Dren McDonald
- Composer
- Sound Department
- Music Department
Dren McDonald is a composer who has created scores for video games, film, advertising campaigns, VR animations, theme parks, AR projects and music libraries. He's also a music producer and multi-instrumentalist who has toured in bands, founded a record label and taught graduate level music courses.
The bulk of his composing work has been in video games, and he has contributed scores to Counter-Strike Global Offensive (Valve Software), Ghost Recon Commander (Ubisoft/Loot Drop), Diner Dash 2015 (GLU Mobile), Gathering Sky (A Stranger Gravity), Transformers: Age of Extinction The Game (DeNA/Hasbro), Gunman Taco Truck (Romero Games), Dangerous Dave in the Deserted Pirate's Hideout (Romero Games), Gordon Ramsay Dash (GLU Mobile), Cooking Dash 2016 (GLU Mobile), Ravenwood Fair (6Waves/LOLapps), Pettington Park (Zynga/Loot Drop), Ravenskye City (6Waves/LOLapps), and many others.
His work in Gathering Sky won 3 Game Audio Network Guild Awards in 2015, and his projects have been nominated for 13 other awards from GDC Online, IndieCade, and the Game Audio Network Guild (with one other win in 2014 for "Best Game Cover Song" for his string quartet arrangement of Grasswalk from Plants Vs. Zombies, on his String Arcade release).
He's scored a few films, including the documentary, The Edge of Success (Liza Meak), which was featured at 2019's Cinequest, and Fingerprints (Don Hardy/KTF Films) which was featured at the Mill Valley Film Festival in 2017.
VR animations scoring projects include Mescaform Hill: The Missing Five, which was featured at Tribeca in 2022. His AR scoring includes "Storytime", a launch app that shipped with Facebook's Portal product, and was heavily featured in the product's advertising campaign. Storytime was a unique storytelling platform designed for use between grandparents and grandchildren to keep the kids engaged in video calls by telling stories using AR filters and animation.
Dren founded Vaccination Records Co. in 1993 which released 30 titles during it's time. He's released fundraiser albums more recently such as The String Arcade (2014 - video game music arranged for string quartet), and polyheDren "Psychic" (2022), with 100% of the sales/streaming from these releases going to support music education in schools for children who can't afford to study music. The polyheDren release featured guest artists such as The Residents, Iva Bittová (Nonesuch Records), Nels Cline (Wilco), Josh Freese (Sting, NIN, Devo), Rini and many others. 2023 will see the release of his 'guitar orchestra' concept album "Pterous" on Appearing Records.
Dren has composed and produced dozens of music pieces for the Facebook Sound Collection (facebook.com/sound) as part of their music library which is available to creators on the platform. He's also served as adjunct professor at both UCSC and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
The bulk of his composing work has been in video games, and he has contributed scores to Counter-Strike Global Offensive (Valve Software), Ghost Recon Commander (Ubisoft/Loot Drop), Diner Dash 2015 (GLU Mobile), Gathering Sky (A Stranger Gravity), Transformers: Age of Extinction The Game (DeNA/Hasbro), Gunman Taco Truck (Romero Games), Dangerous Dave in the Deserted Pirate's Hideout (Romero Games), Gordon Ramsay Dash (GLU Mobile), Cooking Dash 2016 (GLU Mobile), Ravenwood Fair (6Waves/LOLapps), Pettington Park (Zynga/Loot Drop), Ravenskye City (6Waves/LOLapps), and many others.
His work in Gathering Sky won 3 Game Audio Network Guild Awards in 2015, and his projects have been nominated for 13 other awards from GDC Online, IndieCade, and the Game Audio Network Guild (with one other win in 2014 for "Best Game Cover Song" for his string quartet arrangement of Grasswalk from Plants Vs. Zombies, on his String Arcade release).
He's scored a few films, including the documentary, The Edge of Success (Liza Meak), which was featured at 2019's Cinequest, and Fingerprints (Don Hardy/KTF Films) which was featured at the Mill Valley Film Festival in 2017.
VR animations scoring projects include Mescaform Hill: The Missing Five, which was featured at Tribeca in 2022. His AR scoring includes "Storytime", a launch app that shipped with Facebook's Portal product, and was heavily featured in the product's advertising campaign. Storytime was a unique storytelling platform designed for use between grandparents and grandchildren to keep the kids engaged in video calls by telling stories using AR filters and animation.
Dren founded Vaccination Records Co. in 1993 which released 30 titles during it's time. He's released fundraiser albums more recently such as The String Arcade (2014 - video game music arranged for string quartet), and polyheDren "Psychic" (2022), with 100% of the sales/streaming from these releases going to support music education in schools for children who can't afford to study music. The polyheDren release featured guest artists such as The Residents, Iva Bittová (Nonesuch Records), Nels Cline (Wilco), Josh Freese (Sting, NIN, Devo), Rini and many others. 2023 will see the release of his 'guitar orchestra' concept album "Pterous" on Appearing Records.
Dren has composed and produced dozens of music pieces for the Facebook Sound Collection (facebook.com/sound) as part of their music library which is available to creators on the platform. He's also served as adjunct professor at both UCSC and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
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