Lorien Ferris
Over 25 years of experience in sound design, audio implementation, sound tool design, VO recording and direction, music production, and audio department management for video games. I’ve worked on a large variety of game types for a wide range of game platforms and have successfully delivered excellent audio experiences on four AAA titles and many other lower-profile critically acclaimed games.
I have a deep understanding of audio for games and know how to get the best results for all kinds of budgets, timeframes, and resource constraints. Comfortable in teams either leading or supporting or as a one-man band with full ownership of your game’s audio. You can rest easy knowing I will take care of your needs and that your project will sound great and the audio will be done on time.
Management
10 years of experience managing small teams of junior through senior sound designers and external SFX, VO, and music vendors. I’m compassionate and encouraging and expect a high level of quality work. To that end, I actively mentor team members and freely share my accumulated knowledge to help get the best results.
When managing projects, I accurately anticipate pitfalls and dependencies and prepare the team to meet the resulting challenges. I understand the dependencies with other departments and actively coordinate with them in a constructive and positive way. I never use internal competition as motivation as it only works for those who “win”.
Software
Extensive experience using numerous game development tools and engines, scripting languages, and game platforms. Deep proficiency with the commercial toolsets Unreal, Unity, Wwise, and Fmod and with proprietary toolsets used by various developers I have worked for.
Experience using scripting systems including C-based systems such as Q-script, object-based systems like TFB script and Unreal Blueprints, and C# based Unity script. Some experience coding in both high-level and low-level languages, enough to understand how to communicate with engineers effectively.
Proficient in Ableton Live, Reaper, Cubase, Logic, and Sound Forge as well as numerous audio plugins from Arturia, Native Instruments, Waves, Eventide, iZotope etc. Also skilled with Perforce, SVN, Slack, Google Office Apps, Confluence, Dropbox, Microsoft Office Suite, Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, WordPress etc.
Hardware
Over 35 years of experience working with both Macintosh and PC computers and operating systems. Thorough understanding of computer hardware, components, and peripherals. Able to repair computers and diagnose and physically fix electronic components.
Same duration of experience with audio equipment including analog and digital synthesizers, samplers, mixers, effects units, audio interfaces, control surfaces, microphones, audio monitors, PA systems, recorders, and room sonic treatments.