Michael Taylor: Audio Design & Composition

New Showreel Video

With all the activity over the last year or so, my showreel has been a bit neglected as I’ve focused on completing active projects. While I’m preparing to create new reel material, I quickly edited a music/sound design only mix of the announce trailer for Cwerki’s ‘Min: A Space Adventure’, which is conveniently embedded below! 

All these videos, plus the rest of my audio design and implementation reels are available to view on my YouTube channel

The original version of the trailer, complete with voiceover, is embedded here too!

January 2012 Update

It’s been a hectic couple of months recently, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD has finally been released worldwide to a fantastic reception, the ‘Play It Forward’ charity album I contributed to has been successfully raising money for Childs Play and the EFF and work on Cwerki’s debut title ‘Min: A Space Adventure’ is continuing at a steady pace.

I’m looking forward to an exciting 2012, and so I felt it would be appropriate to share my most exciting composition of the last year: the main theme of Min: A Space Adventure!

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD is out now on PSN!

After almost a year since the PC ‘Oddbox’ release, Stranger has finally landed on the PlayStation Network to fantastic reviews. I was hired by Just Add Water to convert the audio from an Xbox-specific audio to a multi-platform system, and at the same time upgrading as much of the audio and dialogue as possible using the original assets from the Oddworld archives.

For more information on my involvement with Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD, check out the Developer Diary I wrote last year, or my interview with NerdVice in the summer!

Play It Forward Album Release!

I recently contributed a composition for the ‘Play It Forward’ album, a charity project by an ensemble of musicians who share a passion for video games!

All the proceeds from the album will be split between Child’s Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. There is no minimum donation for the album, but please give what you can to help out these fantastic organisations.

http://playitforwardalbum.bandcamp.com/

There are 13 phenomenal tracks on the album, most of which are instrumental and electronic based. There are a few great deviations from this though! Oh, and my track, ‘Astral Meltdown’ has the dark, energetic sci-fi genre covered!

Hope you enjoy it, and help us spread the word!

November 2011 Update

Once again, its been a busy couple of months for me! I’ve been ultra busy working with Cwerki Studios on the UDK based project ‘Min: A Space Adventure’, for which we released the above trailer a couple of weeks ago. We are fundraising to try and finish the production with as high quality as we can, so please share the link and help us out.

I’ve also been finishing up work on my ‘Play It Forward’ charity album track; There should be more news on this soon, but having heard some of the other composer’s demos, I can tell its going to be something special!

And finally, last week Just Add Water submitted Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD to Sony, and should be hitting PS3s around the world soon. If you need a reminder on why this is cool, check out my Audio Dev Diary on Just Add Water’s website, and this interview I did with Nerdvice

In the meantime, a Dynamic Theme for the PS3 I edited sounds for is due imminently on PSN. A silent clip of the theme in action can be seen here

Cwerki Presents… ‘Min: A Space Adventure’!

Cwerki Studios are proud to unveil the project they have been working so hard on for the last few months…. Min: A Space Adventure!

As usual, I have been providing music and sound effects for the project, as well as recruiting voice contributors and our amazing voiceover artist, Lu Caplin (AKA Soundmouse )

We are currently holding an IndieGoGo fundraising project to help us complete the game with the style and flair it deserves. if you feel like dropping some coins into our piggy bank, click the widget below!

We need your voice!

With the reveal of Cwerki’s website yesterday, and our progress on the game, I felt that now would be an excellent time to ask you, dear internet, to contribute to our game!

We need voices. Lots of voices. If you have a voice, we want to hear it and put it in our game! 

All you will need is a means of recording your voice, and transmitting it via the intertubes. It’s that simple!

While I can’t discuss too much detail right now, drop me a message at mike@cwerki.com to register your interest and I’ll be in touch in the next week or two with the specifics. 

Introducing… Cwerki!

Cwerki is a brand new indie studio formed by Daniel Haddad and myself. I worked with Daniel on the Microsoft Imagine Cup finalist project: ‘Tale Of A Tree Wisp’, and for the last few weeks have been working hard on a brand new game using the Unreal Development Kit! This amazing pic is some concept art from the game.

Cwerki’s website has gone live, have a look, and keep checking back for more news! Check it out here!

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD Trailer!

EDIT: The video wasn’t playing to well with Tumblr, so here is a link to it instead: YouTube

Check out this new trailer for Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD!

My work with Oddworld is now complete and the game should be hitting PSN in the next couple of months!