Kenneth C M Young
| Kenneth Young | |
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Kenneth Young
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| Background information | |
| Born | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Genres | Video Game Music |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, musician, sound designer, audio director, writer |
| Instruments | Fiddle, Guitar |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Labels | Media Molecule |
| Website | gamesound |
Kenneth Young, also known as Kenneth C. M. Young or Kenny Young, is a Scottish freelance audio director, composer, sound designer and writer. He is best known for his award winning work as the Head of Audio at video game developer Media Molecule, including the games LittleBigPlanet, LittleBigPlanet 2, Tearaway and Tearaway Unfolded.
Young was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and had a strong musical upbringing, learning the violin from the age of six, but chose not to pursue performance as a career and instead went on to study an undergraduate degree in Music Technology at The University of Edinburgh. That course introduced him to working creatively with sound and he went on to gain an MA in Sound Design at Bournemouth University for which he received a distinction.
Young began his professional career in 2004 working as a junior sound designer in the centralised audio department of Sony London Studio. Here, he worked on a broad range of different gaming experiences and hardware platforms, from action-adventure games such as The Getaway: Black Monday and Heavenly Sword to more family-friendly and innovative titles such as EyeToy: Kinetic. He has described this period as "an apprenticeship" and a "baptism by fire" which stood him in good stead for his future game audio work.
Young left Sony in 2007 and joined startup video game developer Media Molecule to establish their audio department and "make LittleBigPlanet sound awesome".
LittleBigPlanet's audio aesthetic: minimal, playful yet endlessly customizable building blocks of sound and music that support, underpin and emphasize the playfulness inherent in the game's unique art direction, character design and game design structure. Rather than seamlessly flowing together, the varied pieces of music work together much like the patchwork evident in the game's visual assets, nowhere is this aesthetic more evident than in the many user created online levels. Again, a difficult game to imagine working without the many unique aspects to its audio direction.
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