Toby Hulse is an audio director and sound designer with 16+ years of experience on AAA video games, mobile video games, feature films, TV shows and commercials, and over two decades in music composition, performance and recording.

 

Deep experience with numerous video game engines (Unreal, Unity, Frostbite2) and middleware tools (Wwise and FMOD) and passionate about creating a cohesive end-to-end audio experience.

 

A strong musical background gives Toby a fresh perspective on audio design, building soundtracks focused on emotion, mood, dynamics and space while seamlessly weaving together both music and sound design.

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RESUME / CV (Click Here)

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CONTACT

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toby@tobyhulse.com

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EXPERIENCE

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2023-2024

Counterplay Games

Audio Director

• Creating the Audio Vision and executing all game audio from pre-production to the final stages of production for a new AAA IP: a narrative-driven, action, shooter, rogue-like

  (The Netease published game was unfortunately shelved and the entire team was laid off only 2 months before completion in April 2024)

• Audio Tech Pipeline and Design: Worked with Wwise and Unreal and designed and implemented the audio pipeline for guns, ambience / weather, animation tagging, impacts and footstep switching, doppler and whiz bys, music and mix triggering system.

• Recruited, Built and Managed a 9 person audio team from the ground up.

• Sound Design and Implementation (guns, enemies, abilities, ambience).

• Music Direction and Music System Design: designed, directed and integrated a deep multi-layered music system the evolves and reacts to the gameplay with minimal repetition.

• Dialogue System Design utilizing wwise and a custom dialogue tool in unreal containing all triggers, conditions, subtitles and localization informaiton.

• Dialogue Mastering and Integration into Wwise and the custom dialogue tool in Unreal.

• Cinematics Production Pipeline and outsource support.

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2021-2023

Phoenix Labs

Audio Director - Fae Farm

• Worked closely with a small dev team to from incubation to pre-production.

• Created and executed the Audio Vision

• Sound Design and Implementaton.

• Audio Tech and Pipeline Design: Worked with Wwise and Unreal and implemented the audio pipeline for ambience / weather, animation tagging, footstep switching, doppler and music triggering system.

• Music Design and Direction. Worked closely with composer Cris Velasko to establish an orchestral soundtrack and performed acoustic guitar, mandolin and lute.

Audio Director - Unreleased AAA Title

• Audio Vision and Direction, Sound Design, Technical Sound Design for an unannounced PVP shooter from incubation to pre-production.

• Worked closely with the team to create and prove out the audio vision. Created a fully flushed out auditory experience for the first vertical slice.

• Engines and middleware tools used: Unreal 4 and 5, Wwise.

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2019-2022

Lionshead Entertainment

Audio Director / Lead Sound Designer

• Helped create and pitch custom audio visions to win over new clients.

• Recruitment and team building.

• Mentorship and team learning sessions.

• Lead various projects (noted below).

Audio Lead - Disney Mirrorverse

• Helped define and fully executed the Audio Vision from pre-production to release.

• Lead Sound Designer, designing the audio for 20+ characters, ambient SFX and UI SFX.

• Built and mentored the audio team to produce audio for 70+ characters, 6 environments and a deep UI audio experience.

• Music system design, mastering and implementation.

• Audio tech pipeline design and implementation for all audio using Fabric and Unity.

• Mixed and mastered the game for commercial release on iOS and Android.

Lead Cinematics Designer - Minecraft Legends

• Created the Audio Vision and presented to leadership to win the contract for Lionshead Entertainment.

• Sound Design for various areas of the game including boss characters and the ambience system.

• Cinematics Audio Lead performing sound design, editing and mix for over 30 in game cinematics in 5.1 surround.

• Designed and organized tracking and delivery systems and delegated and mentored sound design collaborators to ensure the vision and quality bar were met in a timely fashion.

Audio Lead - Bloodlines 2

• Helped create and execute the audio vision from pre-production through to production.

• Built and mentored an audio team of 6 sound designers.

• Helped devise the audio implementation pipeline using Wwise and Unreal.

Music Designer / Cinematics Localization and Mixing - Gears of War 5

• Gameplay Music System Design using multiple musical intensities, randomized layers and stingers.

• Implementation of all gameplay music using Wwise and Unreal.

• Mixed and mastered gameplay music from composer Ramin Djawadi’s stems.

• Cinematics localization and mixing in 7.1 surround for 52 scenes in 8 languages.

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2012-2019

Disney Games & Interactive Experiences

Lead Sound Designer

• Audio Direction, Sound Design, Tech Pipeline Design and Implementation, leading the audio team from pre-production to release for the mobile/desktop MMO, Club Penguin.

• Lead Sound Designer, Disney Interactive Internal Marketing. Sound Design and Mix for over 100 game trailers for IP’s such as Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar and Tron.

• Lead Sound Designer, Star Wars, Choose Your Destiny: Han & Chewie audiobook for Amazon Alexa.

• Audio Direction, Sound Design, Tech Pipeline Design and Implementation: Star Wars Lego FPS (prototype).

• Audio Direction, Sound Design, Tech Pipeline Design and Implementation: Wildlands (Builder SIM prototype).

• Lead Sound Designer, Disney Jr. Appisodes, Puffle Wild, Sled Racer, Sound Studio and other mobile game apps.

• Audio direction, design and rebranding the audio vision for online based MMO and mobile port of Club Penguin Classic.

• Engines and middleware tools used: Unity, Wwise, Fabric, Flash.

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2011-2012
United Front Games - Sleeping Dogs

Lead Cinematics Audio Designer

• Sound Design, Edit and Mix for over 180 cinematic cutscenes totalling over two hours of footage.

• Dialogue Editing and Recording, Foley Editing and Recording, Sound Design, Ambience Design, Music Design and Editing, 5.1 mixing and implementation using Wwise and a custom game engine.

• Additional gameplay Sound Design including world ambience, collisions, player foley and various hand to hand combat SFX to ensure continuity between the cinematics and the gameplay.

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2011

Electronic Arts - Need For Speed: The Run

Audio Artist

• Sound Design, System Design and Implementation for the vehicle vs vehicle and vehicle vs world collision system.

• Sound Design and Implementation for Cinematic Moments including explosions, destruction debris, gunfire and enemy vehicles.

• Sound Design and Implementation for non-interactive world objects such as trains, helicopters, construction vehicles and airplanes.

• All audio implementation done in the Frostbite 2 engine.

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2009-2011
United Front Games

Sound Designer - True Crime: Hong Kong

• Ambient Sound Design: recreating the island of Hong Kong including busy night markets, tropical jungles, busy dockyards, miles of the waterfront areas and interiors such as a safehouse, temple, busy night club or restaurant.

• Sound Design and Implementation for various fighting SFX, impact sounds and character foley.

• Sound Design and Implementation for the menu user interface and mini-game audio.

• All implementation using Wwise and a custom game engine.

Sound Designer - Modnation Racers

• User Interface Sound Design and Implementation for a very deep UI menu system allowing the players to fully customize the car, player character and build tracks from scratch.

• Voice Design for the player and CPU gibberish driver voices including recording (in some cases my own voice), editing, processing and implementation.

• All implementation with Wwise and a custom game engine.

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EDUCATION

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2008

Diploma in Sound Design for Visual Media

Vancouver Film School, Vancouver, BC
Graduated with Honours. Scholarship winner.
Intense one year program focused on post production for film, TV and video games. Editor for dialogue, sound effects, foley, special effects, and background ambiences. Mixed numerous projects in varying formats from Stereo, LtRt, LCRS and specialized in 5.1 surround mixing.