The Game Music Toolbox

The Game Music Toolbox
The Game Music Toolbox provides readers with the tools, models, and
techniques to create and expand a compositional toolbox, through a col-
lection of 20 iconic case studies taken from different eras of game music.
Discover many of the composition and production techniques behind pop-
ular music themes from games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Mario Kart 8, The
Legend of Zelda, Street Fighter II, Diablo, Shadow of the Tomb Raider,
The Last of Us, and many others.
The Game Music Toolbox features:
• Exclusive interviews from industry experts

• Transcriptions and harmonic analyses
• 101 music theory introductions for beginners
• Career development ideas and strategies
• Copyright and business fundamentals
• An introduction to audio implementation for composers
• Practical takeaway tasks to equip readers with techniques for their own
game music
The Game Music Toolbox is crucial reading for game music composers
and audio professionals of all backgrounds, as well as undergraduates look-
ing to forge a career in the video game industry.
Marios Aristopoulos is a composer and sound designer for new media

based in London. He is the Game Audio Lead at Guildhall School of Mu-
sic and Drama and has authored the game audio programmes for many
universities in the UK and the USA. Selected composition credits include
Apotheon – an award-winning PS4 & Steam video game, Rebel Rebel – a
painting exhibition for The Curve gallery in the Barbican, Aenigma – a 3D
stereoscopic animation, and Beasts of London – an interactive exhibition
for the Museum of London.
The Game Music Toolbox
Composition Techniques and

Production Tools from 20 Iconic
Game Soundtracks
Marios Aristopoulos
Designed cover image: Sashatigar/Shutterstock.com
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Marios Aristopoulos
The right of Marios Aristopoulos to be identified as author of
this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data
Names: Aristopoulos, Marios, author.
Title: The game music toolbox : composition techniques and
production tools from 20 iconic game soundtracks / Marios
Aristopoulos.
Description: New York: Routledge, 2023. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Subjects: LCSH: Video game music— Instruction and study. |
Video game music—Analysis, appreciation.
Classification: LCC MT64.V53 A75 2023 (print) |
LCC MT64.V53 (ebook) | DDC 781.5/4 — dc23/eng/20221115
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055446
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055447
ISBN: 978 - 0 -367-70550 -3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978 - 0 -367-70549-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978 -1- 003-14687-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
Access the Support Material: www.routledge.com/9780367705497
Contents
Preface xv
Introduction: 15 Questions on game composition 1

Scoring process 1
What is the purpose of game music? 1
It adds entertainment value 1
How do you choose the right musical style for a game? 3
What is the process of scoring for games? Is it that
different than film? 4
Implementation 6
What is interactive music? 6
Does good game music need to be highly interactive? 8
How does audio implementation work? 9
Career 13
How can I break into game composing? 13
Is working in game audio a viable career? 16
What are some alternative career paths in game audio? 17
Business and money 20
What are the main types of copyright deals for composers? 20
How much money do game composers make? 21
Will buying expensive gear improve my sound? Does my
studio need to look like a spaceship? 24
Education 26
Should I go to college/university if I want to pursue a
career in game audio? 26
Should I focus on developing a niche or try to write in
many styles? 30
What skills do I need to have to pursue a career in game
composition? 31
Takeaway tasks 33
Task 1 – Analysis (easy) – Analyse the music functions
in a game level 33
vi Contents
Task 2 – Analysis (easy/medium) – Analyse the musical

style of a game of your choice 33
Takeaway task 3 – Composition (medium) – Write a short
theme based on a piece of concept art of your choice 34
Task 4 – Analysis (medium) – Analyse the implementation
of a game of your choice 34
Task 5 – Composition/production (medium) – Participate
in a game jam! 35
1 Space Invaders (1978): Mickey mousing, programmable

sound generators, and the birth of interactive game music 36
About the game 36
Fun facts 36
How did the composer get the gig? 36
Composition technique 1 – Visual mirroring
(Mickey mousing) 36
Composition technique 2 – Competing with SFX 37
Composition technique 3 – Adding tempo interactivity 38
Production tools – PSGs (programmable sound generators) 39
Takeaway tasks 41
Task 1 – Composition (moderate) – Mickey mousing 41
Task 2 – Production (easy) – PSG sound chip emulation 42
Task 3 – Career development (very hard) – Make a
game clone 42
2 Ballblazer (1985): Algorithmic guitar solos to infinity! 44

About the game 44
Fun facts 44
Composition technique – The riffology algorithm 44
Production tools – The POKEY PSG 46
Takeaway tasks 49
Task 1 – Research (easy): Identify other algorithmic
techniques 49
Task 2 – Composition (medium): Create an algorithmic
flow chart 49
3 The Legend of Zelda (1986): Music sequences, musical SFX,

and the SNES sound 52
About the game 52
Fun facts 52
Composition techniques 1 – Music sequences 52
Contents vii
Composition technique 2 – Musical SFX 54

Production tools – The Famicom/NES PSG 56
Takeaway tasks 57
Task 1 – Composition (easy) – Write a theme that makes
use of melodic sequences 57
Task 2 – Composition (easy) – Redesign 5 SFX from
Zelda using musical phrases 57
Task 3 – Synthesis (moderate) – Write a theme modelled
after the stock NES sound chip 57
4 Amegas (1987): The birth of the tracker sequencer 59

About the game 59
Fun facts 59
Composition technique 1 – Tracker sequencing
in Amegas 59
Text commands 60
Illusion of polyphony 61
Programming FX 62
Building a song out of patterns 62
Production tools – Contemporary trackers and the
MOD format 62
Takeaway tasks 63
Task 1 – Remix (easy) – Create your own remix of the
Amegas theme 63
Task 2 – Sequencing (challenging) – Create a song using a
4-channel tracker of your choice 64
5 The Secret of Monkey Island (1990): The Secrets of

Pirate Reggae! 65
About the game 65
Fun facts 65
Composition technique – Inventing your own hybrid
genre – Pirate Reggae! 66
Use of syncopation 66
Shifting metre 66
Parallel major/minor 67
Free counterpoint 68
Production tools – General MIDI 68
Takeaway tasks 68
Task 1 – Composition (medium) – Write a theme that uses
multiple time signatures 68
viii Contents
Take 2 – Composition (difficult) – Write a simple theme

that uses a degree of free counterpoint between your
musical voices 69
Task 3 – Research (very challenging) – Study the five
species of counterpoint 69
6 Street Fighter II (1991): Melodic tension in Guile’s, Ken’s,

and Blanka’s themes 71
About the game 71
Fun facts 71
Composition technique – Creating melodic tension with
nonharmonic notes 72
Melodic tension in GUILE’S THEME 72
Melodic tension in KEN’S THEME 74
Melodic tension in BLANKA’S THEME 74
Production tools – The YM2151 frequency
modulation chip 75
Takeaway tasks 77
Task 1 – Remix (challenging) – Create a SF2 remix using
FM synthesis 77
melodic tension for one of the original SF2 characters 77
7 Mortal Kombat (1992): From the arcades to the dance floor,

