It is as if music gets the short end of the stick simply because many developers do not understand the importance or even the concept of music itself.

Coincidence or stubbornness? Spielberg is undoubtedly the most successful Hollywood director/producer of this generation. John Williams is always his first pick for music. Why not someone else? Because Spielberg, in interviews, acknowledged the importance of getting music, and he admits to not quite understanding things, but likes Williams to just show it to him so he can nod.


Side note.. one thing that bugs me about Nintendo is their lacking in their music department. Still using low to mid quality synthesizers/sequencers for most games, even budget games like Metroid. I'm sure Nintendo pays well, but it sure seems like there is an unwillingness to progress into more realistic sound. But then again, realism is not usually their target. I'd just love for a 'better' soundtrack on games such as Metroid and Zelda. Or, at least, when they use computer orchestras, use the real thing. These live performances that are put on by orchestras, doing game music, sound incredibly good... and it's a wonder why they don't play around more with real instruments.

Quote: Original post by facher83
Side note.. one thing that bugs me about Nintendo is their lacking in their music department. Still using low to mid quality synthesizers/sequencers for most games, even budget games like Metroid. I'm sure Nintendo pays well, but it sure seems like there is an unwillingness to progress into more realistic sound. But then again, realism is not usually their target. I'd just love for a 'better' soundtrack on games such as Metroid and Zelda. Or, at least, when they use computer orchestras, use the real thing. These live performances that are put on by orchestras, doing game music, sound incredibly good... and it's a wonder why they don't play around more with real instruments.

You do realize that this really more lies with the developer and not Nintendo, since in most cases it is the publisher. There are some titles where Nintendo acts as both. Also for some games there are severe technical limitations, even on the Wii. It all just depends on how the game is set up and how much storage space and CPU power the development team is willing to give to audio. For example, I had a DS game where my storage limit was 512k. Yep. 512k. That was for all of the musical samples. This meant I had to use lower quality samples and make them very, very short. All of this affects the music quality. So using a real orchestra or real instruments isn't always a viable option... even though from a purely musical stance it would be awesome!! Just something to think about! :)

Thanks,

Nate

[Edited by - nsmadsen on May 6, 2009 11:19:50 AM]

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
Music is arguably my first love ahead of computer games, but I do think that music just is not as important to a game as musicians would like to believe or would hope for.

The general audience doesn't understand what they are looking at or hearing. Most musicians have incredible ears compared to the general public... the bicycles I hear nearby, the trees in the wind, the computers running and 'making music' with their fans, the typing of a keyboard. In some ways, you are right. However, just because the general audience doesn't understand it doesn't mean it doesn't have an effect.

If the music is annoyingly bad, it does damage.
If the music is great to listen to and adds, it does positives.

In the original release of Star Wars Phantom Menace CD insert there is a quote saying that more general public people could hum the Star Wars title theme than have actually seen the movie itself.

Quote: Of course, everybody would like to hear better music - just as we'd like everything to be better - but that's not the same as arguing that games somehow require better music.

Interesting idea... I keep arguing that games don't require graphics, and although I don't believe it myself when I say it, it's actually true. However, it's not really IDEAL of the general audience. I think MUDs (MMORPGs, text based) have more potential than graphical MMORPGs. But, it's not playable by many people.

Music gives something for the second viewer to listen to. Music, to the audience who isn't playing, provides a reason to be engaged... to the second audience, a game can be really boring if control is the only engaging aspect of a game.

Quote: Musicians mustn't fool themselves into thinking they are as important to the game as the designers or programmers, just as a programmer who made a VST instrument mustn't fool himself into thinking that he's as important as the musician who used it to record a track.

Developers mustn't fool themselves into thinking music is worth what they are willing to pay for it. If the entire package sells copies, including graphics, game play, sound, everything, even story, then the better quality on each, the more sales should occur.

Developers mustn't settle for a C-class soundtrack when an A-class soundtrack could boost sales and completely pay for the better soundtrack, outright.

