The Composer's Guide to Game Music: An Award-Winning Book Game Scoring Icon Winifred Phillips

Hey friends, readers, composers, and all artists alike! As promised, I have read through the entire Composer's Guide (paraphrasing the title) by one of my role models, Winifred Phillips, and can now post a full review. I enjoy talking too much online, in one-on-one situations, and when I'm teaching, and a blog is kind of like all three of those situations, so I figured I'll review each chapter. Ok, an overall will be at the end too...and on Amazon. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

The hook. This is what artists commonly use to grasp the attention of those they are presenting a work to, and Winifred definitely hooked me in this chapter. Her writing style is sincere and friendly, quirky and humorous, and full of passion that connects with a game composer like myself. In addition, like any good teacher, Phillips shares a plethora of analogies and personal stories to paint vivid pictures of that which she hopes to convey to us as readers.

The great thing about this chapter is that it also gives people who aren't sure if they want to move into the field of game composing a little test they can assess their passions with. And that is also the biggest takeaway point. Love games!

Chapter 2

This chapter describes the essence of the book. It shows the book's approachable nature (and really that of Phillips, as she loves to engage with fans at conferences or via social media sites like twitter). Throughout the entire text, she continually presents information about the game scoring world that can benefit both complete newbies and experienced veterans. Because I myself lie more on the experienced side, I knew much of what she presented here, but it is always great to hear inspiring quotes, to be refreshed on where you came from, and to learn new ways of teaching old tricks to those who work under you.

In essence, learning the craft of game composing doesn't have to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it will cost time, dedication and passion.

Though not mentioned in the book, I'd like to say that I read an article recently in which Mark Ruffalo stated that he had to audition over 600 times before his career as an actor launched. Do you think he did nothing in the meantime? Of course not. With each rejection, he tried not to take it to heart. Somebody else just happened to be better suited for the part, and he had to continue practicing so he could eventually convince directors he was that guy who was the best for the part. Winifred is telling us the same here. The takeaway here is always be learning, no matter how far along you are in your career.

Chapter 3

This was a very interesting chapter on the science of video game entertainment and how it attracts a following. It shows that before you consider being a game composer, you must understand games. Sure some of the biggest film names out there score games simply for the creative freedom, but there is something more that can be pulled from one who has a personal connection to every step of the video game experience. This particular chapter does a good job explaining how game composers can gently nudge a player toward a more fully immersive experience.

Takeaways will help you to understand the science behind player-game relationships.

Chapter 4

The story in this chapter was one of my favorites. I have not yet had the luxury of attending one of the biggest game festivals in fandom, so it was nice to imagine the scenes she described of raging fans going nuts over hearing their favorite game music performed live.

On the educational side of things, this chapter is extremely important for those who have not had any formal composition or very good private training. I've had formal composition training and I still learned more in-depth things, especially when it comes to the usage of the idée fixe. Winifred argues that it should indeed be considered a distinct entity from leitmotifs against the popular beliefs of many that state they are interchangeable with no real differences. I've heard both countless times in video games, and after reading would myself consider the idée fixe to be a very specific subcategory of the larger generalization of the leitmotif, even though neither side may agree. Again because of in-depth gaming experience and the reading, I was able to conclude that there might even be two distinct types of idée fixe.

The takeaways here should help you to understand music itself better before incorporating its techniques into gaming.

Chapter 5

This chapter makes a slight diversion back to the science of games and the psychology of gamers. It is immensely useful if you aren't well-rounded in your experience of the different genres of music in general, the genres of video games, or the genres of music in video games, and it is equally useful if you don't have the mind of a producer. As mentioned earlier, not only will you study game and music types, but you will also see how different psychological mindsets associate with the various types of games out there.

This chapter also inadvertently encourages you to be a self-disciplined go-getter. In other words, to truly get the most from it, you'll have to do some side-by-side research. Phillips describes the different types of music associated with shooters or RPGs or platformers, but she doesn't necessarily tell you step by step what goes into a rock song or what goes into a fantasy score or how to create an electronic soundscape. What she does do, however, is provide a plethora of in-game examples you can refer to in order to study various effects and techniques. Of course, I just love listening to game music, despite having experience in most of those compositional fields, so I followed along with most of the soundtracks mentioned to really put myself in the world of what she was describing. Some of the scores were old friends, while others I had never heard, and all enhanced the reading greatly.

Even now, as I write this, I'm listening to the full score to Little Big Planet 2 because I've completed the list of OSTs I've compiled over the years and only got to listen to a few of that game's tracks while reading the book. Listen to game music every chance you get! Be familiar with various game and music types. Those are the takeaways.

Chapter 6

A sort of expansion on the previous chapter, this chapter focuses more on the music in games since the reader should have a better understanding of the player. It focuses on what exactly music can do in a game and how important it can even become in the marketing world outside the game. If I recall correctly, this is also where she mentions just how valuable of an asset the game composer really is. If you are brought on board early enough, chances are that teams will listen to your work as they create (an honor I've experienced once). It really does fire them up and inspire them to do even better work! And, boy is it great to hear them say that your music has affected the development of the project in a positive way.

Takeaways demonstrate the relationship between game pacing and music reflective of any given situation.

Chapter 7

Winifred has more experience on much bigger titles than do I, and I found this section to be greatly enlightening on the process of working with a studio that is planning to release a AAA game. There are so many things you must do to prepare yourself for a big job, and she gives a great list of items to request from developers to make sure that you have access to as much source material as possible to inspire your best work. It's also where she first gets into the materials a game composer might need. While the film industry is relying more and more on music technology, the game industry couldn't survive without it. So if you are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with technology, make sure you pay attention to the upcoming chapters.

Preparation and the tools to achieve it can all be form your takeaways here.

Chapter 8

There are so many types of music and audio titles let alone members of other departments for any given game, so this chapter introduces you to the ones you'll likely be working with. It's a relatively short chapter compared to the others, but it can open your eyes to other music and audio-related jobs in the industry if you are interested in managing musicians and sound people instead of just creating music.

The takeaways here will show you who to communicate with (perhaps if you are seeking your first gig), remind you to communicate early and often, and help you to understand the chain of command.

Chapter 9

This is an all-around enjoyable chapter. It finally gets into the different types of game tracks you might hear in a typical game—something I have been studying since I was a child. Nowadays, there are so many cool things you can score: battle sequences, cinematics, general exploration (overworld themes), game trailers, and more.

If you understand the difference between how the various game tracks function within a game, you've nailed the takeaways.

Chapter 10

While chapter 9 explores some of the types of tracks you'll see in the video game composing world, this chapter really gets into the heart of linear-style game music as well as what makes game music dynamic and interesting. A must read for the beginning and intermediate musician. Linear music is very common in projects that are smaller or have engine limitations, and a composer can expect to work with it a lot, especially when first starting out.

Even the more advanced game composer can take away pointers on how to draw the most out of linear music, particularly when looped. At the very least, we can be pushed to pull more out of our journey around each track.

However, not only are loops more difficult to make interesting, they are often the hardest edit and make transition smoothly. In fact, this chapter was what inspired me to write my most recent article on an alternative game looping method.

This really should be considered as one of the most important chapters in the book.

Chapter 11

Unique only to the gaming industry, interactive music is explored here. If you are a true gamer, it is likely in my own musical opinion that interactive music is your favorite type of music to experience in a game…especially if you are a musician. This chapter offers great explanations and advice on what interactive music is and how it works.

Your takeaways may be more educational, but mine are that interactive music is so imperative to games all game composers should have a profound knowledge of how it works. It's super fun!

Chapter 12

MIDI is surprisingly something that many composers, young and experienced alike, have difficulty with. Even then, many who have a general understanding of it don't really take it to its full potential. This chapter will give you a brief understanding of it as well as explain some of the advantages, but only practice, experience, and some very specific topical research will help you to get the most out of MIDI.

After MIDI, the chapter goes on to describe where video game music has tried to go and may one day go, despite the disadvantages of highly experimental styles. Education on generative music (and MIDI if that's new for you) are good points for takeaway this chapter.

Chapter 13

This chapter is non-musical and it is also so huge that an entire book could be written about the topic. In fact, some have already been written. As composers, especially for games, you must have gear. And, that gear must be good! Winifred mentioned that she composes with the assistance of six computers and my brain nearly exploded. How I'd love to have even two! Simply put one machine can't handle all of the tasks you'll want it to do, no matter how strong it is. Not only that, but she gets into the types of software, plugins, controllers, boards, DAWs, libraries, and other gear you may need, though she doesn't advocate any particular brand here. That's OK though. You can always read my product reviews to understand each company specifically.

My personal takeaway from this chapter was that Phillips must use some EastWest equipment because she says a company, whom she leaves nameless, has software she owns that she regularly curses to the skies, but must accept because that creates some beautiful libraries that you can't find anywhere else. I also own EastWest, and as you all may know from my reviews, the products are great, but the player, stability, size of samples, and operation are insane.

Your takeaway may be less silly and more practical, since the other section of the chapter deals with middleware, another thing all game composers should be comfortable operating. If you don't know what middleware is, read this chapter, then start practicing!

Chapter 14

The chapter of hope and frustration. Winifred shares her personal journey and shows us how she got into the game scoring industry as well as how she maintains it. I currently am looking for that next boost to the top tier in my career and can say firsthand that it is indeed a lot of hard work. Even if you follow all of the tips, you'll have to be able to keep up with those tips and repeat many steps until you are satisfied with where you are. You may have to experiment with different ways of approaching each step until you perfect them or find something that is efficient. You will face various rejection, not because you are bad, but because somebody else got there first or fit a particular project in the way the producers had hoped they would. Even if you do everything technically right, your timing could just be a little off or it could just not work out. Phillips strives here to encourage you to keep on keeping on, and that is the final takeaway.

Conclusion

Overall, this is a wonderful book, and I believe classes could be developed in universities that specifically teach game composing using Winifred Phillips' guide as the text. It reaches readers of all ages and understandings of game scoring, and can surely boost the EXP of the newb and andvanced reader alike (level up, anyone?). It's light but useful. Comical but efficient. The least boring textbook you could hope to read. It covers every area of the game scoring world and gives a plethora of musical examples you can listen to while reading in order to fully capture the essence of her ideas, and it gives additional resources you can use to further your understanding of specific topics.

Pick up a copy the next time you're online, which is now, or at the bookstore the next time you're out.

For more information on the game composing sensation that is Winifred Philips, visit her site at www.winifredphillips.com.

Don't hesitate to email me with any questions you may have about the book or about composing in general. And remember, if you need a composer for your upcoming game project, visit www.natecombsmedia.com, or bypass me and go straight to Winifred if you think you can land her!

Video Game Audio - Cool Way to Make a Perfectly Smooth and Seamless Loop

Introduction

If you work in the gaming industry—whether you're a programmer, a composer, a sound designer, a project director, or anyone else who may deal with game audio—it's almost a guarantee you've come in contact with loops. They drive so many aspects of the gaming experience that even if you aren't the person implementing the loops, chances are that some of the music or sounds you've worked on will be looped at some point in their games.

Because the gaming industry is fueled by highly interactive experiences, your loops most likely will not be handled in a linear format—that is, by copying and pasting or otherwise extending an audio event to match a fixed timeline—as would be the case for loops in film and television. Instead, the game's engine will trigger the looping of various audio files so they can repeat an endless amount of times until something new is triggered to take their place.

For this reason, a smooth transition from the end of a single audio file (or chain of audio files) back to it's beginning is imperative, but creating seamless loops remains one of the trickiest challenges of implementing game audio today. When created, exported, or formatted improperly, an audible pop, a harsh click, a slight gap with no sound, or a lack of sound continuity (such as the reverb tail in a musical loop) will be present.

Current Methods of Making Seamless Loops

While there are a couple of common methods used to attempt to tackle these issues, none are totally perfect or can be used in any situation, and all may require multiple attempts to get an acceptable outcome. I'll review some of these common ways to work with loops and then share a solution for achieving "theoretically perfect" loops that my own experience and roadblocks led me to discover—a method that works extremely well for ambiences and environments and very well for certain ambient music tracks, though with the right amount of work, it could be applied to any loop.

Both sound designers and composers (and all other audio experts) should be familiar with the term "zero crossing." In short, it is the center of a waveform—often represented by a straight line in DAWs. When the wave touches this line on its journey to cross to the opposite side, it is at it's quietest point, or 0db. By finding the point of zero crossing in a waveform and trimming the file to that point, you are able to end a loop with reduced risk for popping or clicking. However, sometimes this means you have to change the length of the file, even if slightly, which can be awkward for rhythmically driven tracks. 

Other times, zero crossing just doesn't line up like you'd hoped and you have to rely on a fade of 5-10 ticks or samples to force out the click that would otherwise be present. Usually, a fade so small is not easily noticeable, but if the track is fairly rambunctious, a similar fade may be required at the beginning of the audio file. These "forced" zero crossings can leave a slight gap in sound, and they of course don't get into the issues of reverb tails, the left over echo-like sounds that simulate a realistic environment. 

If you go into a big hall and shout "echo," you'll hear the reflections—your voice bouncing off of the walls and other surfaces—trail off slowly. If it all stopped the second the you shut your mouth, you would easily notice that something is off. This same unnatural feeling happens when a loop is suddenly cut off at the end in order to keep the timing while transitioning back to the beginning. 

It's not an issue while composing or designing certain sounds because any reverb units you have applied in the project are active and hold out their respective reverb tails when MIDI notes or audio files are played back. So, loops are seamless all the time, every time within the project. However, when you actually write or bounce down all of that information into a single track, the reverb is written along with everything else. There is no active unit gauging when each note is played and waiting to hold them out accordingly. Instead, the reverb of the final moments of the original session carries out beyond the length of the final sound and is written to your new exported file.

Now, in order to maintain that reverb tail's naturalness, you must cut the tail off your exported file and place it on a second track at the beginning of the loop. That poses a few problems in itself, and as renowned game composer Winifred Phillips agrees in her book, The Composer's Guide to Game Music, when done improperly, it can be quite dissonant and displeasing to the listener (p173-174). For this reason, she advises ending and starting loops with the same notes and making sure that reverb times are short enough (at least at the end of the track) to keep multiple notes from overlapping back to the beginning. 

Of course, just as zero crossing fades don't cover reverb issues, reverb edits don't address pops and clicks. Often, the two techniques must be combined to make acceptable loops, and the common result still leaves that tiny, tiny gap in playback. It may not be noticeable in all tracks, but highly reverberated, ambient, or "spacey" loops will tend to stick out like a sore thumb, even for such slight gaps. Luckily for the modern game industry, multiple tracks often play at the same time (ie dialogue, 3 different nature tracks, background voices, clothing and sfx, and music), so a split-second gap in any one loop may be covered by the business of the others. But this isn't always the case. Imagine you are playing a game in which the music is sparse and, because your character is standing still, the only other sound is the light ambience of a cave or abandoned library. Gaps could ruin the experience here.

Another technique that is less preferable but is still present in the game world is to have an ending in the loop, which makes it extremely obvious when the piece starts over due to the intended silence. 

Still another technique is just leaving the file alone and doubling it, either in a DAW or directly in a middleware program like FMOD or WWise. Because middleware is designed for both the composers/sound designers and programmers to be able to share a common template and can integrate sounds into a game's engine, a programmer could then take over at any point. Regardless of who does the work, someone can set a second copy of the file to begin exactly when the first should start over, looping the second file only so that the reverb tail from the first is carried over but not printed on the original track. While that solves the issue of dissonance the first time a loop is played, it still leaves room for pops and presents a bigger issue of files potentially being twice the size. That can really add up considering game engines can only hold so much at once.

A Newer Method for Making Seamless Loops

Earlier, I mentioned that my method is "theoretically perfect," but because of reverb tails and certain melodic writing styles, it is not yet perfected for music…and since reverb tails are so important in original musical sessions, it may never be perfected for music. However, it does the three other things that may be hard to come by in any other method, still making it a gem and viable option for many musical tracks. 

So, here is what I discovered along with its pros and musical cons:

When you are doing the regular editing of audio files in your DAW of choice, you sometimes need to cut or separate them into two or more pieces. However, if you don't move those pieces after they're split and initiate playback, you'll find that they flow together seamlessly, as if they were still a single file. I noticed this in the first song I ever edited, but it wasn't until the spring of 2014, when I was tasked with transforming some existing environment tracks for a game into loops, that I began to think bigger. 

These pesky tracks had all sorts of weird high points and low points, and nothing was ever consistent enough to just have them start and finish. The audio director knew this and said we were to follow the common method used by his team of layering them all with different starting points and ending points so that any time one faded out, the others would still be going. That way, no one would ever know that several individual tracks were constantly fading in and out. I still presented a version this way, but I remembered how important file size and the amount of files per project were to the development process. 

That's when the idea hit me! If regular audio tracks could play seamlessly even when cut in half, why couldn't loops work in the same way? The logic behind the thought said, almost counterintuitively, that rather than searching for near-zero crossing points that are closely lined up to loop with, why not loop anywhere by reversing the order of two split regions, regardless of wave positioning?

So, on my own time, I pulled up one of the files on my computer. I created a new project in my DAW, loaded it, then looped it. The change from end to beginning was abrupt. Then, I cut it in half. It still sounded like one single track, as I was expecting, with the exception of the abruptness of the loop point. I excitedly switched the order of the two halves, so that the second half played first and the first half immediately followed.

The result was the same! My file started in the middle of the environmental atmosphere, abruptly changed halfway through, and then looped back through the beginning as if it was a single file. That's all I needed to know for my experiments to begin.

I quickly undid everything and shortened the file on both ends so I could have some leftover room for crossfading. Then, I cut it more carefully, looking for a point closer to zero crossing and perhaps more importantly, listening for a low point in environmental activity (because unique sounds will cause clicks when interrupted, even if there is no huge spike in the waveform).

When I flipped the order of the two files this time, the change near the middle was still noticeable, but much less abrupt. At that point, I added a small crossfade. When an ambience is very consistent throughout, that's all that is required, and it worked on some of the tracks I played with later. But not here. The buzzing still felt different. This was a wild track with monkeys, birds, bugs, tree branches, and all sorts of things happening as it progressed. So, I made a large crossfade, which slowly and unnoticeably transformed the various buzzes, chirps, and calls into different buzzes, chirps, and calls. In fact, anything like chirps and calls are never too big of a deal because the fades make them just seem quieter. That may even be desirable to further differentiate them from similar sounds.

The key here was getting the subtle changing of the buzzing frequency to feel like it wasn't suddenly changing. After all, it had gradually risen in pitch throughout the original file, so my goal was to slowly lower it back to the first pitch I heard. A short fade couldn't do that, but a long one did the trick! By extending the length of the fade, the change in buzz pitch became much more natural, and the middle of my file was now seamless. So, when I played the track back a final time, the result was an unending loop that never popped or clicked, never had moment of silence, and used crossfades in the center of the file as opposed to fadeins and fadeouts on the ends. 

The director was of course pleased with my innovation and allowed me to implement the techniques into the project. The result allowed us more consistent environments as well as the ability to reduce and condense files further when required.

That's why I believe this is sheer gold to game sound designers. Not only can you condense tracks that don't need to act independently into a single file, you don't necessarily have to worry about reverb tails either. Yes you could add your own reverbs to looped ambiences and atmospheres in your DAW, but then they are written forever. Developers have much greater control over those loops if you create them dry and allow the engine to trigger the appropriate reverbs through middleware. Then, if a swirling orb follows you out of a cave into a forest and finally through the front door of a small cottage, the reverb can automatically change to reflect those environments, and the same reverbs can be applied to all sfx for uniformity.

Either way, reverb tails are much less off-putting at the beginning of an ambience should you need to write them to the track. This differs from music because different instruments or instrument groups may all have different types of reverb and different amounts applied in order to best suit the composition. Often, ambient tracks only require a single reverb at a time to reflect the space in which they are sounding, as was outlined in the orb example above.

How this Method Relates to Music

If you are primarily a composer, perhaps you can see some issues that may arise. A lot of them pertain to looping in general, but let's address them all anyway and then explore some solutions.

The first and biggest concern: why would you cut your music in half and start in the middle? Great point. Don't. I wouldn't either. There are at least two ways around this, though one seems way too difficult and is untested. The other is to change the order of your composition before you export it. Pick a good spot to have as your "alternate" beginning, and then move everything that is before it so that it starts after the last bar of your intended ending. Bounce the file. Keep in mind that, just like all of your other methods, this will never work if you are trying to loop a composition that doesn't start and end the in a similar way or if you are trying to make a shortened loop out of a longer piece. A loop has to be prepared to flow back into its beginning from the end, so two wildly different sections will end up just like my bug problem explained above.

By moving your track's beginning to the end before bouncing, you essentially get two reverb tails—the one you wanted at the beginning of your track (if you have been working with one of the common methods mentioned above) and the one that you still need for the middle of your piece (which is now temporarily at the end). Because you are working with loops, your DAW should have fixed tempo rates and a grid that perfectly aligns the sections to the tempo. It's cutting time! Cut where your piece should start and move the two sections of your newly bounced file back into the correct places. Now, you'll notice that the tail from the first half overlaps the second half, so you can move one of the two pieces to a second track and fade away the any pops in order to blend them perfectly.

That brings us to our a couple of myth-related issues: what if the track is highly rhythmic and ends with a downbeat on the one? Well, unfortunately my friend, you will have two hits on the one count overlapping each other. This shouldn't be an issue though and here's why. If it's looping, you shouldn't really be bouncing an ending downbeat to begin with. It's fine for the soundtrack so that fans know the song is over, but it would get cut from a loop. Remember how I said don't make a shortened loop out of a longer piece. That's the other reason why. Then you will have extra information you can't get rid of, making crossfades useless. The only solutions, if you have a downbeat ending anyway, are to cut (or more accurately trim and fade juuuust right) the one without the reverb tail, though I suppose you could get creative by cutting the other hit and leaving the tail or automating both to lower volumes if the hits aren't identical (phasing issues would otherwise occur), or you can find a new way to end the piece.

The other rhythm and percussion-related issue has to do with embellishments such as cymbal swells, chimes, bells, etc. that make this method and loops in general harder or impossible to work with. These ring out themselves in addition to whatever reverb tails are produced and therefore must be able to sound at the beginning of the track. Again, if you loop playback while composing, you won't notice that your final cymbal swell is off because the reverb in the DAW will actively carry the tail over to the beginning of repeated loops and it won't play it the first time. As soon as you bounce it though, you'll have a reverb tail that also includes the pinnacle of a cymbal swell. Moving that tail to the beginning of your piece following any method will be awkward since you don't want half a cymbal swell the first time the track plays. If you really need such embellishments at the end of a piece, you may consider seeing if your development team can trigger that sound separately within the engine, though rare is the occurrence that this will be agreed to. On a side note, this is also why loops don't usually feature upbeats, especially melodic upbeats. They have to be structured so differently, and melodic, upbeat reverb is a nightmare to deal with outside of clever middleware usage.

Now that we are back around to reverb tails, let's discuss the other and only important issue they may have: clicks or pops the first time only. In other editing methods, the first loop is great but the subsequent loops are subjected either to no tail, brief silence, or pops and clicks. In this method, those subsequent times are great, but the triggering of the initial music file may be the only point that causes a pop or click because of the written reverb tail. This issue would still be present in other methods, but you have the ability to add a fade just to the reverb tail because it is on a separate track. You may or may not want to keep that tail separate from the technically seamless part of the loop for this reason (though you are then combining methods and giving yourself a lot more work since that probably involves bouncing wet and dry versions of everything).

If you are able to just draw out the reverb tail's initial click with an advanced DAW pencil tool, great. Or, since music, especially when played live, has all sorts of subtle noises in it, you may be able to leave a quick, quiet click as the beginning of a track is the only place that listeners usually are unprepared to pay attention to the details. I've certainly heard them before…only subsequent loops still had the problem. 

Don't fear though; there are two other places for hope. A ridiculously small fade on the front end only may be just enough to keep the file from sounding like there is a slight pause. However, I'm often not a fan of this method because it doesn't work for all of the tracks out there. 

The other method you have less control over, but it is the most ideal situation. Often, game engines will fade in tracks in order to better segue from various locations or gameplay ideas, such as combat and free exploration. If that's the case, the initial pop will be eliminated because the track will start at 0db or will be crossfaded to "resume" from a later point in the loop thanks to the game engine. The really nice thing about this is that even dissonant reverbs can be more acceptable at the beginning of the piece because they will be gone before the full volume of the track is in place. Don't rely on engine fades to save a poorly executed piece though. Only use them when it works with the vision of the game.

So, what about ambient music tracks? 

Those issues listed above you may see with tracks that are highly structured, rhythmic, and melodic or that have huge amounts of reverb copied over to the beginning. Luckily, structured, rhythmic tracks tend to be the easiest to loop with common methods. However, ambient tracks can be trickier when trying to loop them under these methods. But, as they can be created closer to sound design elements and inhabit the "background" by nature, there is great potential for them to be arranged according to this new method with little difficulty or effect on the track. In addition, their ebbs, flows, swells, and quiet moments make them able to potentially start anywhere, and some even offer space for reverb to decay on its own significantly before the next movement starts.

I was recently messing around with an ambient track consisting of various string instrument chords to help further illustrate this point. I opened a new session at the correct tempo and imported the piece. I was then able to move chord progressions around and fade them into each other without any pop or click at the beginning of even the first playback thanks to strings having a slightly delayed attack (the amount of time it takes for a sound to amp up to its desired volume after the note is initiated). 

Because "ambient" can be a vague stylistic term by nature, your ambient track may feature creepy sounds or spacey synths or woodwinds and horns or even warped percussion, so you may have to experiment on your own a bit to find the right spot to split the file. However, you may also find that there is no need for the piece to start from the originally intended beginning, thus saving you the task of having to bounce and flip the tracks again.

Some Final Notes

• Users of Logic Pro X should be aware that it's loop feature by default adds a few milliseconds to playback. I haven't changed mine, even though I primarily use that DAW for MIDI and scoring, but I'm pretty sure I recall seeing the option to turn this off in the preferences. Pro Tools and most other DAWs shouldn't encounter this issue. Part of the reason this option comes with the newest Logic Pro is because people often choose to humanize MIDI tracks, and some of the quantization options causes notes to sound slightly earlier or later than exactly on tick 1 of beat 1 of measure 1. With the extra few milliseconds, playback can anticipate those notes that are just outside of the actual looped region and still trigger them so you can hear your loops as you're supposed to while composing.

• This also means that you must watch out for humanized notes. The beginning of a track cannot have notes that start before the first measure or they won't be included in a bounce, notes shouldn't humanized to a position outside of the beginning or end of their regions or they can be cut off, and wherever you intend to make your cut in the bounced file should keep both of these in mind as if that really is the beginning of your track. In fact, it is good to keep notes at the beginning of a Logic score or region at least a few ticks after the first beat.

• Mp3s add time to the end of loops that some game engines can't account for. This will cause a slight pause in even the perfect loop. Unless your track is a one-shot, it's usually better to convert your wave and aiff files to ogg vorbis unless the developers ask otherwise, will do the converting themselves, or plan to implement full-sized uncompressed files.

• Always work with a grid and tempo information, and deal with bounced files in a separate project. If the final files aren't perfectly aligned to a grid, loops will become staggered.

Thanks for reading! If you'd like to hire Nate Combs to work on your game project, visit his website at www.natecombsmedia.com or contact him directly at natecombsmedia@gmail.com.

Dave 'Chuck' Bennett - Soon

David Chuck Bennett is an English singer / songwriter I've interviewed before. His indie and folk style music once inspired a short film-music video hybrid, and he is back at it again! This time, he visually went for a more pensive look, and his new single "Soon" is stripped down to just piano and light sampled accompaniment behind the vocals. However, that same indie folk spirit that inspires films is still very much present. The beautiful solo piano work and emotionally connective lyrics again draw listeners into a story, and the indie film community could benefit from either the song or the instrumental.

Finally, this piece marks Chuck's debut appearance in one of his music videos, so go on, enjoy "Soon."

New Changes to the Blog!

As of 2015, big growth has come to my company, and as a part of that growth, I have completely redone my main website. Now, this blog is able to be incorporated right into it! Isn't that exciting? Plus, the blog has proved really useful as a stage for musical artists to promote their work and connect with others, and we've even had a few famous people stop by.

The name of the blog will change just a bit and may change further as my company, which also works with voiceover artists, begins to absorb it. In addition, we want to be able to provide another platform through which others can connect with and inquire of those with musical and voice talent. After all, they say that efficient marketing is everything, right? It's fun to share your music with people who get you but are so busy trying to do the same thing in a different way. However, wouldn't it add to the fun to share your abilities with people who might become your fans or even hire you for a gig? The answer is yes.

So, I will continue to share my thoughts, research, and experience on topics I believe we can all benefit from, and you might start hearing people who work in other creative fields. Film, TV, and video game producers, that means you! Voice artists, say hello! Sound designers, kablam! Anyone and everyone who is involved with the production process and interacts with musicians regularly, tell us your thoughts and share your current projects.

The North American Conference on Video Game Music with Winifred Phillips

You all remember Winifred Phillips, award-winning author of the book "A Composer's Guide to Game Music" and the musical mind behind hit games such as Little Big Planet 3, Assassin's Creed Liberation, God of War, and much more. Well, in just a few days—that is January 17 & 18—she will be honored as the keynote speaker for this year's North American Conference on Video Game Music (press release below). This is a big deal, so be sure to congratulate her and offer her your thanks for doing so much good for the world of video games and for the world of music!

I got to do a short interview with Winifred, and here is what she had to say:

1) What is your wildest dream in video game music? Live concerts, best selling titles, teaching and awareness, something else?

All of the above!  Game music is a vibrant genre with an extraordinarily diverse musical vocabulary and a huge community of devoted fans.  There are many live concert series and bestselling sound track albums, and conferences such as the North American Conference on Video Game Music are a great step towards making the subject more available within academic institutions.

2) What advice would you give to others who look up to you and aspire to achieve similar goals?

I actually write a lot about that in my book, A Composer’s Guide to Game Music (The MIT Press), which was published last March. In my book, I discuss what steps an aspiring composer should take to secure gigs in the competitive field of game music composition.  It’s important for an aspiring composer to grab the attention of decision makers at a game developer or publisher.  After developing an excellent demo reel, the aspiring composer can begin researching what new development studios are forming, or what new game projects may be reaching the production stage. Timing is everything, so game composers have to stay alert and keep reaching out to potential clients. The subject can be pretty complex, and I discuss it much more thoroughly in my book.

My thoughts on the interview:

I have many wild dreams in video game music and other artistic areas as well, but my most outlandish one involves founding a massive festival / competition…on par with the world cup or the Olympics.

I was a bit silly to ask the other question without being more specific since Ms. Phillips gives a lifetime of advice in her book, but, luckily what I had hoped would happen, happened! Out of all of the advice she has to give, she chose to share getting the attention of decision makers and researching projects in production. I've heard both of these things time and time again in my own career and cannot stress how important they are. Of course, though they are two of the most difficult areas to establish a skill in at first, they are nothing without that excellent demo reel.

Thanks again to Winifred Phillips for her interview. You can learn more about her on her site at winifredphillips.com. 

I also got to interview William Gibbons, the conference organizer, and here is what he had to say about similar topics:

1) How do you believe the study of video game music could further the development of the rest of the music world?

I think the study of game music is important in a lot of ways, and to many different groups of people. Some of the most innovative and interesting compositional techniques happening in music today comes from games. Technology and player expectations change so quickly that composers and audio designers really have to come up with solutions to new and unique problems constantly, and even those scholars and composers who don’t work on games can really learn from exploring how those problems get solved.

But most importantly, millions of people listen to game music every day, whether while playing the games or just listening to the soundtracks for enjoyment. I’m a big believer in being educated consumers of music, and learning a little about the music we enjoy listening to. That applies to us as scholars and composers, but also to our students and the people who read the articles and books we write.

2) What is your wildest dream in video game music? Live concerts, best selling titles, teaching and awareness, something else?

We’re already seeing game music take a much more prominent position in music culture. Live concerts of game music are selling out around the world, people are buying and listening to albums of original and remixed music, and sheet music for performers is even available for some games. For me as an educator, I’d like to see game music become more common in schools, both in performance and in classrooms, right alongside “classical” music, jazz, film music, and the other musics we teach.

3) What advice would you have to others who look up to you and aspire to achieve similar goals?

To any music students or professionals that want to study game music, I say go right ahead! There’s so much left to research for musicologists like me, or music theorists—we’ve really only started to scratch the surface of what’s there, and there’s a constant new supply of great new music to study (and enjoy). And for composers, studying at least the basics of game music is absolutely one of the smartest things you could do career wise.

My thoughts on the interview:

I completely agree! As one who listens to game music a lot (perhaps even more than I have time to play the actual games), and as one who is always writing video game tunes, I can easily say innovation and passion in studying and applying game scoring techniques leads to educational advancements, and, quite frankly, creative freedom.

I am just finishing up my thesis semester in graduate school for film and game composing, and I am one of the lucky few students who has had teachers and courses present us with game music in class!




And now, the press release for the NACVGM:

Conference Brings Leading Game Music Scholars and Composers to Texas

Fort Worth, TX – Video game music has come a long way from bleeps and bloops. Today’s game soundtracks often equal film scores in quality, and this music is consumed in large amounts by millions of players every day: studies suggest that 58% of US citizens—and 97% of young adults—play video games, with an average weekly play time of around 8 hours. Concerts of game music regularly play to sellout audiences across the globe, as orchestras and bands cater to audiences eager to hear live versions of their favorite tunes.

Game music has also emerged as a major topic of academic study, and on January 17-18 many leadings game-music scholars and composers from across the US and Canada will gather in Fort Worth, TX on the campus of TCU for the North American Conference on Video Game Music. This conference will feature two days of presentations and discussions on all aspects of music in games, including new composition techniques, approaches to the analysis of game music, and case studies of specific games.

The keynote address will be given by Winifred Phillips (Twitter: @winphillips), the award-winning composer for games including Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, God of War, Speed Racer, Total War Battles: KINGDOM, and six games in the popular LittleBigPlanet series, including LittleBigPlanet 3. Phillips is also the author of the bestselling book, A Composer's Guide to Game Music (The MIT Press, 2014), which recently was awarded the 2014 Global Music Award Gold Medal for an exceptional book in the field of music. (http://www.winifredphillips.com/composersguide)

More information about the conference is available at http://vgmconference.weebly.com.

For further information or interviews, please contact:

William Gibbons
Assistant Professor of Musicology
TCU School of Music
Email: william.gibbons@tcu.edu
Phone: 919.357.1769
Twitter: @musicillogical