formulaic writing makes a classic hit 79
About the game 79
Fun facts 79
Composition technique 1 – Formulaic pop writing 80
Pop song structure 80
Repetitive lyrics 80
Four on the floor kick 80
Following a four-chord formula 81
Composition technique 2 – Phrygian mode 81
Production tools – SFX sampling 82
Takeaway tasks 83
Task 1 – Composition (easy/medium) – Formulaic writing 83
Task 2 – Composition (challenging) write a short theme
using a mode 83
Task 3 – Production (easy/medium) – Create an
instrument from in-game SFX 83
Contents ix
8 Diablo (1996): Chromatic chords and non-functional

harmony in Tristram Village 85
About the game 85
Fun trivia 85
How did the composer get involved? 85
Composition technique 1: The chromatic chords of Tristram
Village 86
Harmonic analysis of the Tristram Village opening section 86
Composition technique 2: Ambient music as an open-ended
storytelling device 89
Production tools – Lo-fi charm 90
Takeaway tasks 91
Task 1 – Composition (challenging) – Compose a theme
for an area in Diablo that makes use of chromatic chords 91
Task 2 – Production (easy) – Emulate the sound of early
digital samplers 92
9 Assassin’s Creed: Music as a time travelling device in four

historical games of the franchise 94
About the games 94
Fun facts 94
How did the composers get the gig? 94
Composition technique 1 – Music as a time travelling device 96
Assassin’s Creed – Origins 96
Assassin’s Creed – Valhalla 97
Assassin’s Creed II 100
Assassin’s Creed – Syndicate 101
Takeaway tasks 103
Task 1 – Composition (difficulty depends on the chosen
period) – Compose a theme that is evocative of a
specific historical setting 103
10 Journey (2012): A masterclass in monothematic scoring 105

About the game 105
Fun facts 105
Composition technique – Monothematic scoring 105
Nascence 107
Threshold 107
Apotheosis 109
Production tools – Remote recording 109
Takeaway tasks 110
x Contents
Task 1 – Arranging (moderate) – Create your own

variation of the Journey theme 110
11 The Last of Us (2013): When less is more – Space and silence

as storytelling devices 112
About the game – Story synopsis 112
Fun trivia 112
Composition technique 1 – Use of space and silence as
storytelling devices 113
Exploration 113
Battle 114
Composition technique 2 – Leitmotifs and storytelling 115
Analysis of the two leitmotifs 115
How the two leitmotifs assist storytelling in the game 116
Production tools – Guitar based techniques 118
Takeaway tasks 119
Task 1 – Composition (moderate) – Write a minimalist
leitmotif 119
Task 2 – Composition/production (challenging) – Write a
theme that uses unconventional guitar techniques 119
12 Alien Isolation (2014): In space none can hear you

scream – Controlling tension with a vertical layers system 121
About the game 121
Fun facts 121
Composition technique – Controlling tension with a
vertical layers system 121
Production tools – Extended orchestral techniques 124
Takeaway tasks 126
Task 1 – Composition (challenging) – Write a string-
based composition that explores some of the extended
techniques discussed in this chapter 126
Task 2 – Implementation (moderate) – Create a vertical
layer arrangement that will react to four different
levels of tension 126
13 Mario Kart 8 (2014): Music as an information device 128

About the game 128
Fun facts 128
Contents xi
Composition technique 1 – Music as an information device 129

Racetrack location 129
Race stages 129
Specific zones within racetracks 129
Movement of in-game objects 130
Position in the race 130
Final lap 130
Gameplay events 130
Gameplay states 131
Composition technique 2 – A masterclass of
key modulation 131
Pivot chords (common chords) 132
Secondary dominant 133
Phrase modulation 133
Parallel modes 133
Production tools – The Mario Kart Band 134
Takeaway tasks 134
Task 1 – Analysis (easy) – Analyse the use of music as a
source of information in another game of your
choice 134
Task 2 – Composition (challenging) – Write a theme for a
Mario Kart 8 level of your choice that makes significant
use of modulation 134
14 Apotheon (2016): Recombinant cells – A generative

technique for producing musical variation 136
About the game 136
Fun trivia 137
Composition technique 1 – Recombinant cells 137
How recombinant cells work in the opening level 137
Production tools – A virtual choir singing in ancient Greek 139
Takeaway tasks 141
Task 1 – Algorithmic composition (very challenging) –
Create your own recombinant cells system 141
15 No Man’s Sky (2016): A conversation with the

audio director Paul Weir 143
About Paul Weir 143
About the game 143
Composition technique – Generating music for an infinite
universe 144
xii Contents
Production tools – Software for getting started with

generative music 147
Career tips from an audio director 148
Takeaway tasks 149
Task 1 – Generative composition (variable difficulty) –
Create a simple generative piece inspired by the
techniques discussed in this interview 149
16 Doom (2016): The Doom Instrument – Using FX chains

creatively 150
About the game 150
Fun trivia 150
Composition technique – Creating The Doom Instrument
with sine waves and FX 151
Inspiration for The Doom Instrument 151
Signal flow in the Doom Instrument 152
Adding chaos into the system 153
Production tools – The doom guitar sound and using a
Shepard Tone 154
The doom guitar sound 154
Shepard Tone 155
Takeaway tasks 155
Task 1 – Production (very challenging) – Create your own
Doom Instrument 155
Task 2 – Production (challenging) – Creating an infinite
riser Shepard tone 156
Task 3 – Production (challenging) – Recreate the Doom
guitar sound 156
17 Call of Duty: WWII (2017): A conversation with the

composer Wilbert Roget, II 158
About the composer 158
About the game 159
Composition techniques – Synchronization and competing
with SFX 159
Production tools – MIDI orchestration 161
Career tips from a AAA game composer 163
Takeaway task 163
Task 1 – Production/arranging (challenging) – Recreate
an orchestral recording of a game theme of your choice
using only MIDI instruments 163
Contents xiii
18 Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018): Music as meditation,

lost instruments, and 3D mixing 164
About the game 164
Fun facts 164
Composition technique 1 – Getting into the zone/
composition as meditation 164
Composition technique 2 – Adding interactivity with music
stingers and music triggers 166
Composition technique 3 – Mixing the music within the 3D
game world 167
Production tools – Hunting for lost instruments and the
instrument sculpture 169
The instrument 169
Takeaway tasks 170
Task 1 – Composition/implementation (easy/medium) –
Create a set of stingers for an imaginary level in Tomb
Raider 170
Task 2 – Composition (hard) – Compose music by
recording an uninterrupted improvization 170
Task 3 – Implementation (medium/challenging) – Create a
3D spatial music mix 171
19 Control (2019): A conversation with the composer Petri Alanko 173

About the composer 173
About the game 173
Composition techniques – Sonic manipulation and found sound 174
Composition techniques – Using rule sets and interactive FX 176
Production tools – Electromagnetic microphones and
granular synths 177
Career and creative tips from a Veteran composer 178
Takeaway tasks 180
Task 1 – Composition/production (challenging) –
Compose a piece of music inspired by Control using
only found sound 180
20 Cyberpunk 2077 (2021): Diegetic music in Night City,

riff-based composition, and the sound of sci-fi 181
About the game 181
Fun trivia 181
xiv Contents
Composition technique 1 – Diegetic music in Night City 181

