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Lesson 2

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Experimentation with the Layered Approach

Currently, when playing the Combat Music Playlist Container, all of the tracks play at the same time. While there are no real musical conflicts between the parts, things are a little busy. There are multiple bass, guitar, and synth parts that were designed to provide variation by picking one or the other, not playing simultaneously. You’ll learn how to define those decisions in the next exercise, but first you should get familiar with the parts that are available. You can solo and mute Music Tracks in order to audition them and hear how various tracks might work together, but the solo and mute features are only visible in the Music Segment Editor.

  1. Select the Combat-A Music Segment and look for the M and S (mute and solo) buttons on the track header.

    [Note]

    If the M and S are not visible, zoom—click the plus button on the lower part of the vertical scroll bar—the Music Segment Editor until you see them.

    Notice how the Transport Control’s focus stayed on the Combat Music Playlist Container even though you selected the Combat-A Music Segment.

  2. Press play and then listen to each track one at a time using the Solo button found on each track.

    You may have discovered that you can solo multiple tracks to hear how two or more parts might sound when played together.

    If you have a lot of tracks, it’s easy to inadvertently leave a track soloed and lose track of it as you scroll up and down through the Music Segment editor. You can clear any solos using the Reset All Solos button in the toolbar.

  3. Click the toolbar’s Reset All Solos button to clear the solos.

    In a similar way, you can mute tracks you don’t want to hear, giving you another way of experimenting with how tracks might combine together during gameplay.

  4. Play the Combat Music Playlist Container and experiment with muting different tracks.

    You can clear any selected mutes just as you did when you cleared the Solo button.

  5. In the toolbar, click the Reset All Mutes button to clear any mutes.

    Any mutes are cleared.

    In each track’s header you’ll also see a Voice Volume property. The tracks have been exported from the DAW post fader, which means that the levels should automatically blend in the way they did in the DAW. Assuming time was spent to mix the music in the DAW, this means that leaving the Voice Volume values at 0 recreates the same relational volume tracks have when they’re imported into Wwise. Since the composers already did a mix for all of the Cube music, you’ll leave the volumes at 0. You’ll learn more about other considerations for mixing music within Wwise in Lesson 8.

    [Tip]

    Unlike a DAW, there is no panner visible for Music Tracks in the Music Segment Editor. Conventional panning can be achieved by selecting the Music Track in the Music Segment Editor and then in the Music Track Property editor, using the 2D positioning option found in the Positioning tab. Refer to the Wwise-101 course, Lesson 4 to review the 2D panning system.

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