LEGO x Fortnite

Consulted for Technical Audio Team on Best Practices

Designed Music Manager Framework and Architecture to Schedule Music and Aggregate Gameplay Data

Designed and Scoped Roadmap for Music MetaSound Design

The Matrix Awakens|City Sample

Lead Team of Technical Sound Designers

Designed Spatial Spawning Filter for Ambient Sound System Driven by Houdini Metadata

Procedurally Generated Thousands of Unique Vehicle Sounds

Wrote a Dynamic Reverb System based on Houdini Metadata

Project: Chaos

Developed High-Density Collision Sound Management System

Weapon and Destruction Sound Design

Collaborated with External Contractors Implementing All Sound Content

Implemented Mix for Live Theater Performance

Project: Lyra

Established a Scalable Best Practice Approach to Unreal Audio

Developed a Contextual Sound and VFX Library System

Wrote a User Mix and FX Manager With Preset Support

Implemented a Reverb System

Wrote the Vector Calculations for Bullet WhizBys

Lumen in the Land of Nanite

Wrote a Dynamic Filter Source Effect
Developed a Rapid Ambient Sound Design System
Created a Custom Dynamic Reverb Management System
Created a Live Mix System Driven by a MIDI Control Surface
Implemented Sound and Music

Valley of the Ancient

Consulted on and Worked within Early Stages of MetaSound Development
Implemented a Mix Management System
Wrote First Version of the Soundscape Plugin
Worked with Outsource Team on Short Deadlines and Implemented most Sound and Music

Electric Dreams

Developed a Simulation of an EV Motor with MetaSounds Using Additive Synthesis
Created a Live Mix Manager with Control Surface Support for Use in Live Presentation
Implemented Reverb and Main Mix

Blogs and Articles

Dan Reynolds

Technical Audio Designer|Composer|Synthesist

  • Experience with Traditional Studio Workflows
    • Console Routing, Patchbays, DACs, Hardware FX, MIDI, Microphones, Gain Staging, Field Recording, etc.
    • Modular Synthesis and Hardware Sound Design
  • Advanced Expertise in Unreal Audio
  • Familiarity with other Audio Engines
    • Unity, WWISE, FMOD, etc.
  • Experience with Programming and Scripting Languages
    • C++, C#, JavaScript, Blueprints, Verse
  • Experience with DSP/Patch Graphs
    • MetaSounds, Reaktor, etc.
  • Almost 2 Decades of Experience in Game Audio (from Indie to AAA)
  • Experience Leading and Working with Outsource Teams
Dan Reynolds is a Composer, Synthesist, Technical Designer, and an award winning Music Producer who has been working on Game Audio experiences since 2005.
In 2008, Dan had his first break into AAA games providing MIDI choir programming for Richard Jacques. In 2009 he would be called upon to do the same work for Mick Gordon on Marvel Superhero Squad. In 2010 he would team up with Jeff Ball and Andrew Aversa to provide Music Arranging and Production services for Wilbert Roget and Jesse Harlin on LucasArts' Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge: Special Edition which would later win a GANG Audio Award for best Mobile Audio. He also provided choir contracting services to Sam Hulick on Tripwire Interactive's Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad and Dialog Editing services for Ark System Works' Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-.
In addition to freelancing for over a decade, Dan also taught at a recording arts school in Los Angeles for 5 years where he authored approxamently 1/3 of the school's Game Audio and Music Production curriculum including General Education courses, all which repeatedly received 5 star ratings from their accrediting institution. He also briefly directed the schools transition to providing a hybrid-online program (both synchronous and asynchronous).
Since 2016, Dan has worked at Epic Games where for 6 years he served Aaron McLeran and his Audio Engine Programming team consulting on, prototyping, and testing features during the development of the new Unreal Audio Engine. During that time, Dan also worked with Epic Games' Special Projects Team responsible for demonstrating the latest cutting edge features of Unreal Engine. In addition to working with Special Projects, Dan has developed/programmed several Audio Gameplay systems; the first of which was released as a UPlugin for all Unreal Engine licensees as Soundscape.
In 2020, Dan and several Game Audio Colleagues founded the Game Audio Diversity Alliance, a nonprofit charity dedicated toward building a more inclusive and diverse game audio industry; by creating career advancement opportunities for underrepresented voices through education, mentoring, networking, and financial support.
Dan currently works at Epic Games as a Senior Technical Audio Designer working on upcoming game initiatives. He resides in the Pacific Northwest where he spends his free time drawing, painting, writing, studying traditional animation, and playing with his synthesizers.

“Explore vast, open worlds where the magic of LEGO® building and Fortnite collide. Build homesteads across the world and recruit villagers to help you collect resources, tame animals, and craft powerful items. Push the limits of physics by building surreal contraptions and find your own way to survive!”

With an all-time peak CCU of 2.4 Million players, this collaboration between LEGO® and Epic Games features a procedurally generated open world approx. 95 sq km in size. A fully realized music management system that supports time-of-day, point-of-interest, zone-based, and combat (and other status effect) driven music selection and interaction.

Senior Technical Audio Designer

  • Consulted for Technical Audio Team on best practices
  • Trained composition team on MetaSounds and Procedural Music design theory
  • Researched and designed various preproduction procedural music approaches
  • Designed and coded initial Music Manager Framework and architected the music scheduler and Aggregate Gameplay Data system
  • Designed and implemented interactive music MetaSounds
  • Designed and scoped roadmap for Music MetaSound Design
  • Worked with gameplay programmers to “hand-off” music system for live support and extended development

The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience was a limited time technical demo that released on PS5, XBox XSX, and XBox XSS. A collaboration with Lana Wachowski and several partners including SideFX, Evil Eye Pictures, The Coalition, WetaFX, Formosa, and many others, it provided a peek to the possible future of next generation interactive experiences. With over 5 Million downloads, the tech demo offered players a demonstration of Unreal’s ability to support everything from rich and complex open worlds to photoreal, visually stunning cinematics.

