Blue Sky User Profile: Gregory Allen & Apparatic | abluesky.com
May 7, 2009
By Diane Gershuny:
Award-Winning Gaming Audio Guru Gregory Allen Flies Solo To Create ‘Apparatic’ Audio Outsourcing Company. Allen’s Austin HQ Is First Facility To Test Drive Newest Blue Sky SAT 265 Speaker.
Pictured: Gregory Allen
When we last caught up with Gregory Allen, the game audio guru was overseeing a large audio team, as Senior Audio Director, at Electronic Arts’ downtown Chicago facility. There, he helped design and gear up nine production, mix and Foley rooms, all equipped with a range of Blue Sky systems. During his 5-year tenure at EA, Allen worked with project teams to create the sounds and audio mix for a slew of titles including the award-winning “Fight Night Round 3â€, along with games such as Def Jam Icon.
When the EA Chicago facility was shuttered, Allen moved on to Sony Online in San Diego to reprise the tasks he undertook in Chicago. As with EA Chicago, Allen focused his efforts on organizing the audio teams and upgrading the audio gear in studios located in San Diego and helping to upgrade the Austin, Seattle, and Los Angeles. Blue Sky 5.1 monitoring systems were again instrumental in his efforts to establish more uniform monitoring environments, so that mixes would translate properly between all of the audio people and that their quality would be consistent, so as to avoid the need to continually remix the audio. That year-long agreement culminated in projects including “EverQuestâ€, “EverQuest IIâ€, and “Free Realmsâ€, as well as the formation of a partnership with Sony PlayStation audio department. Also, during that time, he helped raise the awareness of audio for MMOs (online multiplayer games) to help bring it up to the high audio standards.
