The first step.

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Rocklynn
Intern
Posts: 4
Joined: January 24th, 2014, 3:24 pm
Location: Sweden
Occupation: Audio Wizard

The first step.

Post by Rocklynn » January 24th, 2014, 3:58 pm

Hey guys!

I thought i would start by introducing myself. My name is Sami Rocklynn, 31 years old from northern Sweden. It´s a small town called Luleå.
I have been making music since the 90´s. Started with madtracker & fasttracker and jumped over to Cubase in 2003.
Been working in Cubase ever since tried out Pro Tools for a year but returned to Cubase after that. Much better workflow when you are used to it.

I have always been a avid gamer. Started with Nintendo 8-bit when i was 4 years old and have been playing LOTS of games ever since then.
This past seven years up untill last September i worked for one of the biggest telecom/communications companys in the world with IT/Support.
I always worked with my musicproduction after work during night and weekends ofcourse and dreamed of taking the step towards chasing my dream to work full time with audio.
As you can imagine living in a small town i northern Sweden it´s not easy to make a living on audio work and different (private) circumstances made me stay and not move to pursue this dream.

So anyways!.....

There was downsizing at work last year and many of us was let go in October. I decided it was time to start chasing the dream!
I just finished a two month game audio course through school of video game audio (Net based course in Canada) learned Wwise & Fmod also been playing around in Unity.
Trying to get some work through various forums and such and finally got a meeting this coming Monday with a indie gamedev/owner.
If all goes as planned i will be working on all aspect of the audio for the sequel for this particular(popular) IOS/Android game.
Composing soundtrack, creating/implementing SFX and voiceover. (wish me luck!)
I told him i will do it for free to get some work in my portfolio but hey i guess you have to start somewhere...Right?

Well this is my story of the journey into the game world. Ok still not all the way there yet but i will work my a** off to get there :)


How did your journey into the gaming industry start? When did you realize that you wanted to work with games and where was your first job?
What steps did you take to get there? I would love to hear your story!

/Rocklynn

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MikeQuell
Site Admin
Posts: 412
Joined: June 6th, 2013, 4:15 pm
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Occupation: Sound Designer
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Re: The first step.

Post by MikeQuell » January 25th, 2014, 7:51 pm

Congrats, Sami! You can read most about my start by clicking the link below. Just wanted to say keep pushing and more and more work will come! Good luck with the new prospects.

Here's a copy and paste job to answer your question with the rest of the interview in the link.
How did you begin your journey into sound design?

I was interested in sound recording at a very young age. It first started with recording my own personal news and weather forecasts with my two sisters when we were kids. From there it evolved to recording and sampling stuff from my television set. I would usually record TV sitcoms and manipulate the audio to try and incorporate it into some new form of storytelling or electronic “music”. In regards to actual “sound design”, I would say I first became conscious of the art form when I saw Jurassic Park. I was ten years old and crazy for dinosaurs. I knew their names, what they ate, what regions of the earth certain species were native to, everything! But you know the one thing I didn’t know? How they sounded! Thank you Mr Rydstrom for making a ten year old’s imagination come to reality. I happened to see that film and another little known film called Star Wars around the same time. As with many of the people that are probably reading this, Star Wars was also incredibly inspiring to me growing up and years later to come.

With all that said, I would like to say sound was my passion growing up but it was actually video games first. I’ve been playing games since I was three or something, with my first experiences being on an Atari and Intellivision. As I grew older I continued to play a ton of video games. I had LAN parties with friends and even skipped school with them so we could play Smash Bros. on the Nintendo 64. During this time I also started to develop a strong interest in music and that industry as a whole. Having thought that games were an unachievable goal, I started to think about the music industry as a potential career path. Now, I’m not a musician and never really have been but I REALLY loved music. I started to look into what I could do as career that didn’t actually involve me having to play an instrument. It dawned on me pretty quickly that my interest and hobby in recording could be utilized into an audio engineer career. I was very excited for the potential that this could be an achievable goal.

I eventually attended Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL for their Recording Arts degree and during the first month one of our instructors took a pole. “Who is here for film?” he asked. Well, I loved film but I never thought of it as an achievable career as well, so not me. “Who is here for music?” he asked next. Hey, that’s me! I raised my hand along with 98% of the other students in the class. But wait, he had one more. “Who is here for video games?” Wait what? I can do that? Funny enough, it didn’t even dawn on me that games need sound work done. What a doofus I was. From that day, I immediately knew what I wanted to do for a living. I took my creative interest in sampling and manipulating recorded content along with my love for video games and put them into one unique career path.
The Sound Architect: http://www.thesoundarchitect.co.uk/inte ... ederquell/

Rocklynn
Intern
Posts: 4
Joined: January 24th, 2014, 3:24 pm
Location: Sweden
Occupation: Audio Wizard

Re: The first step.

Post by Rocklynn » January 28th, 2014, 3:41 pm

Thank you for that Mike! It was a really interesting read.

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