What it means to be an audio programmer

This blog post will be about what It means to be an audio programmer in the game industry and the different types of audio programmers.

There is a lot of demand out there for audio programmers because there isn’t a lot of audio programmers out there. A lot of the smaller studios don’t even have an audio programmer working on their games, apparently a lot of the times the new guy get to the tasks of dealing with sound.

Because there isn’t a lot of audio programmers out in the industry a lot of the times audio programmers get interviewed by other programmers getting asked questions that have nothing to do with audio at all or getting interviewed by audio engineers not getting asked the right questions.

Three types of audio programmers

Implementation programmer

This programmer will add audio to the different game components. There is no need for this audio programmer to have a good knowledge about audio.

Engine programmer

The engine programmer will create layers that sit on top of the lower level audio system. This programmer might build a system that can handle interactive music, this will require a deeper knowledge of programming than the implementation programmer and it’s more likely that this programmer will encounter some music terminology but still doesn’t need to have a deep understanding of audio.

DSP programmer

The lowest level programmer, the DSP programmers will deal with the audio sample themselves. They will write complex mixing routines, filters , reverberations and much more. These are the people that will know more about audio.

References

Fournel, N. (2016). Opinion: Putting The Audio Back In Audio Programmer. Gamasutra.com. Retrieved 28 July 2016, from http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/125422/Opinion_Putting_The_Audio_Back_In_Audio_Programmer.php