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Computer games music includes just about every genre of music - from basic beeps through pop, rock and electronica to lush symphonies. How do you make it? What do you use? How does it go together? We thought you might be interested in answers to some questions so we polled a few companies and got good replies from Computer Artworks in England and Lost Boys Games in Amsterdam (now Guerilla - Aug 03). Our warmest thanks to Joris de Man and Nancy Gatehouse of Lost Boys Games and Keith Tinman and Carolyn Seager of Computer Arts. |
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Computer Arts URL: www.artworks.co.uk Titles: The Thing, Organic Sound to Light website interest: William Latham art platforms: PC, PS2, Xbox, online Base: UK Audio Engineer/Composer: Keith Tinman
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Lost Boys Games Titles:
Knights, Call of the Dragonfly, unnamed for SCCE, website
interest: 'Knights'
Theme Music (preview) MP3 [3 Megabyte] platforms:
all next gen console and PC Base: Amsterdam, Netherlands House Composer: Joris de Man |
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How
did you start in games music? | |
| Keith
Tinman It was through my brother actually, he's a games programmer, he was working for a company called Thor software in 1985, they were looking for a composer and Robert, my brother put my name forward to the MD, I was interviewed and got the job! What a lucky break that was, since that day I have been in full time employment with the following companies, Odin, Special FX software, Ocean Software, Infogrames and I'm still currently at Computer Artworks. |
Joris de Man I started out as a demo musician on the Atari ST scene; one summer holiday I was offered a freelance assigment to do some music for a CDI game. That led to more assigments, and soon afterwards I was offered a fulltime job. Then one day I hopped over to England to visit the Future Entertainment show, where I bumped into one of the Bitmap Brothers. I gave them a demotape, and half a year later I was hired by them; the rest, as they say, is history. |
What
sort of equipment do you use? |
| Here's
a rundown of some of my setup:- Yamaha 02R Digital Mixer Yamaha Promix 01 Digital Mixer Clavia Nord Lead II Rack AKAI S5000 Sampler Roland JP-8000 Roland Jupiter 8 Roland MVS1 Vintage Synth Module Kurzweil K2000 Rack Sampler Moog Rogue Mono Synth Novation Bass Station Rack Alesis Midiverb IV Midiman 8x8 USB MIDI Interface PC Running Cubase Sound Forge 4.5 |
All my composing
is done on a Macintosh G4, running Logic Audio Platinum. For mixing I
have 2 Protools sets, and I use a PC for Gigastudio (a software sampler)
and conversions. Apart from that a Yamaha digital mixer and various synths
and outboard gear.
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| Do
you have any special hardware or software tools that you've developed for the job? | |
| Not really, I just use the equipment as it is.
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We (the
programmers and myself) have developed various tools for the PC. One is
a Gameboy music system, which we've used for 2 gameboy projects now (Candy
Fluffy and Rhino Rumble Puzzle). It consists of a gameboy soundeditor
and a tracker conversion tool. The other is an interactive streaming music
system that allows the playback of cd quality music that changes according
to in-game situations. A musictool for the Gameboy Advanced is also in
development. |
What is the
process of producing games music? Is it iterative |
| The
process of coming up with ideas for games is relativly simple, I start by
reading the D&P for the game if the games not that advanced in development,
or by playing it if it's at a playable stage, As I play or read the D&P,
I try and get some clear ideas ticking over in my head for music style,
I usually come up with ideas by humming along to my self in my mind. I think getting ideas in this way really works, you are getting direct inspiration from the game as you read or play. Once an initial idea has bloomed I go away and start the test track in the studio. |
It
really depends on the project; funnily enough, the gameboy projects I've
worked on have been much more specified than the 'bigger' projects we have
in development. Since I start pretty early on some projects, because I work
in-house, it tends to change somewhat as the project changes. It allows
you to get a much better grasp on what the project is about then when you
come in at the end. Mostly I'll be given a simple brief, and then I just
go away and do my thing for a while; then we discuss whether the approach
is working or not. |
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| I
have a total free reign in this department, but I'm always open to other
peoples ideas, I usually put together a rough version of a track, then play
it to various people in the design team, sort of a testing period as with
a record, I digest people's views about the track and make alterations accordingly.
I find this the best way to work as you can sometimes get interesting ideas from a collective of people. |
The lead designer and the composer usually decide this. The designer will often have an idea about what kind of music he would like to hear in the game, and more importantly when and where. We discuss different options, and sometimes I might be able to come up with some ideas the designer hasn't thought about. Often I'm left to my own devices, but I've been fortunate enough that they've liked most of the stuff I've come up with. |
| What is your background in music? | |
| I
am self taught musically, I started as mentioned previously writing music
for the early computer platforms i.e. Spectrum, C64, Amstrad computers,
from that point I have literally taught myself everything, I think there's
nothing quite like teaching yourself a skill. If you have enough determination
to do something you will find a way of capturing that skill, but having
the ability to compose music is, well, I think it's a natural gift, being
able to use and understand the equipment is the easy part! Composing 'Chip' music for consoles is a art form in it's self, you are always trying to squeeze samples in to the really small amounts of RAM available, and of course still make it sound as if it's a CD track playing. So from the humble early generation of computers I have worked my way up through the various consoles and computers to today's recording equipment. |
I come from a very musical family. My father is a teacher at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, and a contemporary classical composer as well, my mother is a harpsichordist, and my brother a multimedia composer. When I was six, I started playing the violin; I played in an Orchestra for a short while as well. After studying Sonology for a year, I started a study in Music and Technology, but left after six months for a job offer I received. |
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Is the music ever platform specific? If you're going for multiple platforms, do you go for the max on each or seek a commonly workable approach (leaving aside WAP games and such)?
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|
Yes
it can be, if you have a project that is going across all formats then
you have to have some sort of master plan, I approach this by composing
the tracks to the highest detail available, i.e. CD audio, then I scale
down the tracks for the various platforms, so imagine going from CD format |
It
really depends on the project and platforms, but overall I try to do the
best for each platform. I've never farmed out work to someone else because
I didn't want to do a specific platform; I think each platform and it's
limitations is a challenge. At one point, for instance, I was alternating
between writing a piece to be performed and recorded with the Moscow Symphony
Orchestra, and writing chip tunes for the Gameboy Colour. I find the extreme
contrast between some platforms very interesting and challenging. Writing
a good chiptune can be equally as challenging as writing a symphony. So yes, I guess you could say I go for the max:) |
| Do
you have a favourite platform right now? |
|
| Playstation 2, but I'm waiting to see what the new consoles are going to offer on the audio front. | Not
really; most platforms are getting pretty similar in terms of audio abillities.
I'm very interested in finding out more about the Xbox soundhardware; I
heard it was developed by Nvidia as well, which is interesting since they
don't have a history of soundcards or things like that. But the spec looks
pretty good. My preference would probably be the PC right now, because you don't have to deal with a memory footprint; you can pretty much take it as far as you want to go. On the other hand, you never know what kind of soundcard a consumer has in his PC, in that respect, the consoles have the advantage. |
| Would
you like to see computer games music treated as an artform like film soundtracks? Or is this pie in the sky? |
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| Yes,
I would like to see this happen eventually, as technology progresses we
are facing more and more of a challenge, music for games will soon be comparable
to film sound tracks, possibly even more so as a film sound track has a
predetermined flow, the film composer knows what's ahead, so they can adjust
the feel very easily, with a game you have to have predetermined pieces
of music which can join seamlessly and be called upon at any time. Incidentally, a colleague of mine, Toby Stenberg actually wrote his university dissertation on this subject before he joined the company. |
I
don't think it's a pie in the sky at all, if you consider that gamemusic
now has the chance of winning a Grammy. Unfortunately the gamesindustry still doesn't seem to take gamemusic very seriously, even though it's a third of the gameplay experience. Bigger budgets for gamemusic could mean better gamemusic as well. Gamemusic can be treated as an artform, if it is done well; allthough I wouldn't put gameboymusic in that realm (I would call that skillful sooner than artful:), there is some gamemusic out there that truly would deserve to be called artistic of artful. Outcast, for one, is one of those games. |
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