Stephan Schütze has the good fortune of being responsible for both the music and the sound assets for most of the projects he works on. While this naturally increases the amount of work that needs to be completed, it has the benefit of giving him the opportunity to craft an entire audio environment himself.

In the audio environment of a game or film, music and sound should work together to create the desired atmosphere, rather than competing against each other. Having this level of control allows Stephan to create a unified environment in which all sound assets work seamlessly together.

"At its simplest it is just being prepared to listen to the sound environment you are in, and think of the potential of every sound that you hear. At a more complex level it can involve being constantly aware of how the world in which you live changes sonically from moment to moment. You know how and when to capture sound events, and often how to artificially create the sound you want from the most unlikely and unusual sources.

"Sometimes quick reactions can reward you with an unlikely or rare sound bite, but more often quite patience is required to capture the moment, like waiting to photograph a sunset or a wave breaking against rocks." Stephan Schütze.

The greatest difficulty in recording clean sound material is that the world in general is a noisy place, and sound travels a lot further than most people realise. To capture natural ambience may require travelling out into the wilderness, and unless you are prepared to hike for days you will probably need to drive. Unfortunately others will probably use the same road that got you to your excellent sound source, and the excellent high quality microphone you are using to capture the clearest sounds, will also pick up the distinctive sound of another car about 5 kilometres away.