ATA (*Ask Taylor Anything) (Patreon)

[The AMA has completed, with some final answers as replies in the comments. I was on my phone gimme a break. WHAT FUN! Thank you to everyone who asked a question, I genuinely loved it!]

Behold the mysterious bad boy of audio narrative play, the power BEHIND the power, revealed at LAST! He stands (sits) before you naked (yes!) and vulnerable to your interrogations.

Write your Q's in the comments and I'll post the A's up here. Keep refreshing I guess to see them? This is a good idea and will work!

FYI: I'll probably skip tech support questions and anything already answered in our charming and helpful Instruction Manual.

AND AWAY WE GO

SvenTS: If you were at the table what type of character would you want to bring to the story?

t: Many tempting options. Spirit obviously, a shapeshifter from Gauthmai (sp?) a Rhuvian "chalice" would all be super fun, but I gotta go...Hedge Mage, a dirtbag con artist Hedge Mage. A Self-made rascal livin on the edge of the law, yes please!

Kodi Gonzaga: Any advice for aspiring podcast sound editors? Or more specifically, people who want to start a podcast but have barely any experience with audio editing?

t: just start doing it! Experience is the greatest teacher, and sucking at it for a little bit is WAY better than not doing it at all.

Pyrogman245:Have you ever scared yourself with the spooky sound design in a WWW episode?

t: Nope. I am big and brave and strong!

Maggie: What is your favorite bit of audio you’ve done for the podcast so far & why?

t: the opening of Preludes and the Fox: Then and Now. I love the opening of Preludes because I feel like we nailed it, and when you're working on a project and you have an early success, or something "clicks" right away, it makes the whole thing feel open and big and possible in a way thats hard to describe, and whenever I hear that rustle of snow on sand and hear Brenbren say "snow" i remember what it was like to feel that for the first time on WBN. The Fox, because I tricked everyone into listening to like 5 minutes of ambient nature sound, BUT IT MAKES SENSE NARRATIVELY!

Mimi Scarlett: Did you have any experience of ttrpgs before you started producing? PS give Pepper the biggest hug for me please

t: Yes! I've played D&D since the mid 90's and have created and produced multiple award winning narrative play podcasts, like Rude Tales of Magic, Oh These Those Stars of Space, and Fun City!

Caroline Pillow: What are some of your inspirations for composing the music of this podcast? What inspired you to start making music? What programs do you use?

t: I love the great 20th century film composers and I listen to a LOT of John Williams, and Alan Silvestri (back to the future, greatest film score of all time), Thomas Newman, Korngold, etc. I also really love the Romantic composers, and lots of contemporary composers and artists as well: been listening to a lot of Colin Stetson, yMusic, and Eric Whitacre lately. I got inspired to start making my own music because I was using a lot of classical music (the romantics again) in designing Rude Tales of Magic, and it got to the point where I was pulling those compositions apart and restructuring them to fit the show, and I thought that it might be easier to just make it myself. Reader, it was VERY much not easier to make it myself. I use Pro Tools and a 6tb collection of virtual instruments and sample libraries

Gabe Norton: How do you manage to make the ambiance so forward without taking away from the players?

t: I make it sound good to me, then I remember everyone online yelling at me for making it too loud, so I take it down another 6-8db.

Zach Turner: What class did you take to learn to compose so well??

t: I took one, online session of basic music theory and piano 101, that taught me fundamental chord structure, and everything else has been thousands of hours of video tutorials and experience.

- Indra -: What was it like learning how to compose for this podcast? Why did you decide to take that step and go the extra mile like that, and any other music related deets you want to share?

t: Hard as hell. And expensive, cause I love gear. I am not smart, but what I CAN do is fully commit myself to a project. I am an all-or-nothing kind of person, a natural zealot. I only make full commitments to projects, which is often, frankly, a bad idea, but I can't help it. So when I saw an opportunity to ruin myself by overcommitting to a new thing I pushed the pedal to the metal.

Andrew Strother:Does Brennan sound like you, or do you sound like Brennan?

t: I was born first so technically he sounds like me.

