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Engineer Spotlight: Chris Jojo

Chris Jojo has a job many people would envy - as the 'Senior Sound Designer & Principle Sound Recording Engineer' for Codemasters Games, he typically spends his time hiring race tracks all over the world, and then recording cars ranging from the super rare, to F1 & rally cars.

March, 29 2017 |

Chris Jojo has a job many people would envy. As the 'Senior Sound Designer & Principle Sound Recording Engineer' for Codemasters Games, he typically spends his time hiring race tracks all over the world, and then recording cars ranging from the super rare, to F1 & rally cars.

Chris Jojo with race car

For those of you reading this who are not gamers (myself included), the world of gaming has dramatically changed from the days of Sonic The Hedgehog & Streetfighter II - your authors last experience with gaming. According to Wikipedia, the average cost of producing a video game slowly rose from US$1–4 million in 2000 to over $5 million in 2006, then to over $20 million by 2010. It is no wonder that flocks of Studio Sound Designers and Film Directors are heading for the gaming industry.

Just before Christmas we managed to grab a bit of time with Chris Jojo while he was in the process of recording a super rare group 2 Lancia 037 Evoluzione II for the forthcoming DiRT Rally 4 game. In the lead up to this day he spent weeks trying to track down someone who owns the car he needs to record. Once that is done, he turns on the charm with the aim of persuading said owner to loan the car for recording purposes (he is not always successful!) Recording the car involves a full day of preparation as there are a lot of microphones involved, huge cable runs, and as you'll see below, loads of gaffer tape.

mics on car bumper

Check out the video below to see what Chris used for this particular recording session...

We've also recorded a much longer chat with Chris about recording and sound design in the comfortable surroundings of the Codemasters UK HQ. Subscribe to Sound Hub at the link below and be the first to receive updates on this project.

Paul Crognale

Paul works in Global Marketing for Musician & Consumer Audio from the Shure London office. In his spare time, he is an avid collector of vinyl and runs a couple of record labels. He also has a 'peach' or potentially 'pink' colored bike – a source of much amusement to his colleagues.