We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Hanzhe Zhang. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Hanzhe below.

Hanzhe, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I was a very late starter. Before college, I had almost no knowledge of music or sound at all. I entered college as an economics student and was originally thinking about switching to CSE later. But I had always been deeply passionate about music, and I felt it would be a real shame if I never even tried to make that into my future career.

Then COVID hit, and I was forced to stay at home for a long time. I decided to use that time to teach myself how to write music from scratch. At the beginning, I was so inexperienced that I didn’t even know how to start learning. I tried randomly watching video tutorials, but at that stage they weren’t very helpful for me. So I turned to online open classes instead, because I needed something more systematic. I went through an entire class series in one week, and that was when I decided to find a private instructor and study once a week. Driven by passion, I improved very quickly. After one year, I had built a portfolio strong enough to get accepted into the Sonic Arts program at OSU. That was when I finally had access to more serious and systematic training, and really started learning how to write music for media as a career.

I learned sound design even later. At the time, I saw myself only as a composer and honestly had no interest in sound design at all. But when I started writing music for media projects, I was often asked to do sound design too. As someone just starting out, I felt like I should say yes to everything, so I did. Over time, the more sound design work I took on, the more I started to discover how creative and interesting it could be, so I decided to seriously study sound design. This time, because I already had some foundation, I learned most of my sound design skills through online video tutorials and through working experience.

Looking back, the one thing I definitely could have done to speed up my learning process was to find someone to teach me earlier. A lot of knowledge can absolutely be found online, and it is possible to learn a lot on your own. But when I was just starting, I knew nothing, and I didn’t even know where to begin. That slowed me down significantly.

One major obstacle in learning has definitely been tiredness. Not just the physical exhaustion, but the mental side of it too. When you work for years to reach a level that some prodigies seem to reach in months, when you finish a big draft you feel proud of and then receive a lot of negative feedback, or when you work day and night and still don’t get paid nearly enough, that kind of mental exhaustion can make you not only stop wanting to learn, but sometimes even question the career itself.

To overcome that kind of tiredness, I think the single most essential “skill” is passion. When you face all of those situations, the only thing that really gets you through is how much you love the creative career. And for me, to be honest, passion is the biggest driving force that keeps me learning, improving, and sometimes even just surviving in this industry.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi, I’m Hanzhe Zhang, a composer and sound designer for media, with a particular focus on video games. I started out as a Sonic Arts undergraduate student at OSU, and later became a Media Scoring graduate student at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema. Throughout that journey, I stayed actively involved in collaborations and projects, which helped me build valuable connections. With my passion for video games and after winning the G.A.N.G. scholarship, I was finally able to get some game industry connection and break into the game industry, and that’s how I get started.

Now I work as a game audio professional, providing audio services for games and other media. What sets me apart is the range of skills I bring. I can write music in different styles, create sound design, implement game audio, do studio recording, handle on-set production recording, work in audio post-production, orchestrate music, conduct recording sessions, play instruments, and even write simple code for projects. That makes me a great fit for indie game developers and other media creatives, because I can take care of every aspect of audio by myself. Bigger clients also value that wide skill set, because even when I’m not using every skill on a project, I can communicate well across the team and collaborate smoothly with different audio departments since I know every position well.

I’m always most proud of what’s coming next. But looking at my past work, I’m especially proud of my work on the game Dice to Pay. It was the first released game title I worked on, and I handled all of the audio for it — music, sound, and implementation. It was an amazing experience to hear people talk about playing the game, and I’m really glad that many of them connected with the music and sound.

I’m also very proud of my personal website, hanzhesonic.com. I built the entire website by myself. I think it represents me really well, especially through the music and sound demo reel. There’s also a section featuring my past projects, including some that I didn’t mention here and am equally proud of, so feel free to check it out.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect for me, being a media composer and sound designer, is when I see my finished work in media. In particular, since I’m a huge gamer, it’s really rewarding feeling when playing the game with my own music and sound design in it. And it’s even more rewarding when others also like the work I did and recognize me for that, so I know I’m not an overconfident person feeling too good about my own work.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

There are many resources I wish I knew earlier. Firstly, the conferences. As a game audio person, I only started to attend GDC this year, and it was such an amazing conference and gave me so many valuable connections. I really regret not going this and other similar conferences earlier. Secondly, to take the online videos more seriously. In the beginning, I thought it sounded really unreliable to study seriously online through free video tutorials from places like YouTube. However, now I know professionals are really willing to share their knowledge generously through these online platforms, and I could have really taken advantage of these videos more when learning earlier. Thirdly, learn from friends and connections. I have many friends who are really amazing creatives good at different fields. I really wish that I knew to talk to them, ask questions, and get advice from them earlier. It could save me a lot of time struggling and trying to figure things out myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hanzhesonic.com
• Instagram: zhanghanzhe35
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanzhe-zhang-96b205295