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Lesson 5

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Submixing

By now, you’ve learned many methods in subtracting nice-to-have Sound SFXs or using Wwise features to optimize the performance. However, you should give some thought to how you import audio into Wwise as well. The music in WAG has been imported as separate layers (one layer per instrument) for each instrument, which allows a high amount of variation, but also requires each layer to be an individual voice. To reduce the number of voices, one needs to mix layers before importing it into Wwise, but this also removes randomization from the submix layers. You can still have a few layers with variation, to preserve some change in the soundscape over time.

For every music theme, you’ll find submix audio files in the Submixed Musicfiles folder in the Wwise project.

You will now import the Woodlands submixed audio file and, using SFX exclusion, let the mixed soundfile become a replacement on mobile.

  1. In the Platform Selector, make sure Android is selected.

  2. In the Project Explorer, expand Interactive Music Hierarchy > Music > Music_Regions > Woodlands Day and select the Woodlands_Day_Layers Music Segment.

    We’ll duplicate this Music Segment and replace it’s content with the submixed Music Track.

  3. In the Launcher’s Projects page, open the project options list and select Open Containing Folder.

  4. Navigate to go to the parent folder.

    Here you’ll find a Resources folder, containing additional music files from your composer.

  5. Open Resources > Submixed Musicfiles and find the Music_Woodlands_Mix.

    Returning to Wwise, let’s duplicate the Woodlands_Day_Layers Music Segment to maintain the same settings for the new Music Segment.

  6. Right-click the Woodlands_Day_Layers, then select Copy.

  7. Right-click the Woodlands_Day Music Playlist Container, and select Paste.

  8. Rename the Woodlands_Day_Layers_01 to Woodlands_Day_Layers_Mix.

  9. Drag the Music_Woodlands_Mix.wav file from the open Explorer/Finder onto the Woodlands_Day_Layers_Mix Music Segment opened in Wwise.

  10. In the Audio File Importer, click Import.

    Now that you have imported the new mix and you will have both a mix and each layer inside the same Music Segment. We can now safely remove the separate layers, as each layer will be represented in the mixed version. The new mix you imported will be located in the Woodlands_Day_Layers_Mix Music Segment.

  11. In the Project Explorer, go to the Woodlands_Day_Layers_Mix Music Segment, delete all Music Tracks except for the Music_Woodlands_Mix you just added, by right-clicking and selecting Delete.

    Now that the Woodlands_Day_Layers_Mix Music Segment is ready to act as replacement for the Woodlands_Day_Layers, you need to add it to the Music Playlist.

  12. Select the Woodlands_Day parent Music Playlist and drag the Woodlands_Day_Layers_Mix into the Music Playlist at the bottom of the Object Tab.

    You’ll end up excluding one of these Music Segments in each platform, and the Music Playlist Editor will just pick the one that is not excluded. Now, let’s Unlink each Music Segment.

  13. Right-click Woodlands_Day_Layers, then select Inclusion > Unlink from its shortcut menu.

  14. Disable the Inclusion check box.

    Let’s also unlink the mix from Android.

  15. In the Platform Selector, select Windows and unlink the Woodlands_Day_Layers_Mix and disable the Inclusion check box.

You’ve now reduced the Woodlands theme from seven to one voice. As such, you both saved processing power to maintain so many voices and significantly reduced the file size on Android.

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