I wonder what goes into sound editing. I've never done it before and I don't know what's involved so I'd love to see the behind-the-scenes on that front.

I would be happy to provide something like that, if it weren't for the fact that I only do volume balancing/mixing; not really any of the sound effects. That's what Otto does, so you could possibly ask him.

Maybe Otto does it so well that I don't notice, but what kind of sound effects are added? From what I can tell, the only sound effects are those in the Half-Life game itself.

Well, looking at the project file for the latest Freeman's Mind...

Spoiler: show

...the tracks are as follows:
1. Ross's voiceover
2. The in-game audio
3. Added ambience for the slicer machine
4, 5. Extra violence for the scientist getting slaughtered by said slicer machine
6. Everything else that was added by the sound editor. This one includes tons of added ambient noise, a much more powerful satchel charge explosion, and extra helicopter/mortar enhancement effects.
7, 8, 9. Some effects I added. Extra foley for when he climbs down the pipes and crate out of the laser room, and some extra weapon pickup sounds.

Hopefully this should give you some idea of what happens with the sound editing!

Interesting. Thanks for that insider look.

Oh wow Axel, good find. I didn't realize that existed.

Oh dear... it seems now that we are unable to use our pitchforks against Machinima some of us have taken them to the Farms! Don't worry Otto, most of us still just really appreciate all your hard work. Even if you're on vacation. Or have a life. Or any of the other possible reasons that it isn't all instantly finished.

There needs to be some contract that trades your free will for the privilege of working with Ross.

So, basically become his producer?

Wow, it seems my premonition might actually come to pass. Scary.

It's probably going to something like 95-98% just counting the time in between when I sent the footage v. when I'll get it back. Still, glad I picked this episode to show the time measurements on. This is a perfect example of why I can't promise release dates.

I'm hoping that once the next episode comes out, it will motivate more people to audition for sound editing. While I have worked with different sound editors, I've had mixed results compared to Otto. He really does an excellent job each time. In the last FM episode I used more sound editors, but it involved a total of 3 revisions for sound effects, 3 for volume balancing, and even then, I had to come in afterwards and spend about 5-6 hours fixing things up. It's not that I CAN'T do all the sound editing myself (I did in the early episodes), but there are so many other areas I can keep working on (and have been, I've been spending most of this time learning UDK), it's really worth it to me to have someone else tackle it.

I plan to make an official news post repeating this stuff later, but if you want to get a head start auditioning for FM, go ahead and pick a 30 second sample from anywhere in Half-Life or a previous FM episode, scrap all the existing audio, then add in your own effects (they don't have to be from the game, they can be from anywhere). The more audio details you have, the better.

I'll learn audio editing, once I have time

Concerning the whole HGttG reference, I wouldn't mind if he would mention in one of his rants that someone he knew had to gnaw off an arm just to survive listening to something or that all these aliens and how small he is in the universe - only to say that the universe can't afford a sense of proportion.