Developers mustn't settle for lowest-pay tactics, because in the near future, video game composing will become an undesirable career or aspiration, as you can make more money working next to minimum wage, often times.

Quote: Another interesting pseudo-paradox is that the more important audio is to a game, the more likely that a player is going to turn the in-game music off, to avoid it interfering with gameplay by masking sound effects. Heavily audio-based games like the Thief series get around this by having very subtle ambient sound that barely qualifies as music, but that would not suit most composers.

This is one of those statements that "X does't work." My response to such statements is "X works if you do it correctly." Your sentiments are simply a result of a poorly designed and tested game. "Most" games simply have the music levels at half the volume or so of the sound effects.

There is also a difference between ambient music and thematic self-sustaining music. Obviously cut-scenes work well for film-like music... it's how the ambient is done that is critical.

Frankly I think the biggest problem with games and music is that the interactivity and complexity of graphics/control outweighs that of the music... music is the only medium that doesn't evolve as much as the others do.

Quote: I also totally disagree with this quote: "The fact that there are lots of great musicians out there willing to do work at cut rate deals isn't a good thing. That's a sign of how bad things are. That opens the doors for abuse by continuing to underpay those few lucky musicians who manage to get a gig. If the trend continues, newer generations of composers will dwindle."[/qoute]

At least most/all of us are agreeing with that.

[qoute]In any popular creative area you will always get a pyramid of practitioners with far more amateurs at the bottom than experts at the top. And in all cases, the people at the very top command the big money and the people at the bottom are often working for free to prove themselves. Artists put stuff on DeviantArt or similar sites, programmers work on mods, directors put fan-films on YouTube, models do time-for-prints deals with photographers, prospective journalists are writing blogs, etc. This is a natural phenomenon of the wish to break into a competitive area.

Music sequencing or recording costs a lot of money. I know the entire "dedication will result in spending" idea is a fact, but consider the costs of producing a quality soundtrack at home? Minimum, several hundred dollars for a sequencer, and certainly thousands for a quality orchestral sample pack... and top-notch libraries cost many thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars.

In short, hobby composers are weeded out by the cost of music written via computers. No amateur is going to spend a year's salary on music software like that unless they are actually producing good work.

I don't even have all that much software... I was at a state university, and some of my friends (aspiring composers) went gaga over simple sequencer (Reason 4, I believe $300-400 at the time?) and an alright sample library (SRGold Refill at around $500 or so) that I simply had and they did not.

I believe that a musician, in this field, their biggest complaint, is the perception that writing a good sounding track, and producing, is somehow:

A) Cheap
B) Quick and Easy

It's not.

Quote: If the presence of free music is driving down prices for the better music, then the better music obviously isn't offering enough perceived added value. That's not abuse, it's market forces. If someone can write music that is 75% as good as yours but charges 1/10th of the price, that's your problem, not the industry's. Getting snobby about it and wishing amateurs would play by your rules in order to inflate the wages of professionals is foolish at best. Composers like to think they've earned the right to be paid properly for their work. But the process of earning that right involves starting at that same point and attempting to build your skills and your brand. That's what these people are doing and it's no sign whatsoever of things being 'bad'.

All the tech support for Microsoft talks to you from India. It costs them a lot of money in sales and want for a new OS. I'm sure it's "great" for their business financially, but that's short-sited ignorance. What are the other costs to operating that way? Far more than execs wish to listen to.

Finally, the idea that composers will dwindle if the cash supply reduces is laughable. These multitudes of people offering 'cut-price' deals aren't doing it in the hopes of getting rich.[/qoute]

I'm not sure about that... maybe getting rich isn't the term. "Make a living" is. This is the broader topic of the debate.

Quote: They're doing it in the hopes of getting a job doing something that they love. They already love it even though breaking into the industry is very difficult and making a living more difficult still. CD sales are down too but there are still millions of bands writing and recording all the time. It's not like physics or electrical engineering where you can't do much without a rigorous education and expensive laboratories and workshops, where a lack of funds would have a terminal effect on development. Creation of art is not dependent on wages, it's dependent on cost, and the cost of making music is dropping. I appreciate some professionals may not like this but the trend is not going to reverse, so they will have to get used to it.

Are you sure of the costs of a quality soundtrack is? I'm not sure "cheap" is the right terminology. I can easily go out and spend 50 grand and still have leftover items on my 'wish' list.

Lets compare drastic fund comparisons:

Cheap MIDI

vs

Good VST/Sequencers


I sarcastically suggest going cheapest.. if developers only knew how cheap MIDI is... we'd be in heaven... good old on-board sound and MIDI.

Quote: Original post by nsmadsen
You do realize that this really more lies with the developer and not Nintendo, since in most cases it is the publisher. There are some titles where Nintendo acts as both. Also for some games there are severe technical limitations, even on the Wii. It all just depends on how the game is set up and how much storage space and CPU power the development team is willing to give to audio. For example, I had a DS game where my storage limit was 512k. Yep. 512k. That was for all of the musical samples. This meant I had to use lower quality samples and make them very, very short. All of this affects the music quality. So using a real orchestra or real instruments isn't always a viable option... even though from a purely musical stance it would be awesome!! Just something to think about! :)

Thanks,

Nate

I should note that, when talking about realistic media games I'm thinking along the terms of 'limit-less' data storage for the time. As far as consoles go, it's not a valid debate... What would have happened if the FF7 was told "You have to fit everything on 1 disc"?

Part of the problem is 'being limited' in general. I'd much love to discuss the theories and applications of more dynamic music, sequenced music in-game, that reacts more to player situations.. in that sense, I think music is behind the overall progress of interactive media.

The newer games such as Frequency/Amplitude and Guitar Hero/etc have driven music more in that direction... but I'd like to see soundtracks more layered and even more dynamic. I suppose I'm just wishing, though.

Quote: Original post by facher83
I should note that, when talking about realistic media games I'm thinking along the terms of 'limit-less' data storage for the time. As far as consoles go, it's not a valid debate... What would have happened if the FF7 was told "You have to fit everything on 1 disc"?

No the same argument applies. Games have never had "limit-less" storage for their time. Ever. There's still a cost factor, even when talking about FF7 and being spread over multiple CDs. This is why publishers still force developers to squeeze everything they can into the smallest game packaging possible. To save on distribution and production costs as much as possible. The only exception are the blockbuster titles that everyone knows are going to make a hefty profit: like the new Zelda or GTA franchise. Even if data storage isn't a factor, CPU resources is a major one. I'm working on two PC MMOs right now and even though we have plenty of space for music, we're told to optimize as much as possible. In fact all depts are told this. It's a completely valid debate on consoles and PC because data storage and available CPU processing affects music (and all other areas of the game) equally.

Quote: Original post by facher83
Part of the problem is 'being limited' in general. I'd much love to discuss the theories and applications of more dynamic music, sequenced music in-game, that reacts more to player situations.. in that sense, I think music is behind the overall progress of interactive media.

Well, let's look at the situation so far. Here's what we have now:

*Music changes upon gameplay.
*Music changes upon character used.
*Music can speed up and slow down as needed.
*Music can change instruments depending on situation
*Music can become completely randomized to lessen listener fatigue.
*Musical segment orders can change depending on situation or be randomized.
*Musical samples can emulate live orchestras, rock instruments, electronic instruments and even the human voice to a high degree.
*Music (and sound) can respond to the environment (like occlusion and so on)

Does every game use all of these methods or samples? Nah. But I've seen many that do. I think the music quality and depth of interactivity have grown a huge amount. This is especially true when you consider that only a short time ago, consoles were using only MIDI and/or very crude samples and there wasn't much changing there.

Quote: Original post by facher83
The newer games such as Frequency/Amplitude and Guitar Hero/etc have driven music more in that direction... but I'd like to see soundtracks more layered and even more dynamic. I suppose I'm just wishing, though.

Actually Guitar Hero and such came after layering techniques were a proven success in video games. They weren't driving this technology, they were making the best use of it. I remember playing games that would use these interactive methods long before I played Guitar Hero.

Coming into this debate late, I like to say that some excellent points have been made.

I would only like to address the "working for free" concept, as I think it's an important one.

Everyone who's getting into the industry WILL DO some work for free, for the obvious reasons of experience and credit. This is not the issue. The issue is WHAT work does one do for free?

Let me start to answer this question by first saying that it is our job, that is to say the composers job to educate our prospective clients on how important our music will be to their product. One thing I tell my clients is that if they want to separate themselves form the ocean of others in their industry they must do things the lesser companies are unwilling to do. Namely, in this case, use good quality sound and music that no one else can get for free or from a library. This idea resonates with small independents who are looking to build a company that will eventually get to be a major player in the marketplace.

Capitalizing on this desire, I would be willing to provide a small portion of what they need for reduced fee or whatever they could afford. At the same time incourage them to use free and library music to fill out the rest. As they grow they should be able to afford more original music.

So What work does one do for free? The kind that educates game designers on how important your music is to their game, and makes them willing to pay you for more.

Quote: Original post by nsmadsen
I don't think most are thinking this. Most are just reacting to this author's stance that there has been practically no music with a decent melody in any American video game over the last two generations. Not that we have to be viewed as the most important.

Isn't that just an issue of style? I can instantly recognise lots of American game music, mostly from RPGs, but they don't tend to have prominent melodies because they are designed more to sit in the background under gameplay. This contrasts with a lot of music from Japanese RPGs where the music is often more for cut scenes and scripted sequences. (Classic example: Final Fantasy victory fanfare.)

Quote: The issue is when you see development teams spending X on other assets and 1/10th of that on audio. Audio also usually gets the least amount of time and has the fewest people working on it.

Sadly, I honestly believe that audio is just not as important to the game in most cases and therefore the smaller budget is justified. I personally like games with good audio and music but many games truly won't benefit much, in my opinion.

Quote:

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
CD sales are down too but there are still millions of bands writing and recording all the time.

True, CD sales are down but iTunes and other mediums like it are up. So a band has to record the album in some manner, no? Then they take tours which is where the band can really profit from their work. Besides, if they don't record their albums how would any of their fans listen to their music outside of performances? How would they get radio play? This doesn't seem like a very good point.

Music revenues are down, with digital sales not coming close to making up the shortfall in money previously spent on CDs. But music continues to be made. Most of these musicians are spending more than they earn. The point I'm making is that your job may comprise of writing music but writing music is not a job as such, and composers aren't going to disappear just because the pay isn't great.

Quote:

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
It's not like physics or electrical engineering where you can't do much without a rigorous education and expensive laboratories and workshops, where a lack of funds would have a terminal effect on development. Creation of art is not dependent on wages, it's dependent on cost, and the cost of making music is dropping. I appreciate some professionals may not like this but the trend is not going to reverse, so they will have to get used to it.

Okay, that's a bit offensive to be honest. Clearly you don't know how much pro audio gear costs.

I don't think I've made myself clear. All the pro audio gear you name is handy but nowhere near essential to the underlying task of 'writing music'. Some of it may be essential to the way you choose to work or the kind of music you make, but that's a different issue. Take all that stuff away and you could still make good music, and I expect you would. Certain kinds of music production may become less feasible if the money supply shrinks, but my point was only that the claim that "underpaying" people means that "newer generations of composers will dwindle". I've never been paid a penny for my music but I still have a fair amount of 'prosumer' or semi-professional kit to work with and I am confident that the vast majority of musicians are in a very similar position.

I'm sorry for any offense given by what I said but I assure you that it was not intentional. :)

[Edited by - Kylotan on May 7, 2009 6:09:51 AM]

Quote: Original post by facher83
Interesting idea... I keep arguing that games don't require graphics, and although I don't believe it myself when I say it, it's actually true. However, it's not really IDEAL of the general audience. I think MUDs (MMORPGs, text based) have more potential than graphical MMORPGs. But, it's not playable by many people.

