Month: June 2022

I am pretty happy with my first experiments for the soundtrack for the ‘hopeful’ side of the game, and with the ideas for the ‘desolate’ side of the game I wanted to keep the consistency in sound choices and sonic palette. I feel it is important to not have the two moods clash too much as at the end of the day it is background music and should bleed into the environment it is contained in. Making more desolate and sombre music is definitely more in my comfort zone, but I still had the challenge of keeping it cohesive with the games aesthetic.

I have been receiving some updates from my group about the progression of the game design. They have sent me some pictures and videos that show things like the design of the bee, the landscape, and the other animals in the world. This has given me a better sense of how the music might fit into the virtual world, as I feel the aesthetic is giving off a mystical and bright energy, which I used to influence these tracks.

When making these tracks I retained a very similar sonic palette to match with the more hopeful tracks I previously made. However, I shifted the focus onto the synth sounds because I felt they helped create a more sombre ambience. Here’s a video of me in the middle of the process.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YWtGwnm4jK70vnCfYGnZZsImO_1AKwlk/view?usp=sharing

Following my plan to make the soundtrack based off of the references I have been given and found myself, I have made three versions of the more hopeful side of the soundtrack.

My intention was to make the tracks not only hopeful but full of adventure and curiosity. I wanted the tracks to mirror the playful nature of the game as it has been described to me. I used the plugin ‘Labs’ and just used presets that I occasionally tweaked, as Labs has a great range of soft and authentic instrument sounds like pianos and strings. The music I was referencing was consistently quite organic and had cinematic auras that relied heavily on subtle build ups of instruments. For this reason I limited myself to using piano and string sounds, as well as light synth sounds to add ambience and a sense of space.

My personal favourite is number 2 but I am interested to hear what the group has to say about them. Making ‘happy’ tracks is something I am not usually concerned about, so this provided me with a different challenged that felt quite liberating. I played most of the melodies in myself and then would edit the patterns after, which was a nice and fluid way of working.

The references that I was given as a starting point have a general pattern in that they are all heavily instrumental (strings, guitars, piano) and project a grand, cinematic feeling. I was sent a playlist by my group on YouTube that I will include below.

These videos of soundtracks/songs have made things a lot clearer for me as the composer because they’re all quite consistent in the mood and instrumentation. I had a couple of thoughts, however, that I expressed to the group. The main idea I had was that the soundtrack should be a little more intimate and subtle, because the game, as it has been described to me, seems to be a very simple, fun, solo game that doesn’t delve too much into the abstract realm and has a very definitive connection between the protagonist (the bee) and the player. I felt that an intimate soundtrack would serve the overall experience better, allowing the player to become more lost in the game whilst not becoming distracted.

In light of the idea of intimacy, I have turned to Minecraft as a reference. It’s subtle pianos and blissful ambience create a soothing playing experience, with the soundtrack playing a vital role in a simple open world game with an innocent aesthetic. I feel that the game I’m working on is similar in the sense that it revolves around a fun and playful gameplay rather than more cinematic and treacherous for the player, albeit a lot more simple.

I have been in contact with the game designers and animators in my group and I asked for a list of references and what mood they wanted the sound to create. I also asked if there was a preference in the type of instrument, whether it should be more experimental or not, how intimate or abstract it should be and how long they roughly want it. The response was very open in that I was told I am able to be quite free in my experimentation. I am in charge of the musical score in the background while my partner is in control of the sound effects. I’m happy that the assigning of roles worked out this way because it provides a good opportunity for me to explore something different by scoring an environment that is specific and requires a certain mood to reflect it’s atmosphere and structure.

My role is to score a ‘lighter’ and ‘darker’ side of the game, the lighter for when the bee is pollinating the flowers and the darker for when it is searching for flowers in a barren wasteland. So essentially I feel it is quite important to have the two moods be consistent in their sonic textures and aesthetics, as they will occupy the same world but with slightly different tones. Similar instruments and an overarching ambience I feel would work well in retaining the consistency in the soundtrack, making it obvious that the two tracks are existing in the same world.

NOTES –

As someone with no experience in spatial sound in any way, I found the first lesson very informative, and a lot of ideas were sparked in my head. What I found particularly interesting was the idea that spatial sound, as opposed to the standard two channel setup that everyone listens to music through, is a lot less concerned with the sound on its own, but instead more worried about the relationship between the sound and the environment. For instance, if you are listening to a song or a sound piece through headphones, you are hearing a definitive and focused piece of work that doesn’t use any of your physical surroundings to create its impact. Sound systems in clubs and venues have a bit more of a relationship with the space but it is still quite a linear way of the sound being projected.

Spatial sound, however, often uses the space as another instrument, fulfilling the architectural brilliance of a space and playing a lot more with emptiness and physical sensation. One note I wrote down was that you can never show the experience of a spatial piece because you have to experience it in real life – as soon as it is converted to binaural or a video of the piece being performed, the spatial sound element gets lost as you are now listening via two channels. I think this is an important idea to think about, because the way I interpret it is spatialisation/installation work is all about being immersed in the moment, and it is an experience, whereas how I am used to producing sound work is through making work that can be replayed infinitely. It seems like more of a mindset change over anything else when you move into spatial sound.

At the midway point of the year, it seems to me as though we have entered the phase of learning through mimicking real world situations, exemplified by the exhibition unit that we have just finished and this new collaborative project that we are starting. This is my favourite way to learn because there is a slight amount of pressure and I enjoy learning new perspectives through collaboration. Upon meeting some of the people I will be working with, I am excited to see how the project will develop and I’m looking forward to engaging with people working within different disciplines.

The project that I will be working on is in conjunction with MA Games Design and MA 3D Animation. The title is ‘Too Bee‘, which is a simple game where the player controls a bee and has to pollinate flowers in a barren wasteland in order to bring back the nature. I am pleased that I am in a group that is focusing on a simple idea because working with game designers and operating in this sort of scenario is new to me, so I don’t feel like I’ve been thrown in at the deep end.

SUSTAINED GENERATIVE DIALOGUE

It is important to treat this collaborative process as an ongoing conversation rather than forcing the issue based on my own interpretation. I realise that I am one cog in a machine and I am challenging myself to be as open minded as possible whilst bringing my own voice to the team.