MICHAEL

“You make the stories, we make the audio!”

About Michael Ghelfi

Michael Ghelfi is a Swiss composer and sound designer, and the founder of Michael Ghelfi Studios (MGS), a studio dedicated to audio for tabletop role-playing games. Working in both French and English, he is one of the rare voices bridging the anglophone and French-language RPG scenes, at home with publishers on either side.

In 2021, his work won the Gold ENNIE Award for Best Aid/Accessory (Digital), the industry’s highest recognition in the category. Today, MGS maintains a catalog of more than 6,000 tracks, of which Michael personally composed and designed over 4,000: 2,000 ambiences and 2,000 sound effects. That work has been streamed more than 100 million times, reaches 175,000 subscribers on YouTube, and is supported by a community of over 7,000 patrons.

MGS is also the official composer studio for Paizo, scoring campaign settings for Pathfinder and Starfinder under the direction of Filip Melvan, MGS’s Director of Music. The studio has collaborated with Loot Tavern, Ghostfire Gaming, DC20, Farworld Studio, Badwolf Adventure Studios, Moonlight Maps, Wistfulware, James’ RPG Art, Paleo Gaming, and the death metal band The Black Dahlia Murder, among others.

Michael also holds exclusive curatorial rights over Opus, dScryb’s TTRPG audio platform, choosing the soundscapes that shape thousands of sessions.

Writing and worldbuilding

Beyond audio, Michael has authored and co-authored several published RPG sourcebooks, including Lieux d’aventures (Les XII Singes) and Les recettes de Germaine (Éditions Stellamaris), with more titles on the way. He has also built complete constructed languages for use at the table, with their own phonology, grammar, and writing systems.

He is a lifelong game master, running campaigns in his own homebrew world of Kor.

Hobbies and interests

Michael took an unusual road to composing. He holds a Bachelor’s in Macroeconomics and a Master’s in Information Systems and Cybersecurity from HEC Lausanne, where he served as president of his master’s student association. He then worked as a cybersecurity project manager for the Swiss federal government, building MGS on the side, until the studio grew enough to become his full-time work.

He later returned to university to complete a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Psychology, not as a career move but because the subject fascinated him and because he wanted the challenge. Once he has his degree, he intends to use it where it matters most: offering support to people who cannot afford it.

That combination of economics, systems engineering, psychology, and music is not a detour. It is the method. Michael approaches sound the way he approaches everything else: as a system to be understood, taken apart, and rebuilt better. He is drawn to code, to philosophy, and to complexity in all its forms.

Favorite composers: Jason Hayes, Paul Romero, Basil Poledouris, Justin Bell, Debussy
Favorite instruments: Oboe, Harp
Favorite games: Dwarf Fortress, Heroes of Might and Magic III, World of Warcraft, Civilization
Other interests: Psychology, philosophy, politics, bouldering, motorbiking, coding