Thanks to bucketloads of resilience and passion plus years of hard work, Robert Dudzic has become one of the most sought-after sound designers in the industry with his work featured in countless movies and trailers. His Instagram account has amassed 337,000 followers as he shows off his sound design experiments like an audio alchemist. We sat down with him to talk about his life and work.
In fact, it’s very easy to imagine his journey as a movie in itself. His father, a drummer, left when Robert was just five, but the drums remained a constant presence in his life, despite his mother’s disapproval. Whilst his talent blossomed in Poland, he dreamt of greater success in America and in September 1990 he arrived in the U.S. with high hopes.
Struggling with language barriers, loneliness and financial hardship, Robert worked various jobs earning a measly $6 an hour alongside playing in wedding bands on weekends. Realising the competitive nature of the music scene, he shifted his focus to sound design. With minimal resources, he invested in a KORG M1 and later a Gateway 2000 computer, tirelessly teaching himself music production, leaning on the help of a dictionary to translate the English manuals. It’s at this point we pick up on Robert’s journey in his own words…
One day I bought myself a Sony TCD-D7 DAT recorder and a couple of Audio-Technica microphones and started recording my first sounds. I was recording everything – cars, closing doors, footsteps, water in the bathtub, you name it. From the beginning, I learned that it’s not only the sound, it’s how I position my microphones, and I started hearing different sounds from different perspectives. For me, it was about focusing directly on one specific detail of the sound, directly from the source. So, for example, when a lot of people record doors, they slam the door, you hear the wood, and a lot of other elements, but what I do is focus specifically on the gears of the mechanical lock when you’re locking the door. I was experimenting, bringing these elements and starting to pitch them down, slow them down, play them in the reverse and I was getting completely new results of the sounds.
Now I have technology like pickups or micro microphones which I can attach or place inside the mechanical gear so when I mix the sound afterwards, I can apply multiple layers. When I align the audio, I have so many frequencies that people have never heard before and when you play it in slow motion there’s so many elements and it’s just fascinating.
Where did that kind of forensic exploration of sound come from?Â
It’s come to me from nowhere. You must find your own niche and be original. There are tons of libraries out there, for example I might need some effects of forest and there’s 30 libraries just of the forest and they sound great but they all sound the same. Or, if you want sounds of nature FX, you can go to BOOM Library which I have, and they’re outstanding, phenomenal recording quality and sometimes I use them with overlays of my own recordings to make them unique. I want to give the sound a unique personality and identity.
How did you go from working for $6 an hour to suddenly being one of the guys that everybody in Hollywood wanted to work with?Â
So, there was one song on the radio that was played as a live version, and I called the radio station and asked the DJ Damon Scott if I could get a copy of the song. The guy said ‘yes, absolutely. If you come to the station, I can make a copy for you, and you can have it on the cassette.’ So, I went to the station in Connecticut and the guy invited me to see the radio stages and as we walked around, he quickly realised that I knew more about the gear than a lot of other people.
I asked him whether there was any chance I could ever come and just observe how he worked and he agreed. Shortly after this I decided to quit my afternoon job cleaning the office and instead, every day for years at 7pm (after he’d finished his radio show), I sat until midnight quietly watching how he was making commercials, promos, and how the sound effects were working. One day, he gave me a CD with some effects from a radio station in New York and asking if I could make something like it. I came back the next day with a replica and more sounds besides. He then asked me to do stuff for him, helping him with his show, producing things etc but I never got paid. Instead, I was getting a lot of tickets to concerts, gift certificates, this was because my visa had expired so at the time, I was living illegally in the United States, so nobody wanted to give me a raise but you’re just happy to have a job.