Derek Biederstadt: What are the musical inspirations you take when composing the (quite excellent) score?

t: The biggest inspiration is the world of the show! Before we were even done with the children's adventure, I went out to LA and had a long production meeting with Brengan, just straight up interrogating him about every single detail of the story and the setting. Economic, technological, political shape of the empire. The historical traditions of magic. What are the cities like, what is the country like, how much wilderness is there, do the people value art, is there a robust creative industry in the world? All that stuff matters enormously! It would take too long to explain completely, but here's an example. I work most thematically in instrumentation. So witches, wizards, and spirits all have instruments or families of instruments that stand in for them in the score, and those connections are based on the philosophy and themetac underpinnings of the metaphysicis of the setting. When you listen to Suvi's first scene in Preludes you hear a lot of piano. Nobody else has a HINT of piano, why? Because a piano is a complicated machine! You need factories, standardized parts, craftsmen, mathematics! The wizards have that, so they get a piano and I confirmed with Brennan before a note was written that the industrial level of the civilization was enough to even produce a piano, otherwise, at some lower subconscious level it would feel out of place.

Micah: What kind of music do you like to listen to outside of creating your own?

t: anything evocative! I had a radical shift in my musical tastes in my early thirties, where suddenly I just didnt care what I was supposed to be listening to, and I became interested in very different things. I think this was a product of the internet, and the music/video streaming platforms rising up and becoming really useful. Also as I was beginning to produce podcasts, I found myself paying more attention to instrumental music, and scores, and then that led to classical. Now anytime I hear new music I can click into a place where I am open to whatever it wants to say, regardless of what "kind" it is or when it was released, or any other detail. It fucking RULES. Music is one of the closest things we have to real magic, but I didn't really appreciate it until I sort of backed into working with it.

tony boccia: What’s the strangest sound you had to find online for your job? It could be this podcast or any of your previous work

t: in Rude Tales of Magic there is a semi truck made out of living goblins called the Shishkabob Express. And in order to make the sound of a machine made out of thousands of little guys, I recorded my flailing naked body making slapping thwacking flesh sounds.

ella thompson: how much do you know about the story and the world that the players don’t? are you in the loop with brennan about things that are kept secret to everyone else, or are you in the dark about all of it with the rest of us?

t: even more than music, my favorite part of my job is working with DMs on story stuff. I am, correctly, never in the driver seat. The dm HAS to have material that matches their own instincts so it all works at the table, but I do get to act as a sounding board, and occasionally as an assistant writer pitching idea to them. Yes, I know way more than the players and the audience, and yes it fucking rules. It is more fun than anyone could possibly guess.

Jessica: Were you the one to pitch the idea of a fully like immersive DnD with all the audio effort or was it more of a group idea? Every time I listen I'm just fully transported and I wish there was a way to say that that didn't sound like a snooty art critic.

t: Jessica! You do not sound like snooty art critic! I am trying to transport you! If you were transported, then it worked! You and I are now connected by the invisible thread of art, and IT SLAPS. I am celebrating over here. I am shouting "Heck yes!" etc. Ain't no snoot to it. Dont let people tell you loving and thinking about art is bad. It is very good actually.

sean meagher: What is your process like for scoring and sound designing episodes? How do you decide what should have sound behind it and what kind, and how do you go about acquiring/creating the right sfx and music?

t: 1) process the raw audio so it sounds nice: noise reduction, crossgating, regular gating, de-ess, de-pop, compress, EQ. 2) Spotting, going through and labelling everything via 4 tracks of notes: Editing, SFX, Music, Ambience 3) Actually cutting. Taking out all the bathroom breaks and graphic sex scenes, inserting an "incredible" in front of everything Bendan says. 4) putting in the foley and ambiences 5) scoring. How do I decide? Well thats the million dollar question, isnt it? I go with my gut, and occasionally make a compromise with my dumbass brain. But for real my guiding philosophy is this: I have two masters, the pleasure of the listener, and the intentions of my colleagues. I just try to do right by those two things.

Cameron Holt: Where do you get most of your sound effects and virtual instruments used for scoring and dream-scaping the show? Any tips on resources for learning composition?

t: It's an equal mix of making my own and using pre-existing SFX libraries, with a big overlap where I combine the two. One of my greatest weapons is Michael Ghelfi, who you will hear credited in every episode. Michael runs a studio that makes music and ambiences for TTRPG games, and I've been using their ambiences for years, sometimes on their own and sometimes re-mixed or combined in a thousand different ways. Also use them for home games when I have time to run them! MGS has a great youtube account as well, and a patreon that I back at the highest tier.

As for getting started, I recc getting a cheap midi controller or keyboard with midi out, a DAW that can work with midi and VSTs, then getting the Spitfire LABS and the free Spitfire BBC Symphony Orchestra. Learn how to play all the basic triads on piano, and boom, now you know how simple chords are made and you have a world of amazing sounds at your command. Just play around until you make something you like, and you'll be in love forever. YouTube is your friend for learning further musical principles. Now just say goodbye to all your friends and family because you live in front of your computer now. Congrats!

