Mark Russell - Sound Designer
Audio Design Showreel
Project Spotlights
Noisevember 2024
Project Sporox
Kaiju City Defender DX
Sound Design
Noisevember 2024
Sound Redesign - Breath of the Wild
Project Sporox - Sound Designer + Implementer
Sound Redesign - Gollum: The Untold Story
Sound Redesign - Unreal Shooter Game (WIP)
Kaiju City Defender DX - Sound Designer
Soundmorph - Lock/Load Sound Redesign
Sound Redesign
Breath of the Wild - 2014 Announcement Trailer
This is a sound redesign of the first Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild trailer, taking inspiration from the original game, whilst adding detail and creative choices to provide an immersive and engaging audio visual experience for the viewer.This project heavily focused on using a wide dynamic range to push and pull the intensity of scenes, and to emphasise particular elements of sound to attract attention to what is happening in the scene at the time.From using frequency shifting to turn steaks frying into fire, and vocoding impulses to create bursts of energy, to turning socket wrenches into tentacle-like arms, the sound design in this project creates a unique sonic palette. Whilst the field-recorded audio provides a solid sonic base to build on.
Sound Redesign
Gollum: The Untold Story - 2021 Cinematic Trailer
This sound redesign of the cinematic "Gollum: The Untold Story" trailer focused heavily on the usage of space to immerse the viewer within the scenes, as well as using household objects to create realistic sounds that both sound correct and impactful.Utilising heavy usage of reverb and filters, the sounds within the project are shifted around the space of the audio scene, and ensure the listener is lost within the spaces created.Whilst the limited resources were a challenge to overcome, using careful layering and creative processing, the sounds produced work effectively within the context. Some examples of note are turning a phone stand into a helmet rolling, and distorting a dog eating turning it into molten metal.Many Thanks to Michael Tennant for providing the voice for Gollum in this trailer.
Sound Redesign + Implementation
Unreal Engine Shooter Game - (WIP)
This is a work in progress sound redesign and implementation, focusing mainly on the weapon and player sounds at this stage, though intended to be a full redesign once I have more time to work on this project, focusing on making an immersive player experience.Utilising Wwise as an implementation tool, weapon sounds created using broken chairs and door handles have been granulised and randomised to create a large number of variations of simple sounds.Original project made by Epic Games, available on the Epic Games Marketplace
Sound Designer, Sound Implementation
Project Sporox
"Project Sporox" is a game being produced by a small team of game developers I'm part of known as "Creature Friends". This version - developed over the course of a few months - was one of the many games that was part of the Tranzfuser competition in 2022.The sound design brief for this project is to create an organic yet digital world for a small mushroom creature to explore.This project is currently on indefinite hold, but the demo shown at EGX London has been released on itch.io.
Sound Designer
Kaiju City Defender DX
Kaiju City Defender DX is a Bullet Hell x City builder game developed for the Bullet Hell Jam 2023, coming 13th in the audio categoryGiven the pixel art style and arcade-like gameplay, the main goal with the sound was to mimic the sounds found in old arcade/console games, whilst giving a modern twist on them to keep the sound nostalgic whilst simultaneously modern.You can download and try out the game for yourself using the link below.
Sound Redesign
Soundmorph - Lock/Load Competition
In early 2024, the company Soundmorph ran a competiton to redesign the sound for a set of clips from their Lock/Load sound pack trailer. The biggest limitation was that you could not create your own sound, and could only use the sounds provided by Soundmorph, manipulating them in any way you wanted.Using a variety of frequency shifting, pitch shifting and formant shifting, I created this entry over the course of a few days, heavily focusing on the section where the gun is constructed.Video content and original sound sources created by Soundmorph.
Noisevember 2024
During the month of November, the social media platform Airwiggles organised a challenge to create audio based on a word prompt for every day of the month.Below are all 30 of my submissions to the challenge, each created on the day with no preparation before hand.
Day 1: RockWanted to do something cool for the first day, so I decided to make the sound for a gravity cannon that shoots rocks and debris from just rocks and debris samples (aside from one Phaseplant granular synth using an impulse response)
Day 2: BubbleJust a quick one for today's prompt - Bubbly! Made a procedural bubble generator in Phaseplant. Fairly simple on the surface but lots of randomisation to get that natural feel to each pop
Day 3: SandwichDecided to make a sandwich in the style of the fast cut sections from the Cornetto Trilogy. Think it turned out pretty well
Day 4: InstrumentalDecided to go completely out of the box for this one, and used a measuring instrument (a tape measure) to create something purely INSTRUMENTal.
Day 5: ResonantWasn't exactly sure what I was going to do for today's prompt, but I decided I'd modify a wind generator I'd previously made in Phaseplant to make a beautiful pad, inspired by the resonances you can hear from the wind.
Day 6: PressureBit of a weird one today, thought I'd create a riser in Phaseplant that somewhat represents what I feel when I'm under pressure. Best to listen to this one through headphones for the full effect.
Day 7: GlowFor today's prompt, I redesigned the sound for a mob from Minecraft - the Glow Squid. Created the ambience using the patch I created for day 2 as well!
