Experience

Obsidian Entertainment

• United States
• Computer Games
• 100 - 200 Employee

• Audio Director

  • Jun 2020 - Present



Gearbox Entertainment

• United States
• Computer Games
• 400 - 500 Employee

• Senior Sound Designer, Composer & Music Director - Borderlands 3

  • Mar 2008 - May 2020

  On Borderlands 3 I provided sound design, voice, original music and performed as music director for the project. Music duties included sourcing new talent, providing creative direction and music style guide, implementation from asset to Unreal 4 BP/Datasets, providing original score, game music mix, composer contract negotiation, managing deliveries and music production schedules as well as budget planning on DLCs. Post ship I coordinated PR for our composer team between gearbox marketing and 2K PR. I prepped soundtrack deliveries, metadata, approved and provided mastering feedback and organized the re-release of our back catalog of Borderlands music to 2009. Sound Design duties included coordinating creature sound design for the first year of the project as well as providing the sound design for the Rampager boss and all variants of: (Ratches, Skags, Maliwan Heavies, Goliaths, Goons). I switched over to UI design to fill a gap at the end of the project and provided most of the UI audio in the game. Most of which was custom serum design. We had some light PhysX audio support that I helped build early on as well. Writing and voice credits mostly just resume the Psycho Bandit role (Writing/Voice) and some other minor parts.During development I coordinated a submission process for gearbox staff (as well as friends or family of staff) to submit existing or original material for our in-game radio. After conducting content reviews, I collected paperwork and recordings and we ended up populating the radio with 5 hours of music. It's one of my favorite traditions with our Borderlands series because of how it allows everyone to share in the creativity of the studio. I was so happy to see it flourish this time around! Show less

• Senior Sound Designer & Composer - Battleborn

  • Aug 2015 - Jan 2018

  After Borderlands 2 our audio department converted to a flat structure. Duties on Battleborn have included voice design and processing, voice performance, music composition, music direction, enemy creature audio design, 1st person character audio design including weapon and skill audio, ambience and scripted mission/movers. Designed contextually aware audio/stat tracking system to detect and focus players on rivalry dynamics within a multi-player session. The proposed system would automate the audio mix, color post processing and other VFX to highlight actions and presence of other players who become your greatest rivals during a match. Unfortunately, we weren't able to complete development during Battleborn but I continue to pursue greater contextual awareness within other Gearbox games.Scored all PvP maps and the Toby Raid and Oscar Mike Battle School campaign DLCs. Show less

• Senior Sound Designer - Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

  • Jul 2014 - Aug 2014

  My role was limited on the Pre Sequel and I mostly came on as additional support during the last push to ship. I balanced the combat music system across all maps and created new claptrap processing variants to reflect specific character/movie references.

• Audio Lead - Borderlands 2

  • Mar 2010 - Aug 2013

  I performed as audio lead on Borderlands 2 from early in the project until our ship date. I then transferred into a support role to allow for new opportunities/career development for other audio team members during DLC development. I continued in a support role on all Borderlands 2 DLCs, assisted with final development efforts on Aliens: Colonial Marines and supplied other projects in early development stages with initial content and system support through to August of 2013.During BL2 main development I handled music system design, music composition and external composer coordination/direction, did about 80% of the in-house music stem mixing and editing of composer deliverables to help ensure consistency of sound, coordinated production and audio team members, wrote and performed the VO for Psycho bandits, directed efforts to improve narrative delivery via battle dialog and tried to ensure that all audio team members had meaningful systems and responsibilities they enjoyed and were passionate about. Sound design responsibilities included weapon audio, the bulk of creature audio (I tend to operate as a creature specialist), mission scripted sequences and designed most UI sounds.I also contributed a large portion to the DLC soundtracks for Captain Scarlett, Tiny Tina and our Halloween, Christmas seasonal DLCs. Show less

• Audio Lead - Aliens: Colonial Marines

  • Nov 2009 - Mar 2010

  Performed as audio lead on Aliens while production was 100% in-house. Transferred to lead on Borderlands 2 when production moved out of house. While lead on Aliens I primarily worked to support all content requirements for the Alien's team during early production, as part of that project I developed a hybrid level designer / audio specialist role to solve for a resource squeeze as well as to help improve organic flow of information and training between level design and audio in a collaborative manner, managed our company's first integration of wwise during a code resource squeeze, started forming best practices with wwise and coordinated VO production. Prior to moving primary production out of house, I had been working on a unified system that integrated audio waveforms and light data to sync light sources & emitter audio to meet the atmospheric needs of the Alien franchise.When the project was moved out of house prior to build a vertical slice / demo, I moved over to audio lead on Borderlands 2. Show less

• Audio Lead - Borderlands

  • Mar 2008 - Nov 2009

  For about 75% of the project, while performing as audio lead, I was also the sole content support provider for the team. I also held a part time writer role throughout the development of Borderlands 1 where I designed the voice and speaking style of Claptrap along with David Eddings and served as the main writer for Claptrap for about half the project until I transferred those duties to Mikey Neumann later in development. During the project I also wrote and performed the VO for the psycho bandits, wrote Brick's dialog and contributed battle dialog for a number of enemies. Other notable contributions included writing about a 1/3rd of the soundtrack alongside Jesper Kyd, Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan, designed our interactive music system that persisted through BL2, handled all audio production schedule management, designed a new audio streaming system to meet memory budgets, provided voice direction and designed our character callout system.It was a busy time! Show less

• Senior Sound Designer, Composer and Music Director

  • Mar 2008 - Mar 2008

  Primary duties are sound design, audio system design and music composition, including directing external composer partners. I also assist in writing dialog / battle dialog, character development, optimizing workflow / tool design and occasionally work with production staff to help improve production/communication pipelines and processes.I also helped found the Gearbox Aikido club and currently serve as the president. I assist in admin and scheduling, collecting duties and I help procure community resources/equipment. Our club is affiliated with Plano Aikido so members earn ranks through the USAF while training in the Gearbox dojo and also gain access to classes at Plano Aikido. Show less



Volition

• United States
• Computer Games
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Sound Designer & Composer

  • Aug 2006 - Feb 2008



Human Head Studios

• Sound Designer (On-Site Contractor)

  • Sep 2005 - Mar 2006

  In-House Contractor on Prey providing sound design In-House Contractor on Prey providing sound design