Sanctus Audio Interview
Director of Content and Co-Founder of Dash Studio, Mack Garrison interviews the talented team from Sanctus Audio, exploring their origins, creative processes, and the evolving landscape of sound design. The discussion delves into how they translate client feedback into sound, the exciting projects they are currently working on, and their thoughts on the future of sound design, including the impact of AI tools. They also share insights on their upcoming workshops at the Dash Bash, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and knowledge sharing in the creative industry.
Takeaways
Sanctus Audio originated from the motion graphics community.
Creative collaboration is key to successful projects.
Translating client feedback into sound requires understanding their vision.
The future of sound design is influenced by AI and new tools.
Building a shared language with clients enhances communication.
Long-term partnerships lead to better understanding and results.
Sound design is about storytelling and achieving specific feelings.
Innovative tools can streamline the audio production process.
Workshops can empower creatives to explore sound design.
The landscape of sound design is constantly evolving.
Chapters
00:00 The Origins of Sanctus Audio
04:33 Creative Collaboration and Unique Projects
12:56 Navigating Client Communication in Sound Design
20:01 Future Trends in Sound Design
23:07 Workshops and Community Engagement
24:22 A New Chapter for Sanctus
Transcript:
Mack Garrison (00:00)
Hey, what's up Dash Bashers? Mack Garrison here, co-founder, director of content at Dash Studio, and we've got another exciting interview today. In fact, this might actually be our last one of the speaker interview series. Last but not least, surely, because I'm here with the talented folks at Sanctus Audio. Sanctus Audio, if you don't know, is a sound and motion design studio that loves to partner with creative people to make their great work even better with thoughtfully designed audio. And I can't think of two more thoughtful guys than Trevor Richardson,
Wes Slover, so glad to have you both and hanging out with me today.
Wesley (00:34)
Thanks, Mack.
Trevor Richardson (00:35)
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Mack Garrison (00:36)
I know, I feel like there's always this pressure on a podcast we were just talking about a second ago is like talking to these audio guys. I gotta make sure all the setups good, everything's running smoothly, but maybe a good place to start and why you guys can make things run so smoothly. Cause you've had so much experience in the audio space for so long. Maybe we could talk a little bit about the origin story. You how did Sanctus start? How did you all come together?
Maybe Wes, I'll start with you and then Trevor you can tell me how you kind of came into the fold.
Wesley (01:08)
Yeah, that sounds good. ⁓ Yeah, so I grew up as like a band geek playing trumpet, but realized like as I was kind of finishing high school, like what I want to do with my life. Like I didn't really want to be a music performer, but I really loved sound and I kind of realized like, I like recording stuff. I like making things with sound to maybe more than like performing. So I thought I'm going to go be a record producer. This was like after 2005 record industry was like taking a nosedive and was kind of
Mack Garrison (01:36)
You're like perfect time
for me to get in.
Wesley (01:37)
Yeah, I kind of distraught
Trevor Richardson (01:38)
you
Wesley (01:38)
to find out that like that's not a stable job anymore. But you know, it's cool. I feel like a lot of creative people kind of end up with these things. They start somewhere and then it leads them somewhere else. yeah, realizing that I just sound was really cool and that really anything that made a sound, you know, it was created like somebody had to make that sound. Somebody had to make decisions about it. So.
Mack Garrison (01:44)
Yeah, you're like, no.
Wesley (02:06)
kind of long story short, discovered sound design and things like that. Was kind of looking for some connection to any kind of industry. And a buddy introduced me to Jordan Scott, who's an animator and invited me to help out on a project for his wife's baking blog. And I did at the time didn't know what motion graphics was. This was like 2011, something like that. And
Mack Garrison (02:33)
Sure. Yeah.
Wesley (02:35)
did that piece and I had, it was just kind of this like epiphany of like, oh, this is like the thing that kind of encapsulates all this different stuff I like about sound and music and, and, and everything. And through that realize, oh, there's this whole community of people on Vimeo has started getting connected more with that community. so Sanctus Audio is really born out of the motion graphics community. Um, and so we started out really just serving like freelance motion designers and, um, motion studios and that sort of thing.