Games don't need graphics... they don't even need a computer. But the computer games that don't need graphics typically don't need audio either. Probably less than 2% of MUDs have audio, presumably because people prefer to liken it to books than to radio.

Quote: Developers mustn't fool themselves into thinking music is worth what they are willing to pay for it. If the entire package sells copies, including graphics, game play, sound, everything, even story, then the better quality on each, the more sales should occur.

I'm not convinced any significant number of people buy a game for the soundtrack. Some buy the soundtrack after the event but that's a different matter.

Quote:

Quote: Another interesting pseudo-paradox is that the more important audio is to a game, the more likely that a player is going to turn the in-game music off, to avoid it interfering with gameplay by masking sound effects. Heavily audio-based games like the Thief series get around this by having very subtle ambient sound that barely qualifies as music, but that would not suit most composers.

This is one of those statements that "X does't work." My response to such statements is "X works if you do it correctly." Your sentiments are simply a result of a poorly designed and tested game. "Most" games simply have the music levels at half the volume or so of the sound effects.

Not at all. Deus Ex is one of the best designed computer games that there is. It also has a very fitting and atmospheric sound track. But you can't truly appreciate it when you're trying to sit totally silently and listen for footsteps to discern what surface a person is walking on and in which direction. The ear is good at separating these things out but not that good.

Quote: Music sequencing or recording costs a lot of money. I know the entire "dedication will result in spending" idea is a fact, but consider the costs of producing a quality soundtrack at home? Minimum, several hundred dollars for a sequencer, and certainly thousands for a quality orchestral sample pack... and top-notch libraries cost many thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars.

In short, hobby composers are weeded out by the cost of music written via computers. No amateur is going to spend a year's salary on music software like that unless they are actually producing good work.

Firstly, not all music has to be orchestral.
Secondly, if you believe that you absolutely need the Vienna Symphonic Super package and the like to make something worthwhile, then you've just entered into a gear arms race with other musicians, all for nuances that probably few other people can appreciate. Is that truly worth the premium? I don't think it is. Probably 90% of people couldn't tell the difference between a well-programmed $200 VSTi and a recorded live musician. Some of the best game music I've heard was done with free tracker programs. It's not going to sound like the score from a George Lucas film but that's not the point. If game composers have to learn to play to the strengths of the medium and embrace some other technologies rather than striving almost solely to emulate film soundtracks then I'm all in favour of that.

Quote:

Quote: Finally, the idea that composers will dwindle if the cash supply reduces is laughable. These multitudes of people offering 'cut-price' deals aren't doing it in the hopes of getting rich.

I'm not sure about that... maybe getting rich isn't the term. "Make a living" is. This is the broader topic of the debate.

There will always be and has always been more musicians than those getting paid for it. Those on the outside will offer work for free or very cheaply in the hope of proving their worth, and again this has always happened. It's not a threat to anybody except the composers who cost a lot but deliver little, and I hope they are a minority.

Quote: Are you sure of the costs of a quality soundtrack is? I'm not sure "cheap" is the right terminology. I can easily go out and spend 50 grand and still have leftover items on my 'wish' list.

A wish is not a cost. I'd love to have lots more gear which would make a difference to me, but not necessarily to the end listener. A quality soundtrack might cost anything from $1 million to $0. I've heard soundtracks written using entirely free software that were significantly better than soundtracks written by professionals. Obviously their time is worth something but I don't think it's right to claim you need all this top of the line gear to create worthwhile results.

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
Isn't that just an issue of style? I can instantly recognise lots of American game music, mostly from RPGs, but they don't tend to have prominent melodies because they are designed more to sit in the background under gameplay. This contrasts with a lot of music from Japanese RPGs where the music is often more for cut scenes and scripted sequences. (Classic example: Final Fantasy victory fanfare.)

I'm not sure what it's an issue of, to be honest. Because I can recognize and remember alot of games that have predominant themes (some are RPG some are not). I think you'll have to ask the author of the article as to why he thinks there's been a complete lack of it.

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
Sadly, I honestly believe that audio is just not as important to the game in most cases and therefore the smaller budget is justified. I personally like games with good audio and music but many games truly won't benefit much, in my opinion.

And I'm fine with smaller ratios of budget, resources and man power. I'm fine with it as long as people see (or hear rather) that I'm making good music. It's when I'm compared to other depts that have more resources, time, budget and man power and expected to output the same amount that I feel cheated and against hard odds. (Just to make sure I'm clear here, I'm meaning other depts as in programming or art on the team with me as well as being compared to outside, more established audio depts like Skywalker Sound.) This is amplified even more when I hear comments like "there have been no recognizable theme from American video game composers over the last two generations of games."

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
Music revenues are down, with digital sales not coming close to making up the shortfall in money previously spent on CDs. But music continues to be made. Most of these musicians are spending more than they earn. The point I'm making is that your job may comprise of writing music but writing music is not a job as such, and composers aren't going to disappear just because the pay isn't great.

I never said they would.

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
I don't think I've made myself clear. All the pro audio gear you name is handy but nowhere near essential to the underlying task of 'writing music'. Some of it may be essential to the way you choose to work or the kind of music you make, but that's a different issue. Take all that stuff away and you could still make good music, and I expect you would. Certain kinds of music production may become less feasible if the money supply shrinks, but my point was only that the claim that "underpaying" people means that "newer generations of composers will dwindle". I've never been paid a penny for my music but I still have a fair amount of 'prosumer' or semi-professional kit to work with and I am confident that the vast majority of musicians are in a very similar position.

I understand that someone can go out and get the cheapest gear and write music. But does this prep them for a career in game audio? No. The tool set is constantly changing and evolving. I don't have a Pro Tools HD system.... yet. :) But I'd be a liar if I didn't say that I've missed out on some jobs because they required software X or gear Y. I'm working on getting all of this gear. My point wasn't that anyone starting out in the field has to have that set up. But anyone wanting a career or wanting to land the big projects has to have a pretty hardcore studio to have the results those kinds of studios expect. That takes money. In short, Microsoft or Skywalker sound probably wont hire you for music contracting if all you have is a Dell laptop and FL Studio 8. They'll be looking for a contractor that can create audio in a Dolby certified space and be able to bring as much to the table as possible.

Quote: Original post by Kylotan
I'm sorry for any offense given by what I said but I assure you that it was not intentional. :)

It's cool. I do feel that many people simplify music composition. The skills and knowledge needed to do this job well are just as intense as other fields. Different? Yes. Plus you can have all of the knowledge in the world about music, and all of the good gear available but if you lack the talent... then your music may not be as good as someone who does have the talent. It's just painful to have someone say "well it isn't like you're doing X or Y. That's hard. This is easy." In essence that's what you were saying. (Maybe not the easy part directly but you were comparing it to other trades and passing off music as requiring less). I'd like to see a non-musical PhD in physics try and do my job for a day. I bet they'd have a hard time with! (As would I with their job!!!)

Thanks,

Nate

[Edited by - nsmadsen on May 7, 2009 10:14:55 AM]

....games that would use these interactive methods long before I played Guitar Hero.

Yesterday I wrote a long response, but alas, the combination of IE and the gamedev forums hanging, I lost all the typing.

In short, most of the concepts you listed as capabilities today were able to be done in the past, even with MIDI, with a little cooperation and planning between programmer(s) and composer(s).

I also understand the manufacturing problems with multiple CDs, but from a cost perspective, it's simply the corporate sector wanting to save a penny or two on each package - which to me isn't a valid argument, just another broken philosophy that has many game studios in a strangle-hold.

And last but not least, sampled music and effects, while they are technical abilities now available, it doesn't change the layout of the music... you can still write the same, and function the same as before. For example, a Halo game on 480p will not have very much difference in execution/gameplay than Halo running at 720p. While the graphics might be better, the gameplay execution hasn't changed in itself.

In comparison, having samples A) Doesn't make you a better soundtrack and B) doesn't change the way you can implement the soundtrack. Hence many NES/SNES soundtracks are still/more thematic and characteristic than new soundtracks.