RSR359 – Jay Lauterwasser – Video Game Composer and Sound Designer for EverQuest - Recording Studio Rockstars

RSR359 – Jay Lauterwasser – Video Game Composer and Sound Designer for EverQuest

Got pig grunts and bear growls? Jay talked about creating monster sounds for video games as a sound designer, how he went from quality control to music composer for one of the biggest MMORPG video games in the world, and why you want Reaper.

My guest today is Jay Lauterwasser a video game sound designer and music composer for Darkpaw games in San Diego, CA. 

“I grew up in St Louis, Missouri, moved to San Diego in 2004 and started my career in the video game industry in Quality Assurance. In 2016 I got my opportunity to become a Sound Designer and in 2019 I added Music Composer to my job description. I’ve been a musician for the better part of my life. I started playing bass in highschool, joined a band after graduating and got to see the eastern half of the country from the back seat of the tour van. Even though the touring slowed down, I never stopped playing music. I still play bass in the local San Diego band Roger! and sit in for the occasional recording session. 

I’ve been a part of countless recording sessions as a musician but never officially as an engineer. Fortunately, I’ve worked with a bunch of great engineers that were always willing to answer questions or explain something along the way. It was those experiences and further exploration and research that taught me enough about sound engineering to be able to do sound design for video games. Music composition was the natural next step, taking what I learned about audio engineering and sound in general and adding the musician side of it. After taking a couple of online music composition and theory classes, I was able to compose and produce my first video game soundtrack in 2019 for the game “EverQuest: Claws of Veeshan”.

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Additional podcast editing and production by:
Brayden Stremming
Vlad Vasilcenko
Jon Richardson

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