xvelastín [sound artist]

Xavier Velastín 
Game Audio Portfolio


👋🏼 Hi! I'm Xavier (pronounced 'ha-vier'). I'm a sound designer for video games and immersive experiences.
My background is in sound design for theatre, electroacoustic composition, and sound-led interactive performance. I've created binaural headphone walks, triggered voiceovers via motion capture, scored dance pieces, and integrated procedural soundscapes for theatre performances. I've done a lot of interactive and generative sound, so naturally, I get far too excited/obsessed doing implementation.

Offline, you can usually find me at performance art events, club nights, or by the sea.
I sometimes write about sound design on my blog, impulse+response. Head to my homepage to find out more about my sound art practice.

To get in touch:
Bluesky - blubberbaleen.
Discord - blubberbaleen.
My album 'Soundtracks for Imagined Worlds' is a compilation of original music I've written, showcasing my compositional style: variously dreamy and noisy, using unique instrumentation, often making use of silence and space.
🌊 Fishing for water sounds. Photo by Ariane Nixon. 

Working With Me

Here are some top reasons to work with Xavier (that is, me). 

I love working with indies and solo devs, as it makes me feel really invested in the project. If you've got an indie project, here's how I can help:
🌊 I can own the whole audio pipeline from creation, hookup and mixing for release without hand-holding, allowing small teams and solo devs to focus on other game systems. 
🌊 I always keep everything organised so things don’t slip through the net during development, and ensures you can continue to work on it once I’m done. 
🌊 My strong music theory knowledge means I’m a great fit for rhythm games or anything that needs complex music implementation. 

I'm very up for contract work with studios or with outsourcing teams to help get projects over the line. I've worked with iGame.Audio as a Technical Sound Designer for several years. If this is you, here's what I can do:
⚡ I’m used to parachuting in for overflow work near release: just point me at a spreadsheet or Jira! 
⚡ I’m particularly useful at implementation, since I’m comfortable in both Unity and Unreal, natively and with middleware. 
⚡ I’ve got a good handle on Reaper, iZotope and Waves, and I’m used to adapting to different naming conventions, delivery formats and loudness targets so I can slot into an existing pipeline quickly.

Implementation

You can create powerful experiences by programming responsive, dynamic audio systems. It's what attracted me to game audio in the first place!
👀 Implementation Reel:

👨🏼‍💻 || If you prefer to read code, check these out:
AudioSourceController: a small script that extends Unity's audio source.
FMOD Scripts: a growing collection of custom scripts for the middleware FMOD.
XQ Sound Control: a Unity Editor plugin for queuing audio actions.

🕵🏼‍♀️ && Discover more breakdowns and write-ups by using the buttons below.
(ps. I wrote the js/css for this bit!)

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Scripting Music Callbacks (🗣)
Unity, FMOD, Music

Seting up a callback system to control rhythm indicators in Unity from a music track in FMOD.

Resonant Footsteps, Ball Rolling (🗣)
Unreal Engine, Wwise, Blueprint

Fine-tuning footsteps by the resonance of the surface stepped on, and creating convincing rolling sounds.

Procedural Fire (🗣)
Unreal Engine

Run-time generation of fire crackling with UE5's MetaSounds, featuring a mix of generative audio and processing samples.

Dash (🗣)
Unity, FMOD

The pipeline for implementing the sound of the main character's dash ability from Left Behind.

Quantised Transitions (🗣)
Unreal Engine, Music, Quartz

Using theQuartz subsystem in Unreal Engine to create quantised transitions between musical segments.

Audio Source Controller (🗣)
Unity, C#

An overview of a standalone script to extend native Unity's audio source functions with playback of multiple clips, adjustable fades, looping that avoids repetition, and callbacks.

Dialogue System (🗣)
Unity, C#

A breakdown of the dialogue system created for a pet simulator game which allows for quick allocation, prototyping and management of dialogue lines.

'XQ Sound Control' (🗣)
Unity Custom Editor, C#

A custom Unity Inspector plugin that allows for precise control of sound playback without scripting, originally created for a digital theatre piece.

Weapon Fire Implementation (💬)
Unreal Engine, Weapons, Quartz

Setting up a Sound Cue to handle sample variation, and using the Quartz subsystem to handle high rates of fire, independent of frame rate changes.

Interactive Music, Ball Rolling (💬)
Unity, Wwise

Linking gameplay parameters to Wwise RTPCS to control ball rolling and impact sounds, and using the Interactive Music Hierarchy to create smooth musical transitions between musical segments and stems from game hooks.

Rhythm Game Breakdown (✍🏼)
Unity, FMOD, Music

This blog post breaks down how I optimised the pipeline for sending and receiving musical information for a rhythm game.

[num] (✍🏼)
Web Audio, Procedural

[num] is an interactive found sound radio that you can play in a browser. This post breaks down how I used regular old Javascript to create the interface.

Audio Drop Areas (✍🏼)
Unity, Environmental, Soundscape

This blog post details how procedurally spawning ambience stems within a defined area can help boost both workflow and player immersion.
Like what you hear? Get in touch to discuss how I can help make your game sound how it deserves to sound.

Games


Some of the great projects I've worked on throughout my game audio journey!
CV
(c)2022, All Rights Reserved Xavier Velastin unless explicitly stated.