⁓ Over time we've grown to do more things, but I don't know. think it's kind cool being rooted with motion graphics because motion designers work on so many different things. I feel like it's kind of like this Swiss army knife of media production maybe or...
Mack Garrison (03:11)
Yeah.
You're in like this
sandbox and you're just like tinkering around with all sorts of doodads and stuff. And especially as like the new doodads come out, it's like, all right, well, we got to figure out what sound, what does this sound like? You know, I love that.
Wesley (03:34)
Yeah, ⁓
there's so many tools that a motion designer might use, whether it's typography or animation in motion, 3D, 2D. It could be motion for a product, like a UX design kind of motion graphics, or it could be something that's really flashy for a product demo, or it could be titles for something. All of that stuff is part of motion design.
Yeah, we sort of found ourselves in this really cool spot where it was like, OK, we know these motion designers, they're bringing us in for projects. And we got to do a whole lot of different things I wouldn't have expected, like installations and video games and these kinds of things. ⁓
Mack Garrison (04:15)
That's so rad and Trevor
I want to come back to your introduction how you got involved but this is so apropos to that conversation I just have to ask what's the weirdest thing you've had to score Wes is there like something that sticks out to you is like I I don't know what to do for this let me figure this out but does anything stick out in your memory
Wesley (04:33)
⁓ the thing that came to mind, ⁓ was karate condom.
Trevor Richardson (04:38)
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Wesley (04:40)
It was like a, was like a, it was a PSA about cartoon penises that was like like a Kung Fu like training montage.
Mack Garrison (04:41)
gotta explain. Sick, karate condom, nice.
Gosh, Doodling you I think of like super bad. You're like, what am I gonna sound score for this?
Wesley (04:59)
Yeah, so that one was wild.
Mack Garrison (05:03)
That's super funny. All right, Trevor, that's a good segue. How did you get involved with a Sanctus Audio?
Trevor Richardson (05:08)
Yeah, totally.
Wesley (05:09)
Fortunately it wasn't that project, I didn't reach out to him as a... Hey stranger!
Mack Garrison (05:12)
Yeah, like,
Trevor Richardson (05:12)
Yeah, that would have
been a weird first taste.
Mack Garrison (05:14)
hey, Trevor, my name's Wes. Would love to work with collaborate with you sometime. Here's your first project. I swear we're not super strange or weird.
Trevor Richardson (05:23)
Yeah, no, luckily it was a much better introduction. ⁓ I had gone to school with radio engineering ⁓ and yeah.
Wesley (05:29)
Now hang on a second. I wouldn't
say, well, because that project ruled.
Trevor Richardson (05:34)
You're right. You're
Mack Garrison (05:36)
That had to be a bad ass project, 100%.
Trevor Richardson (05:40)
was Yeah, I had been went to school in Nashville and had worked a lot in studios assisting different engineers doing different projects freelancing a ton and then I moved out to Seattle and ⁓ Met a mutual friend of Wes's that kind of connected us And I had done a little bit of like explainer video sound design some small post-production stuff But I didn't know the the breadth of the motion graphics world
And so I started working with Wes, he brought me on with just a couple projects and that quickly turned into working on everything and that was more than eight years ago that we started working together. So yeah, it's been a fun journey and it's been really awesome to like dive into this unique world.
Mack Garrison (06:24)
The dream team, you you kind of find yourself in a situation where like certain folks you just kind of jive with and work really well. I feel lucky to have my business partner, Corey, because we're the same way. And I think if you all kind of the same, the same way where like you're in the same zone, sometimes you're thinking of stuff and you're probably thinking about it the same way. That's a nice, really great relationship to have when it comes to work.
Wesley (06:46)
Yeah, Trevor was on vacation last week and it was weird.
Mack Garrison (06:50)
Where are you?
Trevor Richardson (06:52)
For sure, yeah, it's really nice having that sort of long-term partnership where there's a lot that we just kind of know about how each other works and how to work together and we don't have to over explain things and we know how to like fill in the gaps of each other's strong suits and all that sort of thing. It makes a lot of stuff way easier than it would be otherwise.
