A Combined Model for the Structuring of Computer Game Audio - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 100

Figure 2. Murch's conceptual model. Adapted from Murch (1998)

produce these sounds while the game is being
played is likely to be highly variable if the game
is not to become extremely linear in its progres-
sion and very boring to play (see Farnell, 2011;
Mullan, 2011 for technologies offering the chance
to break from this paradigm).
The typology for film sound and its 3 catego-
ries can also be compared to how the human
auditory system is biased. Humans are biased
towards listening for voices (Chion, 1994, p. 6),
and towards attempting to interpret voices as
words of language, and spoken language is a
primary resource for communication. Humans
are generally most sensitive in the part of the
sound spectrum occupied by the human voice,
that is, approximately 150 to 6000 Hz, and espe-
cially sensitive within the range of 3000 to 4000
Hz. Spoken language occupies a quite broad part
of the sound spectrum in which the threshold is
low. In movies and games this part of the sound
spectrum is also commonly inhabited by concur-
rent sounds, such as explosions, music, and so
on, which have a natural broad spectrum. 1 A voice
does not need the same level as a low pitched
boom in order to be perceived as having the same
loudness. There are a number of reasons as to why
some sounds fuse together into one and why, in
some cases, they do not. These include frequency,
relative amplitude, timbre, onset, amplitude en-
velope, and sound source location: Sounds that

fuse tend to have one or several of these factors
within the same, small range. Additionally, one
should not forget the active ability of humans to
focus on particular sounds to the exclusion of
others: what is commonly referred to as the cock-
tail party effect. In this chapter we can not discuss
the whole field of acoustics and psychoacoustics
but will need to focus the attention towards a
limited number of issues concerning the complex-
ity of sound such as dynamics, relative amplitude,
dominant frequencies, and their relation to se-
mantic value. 2 For the time being, we can conclude
that if there are many sounds with the same prop-
erties, that clarity might then become a problem
and, at worst, the mix will become blurred or
distorted. Therefore, it can be useful to consider
what types of sounds have already been used when
designing a sonic environment, for which our
model can be a powerful toolset.
Will broad dynamics thus create good sound
design by itself? The answer is obviously no. If
two or more sounds are played simultaneously,
they may blend and be heard as one. In theory, the
more the sounds differ in a dominant frequency
span and relative loudness, the easier it becomes
to distinguish them into 2 different sounds with
different semantic values. Reality, on the other
hand, is not that simple. In games, 2 audio files
can typically be played together in innumerable
ways and with different timings. Consequently,