Game Music & Sound Design
The soundtrack of “Ultimate Rivals: The Court doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it continues several trends present in 2021’s strongest game music releases – smashing game score debuts by established artists.”
-Simon Elchlepp, The Greatest Game Music
Experienced with middleware and team management, Megabloom Audio recently led music (in-game, marketing) and created the MA Sound Design Library for Ultimate Rivals: The Court. Premiering on Apple Arcade in July, 2021, it also led the game's music supervision and strategic partnerships.
A Game Sound Sampler
Credits for Overview Reel: Audio UX & Identity, Game Sound Design, & Music.
Keep scrolling for in-depth look at each project.
For Bit Fry Game Studios x Apple Arcade x NBA, WNBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, & USWNT: Ultimate Rivals: The Court (Original Game Soundtrack)
Lead Composer for In-Game, Marketing & Trailers • Sound Designer (Contracted) • Artist-in-Residence • Strategic Partnerships & A&R • Musical Identity & Supervision
Video Teaser for Ultimate Rivals: The Court (Original Game Soundtrack)
Worked closely with Arjun Rao (Director of Game Design), Jack Dalrymple (CMO), & Audio Lead Ryan Buckley (Bioshock, Chivalry Medieval Warfare, Lord of the Rings Online) to help make BXL Gotham’s breakout game a reality.
"What if NBA Jam were a fighting game? It’d be Ultimate Rivals” (Polygon), where Megan Rapinoe dunks on Lebron James.
The futurist sports title recruits Orange Milk Records’ Honnda (aka Amnon Freidlin of Megabloom Audio) to build its kinetic musical universe. Official Press Release via WFS Comms (download here).
Cross-pollinated disparate cultural forces resulting in the critically-acclaimed Ultimate Rivals: The Court (Original Game Soundtrack). Bridged the game’s existing partnerships (superstar athletes like Lebron James, Megan Rapinoe, and Wayne Gretsky; Apple Arcade; NBA and other leagues) with a bold music-world team of Orange Milk Records; music artists; WFS Comms PR Agency (UK); and Symphonic Distribution (US). Game Music Press coverage: NPR Music’s Viking’s Choice, Dummy Magazine Best New Music, IGN Japan, The Greatest Game Music, and a slew of best-of lists in the US, Japan, Slovenia, & UK.
For music-related endeavors: leads strategic partnerships, artistic curation, publicity, soundtrack release, recruitment, business terms, bespoke pitch deck visual design, and brand development supporting CEO. Project managed internal Legal, Marketing, Production, and Design departments with external vendors.
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Shaq doing an "Ultimate"
Music, Additional Sound Design by Honnda (aka Amnon Freidlin of Megabloom Audio).
Sound Design by Ryan Buckley
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Full Game Playthrough
Popular game streamer plays though UR:TC with its accompanying soundtrack.
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Praise for Ultimate Rivals: The Court (Original Game Soundtrack)
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Selected Playlist Coverage:
Ultimate Rivals: The Court (Original Game Soundtrack)
Selected Playlists: • Soul Feeder: Fav of 2021 • DUMMY MAGAZINE— NEXT HYPE: THE BEST NEW MUSIC • DUMMY MAGAZINE— ELECTRONICS • spencer with the bops 💫 • Hyperpop / Bubblegum Bass / PC Music • NPR Music: Viking’s Choice with Lars Gotrich. Current Playlist + Archive • Grindr: New Music Frigay • London in Stereo: Best New Music (Updated Weekly) • Hyperboloid Favorites • The Sound of Deconstructed Club
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Press Coverage:
Ultimate Rivals: The Court (Original Game Soundtrack)
Australia: GreatestGameMusic—Ultimate Rivals: The Court
United States: Exclusive Look Into Ultimate Rivals: The Court (Original Game Soundtrack) By Honnda • NPR Music: Viking’s Choice with Lars Gotrich (archived playlist here) • ACRN Album Review: Honnda – Ultimate Rivals: The Court
UK: Wordplay Magazine
Germany/Los Angeles/World: Circus Of Values – Video Game Music Special w/ Gora Sou on Dublab radio. A VG music special from Germany on the influential LA-based internet radio station. F. music by Disasterpiece, Oval, Lena Rain, composers of Ultimate Rivals: The Court, The Last of US, Celeste, Bioshock, Resident Evil etc
Japan: WARSZAWA Magazine • Douban.com • IGN Japan Web TV
Slovenia: Modem
Dai Burger, moistbreezy, and Honnda
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Ultimate Rivals: The Court (Original Game Soundtrack)
Music by Honnda. Guest Vocals by Dai Burger & Moistbreezy. Out on Orange Milk Records.
