How to Get a Job as a Sound Designer for Video Games (My Journey) 

Thanks for the kind words and definitely agree! All of my jobs I got through friends either by recommendation or meeting the person hiring me through them.

Thanks for the kind words!

Thanks a lot! :)

Appreciate the kind words, right back at ya :)

Thanks for watching!

Thank you Adam! :)

Thank you for your kind words, I'm really glad that the video helped you and wish you all the best on your journey!

Thank you so much for the kind words, really glad that you found the video helpful! :)

Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the kind words! :)

Me too, what is your instagram?

Hahah I was waiting for this comment, surprised it didn't come earlier. And I have a pretty bad allergies 🤧 to numerous things (like dust mites) that make my nose go a bit mental so a pack of tissues is never enough 😄

@@GameAudioAnalysis I have a pretty bad dust mite allergy too! I started carrying a handkerchief for that reason but I totally agree that a pack of tissues never quite cuts it haha. Relatively small audio nerd RU-vid channels with dust mite allergies unite? 😅🤣🤣

@@f_c_r_ now that's a coincidence 😄 and a handkerchief is actually a great idea!

Hey Harrison, glad you enjoyed the video. Don't put yourself down, everyone needs to start somewhere and this industry is very competitive but it's growing at a fast paste meaning more jobs are becoming available every day! If you shift your view then your age can be a great advantage as you have lots of life and previous job experience. Working as a sound designer requiresuch more than just one skill. In your previous jobs you have probably honed yiur communication, leadership and organisational skills among many others. Write them down, it's all great experience that your future employers will value. Good luck on your journey, if you have any more questions, want to talk or me to have a look over your work feel free to shoot me an email at contactgreglester@gmail(dot)com

Thanks Andrew, that's very kind!

@@GameAudioAnalysis you’re welcome Greg, looking forward to checking out your other stuff!

Great story, thanks for the comment and kind words and best of luck on your journey!

Thanks a lot! :)

@@GameAudioAnalysis Could you pass me your email address? I would like to write to you about some information.

Super happy to hear that! Best of luck on your journey, my inbox is always open for questions. :)

Thank you...I will be in touch. Thanks

@@GameAudioAnalysis Happy New Year to you. All the best.

Hahahah love to hear it!!! :D

Thanks for the kind words :) There are definitely internships available, they can be tricky to get into but the opportunity is there! I recommend just doing some research on what studios are near the place you want to move to and if they have any internship opportunities. (It never hurts to reach out and ask as long as you're friendly)

Happy to hear that :) It's all part of the learning roadmap, here's a link: guava-gold-ceet.squarespace.com/knowledgebase/how-to-write-a-resume-and-cover-letter-for-game-audio

@@GameAudioAnalysis Yea thank you, checked your latest video just after commenting. Thank you for doing all of this :)

Super happy that it helped you out! :) I would say: 1. Don't be too ambitious, make something really small and simple (platformers work especially well to learn the basics and get some nice sound into) the important thing is that you learn, have fun and actually finish it. 2. Don't be afraid to ask for help, I've had a lot of people help me and teach me while I was creating this game and learned loads. 3. Don't get frustrated when things don't work, you learn from your mistakes and from the things that go wrong, embrace it cause it will happen. 4. The internet is your friend! You can invest in a course on Udemy to have a more guided experience or simply watch some free tutorials both options are completely valid and will lead you to the same end result. 5. HAVE FUN! Don't stress yourself and enjoy the experience :) Good luck!

@@GameAudioAnalysis These are a great bunch of advices ! I've done a little bit of web developpment, learning on the web. I'll follow the same path for this project then. I wish you the best for your channel, and wait for your next video. Cheers !

Hey there, thanks for the kind words. I believe that the school of video game audio is more for entry-level sound designers but you would have to write them as I haven't completed the course myself so I can't make a fair judgement. It depends on what you want to learn if you're looking to improve your sound design skills then I recommend just experimenting and practising a lot by doing redesigns as well as watching tutorials on how to get the most out of your plugins (eq, compression, reverb, etc.) If you want to learn how to implement audio then there are lots of resources on the actual website pages like the Wwise 101 course. Unfortunately, I don't know of a lot of sound design for game audio specific courses so I can't really recommend.

Hey Joseph, thanks for the kind words! Here are some websites that are good for finding jobs: DevBrada Games Jobs Direct Work With Indies IndieDB That's an interesting thought regarding artstation for sound design. In what context would you be thinking of using it? :)

@@GameAudioAnalysis thanks for the links! And yeah like in place of a website for your portfolio

​@@fragileyouth4302 No problem! I'd say that it's pretty important to have your own website but an artstation for sound design would be very cool!

Reaper has many benefits for game audio including the option to write custom scripts which can automate tedious processes. Additionally, you can exports hundreds or even thousands of files with elaborate Ming conventions incredibly easily. It also integrates directly into Wwise. Those are just some of the reasons Reaper is loved so much by the game audio community.

First I would start with honing your designing skills and once you're confident with the basics of sound design move on to learning how to use game engines. I would recommend learning either Unity or Unreal Engine as they are both free and most commonly used in the industry. As for hardware, you'll need a reasonably decent computer to run audio programs and game engines along with a lot of free storage space. Learning by doing is the best way so I would set yourself a very very simple goal of making a small 2d platformer game where your character jumps from platform to platform and tries to reach a certain endpoint. Then look up tutorials on how to do each step and familiarize yourself with the process. I've put together a game audio learning resources list here. Just look for "Unreal Engine or Unity" under the "Type" section. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fcuhGEesLC_PWCwY3dIwLgF774sKswOwIcZECWiH7Xo/edit#gid=0 If you want to dive in very deep I can also recommend Udemy courses which are structured and will give you a good understanding of the fundamentals. Best of luck and if you have any other questions feel free to reach out!

