I was a traveling road musician for almost 15 years.
I started writing songs in my teens and carried that into my professional career.
It seemed a natural progression when I decided to quit touring to continue on as a songwriter and composer.
The tendency was to see voice resources as just that, and music resources as separate entities.
Everyone thinks they understand music, which most often translates to I know what I like.
This isnt the same when it comes to voice-over work, however, especially with respect to voice direction.
It can take days, or it can take months or even years.
We are very hands-on with the entire process.
I have cultivated relationships with thousands of actors over the years as well as their agents.
We spend a lot of time determining who is going to receive auditions.
So even when were not working on projects were searching for actors.
(And not just English-language, especially now.)
But there is no such thing as we have enough.
If nothing else, there are always niches and specializations that need to be made more robust.
)Our focus on casting and directing has always been more of a film approach.
By that, I mean bringing fully-developed, 3-dimensional characters to life, not stereotypes or typical roles.
Its both funny and satisfying to see thats where the video game industry now finds itself.Music.
The biggest change has to do with the amount of content.
For years we always had to be cognizant of file size and storage.
The foray into interactive came out of the question: why is there no audio on the internet?
(This was 1996.)
There was no storage, no high-speed internet, and there were no standards.
So I built PC shells that each had different sound cards in them.
(I could go on and on about this era!)
The company was called InternetSound at the time, and we exploded right along with the dotcom era.
We always had to be cognizant of file size, load times, and the users equipment.
The mastery of the tech was as important as mastery of music.
If you didnt have the tech skill you couldnt really compose for games.
AAA titles can take months.
Ive been fortunate to have tracks placed in TV shows and movies from time-to-time.
And there are no rules; Im simply writing and throwing things against the wall.
But I am compelled to write, play, and perform.
Randall: Thats tough.
If the question is about music composition, then I would go back toRailroad Tycoon 3.
There were certainly challenges.
Randall: Im sure you know that I cant really speak of anything were working on.
Such is the nature of this industry.
Randall: Every so often, you get lucky in life.
you might check out Randall Ryan and HamsterBall Studios existing and upcoming projects over on their IMDB handlehere.
For more information, be sure to check in with the official social pagehere.
Jord is acting Team Leader at gaming.net.
