APRIL 2025

Jason Kanter began his career in music production recording punk and metal bands in the New York metro area. While he has since provided a range of audio services for film and television, his primary focus for over two decades has been game audio.

Most recently, Jason has been working as a freelance audio director and sound designer, enabling him to contribute to a broader variety of projects. Before setting out on his own, he served as Audio Director at Avalanche Studios, where he led audio teams to deliver award-nominated soundtracks for Just Cause 3, Just Cause 4, and Contraband., currently in development for Microsoft.

Earlier in his career, Jason contributed to a number of notable titles, including BioShock 2, League of Legends, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, The Sims 2, Barbie Diaries: High School Mystery Game, and CrimeCraft.

Beyond his work in game audio, Jason is passionate about fostering community. In 2016, he co-founded NYC Game Audio (NYCGA), a monthly gathering for sound designers, composers, and game developers to share presentations, discuss sound for film and games, and network. The pandemic led to a pause in events, but NYCGA is set to return this year.

Read on to hear how we explore his creative process, industry insights, and the philosophies that drive his award-winning work…

MASA: We'd love to hear about your path to professional success, from building your skills to your first significant industry role.

JASON: Like many in the game audio space, my gateway to sound was music. Picking up the bass guitar and playing with bands in high school led to an interest in studying music and recording in college. I pursued a career in music production as a tracking and mixing engineer working for a recording studio that attracted punk and metal bands in the New York metro area. Over the course of my time making records I learned about music, production, licensing, and business in general.  

My career in music production took a sharp turn when I was offered the opportunity to edit dialogue for The Sims 2. After spending a year editing Simlish (constructed language for The Sims series) from my home office I realized that I kinda loved working on games. I started getting more involved in the game audio community and after attending my first GDC I knew this was the industry for me. 

MASA: Can you tell us about your role at Avalanche and what you’re currently working on?

JASON: At Avalanche I served as an audio director to the projects I worked on. I was responsible for getting involved with a project very early in the concepting stage to develop the audio vision for the game. This overview of what the title would sound like was based on the gameplay, narrative themes, and artistic style of the game. I’d work closely with other directors and leads to ensure that the audio vision not only defined the game’s soundtrack, but also elevated the overall gameplay experience. 

During pre-production I would create a budget for the overall cost of sound for the game including dialogue (actors, recording studios, voice directors, etc), sound effects (cinematics, SFX libraries, field recordings, foley, plug-ins, etc), music (composers, licensing, live recording, etc), and any technical needs (field recording gear, equipment upgrades, middleware licensing, etc). I’d also work closely with producers to determine staffing needs and an overall roadmap for the work to be done based on the project’s schedule and the schedule of the other disciplines we’d be collaborating with.

In addition to my project-based responsibilities, I also served as an audio craft lead - a department-based role that helped to mentor craft members and manage their careers within the company. 

I’ve been working freelance for the past 10 months which has given me the opportunity to work on a variety of exciting new projects including sound design for Cloud Busters, a short form animated series with a strong ethical message, and sound design for a new VR installation - Project DUSTOFF in the Medal of Honor Museum. 

As an audio director at Avalanche I rarely had the opportunity to create in-game content from scratch so I’m really excited to be working on these projects now.

MASA: How has your approach to game audio evolved from your early work on say “CrimeCraft: Bleedout”, to more recent projects?

JASON: I used to be very focused on the quality of the individual sounds I was creating or overseeing. “Is this explosion massive enough? What could I do to make this car engine sound cooler?” Over time I learned to step back in order to perceive the bigger picture of the sound. Now I ask questions like “is the sound serving the emotional weight of the scene?” or “what story are we telling through the sound here?”.

I think this is a natural evolution for sound designers and for me it was a lot like learning how to mix an album. Initially, the tendency is to focus on the specifics of individual sounds - “does the snare drum have enough bite?” or “is the guitar heavy enough?”. And this usually results in an inexperienced mixing engineer spending a lot of time with instruments soloed in order to hear them without “distraction” from the rest of the song. But over time you learn that the changes made to individual instruments affect the sound and perception of other instruments. Nothing exists in a vacuum and unless you’re listening to the entire mix you can’t know how the changes to one instrument are affecting the big picture. 