Composition technique 2 – Riff based composition 184
Riffs in Cyberpunk 184
Composition technique 3 – Defining the sound of sci-fi 186
Production tools: Use of distortion and an interactive low
pass filter 188
An interactive low pass filter 189
Takeaway tasks 190
Task 1 – Composition (medium) – Write a diegetic theme
that originates from Night City 190
Task 2 – Composition (easy/medium) – Write a riff-based
theme 190
Task 3 – Production (medium/challenging) – Produce a
track in which you explore different uses of distortion
on every instrumental layer 190
Index 193
Preface
Welcome to the Game Music Toolbox!
Aims of the book

The purpose of this book is to expand your compositional toolbox with
inspirational techniques taken from 20 iconic game soundtrack of different
historical periods, introduce you to some of the production gear and tech-
nology used by AAA and indie game composers, and offer you practical
information on how to forge your own career path in the industry. The
ideas discussed are not meant to provide a strict compositional framework
but rather function as starting points for your own artistic journey. You do
not have to necessarily use any of the techniques in the exact same way as
the original composers, but you can transform them into something new.
How to use this book

This book is structured like an open world video game, you can navigate
it in any order you want! The introduction is designed to provide you with
practical and theoretical information on different aspects of a career in
game composition in a Q&A friendly format, like a tutorial you can go
through before jumping into the main adventure. It is only natural that you
might already be more familiar with some of the material, feel free to skip
anything you already know; I guarantee that you will find something new.
Each of the book’s 20 main chapters is based on a soundtrack case study
arranged chronologically, starting at the age of the arcades with Space In-
vaders in 1978 and reaching today’s age of cloud gaming with Cyberpunk
2077. Chapters begin with a brief background information on the game
and the composer, with an emphasis on how the composer got involved in
the project. The main part of each chapter presents one or more compo-
sition techniques used in the chosen game and a selection of the produc-
tion tools utilized by the composer. As everyone has different strengths
and weaknesses in their compositional toolkit, I have occasionally included
xvi Preface
101-theory sections to help bridge any potential knowledge gaps you might
have. At the end of each chapter, you will find hands-on takeaway tasks
you can complete, ranked by difficulty. These are designed to help you ap-
ply these new ideas into your own music, and you can slightly modify the
details if the core idea of the exercise is maintained. There is also a bibliog-
raphy for each chapter to indicate the sources of the ideas discussed.
Finally, to benefit the most from reading this book, make sure to follow
the accompanying video examples as they are an integral part of under-
standing each case study. You might have to navigate through different
parts of the video as indicated by the timecode in the text, but I have left the
videos unedited so you can examine other parts as you like.
Link to Video Examples Playlist can be found here:
www.routledge.com/9780367705497
About me and the team behind the book

Since 2016, I have been the Game Audio Lead professor at Guildhall School
of Music & Drama in London which ranked as the top university in the UK
for studying Music in 2023 by the Guardian University Guide music league
table. I have previously held senior music lecturer positions at BIMM Lon-
don, Point Blank London, The Institute of Audio Research in New York
City, and the Greek National Conservatory in Athens. I hold a PhD in game
audio from City University, a Masters in Acoustic composition, a second
Masters in Ethnomusicology from SOAS, and a Bachelor’s in music from
Goldsmiths. I have presented my game audio research in multiple interna-
tional conferences such as Ludomusicology, MaMI in NYU Steinhardt, and
the American Musicological Society/SMT.
Aside from my academic career, I have many years of industry experience
as a composer and sound designer for new media. My music for the video
game Apotheon was selected as one of the top 10 PlayStation 4 soundtracks
of 2016, and I was extremely honoured that it was featured in the Olympic
Flame ceremony of the 2019 Special Olympics in Greece. I have worked
with the London-based studio Gram Games (owned by Zynga), the Chinese
studio Youzoo games, and the French studio Deepnight games. Outside
games, I frequently work in animation, theatre, and film in the USA and
Europe. You can see examples of my work at mariosaristopoulos.com.
While writing this book, I had the benefit of collaborating with two
amazing researchers and composers, Edie Evans and James Allen, who con-
tributed to the musicological analysis and transcriptions of the case studies
presented in this book. Most of the information presented in each case
study is based on the original composer interviews from numerous sources
that are indicated at the end of each chapter. However, I also had the pleas-
ure of having fascinating conversations directly with some of the original
composers who kindly agreed to be interviewed exclusively for this book
(Wilbert Roget II, Petri Alanko, Paul Weir, and Lorenzo Bassignani).
Introduction
15 Questions on game
composition
This extended introduction is based on the most frequently asked questions

I have received by my students on different aspects of game composition.
The questions are organized into five categories: scoring process, implemen-
tation, career, business and money, and education. My answers are based
on my own industry experience and observations, conversations with other
members of the industry, and data from extended composer surveys quoted
at the end of the chapter.
Scoring process
What is the purpose of game music?

One way of clarifying the contribution of a musical piece in a video game
is to simply play it with the original music turned off and observe how the
experience changes. A fantasy game like Zelda might feel less adventurous
without its magical soundtrack; a survival horror game like Resident Evil
might feel less terrifying without its clever musical jump scares; while a
music game such as Guitar Hero will simply be unplayable as music is a
fundamental game mechanic. While the purpose of music can greatly vary
from one game to another, we can observe that it usually serves one or more
of the following functions.
It adds enter tainment value

First, and most importantly, good game music makes games more fun
to play. Isn’t fun what it is supposed to be what games are all about?
There might be some types of educational or competitive games in which
player entertainment is not the primary goal but for most games adding
the right type of music can simply make playing more enjoyable and
satisfying.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-1
2 Introduction
It provides information
Music can be used as an abstract tool for directly communicating infor-
mation to the player in many creative ways (see Chapter 13: Mario Kart).
An example is the use of short music stingers that notify the player about a
particular change in a game, while a sudden change in the music is usually
suggestive of a switch of gameplay state that might have gone unnoticed (eg.,
the use of battle music to warn about the presence of incoming enemies). Mu-
sic can also be used to evoke a particular time and place through association
with different musical cultures (see Chapter 9: Assassin’s Creed).
It evokes different moods

The power of music to produce and enhance a wide range of moods is
universally recognized and is one of the most central functions of music
in media. The effectiveness of evoking a particular mood is influenced by
many factors including personal taste, but its communication can be rel-
atively easy to identify as researchers have proven that most listeners will
effectively distinguish between musical pieces that aim to portray different
basic emotions (ex: ear, joy, sadness, surprise).1 Game composers frequently
use music as an abstract emotional language to enhance storytelling and
provide hints of the emotional state of characters (see Chapter 11: The Last
of Us).
It assists with memory and understanding of the game world

Associating a piece of music with a particular gameplay context can be
helpful in reducing the learning curve for new players. For example, in
the multiplayer game World of Warcraft, the use of location music helped
new players recognize and distinguish important areas as they navigated
through an open world consisting of hundreds of locations. 2 I can also an-
ecdotally state that good game music creates a memorable identity that can
extend the gaming experience outside playing time. It is hard to think of my
favourite games without their soundtrack coming to mind.
It enhances immersion
Gameplay immersion is something difficult to measure accurately but it can
be argued that successful use of music can have a positive impact. On a su-
perficial level, music can amplify immersion by simply covering any sounds
originating outside the game (outside traffic, loud conversations, the sound
of your graphics card overheating!) and help you focus on what is happen-
ing in the game. On a deeper level, a successful soundtrack might assist in
creating a more meaningful and enjoyable experience that will naturally
generate higher levels of engagement.
Introduction 3
How do you choose the right musical style for a game?

