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Composing music for games

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11 comments, last by Toni Taika Rahkonen 5 years, 8 months ago

What programs they used to make music for ps one games? Like tekken 3 ost, or did they use hardware synths and real instruments?

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The PS1 was among the first systems that supported Redbook audio, so much of it was live music.

Hardware synths of the 90s were popular, with stuff like the Roland Sound Canvas or JV-2080 being popular among Japanese composers.

The Tekken 3 soundtrack however, was a "big beat" style typical of the 90s and much of it was (true to form) sampled from existing pop tracks, as the devs wanted it to sound like Chemical Bros. or The Prodigy. A lot of video game soundtracks of the time particularly favoured the intro guitar from East 17's "Steam", but chopped it up and timestretched it.

and here's the same loop, chopped and re-used by Capcom

Twisted Metal had a full live rock band, courtesy of Chuck Meyers and Lance Lenhart at their studio in Salt Lake City (still going to this day)

 Stewart Copeland used a lot of his own samples and stuff on the Spyro soundtrack.

 So the short answer is: They used whatever there was! 

PUBG is my favorite game. So, I want to compose a good music for my PUBG game. So, I tried to learn from the above-mentioned video but it was not playing on my iPhone X. I am also trying to take help from g-suite customer support  regarding this. Is there any way I can get to know about composing a music?

46 minutes ago, mark henry said:

PUBG is my favorite game. So, I want to compose a good music for my PUBG game. So, I tried to learn from the above-mentioned video but it was not playing on my iPhone X. I am also trying to take help from g-suite customer support  regarding this. Is there any way I can get to know about composing a music?

Composing original music (especially within the context of a game or film) effectively, takes a lot of study and there is a lot to know. Harmony, theory, orchestration (thorough understanding of the instruments you're composing for), counterpoint, melodic structure, notation, and using the modern software tools, etc. are all very important. 

My recommendation is to either hire a composer for your game, or if you really are interested in doing it for yourself, take lessons in a polyphonic instrument like the piano and lessons on composition specifically. There are some good online masterclasses out there, but nothing beats a good teacher in the flesh. You might also consider the many books that have been written on composition, theory, harmony, orchestration, DAWs and software, etc. as well as studying existing scores you like and figuring out what musical techniques they use.

I'm going to agree with @Chris Schmidt on this one. I honestly had zero experience, other than the basic music classes we took in middle/high school. I got my start using the old PS1's MTV Music Generator and some online stuff that had a bunch of pre-made riffs. I didn't start making things from scratch until about almost 2 years ago now. But, I still do not have music theory background or major knowledge. Anything I need help with, I use the internet and YouTube for assistance with. Since this is a hobby for now, I'm learning on my own time, but should I pursue this into a more solid career, I've got a long ways to go.

Even now, I'm just using one program that has samples (and lets me upload my own), and there is still so much to learn.

2 hours ago, BitsNPiecesMusic said:

Anything I need help with, I use the internet and YouTube for assistance with

Personally, I would be careful with this one.

Youtube, and the internet in general, offer an unending sea of information and this can be really great.

It's also full of a lot of people who don't really know what they're doing and give a lot of really bad advice that can help you develop bad habits if you don't know any better. Youtubers doing tutorials are especially notorious for this, and there are only handful who I (personally) think are really great teachers who really know their stuff.

1 hour ago, Chris Schmidt said:

Personally, I would be careful with this one.

Youtube, and the internet in general, offer an unending sea of information and this can be really great.

It's also full of a lot of people who don't really know what they're doing and give a lot of really bad advice that can help you develop bad habits if you don't know any better. Youtubers doing tutorials are especially notorious for this, and there are only handful who I (personally) think are really great teachers who really know their stuff.

Thank you for the advice!

I think, there are a number of elements you need to know in order to create a music.

  1. Composition -- The emphasis here is the main melody and the supporting harmony- namely chord progression and stuffs. 
  2. Arrangement --  This is the process that applies style to the composition. This make the same composition sound different from a version to another of the same song. One might argue that it's basically the same as composition. 
  3. Performance -- This is about performing the instruments required by the arrangement to make it sounds. This one is less on the knowledge and more on the skill.
  4. Recording -- capturing the performance into some kind of medium (wave, midi, for instance).
  5. Mixing -- process the recordings and put them into a song. Each recording is processed so it sit wells together along with the others from the same song.
  6. Mastering -- process the song as a whole to make sure it works well with other songs and sound effects.

Nowadays, these process can be done by one person of course. However they are quite overwelming for one person to learn them all in a short period of time. One of my composer friends says, it takes 3 days for him to come up with a song because he has 15 years of his experinence. 

In fact most people I know specialize in one or two area, and know a little bit on the others.

http://9tawan.net/en/

2 hours ago, mr_tawan said:

In fact most people I know specialize in one or two area, and know a little bit on the others.

Historically, a lot of the things in your list have been done by separate people, and it is generally ideal for everyone to stick to what they're best at.

But unless you're making the bigger bucks and have a team of associates that you can outsource to (which is more to save time than anything), you've pretty much gotta give it your all on every aspect. Composers are basically expected to be one-stop shops today. I have disagreements with that expectation and how it came to be, but that's a rant for another time.

Further, I'd say points 3 and 5 are actually a part of 1 and 2. There was a time recording music wasn't possible, but composers still got excellent "mixes" anyway — it's all about the composition and arrangement. 

Hardware synths are still used to this day, and are good to use all depending on the type of game it is you're developing. And you have to think, what exactly is the end goal that you're trying to accomplish.. do you want just basic background music, or are you looking for something more intricate. 

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