Just a quick thought on musical styles... One of the better musical soundtracks from a game I've played in the last few years comes from FTL- one of the great success stories of Kickstarter. The sound track consists of two sets of tracks- Explore and Battle tracks. The Explore numbers playing during peaceful moments, and being primarily relaxed, mellow, melody-heavy songs, and the Battle tracks playing when combat starts, with almost the exact same structure, but more bass and percussive. Something I'm throwing together in my head is the idea of having each type of world have its own brand of themes- Perhaps more than one, for musical purposes, but still, a recognizable motif to the songs that are played on it. A heavy, highly brass instrument oriented feeling for metal planets, a light and effervescent woodwinds instrumental for gas giants, a solemn and muffled string section for underwater planets, a distant chaotic percussive beat for lava plants... You get the idea. It'd be an interesting idea to have a radio sort of feel for this- The songs continue playing while you're off world, so you don't have the first few bars playing every time you tap 1 to check on that army on the metal world...
I dig your idea of a motif for each planet type. I'll bring that up to Howard but knowing him he's probably already thought of it.
Hoorah! I know that a good motif can really help to sell a world's feelings to you. Good music, with a strong lasting motif can really make a game for me in the best way- And it can also help to emphasize the differences in feelings for different worlds, creating an emotional connection between certain kinds of music and certain tactics. Just a thought! Nothing new in what I'm saying, but hey, it's worth saying anyway. :-D
The orchestral suite ‘The Planets’ by Gustav Holst comes to mind. Gustav created a movement for seven of our solar systems planets. Mars, the Bringer of War Venus, the Bringer of Peace Mercury, the Winged Messenger Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age Uranus, the Magician Neptune, the Mystic Perhaps something similar for PA's different planet types? Sample http://soundcloud.com/ben-hewlett-davies/01-mars-the-bringer-of-war
ah yes, gustav's planets series, the sound of suffering, like country and western.... no, seriously i do enjoy the planets series and its a great idea to give each of the planetary biomes their own unique music and mood appropriate to their ascetic and perceived qualities
Gustav's planetary suite does have some obvious similarities to this concept. Of course, some more ethereal music for asteroids and moons is also a nice idea. Something piccolo or bell based, maybe- sharp, clear notes.
Howard is writing me some arrangements for the guitar so I can play on the soundtrack a bit. Maybe I can contribute some metal
Motifs are great and all, and i know ya'll are going to do the orchestral score, but i would like to make a dumb/obvious suggestion. Please! For all that's good in this world, make the music engaging. Ambiance is nice don't get me wrong, and it has its place, but it can put a person to sleep sometimes! One of the greatest things about (and i know i'm taking it pretty far back) the original Command and Conquer was the music rocked your socks! Granted while the battle raged it didn't matter as much what the music was because you were engaged/entertained by the fight, but you could be doing some thing completely mundane and be having a fantastic experience because you had time pay attention to the music and it was killer! Fast forward to C&C: Tiberium(sp?) Sun, and dear god what a boring game! It looked great, the story (or what i saw of it) was above par, but the music was nothing but sleepy-time tea when I was needing melt-a-horseshoe coffee! I would literally fall asleep at the keyboard while i was supposed to be doing the simple things like "Bad, harvester! Don't go into the Tiberium field that's right next to the enemy's base! Go to this one!" and suddenly i would wake up to not only no harvesters, but also no front line because the battle music/sounds were just as "ambient" (lame) as the ambiance music. This turned into a little bit of a rant didn't it? Sorry 'bout that. I just hope that someone will read this and revisit those two scores and see what i mean... And hopefully that person will be someone who has a direct influence on these things. *Looks around for the music composer* (sorry i don't remember your name off hand)
Agreed. There should definitely be a bit of variety and creativity in the music. I know that when you're composing a soundtrack you don't want it to be too distracting from the actual game, but half the time people end up listening to a huge variety of music while playing their games anyway, so for music composed specifically for the game it probably won't be an issue. At the same time, don't get too attached to a specific motif. At times, I felt Supcom (and even TA) did this a bit too often, but fortunately there was enough variety that it didn't get distracting.
