath, and the horn-like noises he emits come from pitch-shifted and altered rubber bands strummed in front of a condenser mic.
The second half of the panel was dedicated to Killer Instinct’s unique soundtrack system. Gordon explained his philosophy for the game: “Music is storytelling,” as he put it. As each match has a narrative structure -— two characters enter, the round begins, each player trades blows, ending with a knockout — it was important that the game be able to pick the right moments to shift music and add or subtract elements to add momentum and drama to each fight.
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Very neat and fascinating article