By far the most ambitious and unique project I have worked on to date, in terms of scope, soundscapes, and even ADR and dialogue. As low-profile as Chopping Mall was when first released, it still reels in its cult fans thanks to its memorable Protector (or Killbot) noises and voice lines, which were some of our favourite things to recreate the sounds for.

The original scene had a synth-driven soundtrack which played loudly over the sound effects and dialogue, removing most of the tension that could have been established in this scene - and that’s why I chose to redesign its audio. Beds and details were simple, only using a basement, boiler room and animal sanctuary to reflect the environments of the mall, the pet store, and the paint shop.

The Protector itself had its motors designed by combining an electric toothrbush and razor together, with ‘speed-up’ and ‘slow down’ fades tacked on to the starts and ends of each recording to show the Protector’s relative acceleration/deceleration. Its treads, meanwhile, were designed by sliding a Hot Wheels car across both a flat surface, and a carpet, then increasing the volume and pitching it down to represent its weight.

The very same processing, EQing and reverb effects were done for the robot’s servo, body and head movements, only to the recording of a Nintendo Switch fan at different pitches! Elsewhere, the explosion was designed using several Alchemy/ES2 patches with a LOT of overdrive distortion, and the Protector’s short-circuiting from rapidly changing the frequency and intensity of a test oscillator, along with its flanger and phaser. “Exterminated!”