Sound Business with Akash Thakkar

#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

#91: My guest today is Beatrix Moersch, sound designer based out of Montreal, Canada. She has worked on projects including Dead By Daylight, Gears 5: Hivebusters, Museum of Symmetry, Stories: The Path of Destinies, and is currently the audio lead at Don’t Nod Montreal, most recently working on Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. In this episode, we talk Beatrix’s transition from wanting to work in film and sound design and then game audio specifically, how she started her career in quality assurance and did freelanced in game audio on the side, and how sound designers can find paid work in the game industry, and so much more. Find Beatrix here: Don’t Nod: https://dont-nod.com/en/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beatrixmoersch/?originalSubdomain=ca 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

#90: My guest today is Noa Beazley, who is a composer and music educator baed out of Boston, Massachusetts. She has composed for projects like Protodroid DeLTA, A Token War, and Phosfi working across a huge variety of genres all the way to dark folk music and everything in between. She’s also an assistant professor at the Berklee College of Music teaching game scoring. She’s also on the Board of Directors of the Boston Game Dev community and is also an organizer for the Boston Game Audio community. In this episode, we talk about Noa’s classical music upbringing, how she rebelled against her roots, an instead went on to study jazz vocals, arranging, and media composition, how she managed to find her first bits of work, negotiates for projects, balances teaching, composing, and community organizing, and so much more. Find Noa here: Website: https://www.noabeazley.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noa-beazley-b74a7620a/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noabeazley/ 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

#89: My guest today is Alejandro Pérez Heinze who is a composer, Flamenco guitarist, audio engineer, Kontakt instrument producer, and audio educator based in Mexico. He has worked on a wide variety of projects including Kontakt instrument production on Kena: Bridge of Spirits, also working with Austin Wintory on projects such as Thai Cave Rescue, and composing on games such as Frogreign. In this episode, we talk about Alejandro’s extremely broad career path, starting off as an electric guitarist, switching over to Flamenco guitar, going to college for Biotech, and switching to audio production and engineering. We also talk about his unique skillset and how it landed him work in the game audio industry, and so much more. Find Alejandro here: Website: https://www.alejandrophz.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandrophz/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alejandro.phz/ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/alejandrophz 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

#88: My guest today is Venus Theory, who is a music producer and Youtuber based out of Nashville, Tennessee. Venus Theory is known not only for his lush electronic music, but also his massive YouTube channel. He also recently finished writing the soundtrack for the hit game Avowed by Obsidian Entertainment. In this episode, we dive into Venus Theory’s rise as a musician due to YouTube, how he landed the Avowed project, how he bounces his many creative outlets, and so much more. Find Venus Theory here: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/venustheory Website: https://venustheory.com/home Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/venustheory/?hl=en 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

#87: My guest today is Jamie Brindle, who’s actually our first ever non-audio guest for the podcast! Some of you may already be familiar with Jamie and his work on social media, where he helps out freelancers across all industries, focusing on aspects around pricing, dealing with client pushback, finding quality clients, and much more. In this episode, Jamie and I talk about the skills, mindsets, and experiences that freelancers need to develop to make sure that their career in audio thrives. Find Jamie here: Website: https://jamiebrindle.io/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejamiebrindle/?hl=en TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thejamiebrindle?lang=en LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiebrindle/ 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

#86: My guest today is Alexander Brandon, a game audio designer based out of Seattle, Washington. He has had an incredibly diverse and impactful career, starting off in the early ages of game audio working on projects like Unreal, Thief, and Deus Ex. He also contributed to projects such as Skyrim, Job Simulator, and so so many others. In this episode, we dive deep into Alexander’s initial start in game audio, and how he got started in the field before it was considered “cool”, his views on starting and building a business as an artist, how he transitioned from working on games to eventually leading teams, and so much more. Find Alexander here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-brandon-b84272/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AlexCBrandon/videos IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0999472/ Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/funkyrustic.bsky.social 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

#85: My guest today is Radhika Vekaria, a musician and recording artist born in the UK and based out of Los Angeles. Radhika is known for creating the album WARRIORS OF LIGHT, which was recently nominated for a Grammy in the Best New Age Ambient and Chant category. In this episode, we dive deep into Radhika’s Indian music upbringing, how she became a mantra-based artist in the first place, the challenges she faced as she transitioned from writing music under pseudonyms to finally writing under her own name, and so much more. Find Radhika here: Website: https://www.radhikavekaria.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radhikavekaria_ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/radhikavekaria Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6IuevEa6Y34J29zrVYD9Ie?si=54-42qwPSayDLahrQWjWGA 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

#84: My guest today is Devendra Cleary, a production sound mixer based in Los Angeles. He got his start working as a boom mic operator in college and eventually got his first big break working on the TV show Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Since then, he’s worked on projects such as Firefly, Anchorman, Sex and the City, and, recently, Twisters and Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. In this episode, we talk about a production sound mixer even does, how Devendra got started in film sound, how he grew his career after landing a big break project, his work on Twisters recording actors in huge windstorms, and so much more. Find Devendra here: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/devendracleary IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0165837/ 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

