We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Malachi Gregory a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Malachi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

My parents did me so right by not letting me quit music haha. A little backstory. I didn’t have a profound introduction to music – my parents weren’t musicians (outside of my mom playing the clarinet in high school), and I definitely was not a prodigy. Around the time I was eight my sister was three, and my mom wanted her to take violin lessons. Going to the shop with them, seeing all the instruments excited me, so I wanted to try too. But I didn’t want to do the same thing as my little sister! So I picked the slightly bigger instrument: the viola. Back then my dream career was to be an astronaut, or work on rockets and airplanes, and I never took playing the instrument more serious than a hobby. I took private lessons, participated in many different in and out of school orchestras, and would play small ensembles with my friends, but still had the focus on entering a STEM field. I even attended a Math/Science focused Magnet high school, trying to lean even further from the arts. My parents however, were extremely encouraging of me to continue with music. They recognized the passion and joy I had for the craft more than I did at the time. So when I approached them in my sophomore year, asking to drop orchestra to take AP Physics 2, they were firm in their conviction to stick with it. At the time I faced burnout in my musical journey, swamped with assignments and not devoting as much time to practicing or writing music. Losing the motivation to participate, I thought it was just a sign to move on to other things. Luckily, their efforts to keep me in music succeeded, and I found a revitalized passion after performing in the Georgia Youth Symphony Orchestra for musical group Black Violin. The violist of the group imparted words of encouragement after the concert, and I recognized music was not something I could leave behind, it was apart of me. Soon after I had the chance to compose music for a game my friend began working on – opening my eyes to the vast world of screen scoring. So thank you again mom and dad, for not letting turn away from something I loved. I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.

Malachi, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a media composer and sound designer, with my primary focus being game audio and implementation. My relationship with music began when I first picked up the viola in third grade, setting the stage for a lifetime with the art form. I was extremely interested in space and science, and when my dad showed me Star Wars, the bombastic score excited and inspired me to no end. I was enamored with the orchestral sound, and after participating in ensembles for many years, I composed my first piece in the 8th grade. Looking back now, of course it’s nothing magnificent, but the sheer enthusiasm and passion I had when writing it opened a new outlet for me. Composing was something for everyone, and I could hopefully spark emotions with my music in the same way it others inspire me.

I was obsessed with Pokemon SoulSilver and countless other games throughout my childhood, spilling into now. I would often sit in an area just to hear the looping melodies, entirely immersed in the storytelling of the music. Realizing this work was something I could also do, I dove into researching the composers of my favorite games. Lena Raine, CHiCO (ACE), Yasunori Mitsuda, Hideki Naganuma, Marty O’Donnell, Christopher Larkin, Go Ichinose, Yasunori Nishiki, Atsuko Asahi, and more informed my early listening, and influenced my melodically driven compositional sensibilities. In games the music you write must impart the soul of the world to the player and instill a continuity to the experience through composition alone, as it’s impossible to score the play-through moment to moment. This pushes me as a composer to write music that most effectively matches the tone of the world, and through adaptive implementation, envelope the player into the environment.

I’ve had the opportunity to work on 6 independent games since my time attending NYU’s Screen Scoring program. In my current project, I have total responsibility over music and sound design. This control allows me to better communicate with the team on designing sounds and crafting music that aligns with their vision of the game. It has been more of a challenge managing all of the programming required to showcase the audio content, but I fully embrace the Wwise hurdles as lessons to aid in my future implementation endeavors. The world of game audio is where I plan to enter after the conclusion of my senior year in May 2024, and I look forward to applying my skills to create the best audio experiences for as many players as possible.

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

Getting my hands on a DAW or “Digital Audio Workstation” absolutely would’ve been game changer had I known about them earlier. I did have GarageBand on my iPad, and would spend so much time making silly beats out of the Apple loop libraries, but picking up and learning something more powerful will propel you on your creative journey. There are many different options available, and really no best one, so find one and stick to it! Some like Logic Pro X, Pro Tools, Ableton, Cubase, and FL Studio are the most popular, but there are many more affordable/free options like Reaper, Cakewalk, and Studio One. Experiment, and ideas will com to you!

For game audio, definitely look at the Audiokinetic Wwise tutorials and certification series to get a better understanding of middleware and how adaptive systems work. Wwise is one of the main industry standard middleware tools, and the amount of resources Audiokinetic (the developing company) provides is invaluable in getting you started on implementing the sounds you create. There are also tons of Youtube videos that can help with specific issues/tricks to streamline your implementation journey. Then applying your skills/getting involved with the game development community can be as easy as joining a game jam – check out Itch.io for near constant announcements!

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding aspect of being a artist is the process of creation. The catharsis from finally completing a piece, or pressing export on that sound you spent the last 2 hours designing, is real and magnificent. But, the hard part of finishing a work, and the victories of the process, make it truly worth it. The spark of inspiration that drives us all only lasts so long, so seizing the opportunity to explore that lightning in a bottle and its potential realizations brings the most excitement when working. It’s necessary to find the love in feeling stuck, the frustration of feeling an idea is no longer “original,” and even hitting a creative block is to truly succeed in your goal of becoming a professional creative. It is at the end of the day, extremely hard to produce something that represents you and your vision, maybe with the added pressure of needing to serve a bigger project. There will be countless times the end product doesn’t match your initial vision, but being able to recognize how the idea idea developed during your process, and acknowledge the growth of your creative voice is the satisfaction of being an artist.

Contact Info:

• Website: malachigregory.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/malakazam_
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malachi-gregory-142742205/
• Twitter: twitter.com/malakazam_
• Youtube: youtube.com/@malakazam