Audio Director · Composer · Sound Designer · Voice Director
25+ Years in Games · Former Audio Director at Jagex
RuneScape · Abbey Road · Royal Philharmonic
Personal Statement
"Passion and enthusiasm always shines through to the player."
As an experienced musician, sound designer, and voice director with dozens of released products, I use this knowledge to help support, guide and mentor my teams. I facilitate creativity by encouraging pro-activity and ownership as well as developing comprehensive personal development plans.
I evangelise audio throughout the company, amongst our players, in the audio field and across the wider gaming industry, with public appearances on conference stages and social media.
I strive for excellence in everything we produce, always hungry for more innovation and higher production values. Ultimately, I absolutely believe in having fun, in loving what we do, as that passion and enthusiasm always shines through to the player.
Skills
Recruited, built, managed and mentored several audio teams across AAA and live-service productions.
Accomplished and classically trained musician with published music across many shipped games.
Professional sound designer and Foley artist with comprehensive knowledge of software and hardware techniques.
Experienced Voice Director having cast and directed hundreds of sessions, including many celebrities.
Licensed hundreds of commercial tracks with excellent knowledge of rights, industry contacts and negotiation.
Well-known outsourcer working contractually and creatively with agents, composers, orchestras and studios worldwide.
Reliable delivery of high-quality audio assets for live game services, agile development and marketing support.
Advocate and implementer of middleware solutions including Wwise, FMOD and Fabric.
Career
Leading an audio team on an unannounced AAA original IP project, featuring groundbreaking innovations in audio that push the boundaries of what games can sound like.
Eleven years as Head of Audio managing a team of sound designers and musicians, responsible for all audio output across the studio — development and marketing. Reinvented the entire RuneScape audio experience from the ground up: overhauling tech, rebuilding the team, and setting new standards of immersion and production value.
Hired the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to perform live RuneScape music in front of 2,000 of the game's most passionate fans. Orchestral recordings at Abbey Road with the Philharmonia and at Bratislava with the Slovak National Orchestra. Guinness World Record for Game Music (over 1,300 tracks).
Responsible for the vision, development and delivery of all audio on one of gaming's highest-profile IPs. Managed a team of Sound Designers across multiple formats, voice directed the original film cast as well as additional talent, and organised full orchestral sessions at Abbey Road Studios.
Managed a team of sound designers, musicians and programmers delivering cutting-edge audio to a new game and ongoing live service. Produced groundbreaking features including customisable audio, track/genre matching via Last.fm collaboration, and an in-game music sequencer. Chose and licensed a massive commercial soundtrack alongside setting up an unsigned bands promotional programme.
Headed up all audio for a supercar racing title, overseeing the full audio production pipeline.
Head of Audio across all of Rage's studios — Liverpool, Birmingham, Warrington, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bristol and Scotland. Managed an internal team alongside audio developers at each studio, developing and shipping over 20 games across multiple platforms.
First role in the games industry — sound design and music composition for early console titles.
Education
University of Salford
B.Sc. & M.Sc. — Computational Physics, 1994
Includes a year in industry as a nuclear scientist and programmer at Heysham Nuclear Power Station, Lancashire. A scientific foundation that continues to inform technical innovation in audio.
Recent Work
Over the last few years I have worked on unannounced/NDA'd projects — AAA as well as smaller budget — including fantasy action adventure and survival MMOs. While I can't talk about those projects, I can articulate the vision and direction behind my Audio Direction.
I believe that every Audio Director brings their own personality to a project. During ideation and prototype phase I focussed the team on innovation, exploring opportunities in game audio that go further than anyone has previously. Some of the Audio DNA's I identified included:
01 / 05
Holistic Audio Experience
What does a holistic audio experience look like if we blur the traditional boundaries between music and sound effects, when one influences the other in an immersive dynamic soundscape?
02 / 05
Tunability
What if we try to tune everything in the game? What if we attempt to tune every sound and have it pitch-shift to the key of the music — moving along to the melody, rhythm or chords?
03 / 05
Rhythm
What if the world has a pulse to which everything aligns — rhythmically, to the beat of the bar or a melody?
04 / 05
Sympathetic Resonance
How can objects in the game world react to resonant harmonic frequencies?
05 / 05
Diegetic World
In blurring the boundaries, how do we seamlessly blend music fully diegetically with sound design, so one is indistinguishable from the other?
More to follow
Jagex · 2007–2018
Over a period of 11 years I was responsible for all things audio at Jagex in Cambridge, leading and managing a talented team of sound designers and musicians, while also being very much hands-on with music composition, sound design and voice direction.
Despite the game originally running in a browser, we brought many creative and technical improvements as some of our promotional videos below showcase. The culmination of this resulted in the full audio experience being exactly the same on mobile.
Quality and technical upgrades to audio, including orchestral recordings, sound design improvements and the introduction of voice over.
A motion comic trailer — a collaboration between art, narrative and audio.
'Harmony' reimagined as a full orchestral score, recorded at Abbey Road with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Working with BAFTA-winning composer James Hannigan and the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra.
Game Trailers
I have been responsible for the audio on dozens of trailers, showcasing game music, sound design and voice direction. Some of the music I commissioned, some I wrote in-house, and some were licensed — including hundreds of tracks from well-known artists on APB.
Fun Videos
A few years ago I commissioned BAFTA-winning composer James Hannigan to create a new suite of music — reimaginings of classic RuneScape music alongside new compositions. This led to several albums on vinyl and CD, with the soundtracks now available on Spotify and Apple Music.
The success of this led to a live concert in front of 2,000 RuneScape fans, featuring the Royal Philharmonic. That evening was one of the biggest highlights of my career.
There was always a serious point to create these videos — to engage with our players, to show the human side behind the developers. Player sentiment is a critical part of developing trust.