#83: My guest today is Alda Agustiano, also known as Chong The Nomad, who is a music producer and DJ based in Seattle, Washington. Alda has been producing music for well over a decade now, recently releasing her debut album titled “Do We Make Of This?” and also working on projects such as Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings, and getting music sync spots with companies like Singapore Airlines, Apple, Universal Audio, and Nike. She has also opened for artists like Odesza and Death Cab for Cutie. In this episode, we talk Alda’s musical upbringing—transitioning from piano lessons to music production in high school, her choice to go to music school and how she made the most of it, her struggles and realizations with the business side of her music career. and so much more. Find Alda here: Website: https://www.chongthenomad.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chongthenomad/?hl=en Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1TCIxnDm8SASkB6dTMrFCy?utm_medium=share&utm_source=linktree SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/chongsongs And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

#82: My guest today is Mikey J, a composer, producer, and dancer based in the United Kingdom. He has worked on a huge variety of projects from Danny Boyle’s Free Your Mind Matrix Adaptation, scoring and music directing the 2024 revival of Romeo & Juliet starring Tom Holland, founding the award winning dance company Boy Blue, and is even a member of the Order of the British Empire for his work in hip-hop and dance music. In this episode, we talk Mikey’s musical upbringing as a child of African immigrants in the United Kingdom, how he started as a mixing engineer and producer working for the tiny sum of five pounds an hour for his work, his recent work on the movie Kneecap which celebrates Irish hiphop and cultural preservation, and so much more. Find Mikey here: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeyjdotnet/?hl=en SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/michael-mikey-j-asante IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4647621/ And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

#81: My guest today is Dror Mohar, a sound designer and engineer based out of Los Angeles. He has worked on an insane number of projects, including Inglorious Basterds, DJ Hero, Fable III, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and more recently, Lady in the Lake on Apple TV. In this episode, we talk about how Dror grew up in Africa, ended up in the UK, and then moved to the US to truly start his career. We also talk about he started playing in bands as a guitarist and vocalist and then trained transitioned to becoming a mixing engineer and roadie, how he then transitioned from mixing into sound design in Hollywood, and so much more. Find Dror here: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drormohar/ IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3346677/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drormohar/ And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

#80: My guest today is Andy Martin, a sound designer and nature recordist based out of Seattle, Washington. Andy’s had an incredibly long and varied career in the world of sound design, working on projects such as Grim Fandango, all of the games in the inFAMOUS series, Medal of Honor, and has even worked with Skywalker Sound as a virtual reality sound designer on projects like Vader Immortal. He also has extensive experience in nature field recording as a part of the project NorthWest Soundscapes. In this episode, we talk about how the winding path Andy took into the world of professional audio, why it’s okay to change your career goals and pivot, building a career while having ADHD, Andy’s love of nature recording and how’s he’s turned it into a business, and so much more. Find Andy here: Website: https://soundeziner.com/andy-martin/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/northwestsoundscapes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andymartinnaturesound And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

#79: My guest today is Rob Pearsall, a composer and sound designer based out of Seattle, Washington. He has had a career in game audio spanning over 20 years and dove into game audio for the first time at 46 years old. Since beginning his career he has worked on Halo: Reach, Halo 4, Destiny, République, BattleTech, Falcon Age, The Lamplighters League, and many others. In this episode, we talk about how Rob broke into the game audio world before it was “cool”, the extreme importance of networking, how he dealt with the industry in his 40s, and much more. Find Rob here: Website: https://www.robpearsall.com/ IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7111207/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7MKfJOI5YFJfr8K4Ur1nVJ And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

#78: My guest today is Raison Varner, a voice actor, sound designer, composer, videographer, and writer. He’s had a very broad and varied career, starting in 2006 as an intern on the original Prey game, then working as a composer, sound designer, voice actor, and writer for the Borderlands games for 12 years. He has also worked as an art director for Obsidian Entertainment. In this episode, we talk about Raison’s wide array of interests and skills, how to stand out as someone who’s interested in working across multiple disciplines, the deep psychology of working as a team in gave development, and so much more. Find Raison here: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raison-varner/ IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1770713/ Twitter / X: https://x.com/raisonvarner?lang=en SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/rvarner And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

#77: My guest today is James Thatcher, a sound designer and nature recordist based out of Seattle, Washington. He has had an incredibly diverse set of experiences before getting into the world of pro audio, most notably working in Michelin Star restaurants in France before making his way into the world of game audio years later. He has released approximately 17 sound packs, with the most recent titled, “Firearm Mechanics and Handling”. In this episode, we talk about James navigated the past starting off as a cook and then transitioning into audio much later, how he transitioned from working on Halo Infinite to going out into nature and recording, how he releases, edits, and sells as many sound libraries, and so much more. Find James Thatcher here: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skyriversound/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-thatcher-6871469a/ Sound Library: https://www.asoundeffect.com/sounddesigner/sky-river-sound/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAab3LSvQIIpzQ0N-WH-_6lBny6T3EQQEGjRV4F-d9bsfJYrlFuAffv75YMU_aem_5nMgdxQ-UOp1vXWIKTv6fw And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

#76: My guests today are Steve “Major” Giammaria & Evan Benjamin, who are re-recording mixers and dialogue editors based out of the audio production house Sound Lounge in New York City. In this episode, we dive into their recent work on the hit series The Bear, their process for creating and enhancing the soundscape for such a tense and dramatic show, the realities and life of working in post-production sound, and so much more. Find Evan Benjamin here: IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0071301/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-benjamin-a6aa304/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortytwofortypost/ Find Steve Giammaria here: IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2652377/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hearsmajor/ Twitter: https://x.com/hearsmajor?lang=en And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod