Last October Michael posted a roundup of composers who have turned to Twitch and YouTube to broadcast their music creation process to the world. Among them was FTL composer, Ben Prunty, who began streaming the regularly scheduled Music Workbench series earlier this year. Whether you tuned in or not, the results of his streams have now been compiled on the new, free album titled Music Workbench.
“During Music Workbench, I make music live on twitch, talk about my creative and technical processes, and answer questions from viewers. The purpose of the show is to help demystify the music production process, which too often is seen as pure wizardry.”
Ben Prunty
The album offers five tracks that were created during live streams and highlight Prunty’s ethereal electronic style with some nice surprises and deviations to mix things up. There’s also the track “Going to Market” which was created off the air and added as a bonus track. You can grab the album for free from Bandcamp and join Ben Prunty’s Music Workbench streams every Saturday at 2pm PST on Twitch.
Greybox, has just released their second developer video for RiME, an upcoming game for XBOX One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. In the video the developers discuss the art and design of the game, as well as the music and audio design. The video runs just under 10 minutes, and the discussion about the game’s music begins at 4:56. The developers talk about the game’s island as a character that tells the story of the game. In the video the music is described as a masterpiece that conveys the story arc and in game relationships. They also describe the music as having thematic adaptions to the player’s actions, and that the music ‘completes’ RiME.
David Garcia the composer is shown in the video offering some thoughts on his approach to creating the music. On April 6, 2017, Greybox also posted an excerpt of David Garcia’s score titled “Alone in the Light” which you can listen to below. There is also a link on the official YouTube video to download the sheet music.
Are you looking forward to RiME?
If you are reading this site you obviously have a keen interest in game music, you may even be a game composer yourself.
However, I suspect there is also a reasonable percentage of readers who are composers outside of games, want to get involved, but don’t really know how to get started. Either that or a fear lingering fears are holding them back.
Whenever I’ve spoken to composers looking at getting into games, apart from the problem of actually finding work (which is more of a practical issue), they nearly always have three fears that they mention:
These concerns are natural, and indeed I had these concerns myself when I started.
Last week at Game Developers Conference, the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) hosted their annual awards show. Each year, composers from all over the video game industry get recognized for their achievements is making music the integral part of the video game process.
This year saw many categories and finalists from all over the industry. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and ABZU brought home several nominations and awards, along with Overwatch and INSIDE. ABZU and Banner Saga composer Austin Wintory (whose awards can be seen above) seemed a bit overwhelmed by all the praise.
Wtf just happened @field_of_reeds? pic.twitter.com/UoDHpwmFpt
— Austin Wintory (@awintory) March 3, 2017
Sly Cooper and Grim Fandango composer Peter McConnell was also recognized with a Lifetime Achievement award. You can check out all the winners below the cut or head over the the G.A.N.G. page.
For those looking to expand their knowledge about the field of audio and music, the task to find good information can be daunting. The internet is full of message boards, forums, and tutorials about how to create, mix, master, and implement audio. It can be difficult to filter through the massive amount of information to find useful tips and advice for improving these skills.
In my own searches I’ve come across a number of podcasts that provide coverage of these specific topics. These podcasts range from covering specific aspects of mastering and mixing music to wider discussions on events and trends in the game industry concerning audio. Today I’ll be sharing a few of my favorite music and audio production podcasts that have helped expand my knowledge of these topics. This is by no means a complete list, but I hope it can be a good jumping off point for anyone else looking to learn more about the audio world. (more…)
For those making the trek to San Antonio, Texas this weekend to attend PAX South 2017, and are interested in the video game music and audio side of things, here’s a quick and handy list of both the musical performances playing at the event, as well as the VGM, music industry panels and any fun music-related panels to check out.
Concerts:
Friday Night (8pm – 11:30pm CST)
Saturday Night (8pm – 11:30pm CST)
Panels:
Friday
Saturday
Game Panels & Tournaments
Friday
You can check out the entire PAX South schedule here. Hopefully you’re able to check out one or all of these music and audio related events going on this year, and if you do let us know what you thought!
It’s that time of the year again! With Black Friday and Cyber Monday only a few days away, many music software companies have already begun offering their holiday deals and discounts. Like last year, we’ve compiled a list of places having sales on their music and audio tools. More sales are bound to crop up as we get closer to the weekend, so we’ll be updating this list as much as we can. With all of that said, here are some of the sales going on right now or coming up this weekend.
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