Sound Design
I’m Dave, the other half of Bear Hill Studios. I’ve been working as a creative, technologist, producer and interactive designer for nearly 30 years.
I co-founded digital agency Lean Mean Fighting Machine in 2004 which we later sold to M&C Saatchi. Since then I’ve developed products, produced audio, created brand identities, developed XR and UX even done some illustration.
I think there is a continuous line between sound, music, interaction and animation. So much is about judging timing, weight, flow, space, surprise and balance.
For years I have worked with audio, from making daft tapes as a kid, to making, playing and recording music to the sound design of interactive work, advertising and now audiobooks.
Melody VR Demo Reel
I spent a couple of years specialising in Virtual Reality at Rescape Innovation.
I was Product Director and designer for Melody VR, a wellbeing experience made in conjunction with Cardiff University that used music (supplied by Universal Music) in VR to reduce anxiety.
A full alpha product has recently completed large clinical trial and has yielded extremely good results.
A common theme in my career has been immersion. Whether its in animation, a technology like VR or telling stories, it all comes from the same sense of suspending reality.
Developing the interface and art direction to Melody meant complimenting the audio and the visual experience with next to no learning curve allowed.
Working on the UX and sound together got really good results, which were reflected by the data showing genuine effectiveness in reducing anxiety and improving wellbeing.
Some of the team at Rescape have reformed as Important Small Things. Bear Hill Studios recently produced the voice over for their latest product Catmasonic.
In general our experience with interactive, and knowing how important it is to understand exactly what a developer needs puts us in a great place to design sound for games, XR and anything digital.