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Around 2002, a Portuguese university professor named Nuno Fonseca noticed that the most interesting visual effects seen on movies were using particle systems, a Computer Graphics technique that creates thousands or even millions of small objects to simulate fire, rain, sandstorms, dust, smoke, and explosions. He thought it would be interesting to apply the same concept to sound, generating thousands of sounds that together would create fantastic soundscapes. That was only an idea... However, a decade later, in 2012, after finishing his PhD, he started developing Sound Particles.

In 2014, with only a prototype, he contacted some Hollywood studios and within 6 months, he gave presentations in studios like Skywalker Sound, Warner Bros, Universal, Fox, Paramount, Pinewood, and later on in Sony Pictures, Pixar, and Disney. By the end of 2015 he launched the first version of Sound Particles, and in November 2016 Sound Particles, the company, became a reality.

Sound Particles software changes the paradigm of audio software by applying computer graphics to sound with its native 3D audio software. Sound Particles’ inspiration is the combination of art and science to help the audio community around the world. By developing immersive 3D audio software, we want to help tell stories through sound.

Nuno Fonseca at WebSummit 2019, speaking in the main stage.

Sound Particles company was founded on November 2016 by Nuno Fonseca, a Portuguese university professor that was teaching Computer Science at the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, and Music Technology at the Music School of Lisbon. With a PhD in Computer Audio (singing voice resynthesis), Nuno Fonseca is the author of the book “Introduction to Sound Engineering” (Introdução à Engenharia de Som), co-author of the book “iOS Development” (Desenvolvimento em iOS), and author of more than 20 papers on audio research topics.

Sound Particles was not his first audio software project. Starting in 2001, Nuno Fonseca created a text-to-sing software in which a virtual symphonic choir is able to sing the text written by musicians, resulting in “Voices of the Apocalypse Utility” and “WordBuilder”, text-to-sing tools that are part of EASTWEST current choir products, including “EW/QL Symphonic Choirs” and “Hollywood Choirs”, and used by many Hollywood composers.