Day 8: OrganHad to redesign the ambience for Jabu Jabu's Belly from Ocarina of Time for this one. Recorded a whole bunch of my own stomach sounds and processed them all into this squelchy, organic mess.
Day 9: TinyShort one today - tried to make a mechanical frog sound out of nothing but small clicks and processing.
Day 10: Deja VuThought I'd go more musical today - composed a short piece of music that uses only 1 bar of notes, played by 4 identical synths processed the same way, but at different times (with one in a different octave).
Day 11: LoomingCreated a Phaseplant patch that was inspired by The Thin Man from Little Nightmares 2. Using the granular engine with just the tail of a violin sample as an FM source made the whole thing come to life!
Day 12: ShimmerRedesigned using a Golden Rune in Elden Ring! Started off as just a musical stinger in Phaseplant, but then I ran it through two Unfiltered Audio's SpecOps to try and make it sound more atonal and thought that it'd be a really good base for this!
Day 13: Ouch!Synthesised a Flashbang going off in Phaseplant (and two Cramit's afterwards). For the full effect, grab your nearest lamp and turn it on in front of your eyes as soon as you hear the sound start.
Day 14: Inner PeaceQuiet one today - personally find the rain really relaxing, so I decided to put some recordings I'd taken together to recreate the sound of rain hitting my window. Also, enjoy the sounds of my dog snoring too.
Day 15: OppositeToday's prompt really stumped me, but in the end I quickly made a riser patch in Phaseplant where two identical signals are processed the same way but with opposite automation
Day 16: TerrifyingInstantly knew I had to make a creature sound for this. Not sure exactly what kind of creature I imagined for this, but whatever it may be, I had a lot of fun doing the vocalisations for it.
Day 17: StutterThought I'd do some vocal processing for this one, so I decided to create an almost broken evil robot trying to maintain it's position of power.
Day 18: HairyCreated some noise swells out of some recordings of me brushing my hair. Think I'll save these for a slow fade-in UI sound, or maybe I'll try whacking them into Phaseplant's wavetable editor to see what I can create with them at some point.
Day 19: Plant BasedGiven my love for D&D, I thought I'd try to design a sound based off the description of the tree variant of Quall's Feather Token. So enjoy the sound of a tree sprouting up quickly out of nowhere.
Day 20: Deja VuToday I thought I'd show a meldoy that I keep hearing all the time. Always seems to creep back in the more I listen to an analogue clock.
Day 21: DissolveCreated the sound of an acid droplet falling on something from some recordings of putting steak into a pan and water dropping on a stove top.
Day 22: SilkyReally struggled to come up with something today, but decided to make a synth patch from recordings of cloth Foley. Ended up sounding almost oboe like (please ignore the stuttering due to CPU usage)
Day 23: WildlifeNice and Simple today - recorded myself performing some owl whistles and just processed them a little with reverb and EQ.
Day 24: SkeuomorphicRedesigned and added some sounds to the map screen of Baldur's Gate 3. Finally got a chance to put that quill I've had for a while now to use.
Day 25: FractalGiven fractals are repeating patterns, I creatd a fairly simple melodic sound and threw it into the granular module of Phaseplant in a way where it would repeat over itself rapidly, and turned it into the sound of a spaceship's warp drive.
Day 26: RadicalTried to fully synthesise someone grinding on a rail in Phaseplant. Was quite inspired by the Sonic games for this one, and even added little sound adjustments for jumping onto and off a rail.
Day 27: StingLooked at the prompt for today and decided I would do a small redesign of a part from The Hobbit - more specifically the first time that Sting is unsheathed. Think it turned out pretty well for the short amount of time that I had.
Day 28: ?!Today I wanted to make myself go "?!", so I decided to create a completely random patch in Phaseplant using a random number generator. If you don't believe me, there are two tape stops in this patch which do absolutely nothing. Actually turned out pretty interesting.
Day 29: QWhat's a better way to make a sound for the prompt Q than but using Q as a source. Converted an image of the letter Q into a sample, threw that into a wavetable, added some white noise running through a Filtertable using the same sound, and made some hologram ambience.
Day 30: FinaleAnd now I can finally relax. Day 30 - for this finale I decided to redesign the Enemy Felled sound from Elden Ring... Wait, why's the text different?
About me
Hi there! I'm Mark, but some know me as the Hat Hobbit. I'm a UK based Sound Designer / Music producer. I'm short (earning me the nickname Hobbit) and I wear a hat, so the name just makes sense.I've always focus on being creative, no matter what I do, and I strive to make all my work better than the last piece.I'm passionate about games and the audio within them, constantly trying to find new ways of designing audio, or experimenting with sound implementation to find ways that are more immersive for players.I'm also a published music producer, mainly focusing on heavier electronic music (such as Dubstep/Colour Bass), having releases on a couple labels, with more music in development to release soon.
Released Music
Darklight (Single on "Aphelion") - Neoluminum, 2023
Out on all major streaming services
Hat Trick (Single on "Alphabet Soup) - Juxtaposed, 2024
Out on all major streaming services
Feeling _______ (EP) - Self release, 2021
Out on SoundCloud and YouTube
Other Releases