The musical language of video games has been incredibly diverse over
the past 40 years: from chiptune (Casltevania) to early jazz (Cuphead),
metalcore (Doom), orchestral (Final Fantasy), 12 tone (Metamorphosis),
industrial noise (Quake), EDM (Mirror’s Edge), hip hop (Need for Speed),
found sound (Control), rock (guitar hero), Japanese traditional music
(Ghost of Tsushima); the list goes on and on as game music encompasses
almost every musical style imaginable. Choosing an appropriate aesthetic
for a game can therefore be a challenge but is one of the most important
decisions to be taken by the composer as it can have a strong impact on
both the playing experience and the game’s success. Unfortunately, there is
no magic formula; this is a personal artistic question that each composer
must answer in their own unique way. Hopefully, the range of case studies
in this book will give you a starting point but here are some influential
factors that I suggest taking into consideration while forging your musical
vision for a game:
• What is the thematic and narrative context of the game? Pirates,

ghosts, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic? Serving the story and setting of the
game should be one of the primary factors to consider.
• What is the visual style? Cartoonish, pixel art, realistic, polygon? The
graphics and art of the game can be a major source of inspiration. For
example, a game using pixelated graphics and a limited colour palette
could call for the music to also incorporate some level of audio limita-
tions of the 8-bit retro era. These could range from a full-on tracker-
based sequencer using basic square waves and PSGs (see Chapters 1
and 4) to using a Bitcrusher effect (see Chapter 8).
• What is the gaming genre? Platformer, FPS, strategy, adventure, sports
simulator? Gaming genres tend to follow a particular design structure
that can influence the musical structure. For example, a turn-based
strategy game like Total War franchise has a map mode, a battle mode,
and various events/cinematics. Observing the structure of the game will
be helpful in determining what type of music is needed in each part.
• What is the overall gameplay intensity? Relaxed, casual, hectic? This is an
area that composers can easily misinterpret, especially if they are not gam-
ers themselves. The usual approach of a film composer might be to write
intense music for an intense scene. This might work in a gaming context
for the short term, but because of the overload of sensory information that
occurs during active gameplay, the addition of intense music for prolonged
time durations can easily overwhelm the player. This is an interesting re-
lationship to examine but some action-heavy games (ex: Starcraft II, or
Diablo) tend to take the opposite approach and introduce less or lighter
music during combat or even no music at all (ex: Fortnite, Overwatch).
4 Introduction
• What is the platform’s audio system? Mobile phone, PC speakers, home

TV, VR headset? This is a smaller factor, but the gaming platform can
have an effect on how the music is experienced. For example, if a game
is designed exclusively for mobile phones, then having an orchestral
score with a wide dynamic range might not work very effectively, and
a lot of the music might need to be compressed. Similarly, a VR game
will most likely be experienced over headphones so this should be con-
sidered during the production of the music.
• What are the audience expectations for this type of game and what
has been done before? You can always play it safe and build upon past
trends, or you can attempt to break new ground and experiment with
something original, the choice is yours! The risk of trying something
completely different is that it might not register effectively to a general
audience that is used to certain past trends. For example, using lightly
distorted electric guitars for a Western type of game (ex: Red Dead Re-
demption) is a cliché which is completely anachronistic – there were no
electric guitars in the far West! Such clichés work very well because we
are conditioned through the great music of the past to recognize it as a
distinguishing feature of that era. However, just repeating past tradi-
tions without trying anything new is a recipe for boring gaming music.
What is the process of scoring for games? Is it that

different than film?
The process of scoring a video game can be quite different from other linear
media such as films. Depending on the game company and the individ-
ual project, a composer might be involved from the very beginning of this
process or might be brought in much later. You can scroll through video
example 1 to observe how drastically the AAA game Horizon Zero Dawn
changed from early prototyping stages through multiple years of produc-
tion. Here are the typical stages of game development and the general uses
of music in each.
Concept/pre-production stage
The point of this early stage is to establish an overall vision of how the game
will feel, look, and sound like and to develop an early working prototype
to test these ideas. It is quite common for developers to also use reference
music from pre-existing games or other media as a temporary placeholders
(video example 1, 11:08). Temp tracks can be a useful communication tool
as not everyone is proficient with using appropriate music terminology to
express their ideas. Moreover, they can also offer a way for composers to
be discovered by game companies as temp music can often end up being
licensed for the final product.
Introduction 5
If a composer is brought on into a project at this early stage, she or he will

likely begin writing music based mainly on concept art and game design
documents, along conversations with the game design team, as not much of
a playable game would exist. Learning how to work with concept art is a
very useful skill for game composers (see task 3).
Production stage
Games will change significantly during the production stage as more assets
are added or removed. At this stage of development, if composers have
compatible hardware and software and feel confident enough to take on a
gaming challenge, they can playtest working parts of the game to inform
and inspire their music writing. There is no shame in asking programmers
for shortcut mechanisms, such as cheats, to make skipping through parts
of the game easier and faster. For the less daring, it is also very common
to ask for gameplay video captures of different levels to help speed up the
process. It takes some imagination to understand how a game might end up
looking and feeling, and big changes can happen fast, so a great amount of
flexibility, speed, and patience is required from the composer at this stage.
Just imagine the following hypothetical situation that is not that far-
fetched from reality: You just completed writing a theme based on your play-
through of a certain peaceful level. Then you play it again after three weeks,
but now everything is on fire, it lasts ten times as long, there is a boss enemy,
and puzzles, and it no longer happens at the beginning of the game but
rather at the end! Frustrated you change the music almost completely. You
then play the game again after another three months, but now the level does
not exist anymore, they have taken it out! It is not unheard of for entire levels
to be scrapped or important characters to be replaced that can impact the
music direction in the very last minute and that is why being highly flexible
is crucial. Composers might not always admit this publicly, but a piece might
be originally written for an entirely different context than the one that it
ended up being used for. As an example, the Oscar winning composer Trent
Reznor wrote the soundtrack for the original 1996 Quake as an album and
then the developers arranged the music on different levels as they saw fit. 3
Beta testing
When a game is polished enough to be playable, it enters the beta testing
stage in which it is publicly opened to a select number of players (depend-
ing on if it is an open or closed beta), that will play the game and provide
feedback before the official release. Usually, changes at this stage are rel-
atively small and are limited to polishing the experience and fixing bugs.
Composers might start working on the trailer music as well as making a
promotional soundtrack album to be released right before launch.
6 Introduction
Post-release
As opposed to a film that is fixed and finalized upon release, many games
continue to be updated after launch. In some cases, these updates do not
affect the music, and the composer’s job is done. However, big game fran-
chises such as Assassins Creed or Witcher usually introduce new expan-
sion packs that enrich the original content with additions to the story that
usually require new music, while the old part of the game is largely left
unchanged. These types of expansions are generally written by the same
team of composers to maintain continuity with the original title. What can
be even more challenging are online games (ex: MMORPGs) with monthly
subscriptions that are in perpetual development. New content might be
added (or removed) constantly to keep players engaged which might impact
the use of music over time. Think of an online game like Eve Online which
was released in 2003 and is still updated regularly with new content that
now includes over 7,800 different star systems that can be visited by online
players. As the universe expanded over time so did the music needs, with
new cues and interactive mechanisms added, but also old music loved by
fans had to be removed together with the old level designs.
Implementation
What is interactive music?

