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Pan Athen

aka Panos Kouvelis

Born in 1976, Pan Athen (real name Panos Kouvelis) started playing with tape recorders since early childhood, mangling voice recordings from his toddler sister.

As a teenager he discovered the limitless world of creativity in the form of personal computers and he started creating his own game development and music production tools using Assembly and Pascal on DOS running on an 8086 processor and a CGA graphics card. At the same time he joined various thrash metal bands as a guitarist and vocalist and started to take interest in music production.

Combining both his interests, he started producing music using trackers as the ‘sound guy’ and joined local game developer teams as the ‘sound guy’.

Adulthood came with formal training in audio engineering and a career in music production, game audio, and teaching all those under the discipline of sound design.

Since then, Pan pursues a career divided between research and development of interactive audio content and technologies, applied audio engineering and sound design for the music and game industries, instructional design, and teaching.

What people say about Pan

Pan is one of those people who love everything about sound and music, especially when combined with new technologies. And all this, together with his passion for games, means that he can only create and bring great sound and ideas to any game project. Pan is a joy to work with. He is an extremely positive character, intelligent, very enthusiastic, and brings a lot of energy to the team, something much needed when most of us feel tired and need to work that little bit extra to meet deadlines.
Adamantios OikonomopoulosArtist / Game Designer / Storyteller / Lecturer, Freelancer
Working together and exchanging opinions with Pan, is always a unique experience, because for everything related to his job (and not only) he always has a solution and an alternative view. A colleague with incredible skills of communication and a great team leader, which I believe is very talented and I always ask his opinion on a lot of things.
Leonidas PanagakosBusiness Development Manager, Solar Cells Hellas
Pan is committed to innovation and excellence in his field of expertise. Being highly motivated, he provided valuable feedback, and working with him has always been a very rewarding experience. If you want an inspiration boost, just talk to him! You'll get a glimpse of ideas ranging from novel to crazy! He always gets the job done and he is a very pleasant person to work with.
Dionisios KakolirisFounder and General Manager, Autofire.io
Pan is a great guy, it's a pleasure to know him. He can be a great teacher and a dear friend at the same time.
Dimitris MetaxakisLive Sound Engineer, Bring Your Own Earplugs Entertainment
Pan did an excellent job on creating the game audio framework and tools, the sound effects and voices, and the music soundtrack for the Darkfall Online series of MMORPGs. He exceeded our expectations.
Michael BelivanakisSoftware Engineer and Generalist, Freelancer
Pan is a top-notch sound designer, with whom I've worked frequently and I'm looking forward to the next time.
Duncan SkinnerActor and Voiceover Artist, Freelancer
Awesome in all respects. A very good person with a lot of knowledge in many fields.
Konstantinos MitzithropoulosFounder and Audio Engineer, SRS Studios
Pan is a hardworking, bright and knowledgeable individual that can accomplish the task is working on by the end of the day no matter what.
Alexandros CouloumbisNetwork Architect, OZOnet
Pan is an intelligent and agile person who loves what he does, full of innovative ideas and a constant need for evolution. He is a professional in his work and whatever he does; he takes it to a new level. He has tremendous transmissibility, great knowledge, and a great sense of humor.
Spiros TselepisQA Specialist, Accusonus
Pan is a great team player and always delivers on time. It's a real pleasure working with him.
Chris MamounisSoftware Engineer, Intralot
Pan is the biggest geek and is very passionate about his work. An authority on the subjects he teaches, incredibly motivative and communicative. I also admire how he inspires classrooms with very diverse audiences and always has something to show relevant to the background of any student.
Leonidas KontisSound Designer and Audio Engineer, Duality Sound Lab
It's always a pleasure to work with Pan, keen on collaborating and with precision in his deliverables. A beautiful example of knowledge and academia.
Stavros FoskolosMusic Production Lecturer and Instructional Designer, SAE Institute of Technology
I can easily compare Pan as a sound designer and teacher with the legendary basketball athlete Nikos Galis. Pan is a champion in his profession and a great team player. His method of teaching is the best I've seen in all my student years. He changed my way of thinking and made me revise many things in my life.
Lefteris AndreouDJ / Sound Designer / Music Producer, Freelancer
I absolutely love working with Pan. He makes my brain giggle.
Mariam KiouriFounder and General Manager, Urchin New Media
Pan is an amazing professor, an incredible professional and thoroughly experienced in sound and all neighboring sectors. He has excellent transmissibility, and he always searches for more knowledge. He is always in the mood to transfer knowledge well and humorously.
Xenophon KatsarosMusic Producer, Freelancer
Pan demonstrated exceptional communication skills, direct and effective troubleshooting, and excellent working ethics, all in a friendly and yet very professional manner. Looking forward to working with him again.
Tasos ChronisFounder and Lead Game Producer, Roasted Chickpeas Gaming
Pan is an extraordinary person, with tons of knowledge and experience in sound. Without hesitation, he literally can besiege you with it, as long as you ask for it. He is patient, contagious and tireless! But what really makes him stand out is his wide perception of a multitude of fields. His ability to document his facts through various fields of science is unique.
Orfeas ManolidisSound Designer, Freelancer
Pan has endless knowledge, and he is constantly informed about any developments in the subject of sound. He will impart as much information as possible and at the end of the lecture, the student gets a great deal of knowledge. He is an extremely cool person which makes his lectures exceptionally enjoyable.
Dimitris TelkiridisSound Designer, Freelancer
Previous
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Present

