Dan Reynolds | Musicianeer

Dan Reynolds is a Composer, Synthesist, Technical Designer, and an award winning Music Producer who has been working in Game Audio for more than 20 years.

Official website for Dan Reynolds, Technical Audio Designer, Composer, and Synthesist.

Highlights From Epic Games

  • 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

    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).

    For almost a decade, Dan worked at Epic Games. For his first 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.

    He currently resides in the Pacific Northwest where he spends his free time drawing, painting, writing, studying traditional animation, and playing with his synthesizers.

    • Work Highlights

    QA Analyst to Senior Technical Audio Designer

    • Collaborated with Audio Engine development team to prototype, develop, and test Unreal’s new native audio renderer and its features
    • Worked to help bring the new Unreal Audio Engine to Fortnite during peak years; subsequently to UE and finally shipping the new audio engine by default
    • Worked with special projects as main technical audio designer helping to deliver live keynote demonstrations of cutting edge Unreal Audio technology
    • Developed and designed new audio gameplay systems to power several Special Projects which eventually shipped in Unreal
    • Consulted on and assisted development of MetaSounds, a major anchor feature for Unreal and Unreal Audio
    • Lead key early design discussions and UX research in plans for major UE6 audio features
    • Made consistent efforts to inform and grow Unreal Audio developer community, participating in many Inside Unreal livestreams along the way and being a key point of contact at conferences
    • Was often the main individual assigned to assist major Unreal licensees onboarding Unreal Audio

    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

    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

    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’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

    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

    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.

    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

    Live Event Tech Support and R&D

    • Prototyped early approaches for live, interactive music management over network
    • Provided emergency, boots-on-the-ground live audio tech support for the event staff
    • Assured sound quality during run of show
    • Resolved complex gain staging issue to mitigate distortion during the performance

    Dan Reynolds

    Live Event Tech Support and Live Rig Design

    • Consulted on the live event tech in order to successfully support the interview participants
    • Provided live event audio tech oversight to ensure smooth run of show with ample redundancy
    • Directed several PAs during the event
    • “I’ve never been mic’d so fast in my life” – J.J. Abrams

    Tech Audio Chat

    A Somewhat Regular Livestream

    Tech Audio Chat is a technical audio hangout where we chat about game development, technical audio design, audio programming, and more. Viewers are invited to join the chat and participate in the discussion.

    Contact Me

    Open to Opportunities

    Feel free to reach out through email or social links. I'm currently open to discussing new opportunities or challenges.

    Email

    dan@musicianeer.com