Project Eternity Composer: In-house or External

[Cthulhu0316]

Hanz Zimmer, Danny Elfman for composer ideas. Bands: Deftones, Tool and/or A Perfect Circle, Trent Reznor has been doing some badass tracks for many movies lately...nah jus kidding....but only halfie.

[metiman]

I absolutely love Two Steps from Hell - Skyworld. It strongly reminds me of Clint Mansell's Lux Aeterna from Requiem for a Dream.

[Casey Edwards]

I absolutely love Two Steps from Hell - Skyworld. It strongly reminds me of Clint Mansell's Lux Aeterna from Requiem for a Dream.

 

Nick Phoenix and Thomas Bergersen are fantastic composers, but from what they've both said, they're perfectly content and happy making orchestral sample libraries (maybe not anymore though due to Nick leaving East West) and writing for trailer licensing. They were both writing at Remote Control Studios during the time of Pirates of the Caribbean 4, and while both said it wasn't terrible, they did say that writing for film definitely wasn't their thing. I could see them enjoying writing for Video Games though, considering there is a larger degree of freedom involved than that compared to writing to strict picture.

[Quadrone]

I bet it has already been said but here it is again:

Please, anyone but Jeremy Soule!

[inteleky]

I say let the in house guy do it. The music in the kickstarter video is really good. From what I read in other threads it sounds like he really wants to do it too. So let him do it I say. IMO If the game has music even close to that, it's going to be awesome......

[Karranthain]

I'd also add this piece :

 

[Minttunator]

Karranthain, that's awesome! I still listen to the old Might & Magic soundtracks every now and again.

[kenup]

Now, this is not exactly fantasy BUT, it's one of my all time favorite intros:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8uVaxWt8R0

[dlux]

Awesome tunes; Inspiration for Justin:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE0UA8RREX4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0UJk4EUzB0

Edited September 27, 2012 by dlux

[dlux]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsRmNnGi3-o Edited September 27, 2012 by dlux

[dlux]

[Karranthain]

Karranthain, that's awesome! I still listen to the old Might & Magic soundtracks every now and again.

 

Paul Anthony Romero is a great composer, another example :

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anoc67QPMaQ&feature=relmfu

 

Edited September 27, 2012 by Karranthain

[kenup]

Another awesome track:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suUtJxccoaU

[Anaeme]

Choir, brass, percussion...the very voice of valor stirring a hero's soul

[Anaeme]

On the wings of song I shall march to heaven!

Edited September 28, 2012 by Anaeme

[Freddo]

Justin Bell will probably do a nice job with it. I don't really care much for the intro music of the KS video, I felt it was somewhat bland, but the calm harp part which was played in the background during the talking was rather nice. I've always liked calm music more than epic music. Stuff like

,

,

,

(especially after 2:30) and so on. And I'm really a sucker for nice harp parts. Anyway, I hope there will be a lot of music that use the harp and choirs

 

Not to say that epic music doesn't have it's places though, of course it do. It's just rare I'm impressed or pleased by it, often I feel it's either way overused or that it just serve it's purpose and that's about it. The epic game soundtracks that impressed me the most in the past couple of years are both japanese games, Shadow of the Colossus and Nier. Nier is probably also the most impressive game soundtrack of this console generation as far as I'm concerned. I think it's brilliantly amazing, with both excellent calm and epic tracks, like

(bit repetetive but that's hardly on your mind during the boss battle!)

 

Also, I would probably be rather disappointed if it was Jeremy Soule was to do the music I find his music to be rather boring, and that's putting things nicely. He did surprise me a bit with the Skyrim soundtrack though, I very much like Secunda. And Inon Zur I consider to be even worse, not a bad composer really, can't think of any bad tracks, but at the same time I can't think of a single track by him that I felt was better than "ok". The Fallout 3 and Dragon Age: Origin soundtracks did nothing to me, at all.

 

So while I said there's no substitute for a real orchestra, you can still get very convincing results with samples. Here are a couple examples of that (be sure to watch them at their highest quality level if you so that you get better audio):

 

 

Not that these pieces of music are appropriate for PE. I just think that those examples do a good job of illustrating the point that a high quality emotive score can be achieved both with, and without, real musicians.

Very impressive

 

Whomever they choose, I hope the soundtrack is longer than just 45 minutes of music or so.

The Elder Scrolls titles, for example, had Jeremy Soule. The soundtracks were too short and repetitive for a game that could be played for over 40 hours. Too often you heard the same musical theme, and not even as a leit-motif with different orchestrations, but the same exact music, over and over and over again.

 

On the other hand, there's Kirill Pokrovsky (whom I've mentioned in another music thread already) who composed over 2 hours of music for Divine Divinity, and it's never one bit repetitive, and each track suits a given game environment. Not only that, but it's so smooth that you don't even notice when it repeats. I actually played Morrowind with a mod that stacked Pokrovsky's music over the original soundtrack, and it fit the game perfectly. I was really growing sick and tired of the Morrowind theme on repeat.

 

Granted, in a fantasy setting there should be a few places/situations/battles deserving of EPIC musical compositions, but they don't have to play in every rat-infested alley or woodland copse. Keep the soundtrack responsive to situation.

Aye, I very much agree with this post. If there is one area where japanese RPGs usually are quite superior to western RPGs, it's the efforts put into the soundtracks. I mean, it's not unusual a JRPG soundtrack is on 4 CDs or so, created by several in-house composers. While it seems like many western game developers seem to have a sort of a "oh yeah, the game is finished soon, I guess we also need a soundtrack? Let's hire a guy to make a few tracks and call it a day" mentality. The Morrowind soundtrack was absolutely horrible as far as I'm concerned, in multiple ways. For example, how can you let the game play relatively happy cheery explore music in a place that is supposed to be a scary creepy dungeon?

 

I actually composed 3 tracks (and plenty of unfinished ones!) to use for exploration in Morrowind with a now ancient Roland XP-50 and SR-JV Orchestral expansionboard, cause I felt the Soule soundtrack was so limiting. Although the website that hosted those died some years ago they are no longer available online.

 

But yeah, an excellent RPG soundtrack need a lot of tracks to fit a lot of different situations. I hope the Project Eternity soundtrack will do this

Edited September 28, 2012 by Freddo

[RosesandAshes]

I LOVE the music in the Kickstarter video-so soothing, so epic, so I'm going with Justin Bell.

On the other hand, did Soule do the music for Icewind Dale? I'm playing Icewind Dale atm, and wow, how old is the game now? It has no right to have such awesome music!

 

No, no, go with Bell, he would probably be cheaper.

[metiman]

Nice post Freddo. I'm glad to see this thread getting some attention again. I also find Jeremy Soule's music to be rather boring and Inon Zur to be even worse. But I find Secunda achingly beautiful. Sounds almost Mark Morgan-ish. So he clearly has talent. Maybe he's just not selective enough about what work he lets escape out into the world.

[Aedelric]

Justin, I know you guys want to release the soundtrack and it is part of the reward system for kickstarter, but any chance we can get an .mp3 download of the kickstarter teaser music to enjoy?

[Vampero]

In house is fine with me.

[Anaeme]

I love epic music...it makes you feel your place in the unfolding events more keenly

 

Skyrim uses epic music to achieve the same effect

[kenup]

Skyrim has epic music?

[Anaeme]

Two Steps from Hell has a ton of great tunes

 

[Jasede]

Skyrim has epic music?

Yes, in that "generic" sort of epic way that you now have to endure every single movie trailer. You know, the generic blaring trumpets and that "heroic" violin. Loathsome.

[Starwars]

I agree with one of the above posts that the most evocative piece of music in the kickstarter video was the piece with the harp arpeggio. That really made the video come alive in a way. I didn't care enormously for the "epic", loud parts with the chorus and that. Would love for a more subdued vibe for Project Eternity, and hold back the fantasy fanfares a bit.

 

I also really loved the soundscape at the end of the video with the tolling of the bells. Nice job on that.