Company Spotlight: Meet the Audio Team!

Say hello to our awesome Audio Team—they’re the folks making sure our games and comics sound as good as they look. Whether it’s crafting atmospheric soundscapes, making realistic sound effects, or laying down badass music tracks, they’re the reason every moment hits just right!👌

• Please introduce yourself and your role on the Audio team
  • I’m Wolf, the Lead Audio Designer and Audio Manager for the Audio team. In this role, I oversee creative direction, manage team workflows, and ensure our audio aligns with project visions. Outside of work, I love spending time with my friends, family, and my cat, Morris.
  • Nicholai Minion, Audio Designer.  I compose music and sound design, SFX and dialogue editing.
  • Hi!!! I am Garrett Bettersworth! The Voice Over Director as well as a Voice actor here at DWA!!!
• What excites you the most about being part of the Audio Team at Dusk Wave Arts?
  • Wolf: It’s incredibly exciting to collaborate with such talented and creative individuals who actively share ideas and solutions to fulfill the company’s goals. The team’s passion for innovation and mutual respect makes every project rewarding.
  • Nicholai: What excite me the most is working on IP’s or intellectual property ideas of people and contributing my own ideas as well.
  • Garrett: What excites me the most is getting to work with people all over the world on fun, new, exciting projects!!
• Can you walk us through the Team’s creative process in developing audio needs for DWA titles?
  • Wolf: Absolutely! Our process isn’t just about creating audio in a vacuum. We start by dissecting stakeholders’ vision and intent for the project to understand the IP’s core identity. From there, we establish “Pillars”—a set of guiding principles for the audio—which allows us to channel our creativity into achieving that vision cohesively.
  • Nicholai:
    • Music: My first goal is always to capture the right feeling for a specific scene or concept. Once I’ve found that emotional core, I build the music around it so it fits naturally where it’s needed. I usually begin with the chord progression, since chords carry their own stories and emotional weight. They help shape the atmosphere and support the ideas or narratives being told.
    • Sound Effects: The same principle applies—the tone and texture of the sound should match the moment. It needs to blend into the scene in a way that feels right emotionally.
    • My Process: I don’t approach things with logic or structure right away. I prefer to start in a more abstract, artistic space—letting creativity flow freely. This helps me stay honest and authentic in my expression, which is what art is really about for me. Once that raw expression is there, I begin to shape it with structure and logic, so others can also find a way to understand and connect with the art on their own terms. I started with the chord progression to fit the music, as of chord progression itself has stories and feeling that can fit the ideas and other stories people tell. For Sound Effect is same process the tone should match where it needed.
  • Garrett: On my end, once we get requests from our Narrative Team, I’m responsible for making what we call BREAKDOWNS: which is a fancy world for auditions! Once I have those, I facilitate casting and then I work with our actors to get the performances we want for our products!!
• How do you approach blending music, voice over, sound effects, and/or foley in a project? What role does your team play in that?
  • Wolf: Intent remains our guiding principle. Blending these elements is part of our meticulous mixing process, which varies by medium. For example, in Comics Immersion (CI), voices must cut through other audio due to the platform’s structure. In games, clarity for dialogue is prioritized while maintaining ambient immersion. Our team ensures the aural landscape complements the writers’ and artists’ vision, balancing technical precision with creativity.
  • Nicholai: One of my main strengths is being able to set my ego aside to serve the bigger picture. When working with music, sound effects, and voiceovers, it’s important to know how to blend these elements without letting them clash. Not everything needs to shine at the same time—sometimes one element needs to take the spotlight. The key is being able to recognize what’s most important in a specific scene, moment, or context, and supporting that choice with the right sound.
  • Garrett: We work to try and combine all of our creative input! With so many projects, its important we stay organized. So its great having a leader like Wolf and a wonderful co-worker like Nicholai to back me up as I handle the hundreds of voice over files and still work to go through each one in order to find what we need to tell our story.
• What’s a recent project you worked on, and how did your team’s collaboration impacted the output?
  • Wolf: The upcoming SITP Mixtapes project has been a highlight. It allowed me to flex my songwriting and lyrical skills—something I don’t often get to do in my managerial role. Collaborating with Nicholai Minion on compositions and sharing nostalgic 90s/2000s references has been exhilarating. The team’s feedback and iterative process elevated the tracks, ensuring they resonate emotionally and stylistically.
  • Nicholai: Stuck In The Present, Jewel Knights, Forged of Fate Collaboration is essential to creating a successful product. It involves knowing when to step in, when to step back, and being open to giving or receiving feedback. Communicating clearly—especially when something isn’t working or when it is—is key. Constructive comments and validation should always be welcomed and considered as part of the process.
  • Garrett: For me, all of our projects wouldn’t be possible without the team’s input and keeping each other accountable. Audio is an important component of everything we do! And with so many projects out and upcoming it’s important we work together to stay on schedule and help each other out when our plates get full. Everyday is a collaboration for us constantly being impacted and elevated by one another.
• Are there particular moments in this recent project, shaped by team input, that you’re especially proud of?
  • Wolf: Yes! I contributed vocals to some tracks—a decision encouraged by the team. Their trust in my versatility pushed me to step outside my usual functions, and the result added a personal touch to the project. 😀
  • Nicholai: At the moment, I’m proud of every IP I’ve worked on. Each one, like Stuck In The Present and Jewel Knights, brings a unique genre and world, and it’s exciting to see how the Audio Team can adapt and deliver different styles of music, sound effects, and voiceovers to match. It feels like stepping into entirely different worlds—each one a puzzle, and our job is to find the perfect pieces to bring it all together.
  • Garrett: I’m especially proud of what we have done with Jewel Knights. As an actor myself, I love being able to give back to that community. In the case of Jewel Knights, we decided to cast accurately to the age of the characters which is very RARE! Its super gratifying to me that we are able to give young actors new and exciting opportunities.
• What advice would you give to aspiring audio designers, especially about teamwork?
  • Wolf: Never stop learning! New tools, techniques, and workflows emerge constantly. But equally important: embrace collaboration. Teamwork means listening, adapting, and valuing diverse perspectives. Success in audio design hinges on how well you integrate your creativity with others’ visions.
  • Nicholai: Learn to wear different hats. Learn where to shine and to support. Technical skill is secondary for me.
  • Garrett: Be open to collaboration and criticism. You can’t create art in a box, everything is a collaboration!
• In one sentence, how would you sum up what makes your work, and the Audio Team’s work, at Dusk Wave Arts special?
  • Wolf: This is what I was born to do!
  • Nicholai: You can feel it.
  • Garrett: The camaraderie and teamwork to tell stories. Everyone loves to be here and is passionate about the work.
• In your time at DWA, what’s your favorite story so far? 
  • Wolf: Once, I created a parody of public service announcements (PSAs) as a quick audio exercise. The team found it hilarious, and it became an inside joke—proof that even small creative risks can foster camaraderie and joy.
  • Nicholai: One of my favorite things so far is that our CEO is also a creative and actively joins our meetings and creative processes—not just as a leader, but as a collaborator, like a fellow teammate.
  • Garrett: Not a Story Yet!! But a hope!! I am the only one in the audio team that is form the US! So I hope to one day tell the fantastic story of finally getting to meet everyone i have grown so close to on the audio team.

Sound design is challenging work, but these guys make it look (and sound) easy—and we appreciate the heck out of them for it. Thank you for letting us in your world, Audio Team!