neobustatunez

So as I'd mentioned in the last post, around the turn of the year I'd worked on two very very different projects back-to-back. Kaos War was a big epic MMORPG that demanded the kind of ginormous fantasy orchestra music that I'd been typecast for ever since I started writing for games. Eden: The Zhang Chronicles however was a machinima short that almost never takes itself too seriously, despite having insanely realistic visuals due to use of Cryengine 2. For this one, I used a very Hans Zimmer-ish blend of orchestra, ethnic instruments, and electronics.

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So I've basically done exactly what I promised not to do, and that is go obnoxiously long periods with no updates whatsoever. Hope you had fun! :D

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(HONOES TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY??!??)

So you may be wondering why the heck I've been invisible from April to August. Well besides all the work for Impact: Steel, almost immediately once I finished that and got the business side of it up and running, I got my first gig working on a major game title, Hellgate: London. They contacted me to do music for their E3 cinematic trailer - http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22749.html


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So, as previously mentioned, I made a sample library. What I haven't mentioned yet was that, eventually it grew and grew. And grew.

And now it's been commercially released - www.impactsteelsounds.com

Right now I'm working on an extensive and completely independent sampling project for metal percussion. I'll give a postmortem and post some demos later, but just to summarize, this project will contain around 300 samples, with up to 9 velocity layers, 3 variations, and 14 articulations/playing methods per "instrument". I'm keeping a diary of my daily progress, and will post a detailed (yet, hopefully, interesting!) postmortem that'll give some insight on how sample libraries are built from square one.

My first technical post; bear with me, and sorry to folks who don't know/care about this stuff. But maybe it'll offer some insight into all the crap I have to go through whenever I wanna make something sound realistic with computer instruments. ;-)


The most difficult thing to do in MIDI is realistic phrasing. Instruments have to flow and breathe, and the sense of a continuous melodic line must somehow be emulated via separate samples of individual notes. We now have legato scripting in Kontakt 2, as well as sampled legato patches in libraries like VSL and Westgate. But those techniques will only "connect" the notes - I'll explain how to edit Kontakt 2 patches so that you can get realistic phrasing and expression via automated timbral editing.

So I just got back from the Game Developers Conference (www.gdconf.com). I spent about 10 days over in San Francisco, staying a few extra days to take in the sights and just hang out with folks in a less hyperactive setting, meet up with SF-based friends / fellow game developers, and just generally take in the sights.

(A bit of a rant here)

Today I remembered two interesting firsts - my first video game experience, and my first video game music experience.

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I promised a few people that I'd make an entry that attempts to give insights on this composer's shockingly diverse, often genre-bending music. I also promised that I'd try my best to avoid music theory jargon; this won't be completely avoidable, but I'll at least try to define my terms as I go along.

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So, today I encountered a new instrument - The Stick

So I've decided that there's a few specific things I need to do at some point, to help me write music better:

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By the way, I notice myself saying "you" a lot in these posts, as if I'm lecturing to other composers. I'm really just using it in the indefinite/general sense, I understand not everyone reading this is a composer. In fact, I really hope I get more non-composers/non-musicians (heretofore "civilians" ;-)) reading it, since it might be interesting to see how someone like me would think. Moreso, it'd be interesting to see what other people think, and how that might be similar/different.

I think I neglected to mention one very fundamental idea from my last post. In fact, it's the one that matters the most. Here goes:

If your music isn't unique to you, it'll always be second rate.

{Before I start writing this post, I just wanted to make the disclaimer that I want it to be readable by anyone, regardless of if you're a fellow musician or not. So I'll try not to get too technical. Try and fail. But, still read it. Please. I probably like you a lot.}

{...probably.}

As some of you might know, I used to maintain an LJ several years ago. I'd post about whatever ridiculosities I'd encountered during the day, and maybe offer a little moral introspective on it. Apparently some people found it surprisingly interesting, but eventually I realized two things: