An Ode To Gaming Music

1up.com's never ending flow of excellent features has turned up a piece celebrating gaming music at its finest. The article delves into the past of gaming music and talks about the realities of today's soundscape. From the article: "Along with Space Channel 5's tracks, Katamari Damacy is one of the best examples of what musicians are doing with compressed audio today. Each song is lengthy enough so as not to repeat itself during the 5 to 6 minute stages in the game, and composer Yu Miyake let his imagination run riot, running the gamut of musical styles from introspective electronic music to big-band swing to power ballads to lounge singing. Just like its namesake, the disparate styles all clump together to form something awesome that's worth experiencing even outside the context of the game. "

Comments

As a snes gamer

[BlackCobra43]

I could listen to the OST to Final Fantasy 6 for hours. Same for Chrono Trigger. Those games had rich soundtracks. It's good to see some modern games still have "the touch" when ti comes to making great gaming music.

Re:As a snes gamer

[lanswitch]

if you love music, and want to make a decent living as a musician/composer you'll have to go to the games industry. they are looking for good, and sometimes even original music because they know that good music will make the game look better. Record companies are usually not interested in music, they are interested in selling cd's (or mp3's).

Monkey Island

[spot35]

All four have the best soundtracks in any game I've played. And the iMuse system is excellent.

1up = aggravating

[Perseid]

Perhaps I'm being a bit hard on whoever wrote this article, but I don't think someone who doesn't truly know the history of video game music should be writing an article on video game music.

The first multi-channel sound chip was not that of the NES, it was of the C-64. In fact, the 64 was the first machine to really call attention to video game music, and it was the first to form a following of video game composer celebrities, such as Rob Hubbard and Ben Daglish.

90% of you don't care, but I find it just silly to write an article on game music without mentioning the SID chip

Re:1up = aggravating

[dstone]

The first multi-channel sound chip was not that of the NES, it was of the C-64.

The C-64 had (and still has) some really amazing and distinctive sound. But if by multi-channel you mean stereo, then you're wrong. The C-64's SID is not a stereo chip. (You hack 2 into a C-64 and have a crude form of stereo, but that's true of any mono chip.)

And if by multi-channel you mean polyphonic then the C-64 was also not the first -- even the VIC-20 had multi-channel sound before the C-64. The VIC used the MOS Technology "VIC" chip before the C-64 used the MOS Technology 6581 "SID" chip. The VIC had 3 channels of square-wave sound (one oscillator per channel) and one noise channel. No enveolope control or filter, but still very much multi-channel and fun to listen to. (The VIC was also very similar to the POKEY chip from the Ataris and many arcade machines of that era also.)

More on the SID here
More on sound chips here

NWN

[ike6116]

IMO the best music I have ever heard in a game came from Jeremey Soule he did the music for Neverwinter Nights.

band that specialises in gameing music

[ArsonSmith]

They are a very popular band at the clubs here in Phoenix:

http://minibosses.com/

They even have some MP3s you can download.

What about no music at all?

[nherm]

Yes, vg music is very important to create the game atmosphere, but sometimes silence and some sound fx are enough...

I'm thinking on Half-Life I, sure it had an occasional music between stages, but for example the first monster scene (the tentacles), with the metalic sound of the beatings and the chewbacca-like roars were enough to keep the tension up.

Another example is duke3d. When I installed it I didn't set up the midi output, so I didn't know it had music during the game. It was not necessary at all.

Anyway, these two games are examples with good quality sound effects (echoes at closed rooms when shooting, ambient effects...). Maybe sound effects can replace music in FPS games, while in RPG games music can be more important.

Re:are you stating this from experience?

[lanswitch]

No, i read it in a magazine for pro- musicians. They gave this as an advice for aspiring pro's who are trying to get into the business because they love music. It's a (relatively) well-known fact in the business that (large) record companies are only interested in concepts, not bands or music. it's far more profitable for record companies to sell britney spears to children, than trying to discover the next beatles. If you want to sell your music without selling out, you have a far better chance in the game industry because the people over there actually listen to the music itself. you don't have to be a mtv-artist when you write game soundtracks, it's all about the music.