One day, I was in the Guitar Center store here in Connecticut and I met another guy who was trying to buy a Fostex recorder, but it was old school compared to what I was already working on. I told him not to buy it, that he could do more on the computer. He asked where I worked, and he told me that the radio station was his competition and asked whether I wanted to come and see their studio. So, I went along, and we shortly became good friends. He [Bryan Apple] was doing different stuff so I learned even more. He then went to work on a job for ESPN producing the imaging for the X Games on the road and needed a substitute to produce the commercials while he was away. He asked if I had any demos, I could show to the program director and I ended up getting hired by the radio station who offered me $250 a week for helping them. I was making unlimited commercials, promos, and I provided my sound effects. That was huge.
Then, one day, when Brian had come back, he told me I was going to get a letter from someone, it arrived, and it was from Rick Allen who I had listened to when I was getting into sound design, and he was very successful. He said how impressed he was with my sounds and asked whether I would be able to contribute and produce stuff for the ABC network.
Rick introduced me to the entire network of new radio friends, and I started producing content for all the stations that were using the ABC network throughout the United States and around the world. That gave me a financial boost, and, in the meantime, I continued doing my sound effects for the radio company and then they asked me if I would be interested in sharing my sounds with their other radio stations as uploads to a folder on the internet. I agreed, but only on the condition that I had my own folder under my name, I didn’t want to be in a pile with anyone else’s sounds. It was at this point I realised how important branding was. They agreed and I started uploading my sounds to the folder called Robert Dudzic Sound Design.
I realised my sounds very quickly became the most downloaded and searched sounds every week, whatever I did. Shortly afterwards I became represented by a company in Los Angeles who would sell my sounds to the different radio stations around the world and split the profit with me. That was the point at which I stepped into the LA markets, and I was doing this as my own person, not via a third party. I was the person who was distributed through the networks, and I was producing jingles and sound design for radio stations all over the world. Despite this, I continued to produce sounds for my original radio station because I loved it and did so for 6-7 years and continued to only be paid $250 a week. One day they told me that they couldn’t afford to pay me even just that anymore, I told them it was never about the money for me, I loved doing it, and still do it in my spare time now.
Anyway, when I was in LA, I was also doing sound design and music for TV networks and one day the company (Groove Addicts) asked me whether I’d be interested in creating a sound FX collection for TV networks or trailers. This was about 15 years ago, and I created a library called ‘Cinema Sound Tools’. The guy who owned the company then decided to sell the company to Warner Bros and included my library in the deal but gave me back his 50% ownership. So basically, I had full ownership of the catalogue but the representation of Warner Bros.
Cinema Sound Tools became very successful at Warner Brothers, (or Warren Chappell as it is now), because it’s used by many TV networks around the world – Netflix, Hulu, HBO… I’m getting BMI statements every three months and it’s like a phone book of which shows are using this stuff around the world. Three years later I released my first trailer library – RAID – and overnight it went through the roof – it got so many licenses!
You obviously make incredible sound effects for yourself, and you also have these libraries, but you also use things like BOOM Library stuff. How did you discover their libraries and tools?Â
One time, an audio plugins site had a sale on a BOOM Library product, and I bought the library, I’d never heard of the company before. I listened to it and, oh my God, I had never heard anything like it. I started digging and researching and I went to the website and bought loads of libraries that same day. Then I bought construction kits which were like a playground for me.
The sound design stuff is great, everything is awesome, but the construction kits give me so many sound sources. Even though I have so many of my own recordings of everything, I still get requests for things that I need to create from scratch and it’s not always financially viable. So, for me, having a BOOM Library is like having an emergency stock warehouse. If I’m looking for something, I know I can find something that will work and I add my own elements to make the sounds unique, like with the forest stuff, you can get the forest and I combine the sounds with my stuff and make something beautiful in no time.
Their approach is a little bit different from mine but it’s just the sound quality, it’s meeting my own standards. If you go to the construction kit, and you have the raw recording of all these animals, the source sounds, and everything is provided at 192 kHz, it means the sky is the limit for me. I can do anything with this stuff. You can pitch them, slow down, multi-layer them…
One of my favourite plugins from BOOM is SoundWeaver. I can record lots of elements, edit them very quickly and bring them into SoundWeaver and press Shuffle and it’ll come to me with an element of surprise. So, because of this plugin, all my sounds are getting so much new dimension, new creativity. I strongly recommend people check out because it’s unbelievable.
