David Murrant

Sony PlayStation's David Murrant uses Sound Forge to bring some of the video game world's hottest titles to life

If you own a Sony^® PlayStation^® system, chances are you've experienced sounds that David Murrant and his team have created and edited in Sound Forge^® software. Here, Murrant discusses the ways in which Sound Forge software has shaped his creative process, and the reason why professionals in the sound and video world shouldn't be so Mac-centric.

Sony Creative Software: What position do you hold over at Sony PlayStation?

David Murrant: I'm the sound design manager, which means I look after post-production, dialogue, and sound design for all the projects.

SMS: How specifically does Sound Forge fit into your workflow?

DM: We use it in our day to day processing of data. We start doing sound design on the Mac^® side with Pro Tools^® software, and then we bring it over to Sound Forge software to manipulate, process, and add effects to sounds before we do final cuts and drop them into the games.

SMS: What can you not do in Pro Tools that makes Sound Forge such a necessary piece of equipment for you and your team?

DM: Two things. A lot of our altering is done on the PC side, so having a great two-track editor like Sound Forge software makes it easier for us to open up the sound file and do our edits to it. Then we can re-export and get it back in. Pro Tools is a great tool, but when we just need a good two-track editor, Sound Forge is the best.

SMS: How long have you been using Sound Forge professionally?

DM: All the way back to version 4, I think.

SMS: How has the product changed to improve your work flow?

DM: Version 4.5, which was kind of an industry standard in my mind, gave you the ability to use DirectX^® plug-ins. Now in version 8, having the ability to use professional, high-end audio plug-ins in a two-track editor has been great. The batch editor has also been stellar as well. Having the ability to queue up all your effects, and drag-and-drop in a whole folder's worth of data and process it is great.

SMS: What are some of the video game titles that you've used Sound Forge on?

DM: I've used it on over 100 titles. Most recently, we've used it on PlayStation titles like SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALS I, II, and 3, God Of War, Rise To Honor and Syphon-Filter: The Omega Strain.

SMS: A lot of people in the film world have this misconception that everything has to be done on Macs; that this is the only relevant platform for their job. What would you say to those people?

DM: That's a big question. For me, Pro Tools software is an industry standard for film and for video games in creating multi-track post-production, editing and sound design. But ultimately, I've not found a better two-track editor than Sound Forge software, and I've used all of the two-track editors out there. I think the power of the PC is great and getting stronger. There are a lot of people moving over to other systems, and I think the PC is a very strong audio platform. I just think there's been a lot of resistance because you go into a studio and it's got Pro Tools. Everybody knows it. I think that, given the opportunity, the PC would totally take off. I don't think the Mac itself is reason to look at that platform and go, "Okay, that's the only one that does audio." I think the PC has a lot of untapped potential. I grew up doing music on Ataris then went to PC. I did a lot of my early sound design work with Cool Edit until I found Sound Forge, I don't know, 10 years ago. It's been my staple ever since.