Sam McHugh
A place to view my sound design portfolio and projects
About me
My name is Sam McHugh and I am a sound designer from Dublin, Ireland. In a way I have always been obsessed with sound. I been passionate about music my whole life. I went from playing the piano to becoming obsessed with drumming for over 10 years. I’ve always had a major interest creating sounds and recording. In college I discovered Pro Tools and I fell in love with it. In my final year I created a 20 minute audio documentary about my percussion teacher, which was submitted to the Student Media Awards and won Radio Production of the Year in Arts and Features.
You can listen to it by clicking here.
After I graduated I went on to do a course in post-production and sound design with Pulse College, which I loved. I started building my own sound libraries, working with synthesisers, doing sound redesigns and soundscapes. I completed the 110 course for using Pro Tools, which is certified by Avid. I was taught how to use Fmod and Unity for sound design in games. This opened up a completely new and amazing world to me.
After this course I starting working as an audio editor and recorder for the Podcast Studios in Dublin. During this time I took it upon myself to learn how to use Wwise, implement sounds into the Unreal engine and the basics of C#.
I absolutely love the process of recording sounds, creating them and implementing them. To me it doesn’t get more gratifying than putting audio to the visual and feeling it come to life as a result, as if the sound had always been a part of the experience to begin with. I strive to create sounds that can give that feeling to the viewer.
For any queries, contact me at sammchugh997@gmail.com
A slightly different take on the Viking Village Unity project. I made this with the intention of giving it a horror feel. I changed the skybox and lighting to give a night time look. Then I fixed the shadows to coincide with the moonlight before adding lighting from the torches. Any editing of audio assets was done using Pro Tools. The audio was implemented using Wwise.
My own interpretation of the sound design from this scene from Wall-E. Edited using Pro Tools. The majority of sounds, including synthesis, were recorded by me for the purpose of this video and a small number of sounds came from sound libraries.
This is my entry for A Sound Effect’s sound design competition. Every sound heard was created and recorded by myself. No sound libraries were used. All of the sounds heard were created originally using synthesisers, except for the whale noises, which were a combination of my own voice and the sound of chairs being pulled across a floor. This project was edited using Pro Tools. I hope you enjoy!
My own interpretation of the sound design from this clip of the game Amnesia: The Dark Descent. All of the audio heard in this clip was edited by me using Pro Tools. The majority of sounds were recorded by me for the purpose of this video and a small number of sounds came from sound libraries.
This is a sound redesign I did of the trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road. If it seems a bit bare in parts, that’s because this redesign was an exercise in sound design for a trailer with music on top. I’ve removed the music just for the purpose of showing the sound design underneath. The song I chose to work with was ‘Immigrant Song’ by Led Zeppelin and some of the hit points in the visuals coincided with the hit points of the song. At 1:09 is an example of this.
My own interpretation of the sound design from this clip of the game The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. All of the audio heard in this clip was edited by me using Pro Tools. The majority of sounds were recorded by me for the purpose of this video and a small number of sounds came from sound libraries.
I designed all of the sound for this video by using only white noise as the sound source. This was created mostly using a synthesizer and was edited in Pro Tools. I did not create the original video and do not own the rights to the original video source.
My own interpretation of the sound design in this clip from the Japanese horror movie, ‘Kairo’. All of the audio heard in this clip was edited by me using Pro Tools. Everything heard here is my own original recording of sounds and synthesisers. No sound libraries or outside sources were used.It’s such a good creepy scene that I had to see what I could do with it myself. After starting with the synths, I got sucked in and redesigned the whole scene in a few days.
This advertisement used to play at a cinema near me and I always enjoyed the crystal clear sound of it. This is only a short clip and required relatively short work but I am extremely happy with how it turned out. The watermark is unrelated to me or my work; a clip of this ad was difficult to find, let alone a worthwhile version of it, and so this was the highest quality video I could use for the purposes of redesigning the sound. All of the audio heard in this clip was edited by me using Pro Tools. Every sound heard, aside from the waterfalls, was recorded by me either as foley or by using synthesisers for the purpose of this video.
Sam McHugh 