Employee Spotlight: Alexander Vienberg
March 18, 2024What made you choose Sonic Minds as an employer specifically?
I’ve had Karsten Kjems as a teacher before at my university and I thought it was a really interesting field of mixing branding and sound design as it’s a huge umbrella.
What are some of your hobbies?
Freestyle swimming, acrylic painting, bodybuilding and building Gundam/model kits.
Who is your inspiration?
Music wise I’m gonna say the band Death Grips. It is really inspiring listening to their music which mixes different genres while doing experimental and crazy productions that break the norms of hip-hop and metal. They have basically made their entire new little genre of music that is so distinct and unique, but also still reminds me of something else.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
“Imagine living your entire life, not seeing your true peak”.
How would you describe your profession?
Sound designer and composer for games, podcasts and music.
What are you most looking forward to work-wise?
Getting in contact with different people and learning about their cultures, in order to make amazing products that will help them with their future endeavours.
What is your greatest strength?
Other than my deadlift – I would say I am creative and precise. I’m really good at getting a project and seeing it through while still experimenting with new and different ideas.
How would you describe your musical past?
Extremes and versatility.
I started playing guitar when I was 8, where I started playing blues a lot – though i didn’t really like it I later found out it was because I hadn’t discovered music that I liked to play, and that genre was predominantly metal. So at 12 I started playing everything rock/metal from the old greats like Metallica, Slipknot, AC/DC – you name it.
At the same time I also started playing in a cover band where we played everything pop which I found to be really fun – the metal had the complexity I was looking for, but the pop had the catchiness I dearly missed. As time went on, I started branching out into different genres and instruments, and in high school, I was allowed to try everything that instruments had to offer, therefore I learned to play drums, keys, synth, double bass, percussion etc – not perfectly, but well enough to get a great understanding of what the different instruments do well and what they don’t do well – which later in life has really helped me when I started producing at age 16.
I try to break norms in music and have always worked a lot with extremes – like how to make the catchiest metal, how to make the heaviest pop, I always try to take music to its limits and be the most creative possible while still sounding good. Later in life I’ve started going into game design, soundscaping and podcasting, where I still have my philosophy of trying to see how interesting we can make whatever I’m working on.
That was our interview with Alex. Until next time!