— Composer · Sound Designer · Award-Winning · London
Music and sound made for your game, and your game only. You own it outright — no strings, no subscriptions, no awkward conversations later when it sells well.
Sound isn't decoration. It's the invisible architecture of your game — sound happens around us, to us and in time and space. We're hard-wired to hear, so your player doesn't decide to feel the tension or the excitement. They already do, before they've even registered why.
— The Case for Sound
Your visuals set the scene. Your audio makes it real. The two are in constant conversation — and when they're speaking the same language, the visuals pop and your story comes to life.
The brilliant thing about audio is the scope of it. Every space can feel different. Tension, release, wonder, dread — all of it available without lines of dialogue or a frame of animation. And it's not just for games with big narrative ambitions either. A perfectly judged sonic identity makes an arcade game more satisfying, a puzzle game more rewarding, a racing game feel genuinely fast.
Bespoke audio is one of the clearest signals a player receives that somebody really cared about making this.
Good sound design pays you back in ways that are hard to measure but very easy to feel — both during development and long after release.
With Mario, the music is inspired by the game controls, and its purpose is to heighten the feeling of how the game controls. With Zelda, I was trying to enhance the atmosphere of the environments and locations.
— Koji Kondo, composer of Super Mario Bros. & The Legend of Zelda
— The Physics & Perception of Sound
Sound is mechanical pressure — a wave of compressions and rarefactions moving through air at around 343 metres per second (roughly 767 mph / 1,235 km/h). Every thud, hum, and whistle starts as a vibrating object disturbing the molecules around it. What changes between a rumbling explosion and a delicate chime is essentially two things: how fast those vibrations repeat (frequency), and how forcefully (amplitude). The oscilloscope below lets you see and hear exactly what that means — in real time, straight from your browser.
Hold the pad · latch for freeplay · kick & launch use your current waveform.
— The Four Fundamental Waveforms
The purest tone — a single frequency, no harmonics. Soft, clean, flute-like. The building block everything else is measured against.
Rich in odd harmonics. Hollow, reedy, buzzy. The sound of retro games and chiptune — Kondo built worlds out of this.
All harmonics present — odd and even. The brightest, most harmonically rich shape. Foundation of strings, brass, and leads.
Odd harmonics only, but much softer than square. Warmer, rounder — good for sub-bass layers, muted leads, and gentle textures.
| Range | Frequency | Perceptual Character | Game Audio Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sub-bass | 20 – 60 Hz | Felt more than heard — rumble, weight, dread | Explosions, earthquakes, boss presence |
| Bass | 60 – 250 Hz | Warmth, fullness, power | Kick drums, low strings, environmental depth |
| Midrange | 250 – 4,000 Hz | Voice intelligibility, presence, detail | Dialogue, most instruments, player feedback sounds |
| High-mid | 4,000 – 8,000 Hz | Clarity, attack, brightness | Sword clashes, UI clicks, magic effects |
| Air | 8,000 – 20,000 Hz | Shimmer, space, stereo presence | Ambience, reverb tails, fairy chimes |
— The True Cost of Royalty-Free
"Royalty-free" doesn't mean what most people think it means. It means you pay no ongoing royalty per play — that's it. It doesn't mean free. It doesn't mean simple. And it definitely doesn't mean the money goes to the person who made the music. What it usually means is that a platform sits between the artist and the audience, collects the fees, keeps most of them, and calls the arrangement a favour to everyone involved. It isn't.
I've seen this up close. A client I worked with decided to streamline their process by going royalty-free. I understood — budgets are real, timelines are real. But their game did well. Better than expected. And the moment it crossed a revenue threshold in their library licence, the terms changed. What they ended up paying — in upgraded tiers, renegotiated terms, and the general administrative cost of managing it — was comfortably more than ten times what I'd charged them for a perpetual, project-specific agreement. The music they ended up with wasn't made for their game. The money didn't reach any musician. And the licence still had conditions.
I'm not telling that story to frighten anyone. Most projects won't hit that threshold. But it's worth understanding what you're actually signing — and what the alternative looks like. †
Bespoke commission — agreed terms, once
† The subscription-lapse issue is documented in Epidemic Sound's own terms: content published after cancellation is subject to monetisation by the platform. Revenue-based tier escalation and territory restrictions are standard across major libraries. Worth reading before you ship. If you want to talk through what any of it means for your specific project, just ask — that's what I'm here for.
Music and sound exist in the same time and space as your player. They deserve to have been made there too.
— Let's make something together
Award-winning composer. Music placed with WWE, BBC News, EMI, Warner — and a New Year's address from The Pope. Now in the room with you, ready to score your game.
A bespoke soundtrack — built around the emotional arc and mechanics of your game.
Every footstep, hit, UI click, ambient layer, creature sound. Designed from scratch, for your world.
Music that moves with your game — implemented in Wwise or FMOD.