Company Success Stories - PCB Productions
Gaming Sound Master Uses AMD Athlon™ XP Processors To Help Create Top Selling Video Games
Profile
PCB Productions
September 1, 2002
""The AMD Athlon™ XP processor-based system has been the most reliable and stable in our facility.""
Hard core gamers may not know Keith Arem by name, but many are familiar with his work. With recent game titles such as Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 & 3, X-Men2, Ridge Racer, Spiderman2 and Disney's Lion King, Arem is on a roll.
Producer, composer, and sound engineer combined, Arem has more than 200 commercial releases in the film, television, music, Internet and interactive industries. He founded PCB Productions as an all-digital production facility focusing on sound design and music production. His talents as well as his credits run the gamut in terms of digital content creation, yet industry insiders know Arem as a major player in audio gaming.
"Game development has become a big part of my focus," said Arem, who views it as a natural evolution from his success as a musician. "I started out playing in bands. In the early 90’s I was part of a group called Contagion. Capitol Records signed us and produced our first album. Traveling in the band and performing on the road gave me a good deal of experience in computer-based music. After scoring several motion pictures, video game companies approached me about writing the soundtracks for their titles. In 1994, I became the Audio Director for Virgin Interactive, managing sound for all their internal and external titles. In 1999, I decided it was finally time to start a company of my own."
Arem's encounter with AMD CPUs came shortly after he founded PCB Productions in 2000. The machines they used were solid performing commercial desktop systems enhanced with professional audio equipment. However, Arem was looking for a boost in performance.
"We always need powerful machines to support both the hardware and software that we use," said Arem. "We were doing a lot of surround sound mixing for Dolby Digital 5.1, which requires a very high-performance machine to record coded surround data. Dolby Labs suggested I contact AMD, because they considered AMD processor-based machines to be ideal for my purposes. When we received the machine, it clearly outperformed the older machines in the studio."
Dolby Labs has spent more than 35 years creating new and better sound experiences for movie audiences. They are equally committed to taking their technology to the game community to help create a cinematic emotional experience. Dolby regards Keith Arem as "one of the best independent sound producers for video games," according to Jack Buser, Manager of Game Developer Relations at Dolby "He's always working on the top titles," said Buser. "We wanted to explore methods of including Dolby technology in his soundtracks. We recommended an AMD processor-based system. Creating huge cinematic surround sound soundtracks is very computer intensive, so the more performance your processor can deliver, the better off you are. That's why we consider AMD processors to be an ideal choice. We want these top artists to have the hardware and software tools they need to create their best work."
Every day in the studio brings a variety of challenges for Arem and his team. The computers at PCB Productions are used to record, edit and mix dialogue, music and sound effects. Each project is different and presents unique challenges.
"Our production techniques are designed around the computer systems we're working with," said Arem. "We frequently have several engineers working on the same data files at the same time. I'll be directing an actor, while a second engineer is digitizing the files, and a 3rd engineer is finalizing the files that go into the game – all at the same time."
As Arem explained, dependability and stability can be even more critical in audio than in video recording. "In video, if you lose a frame during playback, many consumers won't notice. But if you drop even a single frame of audio, your ear will instantly hear it. Our recordings have to be absolutely 100% reliable every time. In our television and film work, we're doing a lot of synchronization to picture, so, again, we can't afford for a single frame to be out of sync. We need very dependable machines, and the
AMD Athlon™ XP processor-based system has been very reliable and stable. It's increased our productivity substantially."
The advent of professional desktop recording in the last few years has changed the landscape of the digital recording industry, collapsing barriers and expanding boundaries.
"Our industry is all digital, and therefore you have to know how to create and manipulate electronic data to succeed. The advances in performance and affordability have really opened up the marketplace," said Arem. "Musicians can get fantastic results using a home-based computer system. While it's true that the widespread availability of this technology has also saturated the market, making it more competitive, it's also expanded the market so that there are now more titles and properties requiring creative support."
For Arem and PCB Productions, the future appears to be full of new projects and greater accomplishments. PCB Productions is currently working on games for Activision, Sony Online, Disney Interactive, Bandai, Universal and others. These games will take players from the sports arenas of skateboarding, big wave surfing and golf to worlds of fantasy adventure.
Of course, that's just the games. Arem's crew is making a mark in multiple facets of the digital content creation industry.
"Every project is different," said Arem. "On some projects we're doing all the sound effects, and on other projects, we're doing the score, surround mixing or the dialog. Our computer systems need to work hard to keep up with the increasing demands of our sound development. In every case, the great performance we're getting from our AMD processor-based machines allow us to speed up the process."
"Our editors and mixers rely on our AMD Athlon XP processor based-systems to make sure our projects are done on time and are of the highest quality," said Arem.
© 2002 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.
AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Athlon, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other product names used are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies. |
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