  • Currently, Pan Athen is leading SoundFellas, designing sound libraries and software tools for commercial release. At the same time he develops online courses for sound designers, audio engineers and music producers, soon to be publicly available. He is also preparing the material for 2 books on game audio and sound design.

    He continues to pursue elegance in sound design through research, strategic partnerships and his work through various committees and associations.

Past highlights

  • As an independent music producer for Black Lotus Records, together with the metal band “On Thorns I Lay” he co-produced the iconic album “Egocentric” that set their style for the contemporary era of the heavy metal genre.
  • As the audio director and lead sound designer for local indie software house “CodeDark”, he created the first interactive soundtrack and stochastic sound effects engine and tools for video games produced in Greece.
  • As a technology consultant and, later, department director for the local optical medium production giant ODiTec S.A, he set up a complete industrial department of optical glass mastering, hired and trained all personnel, and delivered a high profit yield industrial unit that received a European award.
  • As an audio production expert and musician, he becomes the author of the “Technical” column in the local music technology magazine “Modern Music Studio”.
  • As an instructional designer and later course coordinator and department head for the SAE Creative Media College of Athens, he designed, setup and delivered the first Game Production and Game Development undergraduate courses in Greece. The courses still run successfully, supplying the local and international industries and academia with highly trained students.
  • As an audio director he managed all audio related projects of local game development house Aventurine S.A. and its flagship product “Darkfall Online” and all later editions. Apart from training and establishing the internal audio department he also managed all outsourcing that was needed for audio production and the development of proprietary audio software and technical artistry tools, to support a massive open world online multiplayer RPG. To not lose touch with his art, he managed to continue creating sound effects and writing music for Darkfall and other house titles, apart from being the director.
  • As an entrepreneur and together with Manolis Benetos and Antonis Koutelias, he started SoundFellas in an effort to unite various local recording studios, sound designers and music producers, that faced economic crisis, under a highly focused production pipeline, specialized for game audio and film sound. SoundFellas grew to also include proprietary research in the fields of sound design and also software development for audio production tools focused on the games and film production professionals.
  • As an inventor, he conceived, designed and developed together with Manolis Benetos, Antonis Koutelias and Antonis Ventouris, the first interactive and augmented audio app for mobile called “DMDJ”. The app was released at the same time with the first iPhone, and is used to generate procedural soundscapes that augment the experience of pen-and-paper RPG board game players. DMDJ is still commercially available for smartphones and tablets, through Blueface Games and the Apple, Google and Amazon app stores.
  • Through various affiliations, he delivers free short courses and open lectures on the topics of sound design and game audio whenever he gets the chance, in order to introduce the concepts of creativity and productivity, and share the beauty of music and sound in our lives and the quality that they can bring to the society.
  • As a member of an international committee of experts in education and video game related professionals, he developed a big part of the curricula for undergraduate courses in game development, game design and game production, for the SAE colleges around Europe. The curricula was accepted and accredited from Middlesex University and the Ministries of Education of 10 European countries with success.

Affiliations

Image of Logo Affiliation IASIG 192w 192h.
Image of Logo Affiliation AudioGANG 192w 192h.
Image of Logo Affiliation IGDA 192w 192h.
Image of Logo Affiliation AES 192w 192h.
Image of Logo Affiliation SAE Institute 192w 192h.
Image of Logo Affiliation SAE Alumni 192w 192h.
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SoundFellas Immersive Audio Labs

A MediaFlake Ltd Brand
41 Agiou Dimitriou, 18546
Athens, Greece
EU VAT ID: EL997735980
Business Reg.: 277317
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©2011 SoundFellas Immersive Audio Labs, All Rights Reserved.

Random Articles
Don't miss a thing

* We don’t spam and we don’t use your email for anything else than to inform you when we share knowledge or we have an update.
* All emails feature a link for you to unsubscribe at any time.
* By subscribing you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Stay Connected
SoundFellas Immersive Audio Labs

A MediaFlake Ltd Brand
41 Agiou Dimitriou, 18546
Athens, Greece
EU VAT ID: EL997735980
Business Reg.: 277317
Learn more about SoundFellas

©2021 SoundFellas Immersive Audio Labs, All Rights Reserved.