Mack Garrison (07:11)
You know, sound is so interesting to me because like it is probably, know, everyone's so familiar with it. Everyone has some sort of relationship with music or sound, whatever. And then when it comes to trying to articulate from a design perspective on what they want something to sound like, how we all just stumble over ourselves trying to say like what we want from a music side of things. It's like, I love music. I know all these different things. But then when it comes to describing, it's like, can you know, classic client line, can you make it more happy or more bubbly?
You know, how do you all feel like you've just improved as translators over the years? Because I've been lucky enough to work with both of you all and you all are magicians when it comes to taking client feedback that may sound very rudimentary and being like, ⁓ they're actually talking about X, Y and Z or I can translate that. You know, how do you feel like that's evolved over the years or what are some of the tips and tricks you all go to to really try to pull out the right direction when you're working on a project?
Wesley (08:10)
Yeah, I mean, think the thing that helps is when you're talking about music to not talk about music. So because it's like one thing if I'm speaking with another composer, but even still, a lot of times it's difficult to really communicate within our own discipline about a sound or ⁓ how a piece of music should sound.
Mack Garrison (08:16)
Mmm.
Wesley (08:39)
And then I think it's also, that can be a lot of pressure for a client. So we'll have like, you know, directors who are these amazing creative professionals who are like, well, I don't really know much about music. Right. When it's like, that's fine. That's actually great. Like we don't need to worry about that, but like, what are we trying to do? What are we trying to accomplish with this piece? That's kind of what we start with because we're designers, right? So we're usually trying to achieve something. And then it's, it's like, okay, well we, we can figure out what the style is and we can figure out the chords and the melody and stuff. But like, really we need to
First we say, how do you want it to feel? What is the story we're telling? Just really trying to break it down on a more storytelling or objective-based level. And then we can take that and we can go, OK, we want it to feel energetic. Well, here's a bunch of tools in my toolbox that I can use to make it energetic. So if somebody comes to me and they say, it needs to have fast drums. And it's like, well, you know.
Mack Garrison (09:21)
Hmm.
Wesley (09:36)
Sure, we could do fast drums, but like, you just want it to feel energetic. Well, maybe that's not the way to make it energetic. It's a way to do it. But if you tell me do fast drums, then I have to do fast drums. And then all of a sudden, I have a lot less design choices, if that makes sense. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (09:52)
yeah, you're like boxed into a certain direction
versus like if you're getting into it with more adjectives and kind of the vibe and what you're trying to feel here and certain points and like maybe like, you know, so we have this crescendo moment. We know we need something big, but I don't know what that means, but you all do. You're like, okay, cool. Here are the tools in my toolbox to help play around with this and try some different things.
Wesley (10:12)
Yeah, you have anything to add to that, Trevor?
Trevor Richardson (10:14)
Yeah, I mean, think that's a huge piece of it. And I think another piece is really building that language with the client or the collaborator you're working with on. think that's something we've liked about longer term branding projects and things like that is that you kind of start with these heady concepts and then you have to work with someone to then define how to talk about sound in those concepts and what sounds relate, how they relate to that. Because I think in general the English language isn't
well built to communicate precisely about sound. It's just, you don't know, most people don't have the vocabulary and even the vocabulary that we do have is pretty subjective and hard to interpret. And so I think a lot of it is like building that language with people so that, you know, when someone says they want something brighter or happier or, you know, any of the adjectives that you could use, you start to align about what that means to them. And a lot of times those long-term partnerships, you kind of get to understand that and then you really can.
have clarity when using abstract words.
Mack Garrison (11:14)
Guys, there's so much truth to that statement. think regardless of what field of design you're in is that we are constantly working in a subjective territory, trying to make it as objective as possible, which naturally just yields some wild outcomes, right? I mean, like that's why you've had, you have hard projects, you have easier projects, you have things that you think you know, and then it ends up becoming something totally different because at the end of the day, you're trying to make things as objective as you can, but all of us,
is are just trying to work through it with our own personal feelings and what we think could work well, which is really interesting and goes back to what you were saying, Trevor, on the importance of those relationships. When you build something out for a longer period of time, that's where it gets a little bit easier to kind of get aligned. I know both of y'all have done immense amount of work and all sorts of different things from, you know, scoring something that's just a video to doing like bigger experiences, I'm sure, and all sorts of different pieces. Sort of a two-part question and I'll let either one of you jump in on this.
One, what are some of the projects that you're kind of working on this day and age that gets you really excited? Like what's the stuff that you're like, oh, I love doing these types of projects. And then a second question, which is a little bit more heady, but where do we feel like the future of sound is going? What you're liking working on now and what's the future of sound looking like?
Trevor Richardson (12:35)
Yeah, those are great. Those are great things. Wes, do you want to start or do want me to start on it?
Wesley (12:39)
Yeah, I mean, so we just got off a play test for a game that we've been working on for, I don't know what, two years almost now, Trevor? Yeah, it's called Undermine 2. It's a sequel to a game that we actually worked on, I don't know, shoot six, that launched like five years ago, something like that.
Trevor Richardson (12:46)
Yeah, just about.
Yeah, it's
been a while.
Wesley (12:56)
⁓ that project has been just an absolute joy. ⁓ cause one back when, you know, going back to my origin story, guess, or Sanctus origin story, originally I was like, I'm going to work in doing video game audio. And I just never really like got my foot in the door anywhere. ⁓ and then we got connected like quite a while ago with these game developers, indie game developers. And, and again, back to your point of like, we've built this relationship up with them over years of working together.
⁓ And it's just been like an absolute joy because we get to be you know, every week we play test with them We talked about the game. We play the game a lot, you know, we work on these systems. It's ⁓ you know, we get a lot of ⁓ one-on-one attention with the developer who's You know, we're trying we are problem-solving of like, okay. We want the sound to do this Like what is it on his side of the development that we can do to do that? What is it though in our tools that we can do? How do those things like fit together?
So it's kind of, creative problem solving in that. So that's been really a joy. And then it's also really exciting to make something that people are going to play. ⁓
Mack Garrison (14:03)
Yeah, that's so rad
to kind of see it out in the wild where just so many different people have entered.
Wesley (14:09)
Yeah, and it's extra exciting with this being a sequel and knowing that we have like, there's fans of people who are really excited about the games. Like the first time you put out an indie game, it's like, okay, what's gonna happen, you know? But now it's, yeah, you know, now we know there's a lot of people who are really excited and I don't know, I think it's a really great game. So I'm excited about that, both working on it and just feel proud to be part of it, but.
Mack Garrison (14:20)
Right, you're right. Great, we got five people who wanna play it, fantastic.
Trevor Richardson (14:24)
You
Mack Garrison (14:34)
I
love that. I feel like the gamification of a lot of things is trending upward. know, I mean, even in the creative space and the visual space, we're seeing that as well. We've been lucky to bid on a couple of game creation pieces, more assets versus like the back end side of it. But like, I think all of us for better or for worse are just attracted to just, you know, dopamine hits and video games has got tons of that stuff. So I think it makes sense that a lot of it's heading there. How about the future of stuff?
Trevor Richardson (14:57)
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (15:01)
And maybe this is a good question for you, Trevor, is like, as you're thinking about kind of like what's next, I know everyone in the visual space is trying to predict things with AI coming out, new tech, and it's like, where are we heading? Where do feel like the sound design industry is heading?
Trevor Richardson (15:15)
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know. It's really, it feels like it's pretty open-ended at this point. I feel like there's a lot of, you know, things are getting easier and more flexible and the ways you can design the tools are getting more easily usable, even just like Wes and I have been talking about this recently, like a lot of the audio repair tools that are kind of, you know,
large learning models and AI sort of based stuff have really improved the ability to revive poor recordings or to fix problems that we just... Yeah.
Wesley (15:50)
is stuff that was impossible 10 years ago, that you
Mack Garrison (15:53)
Wow.
Wesley (15:53)
would
just say to a client, like, sorry, we can't fix this. But now with these AI tools, it's it's black magic, man.
Mack Garrison (15:58)
That's crazy,
that's crazy. We're talking like a 10 year period, right? I mean, just how dramatic that shift is.
Trevor Richardson (16:02)
Yeah.
