Recent developments show my foot having made it in the door, and now I’ve got my whole lower torso wedged in there. Upper body hopefully soon to follow.
I haven’t spoken about this except on IRC, but I figured I should post it here. We’ve relocated! I was hired last month as a full-time audio designer at Gameloft NYC. We’re the mobile sister company to Ubisoft, so we make cellphone versions of big titles like Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia, and a lot of original games too. My job is to compose music, design sound effects, and then “port” them to 12 file formats on 20 different types of sound chips used in over 350 mobile phones. In essence, I’m writing for a dozen different videogame machines at once with varying polyphony, memory, and sound banks. It is my dream job, to say the least.
Kristi and I have moved to Bayonne, NJ, and I commute to Manhattan every day. It’s a vast lifestyle change, but an extremely positive one. We love the city! One of our best friends, Dan (prozax), lives a mile away and spends lots of time with us, and my home studio situation has improved drastically. Pictures forthcoming. If you’re in or around the NYC area, or planning to visit, drop me a line and we’ll get together.
More to come as we settle in.
In the meantime, please enjoy my two most recent Kwakfest entries (Kwakfest basically got me this job, since all of my gmidi demo material came from it):
• Funkmaster Buckminster and the Amazing Percussive Clavilier Flotilla
• Jews 1, Oppressors 0 (Avinu Malkein0wned) (theme: Jewish High Holidays)
I am so happy for you, you crazy bastard! Rock on! Congrats!
The Prince of Persia game is the only cell phone game I’ve ever dl’ed. It was pretty nice, but there wasn’t much music.
Do you feel like you’ve time warped back to the color GB days?
Big congratulations to you! That must feel so awesome, to achieve what you’re striving for. Keep updating and tell us more about what you’re doing, at least I’m interested in hearing more as I myself will try to pursue a similar career later on!
Keep rocking
Awesome. Being succesful in a career area that you’re truly passionate for is one of the best thing in life. Congrats! =)
Way to go, Virt! Nice to see that you’ll be enjoying your new job. Don’t be a stranger! Best regards from Deutschland!
Congrats ViRt! I wish you lots of happiness in your new home and lots of success at your new job. Give ‘em hell on those cellphones. ;)
Excellent. The only downside I see to this is the possibility of having to own a cell phone to hear new virtkwak in the future :)
Hey, this is that guy who interviewed you for a seemingly reasonable purpose a couple months past– I thought you might be worried I was hurt! I’m not. The interview, although since lost to slapdash changes in the website I formerly belonged to, was boss nonetheless, and I’d like to find new and more expensive ways to exploit your multi-media talents. I’m in and out of New York all the time, but would rather leave our meeting up to chance, because I have a feeling if we saw eachother on the street, one of us would instinctively beat the crap out of the other one. And I think I know who you think which one of us that would be… What?
Your BEARS Kwakfest entry made the j, n and m keys on my keyboard do a little synchronized dance. I immediately threw the keyboard away.
I just saw panel.exe, LOVE the heavymetal mario with his shirt. Instant classic!
congrats! make sure you get permission to post your work here when possible :)
Very happy to see some of us “freelancing musicians” (the cowards term for unemployed) get fulltime work with audio. And even better, you managed to get a job working with my favorite type of consoles. The ones with crappy sound and visual effects. Doesn’t get more retro than that. Would love it if you created a list of games and such that you’ve composed to. I’d check ‘em out if you did. ;D
Congratulations.
Cool stuff, nice to see that you’re coming closer (really close that is) to your goal. I wish you & Krissie all the best luck. And prozax rocks anyway, I bet you have all the cool times together.
:)
Hi, I couldn’t find an e-mail address anywhere so I’ll post here. I was lucky enough to have heard one of your chip tunes (Overture 1928) at the johnpetrucci.com forum. I have been looking for a computer game to make for a while now, and hearing that tune gave me inspiration to do a Dream Theater action/RPG type of game. Please e-mail me, as in the future I would like to discuss possibly getting more Dream Theater Chip tunes for this game. Let me just say that I think your work is top notch and I absolutely LOVE the Metal Gear and zelda arrangements. And every thing else as well.
Ok it didn’t put my e-mail addy, it’s unklejman@yahoo.com
Oh no! Virt kicks my ass! What has this world come to?
burrow lick dance salt chamber of lofty hairy beast coward cowboy dangerfield… j/k!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is a bit late – but grats man. Now put me on your friends page you ass. :)
Awesome!!! I’m glad you made it! I wish you the best of success in your new job :)
Congratulations!
love your pizza