I agree entirely with the idea of making the music engaging. Allow me to demonstrate with the music from FTL, my initial example. Here is the exploration music for the Mantis race, a warlike race of insects who are big on the hand-to-hand slaughter thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Iu2goFdRc Here is the battle music for the same race. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJBAhv8GgE0 They are basically the same song, but with an additional bass line and deeper percussive effects for the battle song, along with additional elements, to change the emotional tenor of the song. I'd suggest something along this line; Four songs, matching the level of conflict, and the level of built up technology, on a given world. First, the Wilds song. This is a song that would be extremely simple, to the point of being pure instrumental- Think lonesome guitars and wistful violins, playing on their own. Very smooth and ambient. This is the song that would play on a planet where there is no more than, say, 5 units from any given side, or 5 permanent structures- Something along those lines. The sound of a world that's at peace. No more than a single instrument at a time, maybe. Second, the Industrial song. This is a 'grander' version of the Wilds song- additional instruments, additional melody lines. Going from a simple ambient music to a firm theme in its own right. This is what plays when you actually have a base, 5 permanent structures or more, or some other significant presence on a planet. This would be, in my mind, the song most people are going to have humming in their minds when they think of a world, and should receive an appropriate amount of importance. Third, the Skirmish song. This is a song that is based off the Industrial song, with the appropriate bass notes and percussive elements to give it a deeper feeling. It should still be a fairly simple song. This is the song that plays when a fight begins; As soon as there is laser-fire exchanged, and units are being damaged, this should start playing. Fourth, the Battle song. This is where you really make the orchestra earn their music. Full orchestral sweeps, grand themes. This is the music that plays when you have at least a hundred units, and at least ten destroyed in the last minute or so. It should also always, always play when you've got an asteroid aimed at a planet. This music would be, naturally, based off of your own radar images of the world- If you don't have any sensors on the planet, there might be a massive battle happening just outside of your sensor range, and you're still listening to the cheery little Wild song. I think that'd be pretty fun. Again, the idea would be for all four songs to share the same basic melodies, and for each song to be building upon the last song. Essentially, each song would be about the same length. Now, feasibility. If memory serves me, we have the following planet types approved: Terran. Ocean. Metal. Lava. Gas Giant. Ice. That's six different kinds of planets. Add a seventh for asteroids and moons, the lifeless types, and we have seven basic melodies, and a total of 28 songs for this proposal of mine. That's a pretty healthy number of songs, god knows- But hopefully, the nature of their playing on certain motifs will help, and will provide for greater ease of writing for the song. The problems, then; This means that each planet effectively has one 'full' song. Is this gonna be remotely enough? I mean, it's a song with a lot of variation, but if you're going to be sitting on a world for up to an hour, that might be troublesome. However, I think that it would give the game a much greater emotional depth than simply having about 20 different songs which play at random. I'm going to make some allusions to JRPGs, as a game type with a long and storied history of the theme, as opposed to ambient music. Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander had good music, that got your blood pumping- But I don't think I could remember much of either of them, because of precisely that reason- There was very little tying the music to specific visual cues. This system would give you the Lava Planet Theme, a song that would, ideally, be something that you have running around in your head as one of those Great Songs. Think about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsj5xjoLXtE this song- If you ever played Chrono Trigger, this will almost certainly conjure up an instant image of a specific setting, which ties in perfectly with that song. That's the kind of experience I'd love to have from Planetary Annihilation. It's one of the weaknesses of a lot of games that there's not much distinguishable about the music. Powerful and memorable leitmotifs and visual connections are a great way to make a soundtrack that'll stick with people forever.
Well, since PA is going to have a minimum amount of story, the music will have to rely on motifs to make it memorable. Supcom did this with its very memorable 7 note motif, while TA had a broader, thematic focus. I feel a good mix of the two will be the best route to take to keep the music memorable, but avoid too much repetition. That's not to say that repeating a motif is a bad thing. If given enough variety, it can turn out wonderfully. One of my favorite game soundtracks, Radiant Silvergun, repeats the motif in nearly every single song, but each song is very unique thematically. For example, the opening theme lays out the main motif in the first few seconds: http://youtu.be/Ps4AwBM2TyE And then you have one of the battle themes, which maintains that motif, but with a twist: http://youtu.be/LWs6UtB9eVI That said, I can definitely appreciate a more varied soundtrack, like that of Zero K, so none of the songs feels like something you already heard. With regards to JRPGs and older console games, those soundtracks tended to have very distinct and catchy tunes due to the limitation of how the music could be played. They're memorable for their simplicity, but that style doesn't translate well to a full orchestral environment.
I think you have "engaging" confused with "functional." i disagree with the idea of functional music (outside of a typical battle music system that is) because the player will learn to rely on that cue as a game-play mechanic. If the music is a game-play mechanic then the player's choice to listen to the game's music Vs. Personal library is somewhat taken away because a person not listening to the game music will be at a disadvantage compared to those who are. Anyway, what i meant by engaging was that the music should be of the quality and flavor(?) that you would seriously consider putting it on a CD and listening to it on your way to work/school/whatever because it was good, entertaining music even when it was presented separate from the game. Of course it would probably make more aesthetic sense when presented in its natural format (inside the game) but that's just common sense. If the game is good, the music can only add to the game. If the music is bad, it can only take away from the game. What I'm trying to say is that often the "distracting" track is the best one. This is probably because it often stands out from the rest of the tracks in style and/or theme.
ever heard of FEAR FACTORY (the band ) they did some tracks for carmageddon 1 .... I can't really describe their music but i their one of my favorite groups Listening to their 2012 relaese right now okay i'll attempt a description Its metal with electronics and more infleunces and i don't think that howard hasn't heard of them Cheerio ..... Sorry didn't read the the previous posts..
Dark and wobbly planet - the bringer of dubstep? EDIT: I'm not seeing Fear Factory as suitable, certainly not their trademark super fast clipped drumming style. But the more orchestral-sounding bits where Burton C Bell goes all operatic might work. I'm still convinced that Infected Mushroom have some excellent ideas to draw from - fast-paced, futuristic but often very classically-influenced and with some proper crunchy guitars. See the tracks Bust-a-move or Saeed as good examples.
