Audio Interviewing Audio: Tomoya Kishi and Kenneth Young

Below is an interview I conducted between Capcom’s Tomoya Kishi and Media Molecule’s Kenneth Young. I started them off with a few questions and let them go back and forth from there. I hope you enjoy reading the interview as much as we had putting it together.

Jack:  Please introduce yourself and tell us about your experience in audio.

Kenny: My name is Kenny Young and I’m the Head of Audio at Media Molecule, one of Sony’s first party (wholly owned) game development studios, based in Guildford, UK. I had a fairly strong musical background as a kid, but sealed my fate by doing an undergraduate degree in Music Technology at the University of Edinburgh, which turned me on to working creatively with sound before then going on to specialise a bit more by doing a masters degree in sound design down at Bournemouth Uni. I landed my first full-time job in the industry 10 years ago as a junior sound designer at Sony’s London Studio, working in their centralised audio department on a wide variety of games in different genres and on different platforms. That broad experience stood me in good stead for when I joined Media Molecule in 2007, setting up their audio department and trying my best to make LittleBigPlanet sound awesome. That involved me doing the vast majority of the sound work, some of the music, directing the composers and the creative side of the music licensing process, producing the voice localisation from the Mm side of things, not to mention being heavily involved in the design of the audio-centric UGC features of the game. That led to the inevitable sequel, and the joys of trying to juggle the managing and directing of my staff whilst remaining a hands-on sound designer and composer. Most recently, we just released Tearaway, which I wrote about in December for Designing Sound, where I supervised a team of talented sound designers and managed to keep my hand in there whilst also co-writing the original score (with Brian D’Oliveira), co-writing the voice script (with Tearaway’s creative director, Rex Crowle) and generally just trying to help the project in whatever way I could. All of which is why I’ve been on holiday for the last two months! But I’m just back in the saddle and trying to get our unannounced PS4 project into good audio shape having ignored it for a while Read More

Glitchmachines release Quadrant

Quadrant is a new modular sound generator and effects processing plugin geared towards experimental sound design. It features a broad selection of modules, connectable through a graphical patching system, allowing for a very wide and customizable range of sounds and effects. The plugin can be used to generate textures, or as an effects processor, providing a number of different ways to create uniquely futuristic sounds.
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Making The Best Out Of Something Broken

It is fitting that with our theme of “Broken” this month I would accidentally wash my Zoom H1 Handy Recorder in the washing machine. I had taken the H1 with me to GDC just in case any cool sounds popped up for me to record (they didn’t). So when I got home and tossed the backpack in the wash to get the San Francisco grime off of it I completely forgot the very light H1 was inside! Fast forward to me opening up the washing machine and finding the H1′s body sans-capsules and the capsules and their housings in various places in the machine.

The H1 Aftermath

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