If the timing and order of all possible player actions that can occur in
a game would be completely known, then we could produce a predeter-
mined game soundtrack in the same way we do with films. However, the
ability of players to partially influence the development of a game through
some type of input (ex: through a controller) introduces a very large num-
ber of possible gameplay variations that can potentially exist. The differ-
ences between each possible outcome can vary from subtle differences in
the timing of the same events that unfold linearly, to drastically different
story paths in an open-ended game. If we want the music to remain as
relevant as possible to every variation, we need to use an interactive music
system that can be altered to some degree in response to adapt to game-
play changes. The well-known ludomusicologist (meaning game music
academic!) Karen Collins differentiates between the terms of interactive,
adaptive, and dynamic music, to describe the specific ability of the system
to change due to direct player input (interactive), pre-determined game
events (adaptive), or both (dynamic). In the gaming industry, most com-
posers and designers use these three terms interchangeably with the most
common one being interactive.
To understand this concept better let us take a very simple game like Pac-
Man and hypothesize how music could be used interactively (Figure 0.1).
Introduction 7
Figure 0.1 A gameplay screenshot from the original Pac-Man (1980). The goal of
the game is to eat all the dots inside the maze while simultaneously
avoiding the four colourful ghosts.
What are the different gameplay variations that this simple game can po-
tentially generate? The player is given limited movement options within
the maze (controlled by a joystick) but the possible pathways in combina-
tion with the timing variables of each change in direction would suggest
that there is perhaps an infinite number of possible variations. However,
does the music really need to be that different for each? An interactive mu-
sic enthusiast might argue that we could build a sophisticated generative
system produces a real-time soundtrack according to parameters from the
game (ex: number of ghosts remaining). Another composer might prefer
to define the main game events and then use a suitable music cue for each:
a happy theme for when the level is completed, a sad theme for when the
player loses the game, and a special theme for when the player temporarily
8 Introduction
becomes invincible and chases the ghosts around. Finally, another com-
poser might argue that the best approach is to create a looped playlist of
catchy and fun songs that are unaffected by gameplay to help relax the
player. All these approaches might be suitable despite their differences in
technical complexity, and this is a creative and artistic choice that is part
of the process of interactive composition.
Does good game music need to be highly interactive?

Fortunately, producing an interactive music system that can work with a
near infinite number of gameplay variations is not necessarily as compli-
cated as it sounds for two reasons. First, music is an abstract art form so
usually the same piece of music (or a slight variation of it) can be suitable
with many gameplay variations without contradicting the experience. This
is especially true if the differences of each playthrough are small as we saw
in the Pac-man example. Second, the interactive boundaries of most games,
including games that allow greater player autonomy, are still relatively lim-
ited and easily predictable. Players usually operate within a narrow amount
of freedom as they are constrained to a pre-determined number of possible
actions. Perhaps this might change in the future as interactive storytelling
becomes increasingly more sophisticated through AI and machine learning,
but currently it is relatively easily to anticipate and prepare an appropriate
musical response for every possible outcome that is significant enough to
warrant a musical change.
Since the birth of the industry, the toolbox of interactive music tech-
niques has been constantly expanding, and it looks like an exciting journey
ahead. The interactive demands of game music system usually increase ex-
ponentially with the amount of freedom a player is given within a game.
There is an abundance of new music engines with smart acronyms that
claim to provide an innovative way of making a hyper-adaptive music sys-
tem and often game composers obsess with the sophistication and complex-
ity of interactive systems. A word of caution from someone who has written
his PhD on interactive recombinant techniques; game music is more than
that. Discovering new and innovative interactive techniques is a fun and
fundamental part of game music but complex music and game interaction
are not always required – some of the best game soundtracks have been
surprisingly simple with their use of interactivity.
In my opinion, a successful interactive music system is one that delivers
the right music for each moment in the game in an undetectable manner.
Players are rarely aware of how clever the music system is, or how many
computations it is capable of as what matters most is that the linear ver-
sion of the music that they are listening to is entertaining and relevant
to their experience. Fans might remember a game because of how much
Introduction 9
they loved its main theme, but it is rare to hear anyone raving about how
smoothly the music adapts to various gameplay transitions. In a way, in-
teractive music techniques could be compared to the work of dialogue
editors. Their work is crucial for allowing a clear understanding of the
story, but it is usually only noticed if something has gone wrong with the
speech editing!
How does audio implementation work?

This is a complex field that cannot be covered comprehensively here but my
goal is to give you a glimpse of the basics from a composers perspective.
Game audio implementation can be an intimidating and challenging field
for many composers as it requires a special set of new skills to execute
that are not used in other mediums (ex: film music). Some game composers
are directly involved with the implementation process of their music while
others rely on audio programmers to handle the technical implementation
aspects. You can separate the implementation of an interactive music sys-
tem into two stages: the conceptual design, in which you set the rules that
govern the music interaction with the game world; and the technical imple-
mentation, in which you practically realize the algorithm within an appro-
priate software environment.
Conceptual design
This aspect of interactive music is usually straightforward for new com-
posers to understand if they are familiar with how games function. An
easy way of thinking about it is to establish conditional statements that
specify how different gameplay events will affect musical change. These
can be done in a “when/if X happens then do Y” format and should be as
specific as possible. For example, some basic hypothetical music instruc-
tions can be:
• When “the game begins” then “play Level music on an infinite loop”.
• If “the player enters the main room” then “stop the Level music and
play the Battle music with a 2 second crossfade”.
Interactive music instructions do not have to be limited to entire composi-

tions; they can also be used to affect parts of it. For example:
• IF “the player health goes below 50%” THEN “add a low pass filter
to the guitars with a cutoff on 5 kHz and a slope of 12 dB per octave”.
• IF “there are no enemies on a radius of 100 m” THEN “fade out the
drum layer over 5 seconds”.
10 Introduction
You should aim to establish rules for every gameplay outcome that needs
an appropriate musical response. If the rules are quite simple, you can just
write them down and communicate them to whomever is implementing
your music. However, if the system is more complex, you can use flow-
charts to visualize them more effectively (for more info see Chapters 2
and 14).
Technical Implementation Stage