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Modular Aux Sound Design Library (MA Sound Design Library)
Sound by Megabloom Audio
Modular Aux Sound Design Library (MA Sound Design Library) in Context
Supporting Ultimate Rivals Audio Lead and Lead Sound Designer—Ryan Buckley (Bioshock, Chivalry Medieval Warfare, Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online)—Amnon Freidlin created an extensive “Modular Aux Sound Design Library (MA Sound Design Library),” which functions as both SFX and musical punctuations that adapt to the game score’s harmonically evolving music maps. This was the library that made up the game’s stinger system, which Freidlin designed with Buckley.
The stinger system’s MA Sound Design Library is comprised of sound logos, stingers, impacts, and interaction sounds (e.g. markers of “dunk” and “block” states for the user). Many of the SFX are rich in pitch-content which adapt respectively to the soundtrack’s harmonic blueprint to meld seamlessly with its key centers (see image below). Listen to a playlist of some of the highlights.
Heard in this video, above:
All music by Amnon Freidlin.
MA Sound Design Library (impacts, interaction sounds, stingers) by Amnon Freidlin at the following times:
Dunk at 00:12, Jump at 00:23, Dunks at 00:25, 00:34, 00:48, & 00:55
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Break the Mold Music Identity for Ultimate Rivals Game Universe
The game’s MA Sound Library and soundtrack are informed by the Break the Mold music identity, which Megabloom Audio designed for the UR universe—its key attributes are kinetic, cosmic, sinister, victorious, fun, and near-future.
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IGN Japan Game Music Web TV Review—Ultimate Rivals: The Court (Original Game Soundtrack)
Transated from Japanese to English. Original stream, with no English subtitles here.
Original & Arranged Music, Implementation
Paramount x Microsoft Partnership via MakeCode Arcade
Read about the new adventure game over at Medium.
Original Music, Implementation
Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Volume III x Microsoft Partnership
For MakeCode Arcade, as part of the collaborative STEAM education initiative.
Riffing on Chris Pratt's 90s/00s music shenanigans in GotG (and Zune plot points), we got to write and implement some music inspired by Paula Abdul, Timbaland, Britney Spears, & New Jack Swing.
You can these musical easter eggs in MakeCode Arcade's music player experience.
👉 Read about the STEAM initiative by Guardians of the Galaxy III, Microsoft, NASA, Redwire Space, International Space Station National Laboratory: Zune.net
👉 Read about it on Fast Company: https://lnkd.in/e6yiE6GA
👉 Read about MakeCode Arcade's music player activity.
👉 Experience MakeCode Arcade's Music player activity: aka.ms/ZunePrototype
Original Re-Sound & Re-Score:
Horizon Zero Dawn Trailer
All Sound Design/FX, Mix, & Music are fully reimagined by Megabloom Audio.
None of the launch trailer’s original audio is heard below. All music, wooshes, foley, ambiences, creatures, birds, impacts, and static sounds are new.
This isn’t a commission, but it’s a beloved game!
Re-Score Video Editing by Haoyan of America
Musically, the intro evokes D’Angelo-spliced chamber vocal ensembles and Disney-tinged Fourth World-nods. This transitions into a cyber-jurassic banger. Replete with caveman-bravado, it’s a modal re-imagination of early Swans through fantastical goggles.
My favorite sound design moments were glitching out and delaying some blown-out human vocals for the creature sounds (1:04). For the moment pictured here, rather than use a library explosion or impact sound, I compressed and distorted various layers of a tom being struck in an auditorium.
Many times when creatures can be heard, the soundtrack gets low-passed in sync to heighten the drama. Generous uses of the amazing doppler engine—Whoosh by TONSTURM—were leveraged to make moments feel more stretchy and dynamic.