@@GameAudioAnalysis Thank you. greatly appreciated. I'm currently in my first year of college, in the UK, and universities were mentioned in the music technology class, so I was wonder if you would say the cost for University is worth paying for the education you got? or is it worth it more for the networking aspect?

I would say it was worth it for me personally as it also allowed me to get a good understanding of some of a lot of the fundamentals of microphone, recording and mixing theory. You make some great friends and you have enough free time to actually just practice your skills in sound design! Plus it's an inspiring environment to be in.

Hey! Unfortunately I have never attended the school of Video Game audio and can't answer your question. Best to write to them directly :)

Thanks for the reply, I actually got the answer for this already. So apparently you get a new assignment every week which you can complete at your own pace during that week. :)

www.gameaudiolearning.com/

As a composer it's mainly understanding how your music will be played back in the game so you can make sure your compositions and the way you deliver the cues will translate well. Composers usually don't need to do any implementation themselves :)

Hey Simjeon, it's the link to the Game Audio Learning portal! I recommend you follow the Learning Roadmap it will help you get started with all the important information you need!

Thank you! So the portal is the "better" version of the list you showed in the video? :)

@@Simjeon Yes!

I would say follow the same advice but instead of game dev groups and meetups join film groups, attend film related events and rather than learning audio implementation learn how to mix for surround sound.

Hey Debashish, thanks for the kind words! Definitely don't get discouraged by that. There are definitely possibilities to work remotely and in the beginning of your career where you work on smaller projects you will work from home anyway. I recommend you to take part in some of the online game jams and join some discord and slack communities for sound design for example the asoundeffect discord or the blipsounds discord which you can just type into Google and should be able to find! You'll be able to make friends there, get lots more advice on working remotely. Start looking online if there are any game studios near to where you live and maybe you can see if you can contact one of the studios and do a tour and meet some of the people. Best of luck!

Hey, I recommend doing the Wwise training courses which are follow along tutorials that teach you the basics of how wwise works and how to implement audio into a game. Once you have a good understanding of the basics I recommend taking the Unity or Unreal demo levels and doing an audio replacement.

it's been updated :) www.gameaudiolearning.com/resources

Hey! Sound design is a very technical professional which requires a lot of practise and training and it can take a long time to pick up the necessary skills to get a junior position. I'd definitely encourage you to check out the learning roadmap (link in the pinned comment above) and you'll get a better idea of what the skills are that you will need to learn. It's a great career path but definitely requires you to be passionate about it and it can take a very long time and a lot of hard work to get a job. That being said anyone can get into this industry if you work hard and stick with it so I totally encourage you to try it out :)

@@GameAudioAnalysis thank you for sharing! I'll consider trying... Cheers 👍🏻

an online course for sound design in general or is it something specific that you want to learn?

It's definitely not a requirement but it can definitely be useful to know the basics of coding.

I was advised to do so when I transitioned from music to game audio. I was lucky enough not to be too busy on the work side of things (lol) and took it really seriously for about 3 months. Here is what resulted from this investment after one year. -I learned C# basics following tutorials, enough so I could experiment with it myself, at a very humble level, and understand the mindset behind this activity. -I messed around with Unity and even made a few small (very small) games. I discovered other very interesting fields like arts and animations, UI design... -After 3 months, I attended implementing the entirety of my sounds and adaptive music logic during the global game jam and it was hard, but with the help of friendly devs around me I could do it and it felt truly rewarding. -Today (1 year later), I've completed a couple game cycles and am currently nearing the end of a third one. I participated in three game-jams and even made some UI and basic code here and there to save my devs time and energy. PROS: - It truly makes you a powerful ally in small teams, especially when time is running out in game-jams or at the end of a sprint. -You can undertake the entire logic of your audio, knowing exactly what is possible to do and how, because you can read your dev's code and understand how the game works. -Your journey to learning code and game making, in general, will give you a taste of what everyone in your team is working on and how they do their job. -It is a strong selling point for small indie games as a freelancer, even though you extremely rarely have to actually write code on a gig. -I've been able to write my own scripts to automate some of my production workflows, learning basic JavaScript on the fly (the vocabulary and syntax are very close to C#), something I couldn't imagine myself doing beforehand. CONS: -The learning curve gets very very steep past the first week or so. You will spend 4h being stuck for every 5 minutes of progress you make. But every dev I've ever met or worked with has told me that it doesn't get easier the better you become. So in the end it's kind of a good thing to have experienced it once yourself. -If you go away from programming for too long, having to dive back into it on a deadline is super stressful. -You will actually barely ever use this knowledge in professional situations. Conclusion: I wouldn't bother if it was only to increase your chances of getting a job. But if you are genuinely interested in the journey, go for it, it's definitely worth it. If you spend time in small teams making games, you will probably end up learning a lot of this stuff on the job anyway, at least that's what others told me and I can believe that. I hope this was helpful!

@@yogen7576 Thanks for taking the time to write this great summary of your experiences! Absolutely agree with you, on smaller teams where you are wearing many different hats it can be a lifesaver to know the basics of coding but when working on bigger projects there are dedicated audio programmers who are experiences programmers and you'll never be allowed to touch the code in AAA unless you're an actual programmer.

it's cheaper and more practical than tissues

@@timeltdme4355 I know! I was just joking with him :)

Yep, spot on!

@@GameAudioAnalysis Very nice video, congrats :)

Replied :)