After the music is composed and the interactive rules that control its rela-
tionship with the game have been decided upon and established, the audio
files need to be implemented within the game. Music implementation can
be done directly into a game engine such as Unreal Engine 5, or by using
third-party audio middleware such as Wwise that communicates audio in-
formation to a game engine. Teaching you how implementation works on a
technical level requires an entire book of its own dedicated to each different
software environment. To give you a quick taster of how the process looks
in a major game engine, here is how you would implement two of the condi-
tional rules from earlier using Unreal Engine, one of the most popular and
impressive 3D engines that many game studios use.
MUSIC INSTRUCTION 1
When “the game begins” then “play level music on an infinite loop”.
To implement this condition all we need is just two objects: an Event
named “Begin Play” that notifies when the level has launched, followed
by a Play Sound at 2D audio command targeted at Level music. As you
can notice from Figure 0.2, we do not have to code this in C++, we can
use a visual scripting system instead called Blueprints that can be con-
siderably easier to understand for non-programmers. To loop the Level
music, we can simply double click the audio file within Unreal’s content
browser and check the Looping tick box in the file properties. Our level
will now launch the Level music theme at the beginning of the game and
loop it indefinitely.
MUSIC INSTRUCTION 2
If “the player enters the main room” then “stop the level music and play the
battle music with a 2 second crossfade”.
This condition is slightly more complex to implement but again all the
programming can happen within the Level Blueprint as well as the 3D envi-
ronment of the level design. First, we need to setup some method of know-
ing when the player has entered the main room. To do so we can setup
a location trigger that is placed within the level and acts as an invisible
Introduction 11
Figure 0.2 A screenshot of a UE4 Blueprint demonstrating how to program the

game to play music when it begins.
barrier (Figure 0.3). As soon as the player goes through the box it will
“trigger” any musical change we assign to it. All we need to do is right click
the trigger and add an event in the level Blueprint that connects it to a Fade
In, and a Fade Out audio command; each targeted at the appropriate music
and set to a fade duration of two seconds (Figure 0.4). We now have a func-
tioning interactive transition between Level music and Battle music that is
activated every time the player passes through our invisible location trigger.
Location triggers and gameplay events in combination with simple audio
commands such as Play Sound and Fade in/out are some basic tools that can
unlock a plethora of different interactive possibilities and exist in every im-
plementation environment. Once you feel comfortable with these basics you
can also introduce musical change by using continuous variables that track
a range of game values such as player health, enemy proximity, or any other
real-time parameters. It is possible to program much more sophisticated sys-
tems within UE5 that take into consideration musical rules such as tempo,
meter, or even harmony when transitioning or altering your music. How-
ever, because such systems would require a much higher level of program-
ming skill to be executed within a game engine, many composers and sound
designers prefer to make use of audio middleware software such as Wwise
or Fmod. Although the learning curve of using this type of software can also
be steep for a beginner, it is easier to program complex music behaviours
12 Introduction
Figure 0.3 A screenshot from UE4 showing how to set up a trigger box inside
a 3D game environment.
Figure 0.4 A screenshot of a UE4 Blueprint demonstrating how to program a

crossfade transition between the battle music and level music tracks
once the player activates the trigger box.
Introduction 13
natively than within a game engine. This is due to the fact that they are built
especially with audio implementation in mind and have a more user-friendly
menu-based UI that is closer to that of a traditional DAW.
Career
How can I break into game composing?

This is by far the most common question I receive from composers, and
rightly so, as it can be very difficult to get your foot in the gaming industry
if you do not know where to start. Getting composing jobs is not a straight-
forward process and at times you need to apply creative solutions in your
approach. Make sure to read the “How did the composer get the gig?” sec-
tion in each of the game studies in the book for further inspiration as well
as the career tips from industry experts in Chapters 15, 17, and 19. Aside
from the obvious necessary steps of building an online presence in social
media, having a professional website, and having a great portfolio on ready
to be sent, here are some other useful ideas.
Game jams
One type of event that is unique to the game industry and can be a fantastic
starting point for new composers are game jams. These are short compe-
titions in which people from all areas of game development meet up and
form small teams with the goal of producing a working game prototype.
The design concept is revealed only at the start of each jam, and the partici-
pants usually only have a few days to complete it. There are hundreds if not
thousands of game jams happening all over the world, some entirely online,
and others within a game studio or venue that hosts them. There is a huge
variety in the rules of each game jam in terms of the genre, size of the team,
duration, and awards of the winning games.
Unless you manage to win some big award, game jams are obviously un-
paid, so this is not a way of making money. However, it is a fantastic oppor-
tunity to meet other people in the industry as well as build your portfolio
with original work rather than rescores of other games. It is important to
choose your team mates carefully as it can be a hit or miss experience with
some jams being absolute time wasters and others leading to a satisfying
outcome. You must be able to work very fast and ideally implement your
own work to get the most out of it. It is not uncommon for games developed
in a jam to carry on with development and eventually mature into a finished
indie project. The Steam and Nintendo Switch game Nuclear Blaze that I
designed the sound effects for started as a game jam project in the infamous
Ludum Dare jam.
14 Introduction
Mods
Game modifications (or mods) are another unpaid option of getting your
foot in the industry that can be educational and a lot of fun if you work
on the right project. Mods are based on modification of pre-existing games
and can be made by one fan or very large teams of hundreds of enthusiasts,
and can range from slight alterations to complete overhauls that look like
an entirely new game. Successful mods can be extremely popular among
players and is a great way of gaining exposure and experience. For exam-
ple, when I contributed some original music to The Third Age mod that
recreated the world of Tolkien’s middle-earth based on the Total War en-
gine, the mod reached over 10 million downloads! Other mods such as the
Defense of the Ancients (DotA) that was based on Warcraft III became so
popular that produced its own multi-million dollar franchise and gaming
subgenre. Have a look at Moddb.com to see some examples of what the
modding community is currently up to.
Work as a composer’s assistant

Many game and film composers often require assistance with their work,
and this can be a good opportunity to gain some experience as well as
some income. These can be one off project-based gigs or more permanent
arrangements depending on the needs of the composer. Sometimes these
positions open online and if you actively look you will occasionally find
adverts by composers looking for a full-time assistant. However, it is more
common for composers to hire assistants that they already know and can
trust or to ask for recommendations from their network. Depending on
the project, assistant duties might range from MIDI programming, tran-
scriptions, Sibelius edits, and occasionally additional music. Being reliable,
resourceful, and easy to work with are useful skills to have as an assistant.
Take the in-house route

If you are also interested in other parts of game audio production such as
sound design and implementation, this can be a great option for you. Keep in
mind that in-house roles that exclusively focus on composition are quite rare
and most game studios tend to work with freelance composers. An exception
to this rule are Japanese studios that have large composing teams that work
in-house, often for their entire career (see Chapter 13: Mario Kart 8).
Network both in person and online

If I am honest, I do not think I have ever met a composer who has claimed
they enjoy networking. However, networking can be tremendously helpful
with getting more work, but you must also use some strategy and creativ-
ity here. There is little use going to expensive game conferences and just
Introduction 15
handing out your card to 100 people that you speak with for two minutes
to give them a generic sales speech. My advice is that networking can be
more enjoyable and more productive if you try to make real connections
and have real conversations with people you genuinely like and find their
work artistically interesting rather than trying to sell your services to any-
one who will listen. It is useful to also link up on social media with anyone
you meet in person, so it is easy to follow what they are doing and to pro-
mote your work in a non-direct way (ex: through general posts in your wall
rather than DM spamming!).
You are also much more likely to achieve results by making some re-
search and building connections that seem like a good match for both par-
ties. For example, you can find a small game studio that is based on your
local area and then approach the audio director to ask if they have any
internship opportunities. Or you can research upcoming indie projects that
do not have a composer yet and reach out to them to express your interest
by offering a specific vision of how your work would enhance their game
using a relevant music demo. There are plenty of places to search for up-
coming projects, you can start with having a look at indiedb.com but keep
in mind that any project that looks quite polished is likely to already have
one or more composers on board.
Release and promote music and let developers f ind you

