Metal vocalist since 1991 (Necrotic Mutation) and throat singer (Tibetan, Mongolia and Inuit throat-singing) since 1996, Sébastien Croteau masters an impressive number of extreme vocal techniques. He began teaching metal voices and throat-singing 15 years ago. Since then, he has trained hundreds of metal vocalists and voice talents around the world and he is a renowned expert in vocal distortion, extreme sounds and creature voice design.

It is thanks to these techniques Sébastien began to work for video games companies in 2005. Since then, he has specialized in vocal stunt work and sound creation of the voices of monsters and creatures. He has worked on more than forty video games (including Hellblade 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, Warhammer: Realm of Ruins, Gotham Knights, Meet your Maker, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Dead by Daylight, Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 5, Rainbow Six Siege: Outbreak, Prince of Persia – The Forgotten Sands and Assassin’s Creed 2) and has lent his voice to more than 300 characters.

For the past few years, he has been a casting director and a voice director for various projects. He also teaches vocal distortion, extreme vocals and creature voices with various institutions. 

In 2018, he created a company called The Monster Factory, a service provider and talent agency that specializes in extreme sounds, vocal stunts and creature/monster voices.

This talk will be co-hosted by Elizabeth Andrews who has more than 14 years experience as a metal vocalist in extreme voice techniques both on stage and in the studio. She is also a vocalist, lyricist & frontwoman of the Swedish melodic death metal band Frantic Amber.

Elizabeth is also one of vocal stunt performers at The Monster Factory, debuting with voicing Illtauga in Hellblade 2.

Environmental sounds are prevalent in video games. Effort, running, block, idle, attack, choke and death sounds (among others) can be heard in all video games.

Sébastien and Elizabeth’s talk is an introduction to environmental sounds (onos and grunts). You will learn about the different challenges encountered by voice talents and how to prepare them before a recording session, how to help the voice talent prepare for a recording session and to perform the different variations required in a realistic way and how to create a phonetic script. 

You will receive some tips on vocal stress and vocal health, on directing voice talent for environmental sounds, on helping the voice talent with all the different variations, on creating a phonetic script and much more !