For sure. Yeah. And even in the past few years, like I feel like it's gotten better and better. And so I think that's great in some ways of like being able to, to salvage recordings that you couldn't salvage before and solve problems that would have been just nonstarts. And that side of thing, I think is really exciting. ⁓ But yeah, I think that there's going to be a lot of change regardless of
Workflows are changing, expectations will change. It's hard to know exactly what will be the most important role, but our kind of approach to it, I think, is that there will still need to be designers to figure out what to make. So no matter how it's made in the future, whether it's I get to stay in Pro Tools and cut sounds and record weird foley and all that sort of stuff, or whether the workflow changes in the future, we'll see. I don't really know.
Mack Garrison (16:45)
right?
Yeah, I would echo that same sentiment from our side. There's a lot of ambiguity about the future, but one of the things I've learned over the last 10 years is people need help navigating that ambiguity. So regardless of what you're in, there are people out there who are not tinkering and exploring in the sandbox, as we called it earlier, and that they need someone to help get them to that final destination, even if the tools that are helping you get there are changing and being different. You did make me think of a question, though, Trevor, just thinking about the audience that's gonna come.
So hopefully see y'all's workshop and be attending the bash and listening to this podcast. What is like the best new tool that you found? Like even if it's just an element of like pro tools or something, like what's something you're like, my gosh, I'm so glad this feature came out or this tool came out. The amount of times you use it or how it's been a lifesaver. I'm just curious for either one of y'all, if there's a tool that sticks out that you're just like, I love that X can do Y now.
Trevor Richardson (17:51)
Yeah, that's a great question. Hmm. Yeah, go for it.
Wesley (17:54)
I've got one that's kind of boring, but also I love it.
Mack Garrison (17:57)
Let's do the boring boring can be exciting though.
Wesley (17:58)
Yeah. So this is kind of what we're talking about with like, ⁓ audio cleanup tools is I've been using this plugin called DX revive, which is just like, it's just a voice plugin. ⁓ and I've been using it a lot on my podcast. ⁓ when I interviewed somebody, you know, it's remote. It's like, I have no control over what they have access to. You know, I don't want to create much of a burden for, you know, someone who's given their time to talk to me.
to record this, so I don't want to, you well, you need to get a better microphone. You need a better, you know, like that is like real hindrance to just the communication and the process. And even when, you we get on the phone, I'll like kind of help like, okay, let's like set you up like this. It's maybe a little bit better, but like, you don't want to spend too much time on those technical things. Cause then it just kind of like, it, it breaks some of the process. So anyway, this plugin, like it just, it makes someone's, ⁓ like a poor voice recording sounds so much better.
So a lot of times what I'll do is I'll just say like, do have an iPhone? Like just record voice memo for me. And it actually like, it sounds great. you put your phone on the table in front of you and record with that, and then I run it through this plugin, it really like cleans it up super nicely. Yeah.
Mack Garrison (19:07)
That's crazy. So
simple and you know it but it's a solve right? mean, it's just like a nice solve because you're right There is a flow of cadence you want to keep up You don't want to spend the first two ten minutes trying to work out technical details of a podcast. You got their time It's like let's jump in and roll with it.
Wesley (19:25)
Yeah, and it literally just has one knob. I have the version that's the most basic. It has one knob on it. It's like, much do you want this thing to have an impact on it? ⁓ But yeah, I like those kind of things. They make the process more streamlined.
Mack Garrison (19:40)
Well,
and speaking of process, and that's a good transition to, you know, y'all's workshop that you're gonna be leading at the Dash Bash this year. First year of workshops, you all are a guinea pigs. Thank you for willing to participate as part of it. We'll see how it goes. But yeah, you know, just thinking about what you all are gonna run through. I don't wanna give too much away, but maybe at a high level teaser for someone who's thinking about signing up for workshops. What do y'all hope to achieve in it this year at the Bash?
Wesley (20:05)
We'll just do DX Revive the whole time. I'll be like, OK, so if you turn it up a little bit...
Trevor Richardson (20:05)
Yeah.
Mack Garrison (20:08)
Yeah, that's right. That's it.
There you go. Look at that. Let's go get drinks, fellas. Ladies, let's do it.
