hello, peter drescher here, i am currently sound designer at danger, inc., makers of the hiptop wireless internet device (aka the T-Mobile Sidekick), and o'reilly has been kind (and brave) enough to let me speak my mind (unedited! holy crap, batman!!) on interactive audio technologies, with an emphasis on the mobile space ... oh, this should be interesting!
while i hope at least to be entertaining and informative, be warned: i have no intention of being "fair" or "balanced". these are my opinions, based on my experience, and from my point of view as former road dog bluesman piano player turned multimedia audio guy. i'm just gonna call it like i see it, and if you agree or disagree -- excellent! my job here is done ...
the stated purpose of this blog is to get people thinking and talking about interactive audio issues, and will take the form of, well, rants, about things that annoy the living crap outa me - like "do there really have to be 50 different ringtone formats!?" and "can you explain to me again why i can't loop an MP3 file!?" ... i tell ya, there's lots of things about this industry that drive me absolutely crazy, so there will be plenty of topics to talk about, including Lessons Learned (aka "if you get old enough, you become cool again") and just what exactly IS a MAWG!?
so, how did i get to be the "annoying audio" guy, anyway? believe me, this was not something i planned on, it just sorta happened. it all started when i was invited to speak at the 2004 Project Bar-B-Q conference in San Antonio, Texas. i asked the fatman what i should talk about, and he basically said "be outrageous! be provocative! change people's perception of reality!" ... uh, ok, sure, i can do that!
my presentation went over quite well, and o'reilly published it as Could Ringtones BE More Annoying!?, curse words and all. encouraged that my particular brand of insanity seemed to be well received, i did it again ... this time as a presentation at the 2006 Game Developer's Conference -- and sure enough, o'reilly published it as Could Mobile Game Audio BE More Annoying!? (can you spot a trend developing here?)
and now they've given me a blog, so that i can be outrageous and provocative and annoying on a regular basis. they're not even going to correct my grammar or writing style (which i like to call "pseudo archy and mehitabel"), but i will try to keep it easily readable, and i assure you, if something is spelled idiosyncratically, you can betcha bottom dollar, i'm doing it for effect.
however, you may detect a certain theme running through these posts, namely:
those who cannot learn from the past are doomed to repeat it!
really, people, this ain't rocket science! creating interactive audio in the mobile space these days is remarkably similar to doing PC game audio in the 80's, and web audio in the '90's. the same kinds of problems, and the same sorts of solutions, keep popping up again and again -- and while it's nice that my expertise in obsolete technologies keeps me gainfully employed in new and emerging markets, it's kinda dismaying and aggravating and, well, down-right ANNOYING to watch this industry make the same mistakes over and over, creating more cross-platform incompatibilities, new and unnecessary proprietary file formats, and oh man, don't even get me *started* on DRM! do we really have to screw up in the same way again, AGAIN!?
since this is the third time we've been down this road, ya think we mighta learned a thing or two ... or maybe not -- mobile audio is already moving away from downloadable formats like MIDI towards streaming technologies, just like what happened in games, and on the web, and for the same reasons ... which makes me wonder:
what's the next audio platform gonna be? multimedia sunglasses? wi-fi chips implanted in your head? can you imagine how annoying THAT will be!?
stay tuned ...
- pdx
cheers, jeers, and audio topics that annoy you can be sent to the annoying audio guy ...
special thanks to justin lee for the "annoying audio phone" cartoon.
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Audio
Comments (3)
Read More Entries by Peter Drescher.
I went by my old high school and you know, they were doing the same stupid crap I did when I was there. Haven't we learned anything?
We/I have. They aren't we.
One of the few, real benefits of a good college education is that it is possible that you might learn a little bit about the history of your field and not repeat it.
Here’s an annoyance: Why does almost every portable music player glitch between songs?
And the related annoyance: Why do so few portable players let you crossfade between songs in a playlist?
it just so happens that i adore this guy and if anything, he knows what the hell he's talking about.
loved it. can we make som noise now?!?