Direction

Being onboarded to a large team in my junior year of college was exciting to say the least. Working on a soundtrack for a first person boomer-shooter only increased this excitement having been a fan of games like Halo and Doom 2016. The goal that the team had when contracting me was to make grunge-seeped rock tracks that sound anthemic and larger than life. With the gameplay and story revolving around more science-fiction elements, it felt necessary to infuse futuristic beeps and blips with this garage band aesthetic to create something more tailored to the experience that the team was crafting.

Process

I was instructed to create three (3) tracks for the soundtrack with my senior counterpart creating the other three (3) tracks on the project. Once completed, I had a little extra time and ended up creating a fourth (4) for the boss fight at the end of the game, however this track did not see the final release due to the team cutting the final build without implementing it. This song, titled SynTell’s Watch, can still be heard despite not being featured in the games release as the closer to this seven (7) track soundtrack.

The first of these seven (7) songs that I created was the main theme for SYNC, titled Hello Update! This song underwent five iterations, each with the same beat and guitar chords but a different synth melody to accompany the guitar. The guitar solo around the bridge was recorded, mixed and mastered by myself having been played by my good friend Nick Kokinis, who elevated the piece to another level. The fourth iteration of Hello Update! was selected by the product owner of SYNC, who deemed the synth melody of that iteration to be the best fit.

The second track I made for SYNC was A System of Your Own, designed to be used as a hub theme. The steady rhythm of the ambient synths mixed with the droning guitar created the perfect vibe for the hub level. With the upbeat drums and other layers of synths added in on top of it all, the piece really came together to set the tone for the game while still being chill enough to hear before entering one of the three main levels. If you listen closely, you can hear my roommate at the time saying “I’m back!” as I was recording the guitar. This was unintentional, however it created a stronger tie to the games main narrative theme of being this unstoppable force that keeps coming back by corrupting enemy units to destroy the big bad of the game, SynTell.

The last of the songs (and my personal favorite) that I created for SYNC is The Same Mind. The beginning half of the song is intended to build adrenaline with choppy drum cuts, glitchy synths and steady guitar that sounds almost ominous. Around the one minute and ten second mark is where I did my best to make the player feel like a badass. Pulling a lot of inspiration from Halo titles on this section of the drums, I wanted to shift the tone and center the mood from eerie to “I got this.” The intense layers of guitar created high octane aura and a feeling that the objective ahead of the player will be completed, no matter what. The goal was to make the player feel as though they’re in complete control of the situation, and that they are the unstoppable force that the game allows them to be.

Voice Acting

While not directly related to my work on the soundtrack, I was also given the opportunity to be half of the voice for SynTell and add effects on some of the other VA lines recorded by the team. While the majority of the work was done by the teams’ lead Sound Designer, I was happy to assist wherever I could and was proud to have been asked to help support the team beyond my contracted role.