Sound Business with Akash Thakkar

#96: Today's guest is Presley Hynes who is a sound designer based out of Edmonton, Canada.

Presley is currently senior sound designer at Gearbox, and has worked on projects like Borderlands 4, God of War: Ragnarok, Anthem, and many others.

In this interview we talk about how Presley started as a classical piano player, moved on to become a percussion player, worked in live sound, and then eventually ended up studying game audio, how she learned the skills needed to "make it" in the field, what she recommends up and coming sound designers do to stand out, and so much more.

Find Presley Here:

Website: https://www.phrequencies.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/presleyh/

#95: My guest today is Tim Larkin, who's based out of Spokane Washington.

Tim has been playing trumpet and piano since a young age, and has performed with artists like James Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, Sheila E, and many others. Tim has also worked in game audio for over 30 years, including 21 years at Valve Software working on titles like Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Half Life 2: Episode One and Two, Portal 1 and 2, Artifact, Dota 2, Riven, and Myst V, and many others.

In this interview, we dive into how Tim got his first game audio job from calling the company Broderbund in the phonebook yellow pages, how he transitioned from being a gigging trumpet player into a video game composer and sound designer, how up and coming composers/sound designers can stand out in a wildly competitive field, the release of his recent jazz album Setting Standards, and so much more.

Find Tim Here:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0PwyYNaSPbVH2toKPEOpNM

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/larkin.tim/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-larkin-696961/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tlarkin1/

#94: My guest today is Chris Bolte, who is a technical sound designer and audio implementer based out of Massachusetts.

Chris has built a wide-ranging library of sound effects used by creatives all over the world, co-wrote the book Elevate Your Audio Production with REAPER, and is most known for his work on the hit game Ghost of Yotei, where he implemented and designed sound across tens of thousands of assets at Sucker Punch Productions.

In this interview, Chris talks about how he pivoted out of a music career in 2022 and decided to go all in on game audio, how he learned his game audio skills so quickly with zero prior experience, how he landed the job at Sucker Punch working on Ghost of Yotei, and so much more.

Find Chris here:

Website: https://bolttracks.com/

Portfolio: https://christopherbolte.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherbolte/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/christopherbolte

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bolttracks.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bolt.wav/

Get info on The Game Industry Professional, my flagship course that teaches you how to make a great living in game audio here: bit.ly/gameindustrypro

#93: My guest today is Virginia Leo, who is a composer, sound designer, and pianist based out of Austin, Texas.

Virginia has worked on projects like Wobbly Life, had her work played by orchestras around the US, and is most known for her work on the hit game, The Baby In Yellow, which has hit over 300 million downloads to date.

In this interview, Virginia talks about her shift into video game music & sound after a classical music upbringing, starting out in game audio by doing game jams, how she landed the huge project The Baby In Yellow, how she keeps her career fun, sustainable, and interesting, and so much more.

 

Find Virginia here:

Website: https://www.virginia-leo.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ginxel/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIzhERvVB_ChM7GIOKGduVQ

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1V7owLSpwbwiLVmSmpV2m5

Bandcamp: https://virginialeo.bandcamp.com/

 

Get info on The Game Industry Professional, my flagship course that teaches you how to make a great living in game audio here: bit.ly/gameindustrypro

#92: My guest today is Kevin Senzaki, who is a sound supervisor and sound designer based in Los Angeles. He has an incredibly diverse background starting first as a visual artists but then transitioned into sound during his college days. He got his career started during the early 2010s when he staretd working with YouTube Creators who would become massive like RocketJump and Corridor Digital.

 

Since then, he has worked with clients like Netflix, Apple, Electronic Arts, Square Enix, HBO, Adobe, and Dolby across a huge amount of projects across pretty much every medium from film to TV to video games. Kevin has won four Emmys for his work and was most recently nominated for two Emmys for his work on the HBO documentary 100 Foot Wave.

 

In this episode, we talk about how Kevin managed to get his first gigs with those early day YouTubers, how he managed to keep working during an economic crash, his minimalist approach to sound design, and so much more.

 

Find Kevin here:

Website: https://senzaki.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevinsenzaki/

IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3339978/

 

Get info on The Game Industry Professional, my flagship course that teaches you how to make a great living in game audio here: bit.ly/gameindustrypro