Technical Audio Designer

  • Lead team of Technical Sound Designers, both in-house and outsourced
  • Oversaw all technical audio design and implementation for experience
  • Trained technical audio team on UE5 Audio systems and practices
  • Expanded Soundscape (an ambient sound system designed by me) to support spatial spawn filtering based on 3D metadata sampled from a Houdini point-cloud
  • Procedurally generated thousands of unique vehicle sounds with MetaSounds
  • Wrote a dynamic reverb system based on Houdini point cloud data

To showcase Unreal’s new native physics engine, Chaos Engine, the Special Projects team developed an ambitious live demonstration of mass destruction code-named Project Chaos.

The demo was featured and performed live during the 2019 GDC Unreal Engine keynote address as well as on two demo stations on the GDC show floor. The experience utilized Vive Controllers for a next generation version of a ‘light-gun shooter’ player experience.

The experience focuses on a robot player shooting up a city in an attempt to capture a rogue robot agent featuring throw-backs to Epic’s own RoboRecall VR gaming experience.

In partnership with SoundMorph and Dynamedion, the demo features robots, explosions, guns, destruction, and non-stop voice over!

Technical Audio Designer

  • Developed high-density collision sound management system to support spatial filtering and clustering collision sounds for tens-of-thousands of collisions per-frame
  • Researched and developed preproduction procedural robot and weapon sound implementations using complex sample mapping and granular synthesis (these systems were ultimately not utilized for the live demo).
  • Collaborated with SoundMorph on the weapon and projectile design.
  • Collaborated with SoundMorph, and others including internal designers on all sound designs.
  • Implemented and finalized all sounds.
  • Implemented and finalized mix, both studio as well as live-theater mix.
  • Oversaw live theater audio signal layout to integrate with ground teams and house staff.

“Lyra is a learning resource designed as a sample game project to help you understand the frameworks of Unreal Engine 5 (UE5). Its architecture is designed to be modular, including a core system and plugins that are updated regularly along with the development of UE5.”

Lyra’s audio experience was developed in collaboration with SweetJustice and Rich Vreeland (Disasterpeace).

Technical Audio Designer

  • Lead team of technical and non-technical sound and music designers
  • Oversaw all technical audio design and implementation for experience
  • Trained audio team on UE5 Audio systems and practices
  • Established a scalable best practice approach to Unreal Audio
  • Developed a contextual sound and VFX library system
  • Designed and implemented a reverb system featuring convolution reverb
  • Designed convolution reverbs
  • Wrote core math functions to support vector-based whizbys

“Lumen in the Land of Nanite is a real-time demonstration running live on PlayStation 5 showcasing two new core technologies that will debut in UE5: Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry, which frees artists to create as much geometric detail as the eye can see, and Lumen, a fully dynamic global illumination solution that immediately reacts to scene and light changes. “

Technical Audio Designer

  • Worked with Audio Director, Travis Naas and Composer, Edouard Brenneisen to create a compelling next generation focused audio experience
  • Designed and implemented a custom dynamic reverb management system focused around convolution reverb
  • Designed all reverb impulses
  • Developed a rapid ambient sound design system that would later become Soundscape
  • Implemented dynamic ambient sound backgrounds
  • Wrote a dynamic filter source effect, called the Motion Filter, designed to implement procedural wooshes
  • Created and implemented a live MIDI controller managed mix system for rapid mixing iteration
  • Wrote and developed unused interactive music system
  • Worked with Audio Director to implement sounds and music

“Valley of the Ancient is a short gameplay segment demonstrating early access features in Unreal Engine 5 (UE5). Players control Echo, who appeared in the UE5 announcement trailer, as she explores an arid landscape and finds a portal to a mysterious dark realm. Inside, she navigates through a series of obstacles and battles the massive Ancient One. This sample provides a snapshot of the many quality of life features, rendering enhancements, and workflow innovations available in UE5.”

The audio experience in Valley of the Ancient was created in collaboration with SweetJustice, Rebound Sound, and composer Edouard Brenneisen.

Technical Audio Designer

  • Oversaw all technical audio development and implementation
  • Consulted on and worked within early stages of MetaSound development
  • Implemented a Mix Management system
  • Overhauled and wrote the first public version of Soundscape to support the nearly 4 sq km of gameplay environment
  • Developed a Chaos focused collision sonnification system
  • Oversaw the development of an interactive music system
  • Worked with outsource team on short deadlines and implemented most sound and music.

This live demonstration, featured during GDC 2023’s Unreal Engine keynote, it showcases driving “a photorealistic Rivian R1T through a massive jungle. The experience is crafted with tools including Procedural Content Generation (PCG), Chaos Physics, Quixel Megascans, MetaSounds, and Fluid Simulation.”

Electric Dreams was developed in partnership with SweetJustice and Rebound Sound.

Technical Audio Designer

  • Consulted on and trained outsource team on the latest in Unreal Engine audio technology
  • Developed a simulation of the Rivian electric motor with MetaSounds using additive synthesis, filtered noise, and EQs.
  • Created a live mix manager with control surface support for use during live presentation
  • Implemented main mix
  • Implemented convolution based reverb
  • Designed convolution reverbs