Kirsten Griffith: What was your first meeting with each of the players like? (Thank you for your work, the sound is truly one of my favorite things about the show 🫶🏼)

t: I met Brennan a lifetime ago when we were both coming up through the UCB. I was fortunate enough to play in a game of his (3.5, set in his infamous homebrew setting of Aredain. I was a Favored Soul named Arcturus Kipling-Royce, and the game ended on a major cliffhanger for my character(!!!) when BrInnan moved to LA to become the CEO of Tidepods guy). I flew out to LA to be there for the recording of the back half of the CA and the first few eps of the main campaign and met the other WBN folks there. Lemme tell ya. Love at first sight. They are as charming and funny as warm as you think. No fakers. Real deal darlings. You can imagine my relief at the time, that I had not flown across the country to work with some dang ding dongs. And then we spent a week in a mountain house together and they made fun of me because Lou thought I took a bite out of the brie wedge.

Trey Lord: The roar from the first battle sounded like it was from a dinosaur or alien movie. How'd you find/make that?

t: I don't remember that specific one, but a lot of monster sounds, especially roars, are normal animal or human sounds that have been slowed down and altered in some way. Fun example: the flowers that eat meat in Grandma Wren's garden? Thats the sound of pug puppies all eating dinner together.

Party Pat: Do you draw inspiration from any existing shows or movies? Anything recent?

t: I'm always thinking about the movies that blew my mind as a kid: Spielberg, Lucas, Joe Dante, Zemeckis, (early) Tim Burton. And I also think about the Romantic composers a lot. They all shared an absolute earnestness in their overt intention to show you a good time. Emotional and narrative maximalism. But never robotic or hollow or exploitative. Also, Looney Tunes. Exact same stuff.

Bri: what's a project/scene that you'd really love to get the opportunity to score? i.e. if you wanted to branch out of podcast scoring, or specific grand battle/narrative confrontation scenes ?

t: I wanna do a John Carpenter synth score.

Max DeVille: From your work on Rude Tales of Magic to now Worlds Beyond Number, what is your proudest moment of growth/what has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned as a producer?

t: Proudest moment was when Tim Platt of Rude Tales was able to quit his day job. He had an awful, soul crushing day job, and if you know Tim you know he's the warmest, kindest guys you'll ever meet, and eventually Rude Tales was successful enough to where he could leave it, and when he did that I thought "well if nothing else, we got Tim outta there." I started Fortunate Horse as a vehicle for saving talented funny people from being eaten by the entertainment exploitation machine, and now I can say that we've helped a lot of people keep their financial and creative agency by helping them build sustainable successful creative projects.

The biggest lesson I've learned is that I am mortal. I do not have infinite time, and my body cannot be pushed to infinite limits. It turns out there is such a thing a fatal amount of podcasting, and I have walked right up to that line. Never again.

kittriss: Do you have a favorite trick or shortcut to make immersive sound?

t: a little sidechain compressed reverb to put tails on things so they don't end abruptly and fade out as the listener's mind is processing the information or transition. GREAT trick for adding drama. Feels like your brain is being cradled by sound. We love it!

Jonathan Wolfe: What has been your most "Holy shit" moment about worlds beyond number so far? (could be anything, in game or just around the podcast)

t: Launch day. Dropping a million hours of audio at once and then having the patreon LEAP outta the gate like that. Impossible to describe all the stress and emotions. Meeting the cast for the first time, and immediately falling in love with them, imagine the LUCK of that, you know? Game-wise, there is a bit in an upcoming episode that is the most impressive act of improvised narrative play I have ever seen. Unfortunately I cannot tell you any details about it because the reason it is so impressive requires a birds eye view of the story that you will not have a for quite a while. Just know that this is a scene to which you will be returning to study in dropped-jaw wonder when you understand everything thats going on in it.

Dallas Taylor: How much time do you think you spend on an individual episode with editing/composition input/mixing and mastering?

t: Between 30 and 60 hours per episode depending on complexity, amount of original music, and length. 60 is rare, but so is 30.

Stephen Panella:If you were a witch- what would YOUR familiar be????

t: a tiny little Brennan Lee Mulligan that sat on my shoulder. or held onto my back like yoda or facing forward in a baby bjorn.