Have you played with any of their other tools, like Turbine?
Yes, I have Turbine. It’s for the making of engines, it’s crazy. If I work on a trailer and it requires the sounds of a plane or jet taking off or something, I can record a sequence at 192 kHz then export it and downgrade this file to slow down, stretch and pitch. I can have a massive riser going for a minute and a half, but I pitch higher. What’s great is that it gives me like the natural elements, a lot of the characteristics of the sound and this is what makes this stuff unique instead of having sounds like a synth which can be very plain. Or, for bass drops, if I’m going to use the shutting off engine sound, all I must do is maybe add a little filter or distortion and you just control the sound and again, I can overlay this with one of my hits or something and it just sounds insane. Or another thing, you can take the engine and I can throw in like a Doppler effect and then I can create the plane coming right up from me if I’m working on something.
As I talk to you, you still sound like a little boy who’s having fun, so passionate, enthusiastic, and curious about what you do. Do you think that’s the key to your success?
The key to success is happiness in your life, your personality. If you know you’re not doing anything shady, there is no reason to be depressed or upset. I love what I do and the reason why I created my channel is because I want to show people because I feel very comfortable with what I do.
What one piece of advice would you give somebody who’s doing the $6 an hour job now wishing they could do what you do?Â
Okay, there are going to be a few things. Don’t do this for money. If you want to pursue this career because you want to make money, it’s probably not going to happen for you. You must do this because you love it, and you must find happiness in this because your happiness and joy will transfer to your work. When you’re happy about something, you’re confident, and it reflects in how you speak with your clients. If you’re happy, you’re always nice to your clients, and when you’re nice to your clients, they will recommend you to others. So, what I recommend is to be generous and not ask right away, ‘What am I going to get for this?’. The time will come when the money finds you. If you’re hard to work with, no matter how good you are, people just don’t want to work with you. They’re going to find somebody who may not be as talented as you, but who is easy and nice to work with.
Another bit of advice would be, if you are starting sound design and you start like I did on $6 an hour and you want to learn and you want to be discovered by somebody, forget about sending your resume or something. This is old school right now. Social media is a tool where you have the biggest stage in the world to show people what you are capable of doing. Don’t just take an iPhone and film something and post with a comment and think somebody is going to drop everything because you posted something incredible. If you post a video, always try to post something that is the best you can do because sometimes you’re going to have one chance in your lifetime when people are going to see this thing and one person could change your life forever. It’s what happened to me.
I read an article with Hans Zimmer a long time ago, and he said, ‘Don’t send me another demo that sounds like John Williams or me. If I want to hire John Williams, I can hire John Williams. If I want to sound like me, I’m hiring me. Send me something that will make me say, “What is this? Who did this?” and you’ve got my attention.’ And that is what I did. I posted something, had no expectations, and in one day, it got 100,000 views. The next day, I got an email from my friend at Steinberg, Greg Ondo, with a screenshot showing Hans Zimmer had just shared my video on his private page.
I believe anyone can go to a store and buy a piece of paper and buy a notebook and a pen. Are you going to be able to write like William Shakespeare or Tom Clancy or Mark Twain? No. They’re going to use the same tools. So, if I’m using BOOM Library software, if I’m using Uberloud, which I love, or I’m using ReCenter, those are not going to make you better than I am because you’re going to use them in a different way. If I’m going to show on my channel how I use them, I’m not only helping you by showing what I use, but I also hope I’m helping the developers who develop the plugins which make me sound better, so it’s a win for everyone. My philosophy is to be open, transient. You learn from me just like I’m learning from you, whatever you post, so just be open.
