Toby Hulse

Ambition
To work for a forward-thinking company where I can contribute my experience and knowledge in all areas of audio with a focus on quality and innovation.

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Experience

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2023-2024

Counterplay Games

Audio Director

Creating the audio vision and executing it through alpha and beta production for a new AAA IP,

narrative-driven, action, shooter, rogue-like.

Audio tech pipeline and design: Worked with Wwise and Unreal and helped design and implement

the audio tech needs from guns, ambience / weather, anim tagging, impacts and footstep switching,

doppler and whiz by tech, music and mix triggering system.

Recruiting and audio team building. Audio team management and tasking.

Sound design and implementation (guns, enemies, abilities, ambience)

Music direction and music system design: designed, directed and integrated a deep multi-layered

music system the evolves and reacts to the gameplay with minimal repetition.

Dialogue system design and implementation. Designed the dialogue system and needs for our play

by play game VO. Mastered and integrated the content into Wwise and the dialogue tool in Unreal.

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2021-2022

Phoenix Labs

Audio Director

Audio Vision and Direction, Sound Design, Technical Sound Design and Musician for Nintendo’s upcoming farming sim game, Fae Farm. Worked closely with a small dev team to create and execute the audio vision. Designed and implemented all SFX. Designed the audio pipeline and music system. Worked closely with composer Cris Velasko to create an orchestral soundtrack and performed acoustic guitar, mandolin and lute.

Audio Vision and Direction, Sound Design, Technical Sound Design for an unannounced PVP shooter from incubation to pre-production. Worked closely with the team to create and prove out the audio vision. Created a fully flushed out auditory experience for the first vertical slice.
Engines and middleware tools used: Unreal 4 and 5, Wwise.

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2020-2022
Disney Mirrorverse - Kabam (contract)
Audio Direction, Lead Sound Design, Audio Tech Pipeline Design

Helped define the audio vision. Built and mentored the audio team to produce audio for 70+ characters, 6 environments and a deep UI experience. Audio implementation pipeline design using Fabric and Unity. Mixed and mastered the game for commercial release on iOS and Android.

 

2019-2022
Minecraft Legends - Blackbird Interactive (contract)
Audio Vision and Direction, Sound Design, Cinematics Audio Lead

Created the audio vision and pitch to win the contract for Lionshead Ent. Performed sound design for various areas of the game including boss characters and the ambience system. Audio Lead, Sound Design and Mix for over 30 in game cinematics in 5.1 surround. Designed and organized tracking and delivery systems and delegated and mentored sound design collaborators to ensure the vision and quality bar were met.

 

2019

Gears of War 5 - Microsoft /The Coalition (contract)

Music Implementation / Cinematics Localization and Mixing

Designed and implemented the music system using Unreal and Wwise. Mixed and mastered gameplay music. Cinematics localization and mixing for 52 scenes in 8 languages. Output in Dolby Atmos and 7.1 surround.

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2012-2018

Disney Games & Interactive Experiences

Audio Director / Senior Sound Designer / Music Composer

Audio Director from pre-production to release for mobile / desktop MMO, Club Penguin Island.

Audio Lead, Star Wars, Choose Your Destiny, Han & Chewie audiobook for Amazon Alexa

Audio Director, Star Wars Lego FPS (in prototype)

Audio Director, Wildlands (in prototype)

Audio Lead, Disney Jr. Appisodes

Audio Lead, Disney Interactive Internal Marketing

Audio Lead, Puffle Wild, Sled Racer, Sound Studio and other smaller mobile game apps.

Audio direction, design and rebranding the audio vision for online based MMO and mobile port of Club Penguin Classic.

Engines and middleware tools used: Unity, Wwise, Fabric.

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2011-2012
United Front Games: Sleeping Dogs

Cinematics Audio Designer / Editor / Mixer
Created film quality 5.1 surround audio for 180 cinematic scenes totaling over 2 hours of footage. Tasks included dialogue editing and recording, foley editing and recording, sfx design and editing, ambiance editing, music selection and editing, 5.1 mixing and in-game implementation using Wwise. Also worked on many in game assets including world ambiance, collisions, foley and various fighting sfx to ensure continuity between the cinematics and gameplay.

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2011

Electronic Arts: Need For Speed: The Run

Audio Artist
Designed and implemented all audio for the collision system including vehicle collisions all collidable objects. Specific sound design for various interactive moments including explosions, destruction debris and sfx emitters. Audio for moving props within the world including trains, helicopters, various airplanes. All in-game ambiance from city to forest to car garages.

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2010-2011
United Front Games: True Crime: Hong Kong Sound Designer

Designed and implemented the ambience system. Recreating the island of Hong Kong, there were plenty of environments to cover: the chaos of a busy night market, tropical jungles in the hills surrounding the city, busy dockyards, miles of the waterfront areas or inside a night club or restaurant. Other tasks included fighting SFX, impact sounds and foley as well as working on the user interface and mini- game audio. All implementation with Wwise.

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2009-2010
United Front Games: Modnation Racers Sound Designer

User Interface audio design. The game allows for limitless customization therefore the menu system is enormous. Also designed the player / CPU driver voices which entailed recording (in some cases my own voice), editing, processing and implementation. All implementation with Wwise.

 

Education

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2008

Diploma in Sound Design for Visual Media

Vancouver Film School, Vancouver, BC
Graduated with Honors. Scholarship winner.
Over an intense one year, program I have taken my audio skills to new levels. The course is focused mainly on post production for Film, TV and Video Games. Over the year I worked on 5 short films and 2 video games. I had many opportunities to work as an editor for dialogue, sound effects, foley, special effects, and background ambiences. I also mixed numerous projects in varying formats from Stereo, LtRt, LCRS and specialized in 5.1 Surround mixing.

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1996

Associate Degree of Science

Okanagan University College, Kelowna, BC

Major in Mathematics.

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1993

High School Diploma

Okanagan Mission Secondary, Kelowna, BC

Graduated with Honour Roll and Work Ethic Status. Fine Arts and Woodworking Outstanding Performance Awards.

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References

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Matteo Marsala

Chief Operating Officer

Counterplay Games

E. matteomarsala@counterplay.co

I had the pleasure of reporting to Matteo while working at Counterplay Games. He is a strong leader and an inspiration to work with. We collaborated on task management for the audio team and he was instrumental in helping me grow the audio team.

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Nicholas Gallant

Director, Creative

Disney Digital Experiences

E. nicholas.gallant@disney.com
Nick and I worked together at Disney for 3 years. First, we connected independently as we were both managing audio teams in different studios (Kelowna and LA). Late 2016, I had the pleasure of being moved under his central creative audio team and under his leadership. Nick is an extremely talented composer and is a wonderful leader and has taught me much about valuing employees, and building not only a team, but a family.

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Ben McCullough

Principal Sound Designer

Blackbird Interactive
E. benmccullough@hotmail.com
Ben hired and managed me as part of the audio team at United Front Games on the cart racer Modnation Racers for Sony. He has been in the industry for over two decades with dozens of titles under his belt and is now working with Blackbird Interactive in Vancouver.