Mar 31, 2009 6:45 PM, By Matt Gallagher

Tom Salta at Legacy Recording Studios in New York City

How does all this music, comprised of your electronic tracks plus the orchestra, translate on game playback systems—the PCs and the PlayStation, and so on?
First of all, H.A.W.X is a next-generation game, meaning it’s going to be played on systems like Xbox 360, PC, PS3, which can put out full high-res audio. There are no limitations in terms of sonic range on these systems. The only consideration that you really have to keep in mind is that your mix is will sound good on a variety of sound systems that people would have in their homes. They’re not going to always have high-end systems, but often they’re pretty decent. So that’s the consideration that I always keep in mind when I mix. Those 15 years prior to games that I had in the music business, mixing and producing records comes in very handy! [Laughs]

Of course it’s then up to Ubisoft’s audio team in Bucharest to implement the music with the game sounds.
Right. On certain projects I often don’t know how the music is going to be used and I don’t know the way it’s going to sound. So I kind of sit back and anxiously wait until the game comes out to see what happened. You can take a good score and kill it if it’s implemented badly—you really can! But I’m playing [H.A.W.X] now and it seems to be flowing very well…when you can hear it, of course. [Laughs]

Matt Gallagher is an assistant editor at Mix.

For more information on Tom Salta’s studio, read “Project Studio: Persist Music” from Mix’s February 2008 issue.

Visit Tom Salta’s Website at www.tomsalta.com, and watch Salta’s video interview about his work behind the scenes on the H.A.W.X game.

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