“Combining sound and interactivity opens up lots of new opportunities. This means I make new mistakes, which I find really exciting.” – An Interview with Giorgio Cortiana
From gaming and drumming to maintaining two successful creative freelance ventures, Giorgio Cortiana talks us through his career so far.
Despite being very busy with his various creative projects, Bristol-based sound designer and audio engineer, Giorgio Cortiana, kindly made the time to have a chat with us about his career and creative process. We discuss how he got into music, how that became a passion for all things interactive, the importance of organization, and how simple plugins keep him focused.
Please could you introduce yourself?
My name is Giorgio Cortiana. I’m a sound designer, audio programmer, sound engineer, and percussionist. I guess I do a little bit of all of these things.
My work is divided across two main areas. I have a company called Sound Reactions, which is focused on the interactive parts of what I do, such as audio programming, sound for games, and interactive audio work. Then I do a range of freelance work as Gioco Sound. This includes music performance and sound engineering—I do a lot of mixing and mastering these days.
What was your introduction to music, and how did that evolve into the more interactive side of what you do now?
I started playing drums as a kid, then got into a band as many people do! This is what led me to discover sound engineering, in both a live and studio setting. Over the years, I fell more in love with the production side of things—I’ve always really enjoyed creating in the studio.
Eventually, I began to study anything that helped me to be a sound engineer, from acoustics to electronics. Inevitably, I discovered the world of sound for video games and other interactive applications for audio.
I guess what interested me was how much more room for exploration there was. There are so many amazing techniques for making a great record that were established between the 60s and 90s. We use a lot of those today, but we’re advancing too. We have exciting new tools that allow us to do exciting new things, but the fundamental way you engineer a record hasn’t changed all that much.
When it comes to video games, there’s so much you can do. Combining sound and interactivity opens up lots of new opportunities. This means I make new mistakes, which I find really exciting.
Did you study music or sound design?
I came to Bristol to study Sound for Games at dBs Institute. The aim was to get more into that side of the industry, and Gioco Sound was my way of doing that. It allowed me to do traditional studio work such as recording and mixing, but I was also doing some sound design for games and other projects.
Then two years ago, my business partner and I formed Sound Reactions. We are focused on interactive audio. Our work ranges from audio design and implementation for video games, apps, and interactive media, to advanced audio systems for installations and immersive experiences. This is really exciting as it enables us to use innovative technology to explore lots of different areas.
Presumably, you were a gamer before deciding to study audio for games at university?
I was a gamer as a kid and through my teens, up until I started taking music seriously. It just gobbles up all your time! I guess studying sound for games was my excuse to say to myself, “I can play games now because it’s research”. It is fun and I do love it. I’m very lucky that I can still play games in my line of work.
Your work seems to combine the practices of sound design and audio implementation. How does your experience in both of these areas help you to carry out creative projects?
It’s almost expected of sound designers that they can also carry out audio implementation, particularly for small indie developers who don’t have dedicated people for sound design and audio programming. In my opinion, these are very different skills, but it definitely helps to be able to do both.
It makes sense for you to be able to design the sound assets and then implement them in the game. If you just make the asset and then deliver it to someone else to implement, you don’t necessarily get the same control over how the sound will be used in the game. Unlike when you produce, mix, or master a record, where you have control over the final output, with interactive audio, there are lots of other variables in the hands of the final user.
The video game and how it’s played have more of an impact on the audio. For example, the location and proximity of the sound relative to the player, what other sounds are playing at any one moment, and so many other factors. As a game audio designer, you can’t really predict these things, so if you want to retain control, you need to implement the audio as well as design it.
When you’re implementing sounds into games, presumably you’re using some kind of audio middleware, so you might be working in two or three pieces of software or more?
Yes, I would say three minimum. I do my sound design either in Reaper or in Ableton Live. I use ProTools heavily as well, because that’s what I use for mixing, mastering, and recording. Then there are the third-party plugins I use in these programs.
Once the audio is designed, you need a means of implementing it into the game. The program I use for this varies project by project. The two main game development programs are Unity and Unreal, and they each have their own way of implementing sound, along with their own limitations.
Then you also have the two main audio middleware programs, which are FMOD and Wwise. As a freelance game audio programmer, you need to know both. Once you get a project brief, you identify which features are of the most value, then you can choose the right tool for the job.
In terms of your sound design process, are there any particular sound design processes or techniques that you use a lot?
I guess it depends on the brief. In sound design, there are many ways to skin a sound! But really it depends on what’s required by the project. If I’m working on something hyperrealistic, I’ll use a lot of Foley and environmental recordings. If I’m doing something more sci-fi, I’ll use a lot of digital synthesis. It can change drastically.
It depends on the budget, too. If the brief asks for some really unique and in-depth sounds and they don’t mind how long I take, I’ll take the time to prepare very well, book a studio recording session, and record a range of totally unique original sounds. Sometimes, a project’s budget just doesn’t allow for that, in which case I’ll search sample libraries for sounds I can layer, process, and tweak to fit the brief.
In terms of process, a huge part of it is file management, and this is where every project starts. I take lots of notes, play the game, or watch a demo, then start to plan some ideas for what sounds I need to deliver. This is probably the only thing that remains consistent between projects. When you’re working in any professional capacity and according to a fixed budget, you need to be efficient with your time, and effective planning and file management is how you achieve that.
And what about tools—other than the DAW or audio middleware, are there any particular plugins you use a lot?
I use a lot of things! I like to have a mental list of each plugin and the specific thing it does. That way I can quickly decide which plugin to use for each task.
The specific plugins I use the most come from the FabFilter and Soundtoys suites. In my head, the FabFilter stuff is for clean and the Soundtoys is for dirty. Apart from that, I use an old spectral shaper plugin by Michael Norris, called Soundmagic Spectral. I also use PaulXStretch a lot, it’s great for creating ambiences and stuff like that.
I really like synthesizers too, particularly FM synths like FM8. I used to use more Native Instruments stuff but I’ve shied away from plugins where you can easily fall down the rabbit hole. I could easily get lost for an entire day on a modular synth and only come up with half of the sounds that I need to create. Over time, I’ve started to gravitate towards the simplest plugins possible.
I often use Operator or Wavetable in Ableton Live. They’re just stripped back and very simple. I understand synthesis, so if I need to achieve something specific, I know how to get there and just play around on the way. I’m a big fan of one-function plugins.
Are there any particular projects you’re working on at the minute that you’d like to share?
I’m currently mastering an album and mixing a track, but I can’t say much about those at the moment, and I’m also working on a VR application. Most recently, I’ve been working on a VR project called Embody XR by Mercurial Dance. It’s a virtual reality game designed to help young people overcome symptoms of anxiety.
Apart from that, we’re developing software in-house which allows for interactive music playback. All being well, within a couple of years, other people will be able to use this tool that we created for ourselves. It’s a new way of playing back music that doesn’t exist currently, which will essentially become a middleware for video game music. This is what I’m really excited about at the moment.
You can keep up with Giorgio and his latest projects by following him on his various socials: