Managing the entire end to end process of the Sesame Street video game title “Ready Set Grover” was an immensely rewarding challenge.  We started with a style guide from Sesame Street HQ about what the music and audio were supposed to be, a budget, and I was set loose.

The first thing I did was hire a composer who had done lots of great work for the studio I was at (Griptonite) in the past per my colleagues firm recommendation.  Unfortunately, he did not pan out for this title, and after spending a bit of time and money working with him, I knew we had to pivot quickly.  At this point I hired the Seattle area composer Nathaniel Padapkis to do the music score, which required all parts to be actually recorded live instruments in the classic “easy going jazz” style of SS.  

The sound design itself was actually pretty straight ahead and required few revisions… however balancing it with the dialouge needs from Sesame became quite challenging in the mix phase.  One sound that was required to be playing constantly was Elmo’s laugh.  Since a certain number of laughs per minute were required to ship the game, it was at times challenging to get this sound to play enough to meet the requirements from SS, while not competing with the dialogue.  

In the end, a careful mix of all in game audio assets evolved which allowed the music, dialogue, and sound effects to each shine, producing a fun title that kids are still enyoing and learning from today.