In the age of the internet, it is not difficult for the right music to reach the
right people. If you have something interesting to offer and you promote
it well, you might be surprised to find work opportunities coming to you!
Here is how this strategy worked out for me: I wrote some music inspired
by ancient Greece for a Total War mod and placed it on IndieDb.com as a
free download for noncommercial use only. This led Canadian developer
Alientrap Games to discover the music and contact me to write music for
their game, Apotheon (see Chapter 14). Eventually, I run an advert promot-
ing the links of the Apotheon soundtrack with the tags “epic ancient Greek
music” on YouTube which was then found by a choreographer that wanted
to use the music for the Special Olympics Flame ceremony! Similarly, but
in a much much more impressive scale, Gustavo Santaolalla released a per-
sonal album of his beautiful collection of compositions for Charango and
that led to licensing requests directly from Hollywood directors and AAA
game titles (see Chapter 11).
Promoting your music effectively needs a book of its own but one tip
I can give you is to look at digital distribution services such as CD Baby
that can upload your music to every platform simultaneously and track
sales for a small fee (ex: £50). Another tip is to upload your music directly
to game engine asset stores that game developers might use (ex: Unity
or UE5), as well as to reputable production libraries online (ex: Audio
Network).
16 Introduction
Is working in game audio a viable career?

It depends on your individual expectations and abilities. This industry
can be emotionally rewarding as well as financially lucrative for successful
composers, and game music is increasingly popular even outside games.
Over the last two decades the industry has witnessed impressive growth,
and video games are now the biggest form of entertainment globally with
current revenues surpassing the film and music industry combined!4 Such
unprecedented growth naturally creates a massive demand for new music,
but unfortunately, it is incorrect to assume that this is all good news for
composers – the demand for game music has risen exponentially but so has
the supply of composers. There is not enough data to accurately quantify
the available opportunities to the ratio of game composers but my own
experience in the industry has shown me that in many countries the pool of
aspiring composers far outstrips job availability – with the most desirable
gaming projects naturally being the most competitive.
If you attend any game conference in a big game development city (ex:
London, or Montreal), you might find an overwhelming number of aspir-
ing composers waiting in line to speak to game developers. According to
anecdotal conversations I have had with game developers, most unsolicited
applications they receive are from composers, which makes it by far the most
competitive profession in the gaming industry, closely followed by 3D artists.
If you examine the posts in almost any game development forum or social
media group, you will quickly be disappointed to find that composers are
dominating the “looking for work” section by a big factor, and sadly, are
often spamming multiple unrelated channels with links to their music in a
desperate attempt of self-promotion. I honestly believe that the number of as-
piring game composers online now might be comparable to the number of as-
piring Hollywood actors in L.A! It is only natural for people to want to work
in something that is so much fun and that they are deeply passionate about.
However, not everything is doom and gloom. If we account for all the
different platforms ranging from PC, consoles, mobile, and other emerging
mediums such as cloud gaming and VR, there are tens of thousands of
new games released every year and that number appears to keep growing.
In 2021 on the Steam platform alone, there were approximately 30 new
games released every single day while at the time of writing there were
approximately 477,877 mobile games available to play on Google Play.
Considering the sheer number of games in development, it is very likely that
with some skill and patience you will find composing opportunities if you
actively pursue them. I genuinely believe that each composer has something
unique to offer and often it is about finding the right project and the right
team of collaborators that matches their skills and style.
Countries across the world such as the USA, the UK, Canada, China,
India, and Japan have a strong game development job market that fre-
quently seek numerous full-time in-house game audio roles. Obviously, the
Introduction 17
availability of these openings is subject to different working visas and lan-

guage requirements, and it is not easy to gain employment sponsorship for
work outside the country you live in, except in rare circumstances. You can
go to gamedevmap.com that lists every game studio in the world with over
five employees to see which game studios are situated in your local area.
For example, in 2022 there are over 574 registered game studio entries in
England, and new audio design positions open on a regular basis through
various job boards (ex: uk.Indeed.com).
In terms of financial expectations see the questions on the following pages
but unless you manage to score the next AAA franchise you should expect
that it might take time to grow your business to the point that you have a
steady flow of income you can rely upon, and you should expect that this
figure can fluctuate considerably over time. Think of a game-scoring career
like a marathon rather than a sprint and strategize accordingly by being
flexible and entrepreneurial when needed. The good news is that most of the
skills you need in the gaming industry are transferable to other media. I per-
sonally truly enjoy moving between industries depending on work opportu-
nities and frequently work in theatre, art exhibitions, animation, and films.
What are some alternative career paths in game audio?

If you are passionate about game audio there are also other roles in the
gaming industry that can be complementary to composition. Here are some
of the main job descriptions and approximate annual salary expectations
based on a number of available job posts in the UK during 2023.
Audio designer
Audio designer positions are usually a jack of all audio trades with a pri-
mary focus on creation and implementation of SFX using game engines and
middleware. The role might also involve other tasks such as recording voice
overs, mixing audio for cinematics, and occasionally helping with compos-
ing music. It is a competitive and highly skilled position, and depending
on the size of the studio there might be several audio designers within the
audio team. As an example, a mid-size company could have a team of up to
ten full-time audio designers working across multiple projects. A starting
UK salary would be approximately £32k for entry-level positions, while
senior roles currently advertised are approximately around £46k+.
Audio programmer
This is very different than your usual audio position as it requires strong
programming skills first (usually in C++), and general audio skills sec-
ond. Audio programming roles are currently some of the most in demand
18 Introduction
technical positions in the field and have great prospects in terms of salary
as well as career development due to lower competition. You can expect to
make upwards of £40k+ depending on experience.
Audio engineer
This is your typical audio engineer position and is usually centered around
recording and editing dialogue and occasionally field recordings for any
other audio assets as needed. Unfortunately, is not usually well paid unless
you have demonstratable experience in multiple AAA projects.
Audio director
Each audio team is led by an audio director which is typically the audio
designer with the most experience and seniority. This is a managerial po-
sition in which you are the main point of contact with the heads of other
departments, and you are responsible for shaping the audio vision for one
or more games that are in production as well as hiring external compos-
ers. This can be a higher salary position exceeding £55k+ in the UK, and
going much higher for major studios especially in the USA, but it requires
extensive experience within the industry (usually 5–10 years). Many audio
directors first begin as audio designers and then move up the career ladder.
Orchestrator
Larger projects that can afford to record real orchestras often rely on the
help of freelance orchestrators. To better understand this role, I have inter-
viewed composer and orchestrator Lorenzo Bassignani who has worked on
Sony’s Horizon Forbidden West (2022).
Mini interview with orchestrator Lorenzo Bassignani

(Horizon Forbidden West)
MA: What does an orchestrator do?

