DreamHarvest

http://www.reddit.com/user/DreamHarvest

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DreamHarvest47 karma

I think the most important thing you need to do is build a killer showreel. Perhaps offer your services to some indie studios, there are plenty looking for good sound people. When building your showreel keep music and sound design separate, have a show reel for both if you do both but put them on different sites - big studios want their sound designers to be specialists and will often disregard your showreel if it has music on it. If your more interested in working in the indie scene then learning as much about the other roles in games dev is definitely seen as an asset. Learning a game engine such as Unity or Unreal Enginer (or both) can be very beneficial and will allow you to better understand the pipeline. Being able to integrate your assets is also a requirement of both the indie and AAA scene which is another reason it's worth learning a tool set. Also play around with FMOD and Wwise if you can, these are the two most common audio middleware solutions (And they're really fun once you get your head around them)

DreamHarvest16 karma

Hehe, there are but it does take a bit of searching, though as mentioned, you might be working for equity rather than a salary to start with as most of these indie studios just don't have budgets.

DreamHarvest12 karma

Ah, you might need to sign in to LinkedIn to view my profile - I think it makes profiles private unless you have a connection in common with me.

Anyway, as mentioned above, audio for games is probably one of the hardest sides of the games industry to get into - there are a real lack of jobs available and people who do get the jobs generally stay at the studios for a long time.

My recommendation is to start working for smaller indie studios - advertise your abilities and portfolio on the Unity and Unreal Engine forums. You'll probably find that you'll be getting equity share rather than a salary for these types of roles, but if you prove yourself and do a professional job you'll more than likely get the cahnce to work on future projects with them that might be paid. Its a long and hard road to get into this industry.

DreamHarvest10 karma

Hi, This is a good question and something that a lot of people struggle with.

I started with learning a popular DAW (digital audio workstation) called Logic and just experimented with writing music. I think this is a great starting point - just find some audio software that is within your budget and start by getting creative. Experimentation is really the best way to learn.

Sound Design and writing music are two different things though (although sound design can cross over to music), you also then have the art of mixing (Which is different depending on whether your working on studio recordings, Live mixing or post audio).

There are hundreds of resources to get you started in the field of mixing, recording, sound design, writing music and every other aspect of digital audio production available online along with a large number of online courses as well as degree level courses.

I recommend taking a look at the offerings from Point Blank Studios, SAE as well as The London School of Sound (places I studied at).

The world of audio is so big and varied that its important that you tinker with different aspects of it before you decide which route you want to take.

Hope that helps a bit.