Cord Worldwide taps PlayStation audio veteran Alastair Lindsay to converge gaming and music
Sonic branding agency Cord Worldwide has appointed Sony Interactive Entertainment's Alastair Lindsay as head of audio, leveraging the gaming veteran’s experience for brands and acknowledging the increasing hunger for interactive audio experiences.
Cord Worldwide composing the sound of BT
Lindsay will lean on his 26 years of experience for Cord’s clients across entertainment, media and gaming, including BT, Shell, Amazon, Jaguar, HSBC, Tesco and Lego.
He was first known for developing music for Tempest 2000 on the Atari Jaguar, then at Sony created many of the beloved tracks and sounds on first-party PlayStation games and trailers, this includes games such as The Getaway, SingStar, the EyeToy franchise, and more recently VR titles including VR Worlds.
He will oversee audio and music solutions for the creative agency, pooling talent that includes composers, producers, supervisors and musicians across the UK, Spain and Poland. “We can harness my music supervision, licensing and audio branding credentials, offering a full end-to-end service for all game developers and publishers,” Linsday said.
On how the industry has changed since he first programmed audio on the formative consoles, Lindsay said: “Mobile and digital have created a landscape where music is infinitely more discoverable. We’re no longer limited to recommendations from the record store or a fortnightly print issue: it's been blown wide open. And because of this we see this effect in gaming where consumers have found a song that's struck them in something they’ve played, or seen, and they’ve gone out and actively searched for that song or artist.
“Moreover, you now have consumers finding games because they’ve discovered the music first and want to check out more. It's a brilliant way for musicians and bands to find new audiences and, in fact, video games should be considered another discovery platform. Cord understands this, and wants to bridge that gap within the games industry between artists and consumers.”
Lindsay has witnessed a change in audio from programming tracks for 8-bit systems to the evolution to CD-Rom to the rise of the licensed track, most famously on PS1’s Wipeout. He will now do so for the Keywords Studios company.
“The expectation for high production values jumped and licensed music is still a core aspect for a lot of game audio today,” Lindsay said. Game audio is more in line with the film sound world now, he added.
Daniel Jackson, Cord chief executive, said: “Alastair’s extensive knowledge and expertise within interactive sound production and composition is second-to-none. I know he will work tirelessly with our external partners and clients to ensure our services portfolio continues to lead in quality and creativity.”