Wesley (20:15)
Oh
man, your scratched video recordings will never sound better. Okay, I think Trevor, you were going to say something intelligent, so let's leave it to you.
Mack Garrison (20:19)
I love it, yeah, 100%.
Trevor Richardson (20:24)
Yeah,
I mean, I think that, you know, hopefully there are some practical things that we can, you know, help people with something that might they might have problems with, but also ⁓ expand some thinking about how to think about sound for motion animation and then get some like fun hands on practice recording sounds and thinking outside the box and and putting it all together in a way that might be unexpected. So I think it hopefully is a combination of having some fun, learning something practical and ⁓
and trying some new things.
Mack Garrison (20:55)
I think it's gonna be great. And I think, you know, one of the nice things about the workshop, whether it's y'alls or the stop motion workshop with Haley or projection mapping or going through some best practices for portfolio. I mean, just being more intentional with the whole process and all elements of what you do, you know, I think is creative. Sometimes we can silo ourselves a little bit in our lane about like, well, this is what I do. But the reality I think is that things are changing so much that it's requiring us all to be a bit more of a knowledge sink on the whole process and all these elements.
So even if you're not the sound design specialist, you still have a little bit of background understanding, so when you approach someone like Sanctus, you know, you can kind of get off to a running start, which I think is really good too.
Wesley (21:36)
Yeah, we led a kind of similar workshop at Camp MoGraph in 2021 where we were out in the woods in Portland with microphones recording and stuff. And that was a cool experience because we also got to see a bunch of other workshops too. And I think the common thread of all of those and what we're hoping to bring to Dash Bash is like, we're not going to teach you how to
Mack Garrison (21:46)
Nice.
Wesley (21:58)
how to do something necessarily, but we want to give you like that perspective where like you kind of go, okay, I know how to go figure this out. You know, it's like the, the now it's like a known unknown. You know that, ⁓ okay, like we should be thinking of music in this way on this project. And then you can kind of go and figure it out from there, you know, rather than like, okay, here's like how to copy and paste audio in Pro Tools or whatever, you know, that's
Mack Garrison (22:06)
Yeah
Yeah.
Empowering
people with the process. think that's so important. mean, like, where do you begin? Where do you go out and like try to capture some of this stuff, you know, and hopefully scratch that little part of your brain where you're like, well, maybe I should go do more of this on my side. You know, I mean, that's all you could ask for. I think that sounds great. Well, tell me this, Wes, Trevor, if folks want to know more about Sanctus, where should they go? Where they should find out more information on y'all.
Wesley (22:46)
Yeah, I should have a better answer for that.
Trevor Richardson (22:48)
Yeah
Mack Garrison (22:48)
We're going to Instagram, we're going to the website. Where are we heading?
Trevor Richardson (22:50)
Yeah, I think
Wesley (22:51)
Yeah.
Trevor Richardson (22:51)
the website is great. We've got a website that we like a lot at sanctus.audio. And yeah, I think we're also on LinkedIn. You can find us both there. And we've got an Instagram that's got some cool stuff on it, but I think the website's the main spot to find us.
Mack Garrison (23:06)
Love it, love it, love it. Well, I've been talking with Sanctus Audio. Again, just a reminder, they are a sound and motion design studio that loves to partner with creative people to make great work. So much credit. Y'all are so talented. I truthfully believe that there is nothing you can't do, fellas, at this point.
Wesley (23:14)
Sound and music design. You're giving us too much credit, Mack.
Mack Garrison (23:26)
You know, we had put you to the ringer on some of the stuff that we've sent project wise and we already heard some of the creative endeavors on other projects that you've scored sound to Wes so I think there you guys can cover anything. But yeah, definitely come check out Sanctus. They'll be at the Dash Bash this year. We're offering workshops for the first time. All this will be taking place June 11th through 13th 2025 right here in my hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. So grab your tickets, come hang with Trevor and Wes and thanks y'all for hanging with me on the show today.
Trevor Richardson (23:54)
Thank you, Mack this was great.
Wesley (23:56)
Yeah, we can't wait for the bash.
Mack Garrison (23:56)
Yep. Thanks, everyone.