Instrumentation: Processed voice, brass, bass clarinets, e. guitar, sub-bass, percussion, rawhide maracas/tambourines
Sound Design Tools: Processed original vocals, three-layer Doppler Engine (Whoosh by TONSTURM), sequenced based processor Sugar Bytes’ Looperator, processed llama & tropical bird sounds, and various libraries
Guardians of the Galaxy Game Reveal Trailer—
Original Re-Score & Re-Sound
All new music and sound design (un-released) below for the love of the sync,
save for the dialogue section in the last 4 seconds.
Musically, a twisty cosmic stadium anthem scores the trailer. To counterbalance the re-score’s braggadocio, the sound design is relatively subtle. It’s more about breathing life into the animation. The SFX are a no-frills, functional redesign that leverages something you feel rather than hear upfront.
The most fun sound design moment was probably Marvel’s logo motion design at the end. I wanted to seamlessly make that moment into an audio logo of its own, by automating multiple screen-synced parameters to blur the line between score, sfx, and sonic identity.
Original Re-Score & Re-Sound:
AO Tennis 2—Launch Trailer
Radically reimagined for fun, none of the original trailer’s audio is heard below.
All new sound design and music.
The sound is sourced from some audio engineering and kaleidoscopic sound design/music that Megabloom Audio did for a kinetic, interactive installation that Lacoste commissioned for its 80th Anniversary.
Original Re-Score & Re-Sound:
Solar Ash Gameplay Reveal Trailer
Enjoy this rethink of the trailer’s score with all new, original music.
Completely re-sound designed except for the last 2 seconds.
Additional Video Editing by John Gilbert
This musical idea was born from a fictional genre called “Batman Juke.” What would it sound like if the Dark Knight tried to write a Juke track?
The kind of voice leading, counterpoint, and shelled out triadic inversions usually found in Gotham-tinged string arrangements get leveraged by non-orchestral instruments; processed vocals, fuzzy synthetic bass-lines, and lush reverbs get side-chained by dance rhythms of the United States midwest.
The most fun and challenging moment sound design-wise was trying to punctuate Solar Ash’s mouth-watering surrealist imagery.
At the 16-second mark of the re-sounded trailer above, you see these other-worldly ascending bubbles in red scenery that I originally used my mouth to sound out (think of that middle school water-drop throat-flick trick). It was too organic-sounding, so I used Serum to synthesize that sound from the ground up (with some added distortion). Please reach out if you’d like the patch, pictured here.
Oceans to Woodlands—
Interactive Biophilic Sound & Visual
All sound design, original music, UI, and visual design by Amnon Freidlin (aka Megabloom Audio)
• 100% of the SFX were built via synthesis, recorded, or sourced and meticulously reimagined and crafted.
• Various aquatic sounds recorded on a SoundFish ASF-1 MKII hydrophone in Northeast United States, as well as other field recordings in Placencia, Belize, and Cozumel’s Mesoamerican Reef.
• Additional dolphin-like sounds made by sound designer’s vocalizations. These were layered with effected sea mammal and bird sounds.
• Suspended harmonies used to evoke the feeling of floating
• Processed vocals and sine wave glissandos evoke sea creature and siren-like calls, in addition to being used as synth pads.
• Libraries used: Everyday Foley Volume I, BBC Nature Sound Effects Library, Pacific Northwest. and Waves Wind Water, Travel Essentials Drum Collection
Sound, non-linear composition, UI, and interaction design inspired by city life and the refuge found in nature. The work explores the ability to toggle between sonic environments (Oceanic vs Woodlands) and sonic functions (sound design and music). Channeling immersive, wellness and meditative energy, it draws from eco and ambient-inspired genres.
Gaming-Adjacent Work:
Lexus x Barneys—Music & Sound Design For An Arctic Racing Anime
Visuals by Invisible Light Network | Audio by Amnon Freidlin (a.k.a. Honnda)
Gaming-Adjacent Work:
Commissioned by Listen (Audio Branding Agency)
Faraday Future: Autonomous Car User Interface Sound Design Exploration
Under The Direction Of Listen’s Kurt Feldman, Lead Sound Designer & Composer
Please reach out for more details.
Gaming-Adjacent Work:
• UI Sounds (00:00-00:12)
• Audio Logos (00:12-00:24)
• Game Trailer Sound & Music (00:24-00:41)
• Audio Logos (00:41-00:54)
• Live Action Spot Audio + Gaming Visual
(00:54-01:24)
Detailed credits here.
Sound & Music by Megabloom Audio