James Goss: How much does Brennan's insistence on doing his own sound effects as a GM interfere with/inform your own creative decisions?

t: It's fine! It's also IMPOSSIBLE to not do as a storyteller. When I was a performer on Oh These Those Stars of Space, or sometimes when I was doing narration on Fun City, I would also make the SFX with my mouth. Ya just gotta.

Ashley E. Benson: What is the decision process like for excluding certain moments? Is it more of a trimming for time or clarity situation? Has the cast ever asked for something to not be included?

t: Regarding time. Neither short nor long are intrinsic goods or evils. If we think the best version of an episode is 45 minutes, we will publish that. If we think it's 3 hours, we'll publish that. I am more concerned with the rhythm and movement within that time. More generally, with this cast, (cause every cast is different) I find myself editing for clarity (taking out vocal static or overlapping lines. Giving room so the listener knows the thing that was just said is important, etc) and pacing. Of the first 6 episodes of the main campaign there have been extremely few major cuts or restructuring. This cast is extremely  experienced in top level narrative improvisation, so they just don't generate that much cuttable material.

Shtish: Which effect has been your favorite so far? Voice/surroundings/music, whichever strikes your fancy! Or, if you can't tell us yet, in which episode will we be able to hear it?

t: The King of Night. Fucking nailed it. You can hear the bass harmonics jumping registers which was totally a happy accident, but it makes for a really novel, unnerving sensation which is exactly what I was going for. I wanted to activate the terrified small animal part of your brain, the part that still gets a little scared when the night is darker than normal. And I think we got it.

TJ:Does future knowledge of what is going to happen in the story shape your editing and music choices in whatever episode you’re currently working on?

t: absolutely. I cant successfully foreshadow unless I know whats a comin aftshadow.

Ken Goins: Have you ever cut any content that you regret cutting later? Also, separate entirely and totally not related, will we ever be able to hear an (mostly) uncut version of the episodes?

t: Never. I have only regretted leaving too much in. Uncut eps? Why in the world would anyone wanna hear that? Maybe 50 years from now, someone will get the masters and do a Get Back style documentary about it.

Sebarus: Will we ever get to see you on the other side of production, either as player or GM?

t: I do have a game (Parsely) that I would LOVE to run for the gang, but our time together is precious and short and I want them to have all the opportunities to play with each other first.

Okay I gotta go! but I will return and answer more later probably! Maybe! Thanks everyone, this has been surprisingly fun. And thank you for all the kind words about the show. I want you to understand: we are trying to entertain the shit out of you so it's nice to know we're getting there.

*****EVEN MORE ANSWERS (day 2)*****

Seamus O'Connor:How do you deal with feeling out of your depth (if this happens to you too) when trying to score something that calls for stylistic/genre expectations outside your wheelhouse? For example, I have a background in metal and jazz guitar, so when I'm trying to score a scene that feels like it needs something more baroque/classical I feel like I'm just doing a bad fake

t: smoke, mirrors, lies, tricks, and deceptions. The listener/viewer cares way more about the vibe than the technical construction/execution of a complex cue. My advice would be to use a pad or texture patch with lots of movement built in as a base and then above that layer in some other instruments with just a hint of the more full version you're imagining. A quick trick to make simple cues sound richer, double a line in higher or lower octaves and assign them to instruments with different but complimentary timbres. Also, a lesson I am trying to learn myself: good is not the same thing as complicated.

Shana White: What method do you use when deciding the appropriate music for a certain scene? How do you know what sounds like the feelings we’re supposed to feel?

t: Watch a lot of movies, listen to a lot of music, go to the opera, dance at a party, watch what the pros do, watch what bad artists you don't even like do, find tools and sounds you like to play around with, and then just go with your gut.

TheLargeLebowski: How has the transition from sound designing a show like Rude Tales to a show like WBN been? Are you able to rely on the same stores of knowledge and skills, or has it been a lot of changing and re-orienting?

t: I love this question. It is very different, but only in fun, interesting ways. Rude Tales was much more comedy-forward, and so the "voice" of the show could make fully ironic commentary on the action, whereas I would rarely do that with WWW.  Rude Tales was also much more episodic structurally, which means sometimes you can get a big dramatic climax in several episodes in a row. WWW on the other hand is far more serialized, and so it requires a much more patient hand with a longer-view towards themes and textures that are revealed over the course of an arc, or even years.

Charles Shields: Can you just give a shout out to Birmingham, AL? This place produces some damn fine folks.

t: there's my babygirl

And now here is a picture of my dog Pepper falling asleep on the armrest of my truck.