Image by Mark Farrell
If you’re beginning a new career as a video game composer or sound designer, check out these seven tips to help you get there faster while making a real impression on prospective employers.
1. Be a Sound Maverick
Sound alters the way we perceive onscreen events; this is at the forefront of what we do as sound designers when working with images. With that in mind, get an audio recorder such as a Zoom H2 ($200) or a Roland R-26 ($500) and get out there and source some of your own material.
Be creative with what sounds you use for onscreen events. You don’t always have to go with the most logical or intuitive sounds for a certain action or event. Try playing around with sounds that don’t have anything to do with an event itself: celery breaking for a neck-snapping action comes to mind as the cliché example here.
Pay attention to everyday sounds and start interacting with your surroundings in weird and wonderful ways, and you’ll be capturing some great material in no time.
2. Don’t Get Too Attached to Your Work
When we look at sound design and music analytically, we realize we are simply trying to empathize with the audience, directors, and game producers — in other words, helping somebody else realize their vision for what something should sound like.
A lot of composers and audio designers tend to get overly attached to their work and make it too personal. It’s important to learn how to detach yourself from a project and aim to please who needs to be pleased. This will save you countless hours in rehashing your work when it’s sent back to you for revisions; trust me.
3. Learn How to Work Faster
Get good at working fast. You’ll need to be editing dozens of sounds in a day’s work. There’s little room for perfectionism in this industry, and it won’t do your career any good stumbling around with one laser sound effect when there’s a whole list of requests from your design team that need to be met by the end of the day.
Again, it helps here to detach yourself from the project and work objectively. You’ll find that your work improves and so does your workflow.
4. Stock Up on Great Gear
If you’re a budding audio designer looking to create music and sound effects for next-gen titles for iOS/Android, Xbox One, or PlayStation 4, you’re going to need a lot of gear to get going. Whether you’re pursuing a career as an in-house audio designer or flying solo and setting up your own business, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the tools of the trade and identify any weak areas in your audio arsenal that could be hindering your creativity.
Along with your wave editor, portable recorder, sample libraries, studio monitors, and recording booth (if you’re lucky), you’re going to need some quality developer tools for implementing your sound into the game. This might be an audio tool like FMOD, or it might mean just having an iPhone on hand to check the playback of your audio files before submitting the files to the developer.
FMOD and Wwise have free versions available for download, and there are a wealth of great tutorials on YouTube and elsewhere on the net that teach you how to use these tools.
These programs are essential if you’re going to be working on console games. Start familiarizing yourself with them now, and you’ll be adding FMOD/Wwise experience to your resume in no time!
5. Rig Your Studio for Testing on Multiple Devices
You’ve created a dozen footstep loops for an upcoming game, you’ve exported all the WAVs as 16-bit, 44-kHz files with loop points embedded in them from your wave editor, and you’re all set to deliver. Trouble is, you’ve been listening to your work out of high-end monitors for hours in your studio, and now you’re left with an inaccurate picture as to how the audio will render through your target audience’s setup.
Checking your playback via the proper medium is a habit that every film or game composer or audio developer needs to develop, as well as a key ingredient to creating a great finished product.
If you’re creating a console title, run your sound effects through your TV to hear it out of a TV speaker, but don’t stop there — run it through your laptop speaker as well. This will give you insight as to any problems you may need to address, particularly in terms of EQ.
If your game is for iOS or Android, upload the files somewhere on your phone for auditioning. Take some of the game’s soundtrack, mix your sound effects in with the music, and play it back on your iPhone to hear how it sounds.
If you’re willing to go to the extra effort to create some really great audio, it’s highly beneficial to have your setup route through TV speakers as well as your studio monitors and perhaps even another few sets of speakers (the more the merrier!) to give you a variety of aural perspectives and to ensure that there are no major issues on a certain medium.
6. Build a Smashing Demo Reel
It’s good to study, sure, but nothing is more important than getting your hands dirty. Take advantage of your free time to create some project demos. Prospective employers like to have a strong portfolio in front of them. This can consist of games you’ve worked on in the past or some demos you’ve put together solely for portfolio purposes.
Every little bit buffs out your resume, and in this industry, your potential employer is going to be more keen to actually hear something you’ve worked on instead of just reading a long list of academic achievements.
Don’t just send an audio file. Composers of incidental music — i.e., film and game composers — should always be aiming to pair their demo music with a complementary medium. This could mean creating the sound design for a recent movie trailer, or helping out some indies on a forum with their upcoming iPhone title.
If you have the time, produce an interactive demo. Team up with a young budding programmer and exchange your sound design services for an interactive world that you can place your sound effects in and show off to your potential employer. This can also be a great way to market your work via social platforms like YouTube.
It’s important to make sure that your very best work comes through in the first minute of your portfolio and that your demo doesn’t exceed a couple of minutes. Employers have dozens of reels to get through, so you’ve got to make a good impression fast.
7. Polish Your Interview Technique
No matter how great your demo sounds, the job interview is what can really make or break your chances with a company, so make sure you have your technique down. It’s always a good idea to rehearse what you’re going to say in your interview.
Also, do some background research on the company you’re applying to work for. Play their games if you get a chance. Don’t skip this crucial step!
If you’re lucky enough to get an interview over the phone or Skype, have a “Post-it wall” set up with all of your relevant experience and answers to the most commonly asked questions already lined up in front of you. This has worked for me a few times; quite often, the stress of an interview will have you drawing blanks and forgetting some of the most valuable information you wanted to share with your interviewer to let them know how awesome you are.
These types of virtual interviews are quite common in the games industry, as we’re pretty tech-savvy and forward-thinking people. If you can squeeze a joke in somewhere, don’t hesitate to do so. We’re a light-hearted bunch, and we like to know we’re going to get on with whom we hire.
Final Words of Advice …
I hope all of this information has been insightful. If you follow the tips above, you’ll be several steps closer to landing your first role in the games industry.
Junior Sound Designer and Sound Designer roles come up fairly frequently (although you have to be prepared to commute or move), and these tend to require a strong portfolio and at least one AAA title released; however, this can often be waived if you have a strong reel and express your passion clearly throughout the application process.
The best way to get a AAA credit under your belt is to start modest and target smaller companies. Take one step at a time, and you’ll be working for the big studios before you know it.
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