McDSP

Entering into the Montreal Ubisoft building, Lead Mixing and Recording Engineer, Jocelyn Daoust steps into the brick wall lobby to greet the McDSP team. Our tour began with a look into their multiple dialog editing rooms, 5.1 sound effects editing room, foley room, and finally into Daoust’s personal haven, the main mixing room. As the Lead Engineer, Daoust has worked on over 50 games at Ubisoft, including all of the Tom Clancy’s series (Rainbow 6, Splinter Cell, H.A.W.X.), Myst, Prince of Persia, Assassins Creed, Far Cry and Shaun White Snowboarding.

With a Bachelor’s degree in Music and a Master’s degree in Sound Recording where he studied with Massenburg, Daoust knows who he is; “I’m a sound guy, it’s purely all about audio for me.” With an ICON and additional Pro Tools systems at his fingertips, Daoust finds that McDSP plug-ins have given him the necessities to make mixing in the box nearly identical to mixing completely analog. “There are enough good tools, like McDSP, that if you use them properly, you can get the same results as if you were using hardware. Except this is more convenient, easier to use and it just makes your life simpler.”

“My main EQ in my template is FilterBank E6, it’s what I have on every single track. I also get a lot of use out of Analog Channel’s AC2. I even use it as a front end right at the input when recording foley to get the extra gain and “umph” that I need. With big sounds like punches and impacts, I’m not looking for something transparent, I like the coloration and analog-like harmonic distortion AC2 adds.” Daoust finds that working in the gaming world, there is a tendency to make sounds bigger than they are; after all Ubisoft specializes in shoot-em-up games. “A lot of people think that the small stuff has to be big, so then the big stuff has to be bigger- that’s where Analog Channel becomes a great tool. It adds the extra 6dB that doesn’t really exist but you can get it, smash things and get the extra edge that you need at the end of the map. ML4000 will do a great job as well if you’re looking for a cleaner sound.”

Previously working at Le Studio in Morin Heights with Simon Pressey, Daoust found his way into gaming after Pressey became the Technical and Artistic Director Audio for Ubisoft (Pressey is currently at BioWare Games). “We worked on the early Prince of Persia and Rainbow Six games together. Ubisoft used the Audiokinetic wWise sound engine for Assassins Creed II, which was the first time we’ve ever used an outside engine. Honestly, I can’t wait to see more open architecture like this, and now that your plug-ins are available within their engine, the future has some interesting packages in store.”

At Ubisoft, Daoust mainly focuses on the sonic enhancements of all games that end up on the market. “Some games we do full mixes on, like with all the music for the latest Prince of Persia. But, most of the time the music comes in already mixed and I’ll do a mastering on it. All of the cinematics come through here at some point with the sound engine sometimes handling portions of it. In general, if the game engine handles ambiances and music, we handle sub-mixes of effects and foley.” Ubisoft has become one of the leading video game publishers and developers in the world while continuing to offer hardcore games for both the beginner and expert gamers.

For audio persons interested in not only music, but also post production or gaming, Daoust gives McDSP two thumbs up for a definite “must-have” in your audio toolbox. “McDSP is really the first thing that I always recommend. The price point and quality ratio, ease of use, little amount of CPU used and extra low latency, McDSP is the answer. The Emerald Pack is everything you need in one bundle!”