MASA: Yes! That analogy to mixing an album perfectly illustrates the importance of balancing detail with the full soundscape. Next question… looking back on your career, do you have a project that you are most proud of, and why?

JASON: I know it’s cliché but I really view my creative endeavors as children - you put so much love and hard work into them and it’s hard to pick a favorite. But in terms of my role and the overall work I did, I’d say that I’m most proud of Just Cause 4. For me it represents establishing myself within Avalanche and building, and then leading, a competent audio team that delivered a game we were all proud of.

MASA: That must have been such a rewarding experience. More about Just Cause… How do you approach creating a cohesive audio experience across different environments in open-world games like this?

JASON: This aspect of game audio is really one of the audio director’s biggest responsibilities and it reflects what I was saying about big picture perspective. With a team of multiple audio designers and technical audio designers you have a number of individuals all adding their own creative perspective. Without one person who is consciously maintaining a more zoomed out perspective on the game’s overall soundtrack, the tendency will be for the soundtrack to consist of a collection of sounds rather than sounds that complement each other to paint a larger picture.

So when reviewing sounds of individual designers, I’ll listen to them against other sounds both within the same category of sounds (weapons, magic, monsters, vehicles, etc) to ensure there’s cohesion within that category of sound but then also within the larger open world. It’s always important to ask “does this sound sound like it came from this world?”.  If not then it’s time to iterate.

MASA: This really demonstrates your attention to detail. Now on to techniques and solutions…Can you describe a particularly innovative audio technique or solution you've implemented in one of your game projects?

JASON: I’m not sure how innovative it was, but I was rather keen on the destruction system we developed for Just Cause 3. It’s based on the idea that there are major set pieces that the player is encouraged to destroy (bridges, massive satellite dishes, skyscraper-esque radio towers, etc) but the way in which they actually break apart is somewhat procedural. Triggering sounds made by collisions of the larger pieces was possible but there was so much debris that would fall in between and after the larger chunks. Triggering sound from that debris was incredibly expensive and unsatisfying but not having sonic representation for it left the experience feeling inauthentic. 

So we developed a secondary system that would consider the material that was being destroyed and would play appropriate debris impact sounds based on that material. The system would scale the sound based on the amount of debris and would spread the sound out based on the areas of debris impact and the location of the player - so if the player were standing 40 meters from a bridge collapsing, the sound would be coming from one narrow-ish point in front of them. But if they were standing 10 meters from the same collapse they would hear the sound spread out all around them.

MASA: That solution sounds like it added a lot of realism without overwhelming system resources. Another question…how do you stay updated with the latest advancements in audio technology?

JASON: I keep tabs on new features of whatever engine is being used in whatever game I’m working on, but generally speaking I don’t follow new audio tech for the sake of maintaining tech awareness. When I need a new audio feature in a game and I’m not sure how to support it, I’ll start investigating to see what tech is available or how other games have solved this problem. 

I know some designers and directors who stay on the cutting edge of tech and sometimes they’ll look for reasons to utilize a really cool new tech feature that’s just come out. But my philosophy is to utilize tech to solve the creative problems I’m having. 

MASA: It’s refreshing to hear how you prioritize creative needs over chasing the latest trends. And lastly, what will you be looking for when judging? What makes a piece of work worthy of a Music+Sound Award?

JASON: First thing I look / listen for is representation of a comprehensive vision for the game’s soundtrack. I ask questions like what’s this game about? What stylistic tone are they trying to strike? Then I try to identify the sonic pillars of the game. Is it a sci-fi FPS? Maybe the pillars are weapon and alien monster sounds. If it’s a card game then maybe the pillars will be UI, magic sounds, and interactive music.

So I try to let the game inform me about what they were trying to achieve with their soundtrack and then I assess the important relevant pieces that make up the whole to see how well they did. 

MASA: Thank you, Jason, for generously sharing your time and insights with us. We also greatly appreciate your dedication and expertise as a judge for the Music+Sound Awards, helping to recognize and celebrate outstanding achievements in the industry!