LB: In the world of music for media basically an orchestrator brings
the music from a digital medium (a MIDI mock-up) to a real
one (in this case the orchestra) while making sure that what
is written works for each instrument (ex: by balancing the in-
strumental sections, editing the dynamics, and sorting out all
Introduction 19
the articulations). The role often includes preparing the parts

and the conductor score. It is a very challenging job as not only
you need to make sure what you put on paper works but also
you need to make sure you interpret what the composer wants
correctly.
I work for composer Joris de Man, who is one of the most in-
demand composers in the videogame industry. For Sony’s Hori-
zon Forbidden West, I provided extra support towards the end
of the studio recordings, and my role was as a score copyist/or-
chestrator, working together with Joris’s assistant and the con-
ductor. After that, I assisted on Warner Brothers’ Gotham Nights
and other games for Joris and his team, both as score copyist/
orchestrator and also as digital orchestrator (orchestrating using
samples).
MA: How did you get the job?
LB: It was through an advert. The ad was for an assistant. The appli-
cants were narrowed down and I got to the interview stage. I’m
told it was a close call and it was hard to choose. I did not get the
job but a few months after, I received a call from Joris’s producer,
as some extra people were needed. That is how I started working
for him on a freelance basis.
MA: What did you find the most challenging part of the job?
LB: Every step along the way is hard and requires a lot of concentra-
tion: in addition, it is the speed required for each job that makes
it even harder. There is also always something to learn which
demands some extra research (a new instrument or an unfamil-
iar technique). For instance, certain extended techniques have no
standardized notation; this calls for extra elucidation for both
conductor and musicians.
MA: Which software do you use?
LB: Not much is required in terms of software and processing power.
I use Sibelius together with a plugin for sounds called Note
Performer (it’s better, smaller, and lighter than Sibelius Sounds).
I also recently learnt Dorico, which has the advantage of a real-
time function for dealing with individual parts and the conduc-
tor score; in Sibelius it needs to be done manually, in Dorico it’s
possible to expand/condense and deal with the string divisi and
the other sections with one simple click. In spite of this, Sibelius
is still my first choice, at the moment.
20 Introduction
Business and money
What are the main types of copyright deals for

composers?
To understand how composition contracts work, you must have a basic un-
derstanding of music copyright. There are two types of music copyright that
are important to a composer: the publishing rights which refer to ownership
of the composition, and the master rights which refer to ownership of the
recording. These rights can be shared by one person or by multiple parties
such as the composer, a record label, a musician who performed in the al-
bum, a music library, a game studio, etc. If you compose and produce a piece
of music by yourself in your DAW, then you obviously own 100% of all the
copyright (100% of the Publishing and 100% of the Master rights) unless
you decide to transfer these rights to someone else. Copyright is important
because it is directly involved in the two main types of deals that typically
occur between a game company and a composer – buyouts and licensing.
Buyout/work for hire

In a buyout deal, all the music along with all copyrights (both for the com-
position and the recording) are transferred in full to the game studio. This
is standard procedure for original game music in most bigger projects with
98% of all AAA contracts being buyout deals and only 2% being licensed. 5
After a buyout is completed the game studio fully owns the music, in the
same way they do with other parts of the game (ex: 3D models, program-
ming, story, level designs), and it can do whatever it wants with it, including
using it in other projects, organizing concerts, or even selling it to other de-
velopers without ever needing to ask further permission from the compos-
ers or further compensate them in any way. Salaried in-house composers
and game company employees also fall under this category unless they have
a special clause in their contracts that specifies otherwise.
You should only do a buyout deal for a game if you think that the pay-
ment is worth the price for completely handing over the publishing and
master rights of your music. The music will not belong to you, technically
the company does not even have to credit you, and you cannot even use the
music in your own projects anymore. Likewise, if you hire any musicians to
work on your project, make sure they sign a work for hire contract unless
you wish to share a percentage of the music ownership with them.
Licencing
Instead of transferring full ownership of the music to a game company,
composers can also allow the company to licence their music for a specific
Introduction 21
use in a game, trailer, concert, or other events. The composer retains all
copyright, so she/he is allowed to sell the music, perform concerts, or use it
again in other projects unless there are other exclusive license restrictions
specified during the contract (ex: the music cannot be licensed to another
game for the next five years). This is more common in indie games that have
small budgets and cannot afford to do buyouts; according to the Game-
SoundCon survey 53% of paid indie contracts were buyouts and 47% were
licenses in 2021.6 In some cases, AAA games also prefer to license music
if it does not make financial sense to buy it. For example, the soundtrack
of the sports game NBA 2K includes some of the biggest pop hits from
artists such as Daft Punk and Kendrick Lamar. Obviously, it would be
insanely expensive and unprofitable for the studio to do an outright buyout
of the full copyrights of these hit songs just to use them in one game, but
a licencing deal allows them to use it in exchange for a one-off fee that is
split between the owners of the Publishing rights (usually the artist) and
the Master rights (usually the label). This is also quite common in the film
industry and comes under the “synchronization” license.
Shared copyright deals

Technically it is possible to do a hybrid deal that splits the publishing and
recording copyrights of the music between the game studio and the com-
poser in an agreed percentage. This would make both parties co-owners
of the music and would both benefit of any further commercial uses of the
soundtrack (ex: radio/Spotify royalties of the soundtrack). However, this
approach creates the need for additional management and communication
and would require copyright clearance from both parties for any future
uses of the music outside the project. Using special clauses in a contract
(ex: regarding soundtrack sales) might be simpler than doing a shared cop-
yright deal.
Keep in mind that most indie developers do not really understand music
copyright, so if there is no transfer of copyrights mentioned in a contract
(or in the email agreements) then you still maintain all rights to your music,
and in effect you are doing a licensing deal where you allow them to use
your music in their game.
How much money do game composers make?

As you would expect, composer fees can vary enormously within the industry
depending on the individual composer as well as the size of the game project.
These fees are usually negotiated on a “per minute of completed music” basis
that is multiplied by the number of total minutes produced. For example, in
a hypothetical agreed rate of $100 per minute, a three-minute composition
will be sold for $300 for a full buyout, and a one-hour soundtrack will be
22 Introduction
sold for $6,000 (60 minutes × $100). One of the most reliable sources of data
we can examine to get a general overview of these per minute salary ranges is
the GameSoundCon survey which is conducted annually and includes data
from over 600 game composers from around the world.
According to the 2021 GameSoundCon report, the composer fees re-
ported on indie games varied dramatically from $100 per minute all the
way to $1,500 per minute of music. Such wide differences can be attributed
to the fact that the production quality and success of indie games also vary
enormously, from games that are played only by a few friends and family
members to games such as Minecraft that was started by one person before
being bought by Microsoft and becoming one of the best-selling games
of all times. From my personal experience of negotiating fees in the indie
world for over a decade, I would say that a $200–400 per minute range
is a realistic number for serious indie games, and only a few development
teams would outright pay over the $500 per minute mark unless the pro-
ject gets sufficient traction on Kickstarter or other forms of social funding.
To be completely transparent, I have also frequently encountered projects
that offered even less than $100 per minute, projects that only paid in
shares of (potential) game sales that might never come, and of course, the
occasional obnoxious developers who would ask people to work entirely
for free so they can gain “experience”. If you ever decide to work without
payment, at least make sure you do a sync deal instead of a buyout. It is
noteworthy that these types of deals are possibly underrepresented in in-
dustry surveys because composers who are working for free might be less
likely to report it.
According to the same survey data, the most common fee for a composer
working on a professional mid-sized project was approximately $300–
$500 (USD) per minute of completed music. This means that a game theme
of about 3:30 minutes sold for $1050–$1750, and a game soundtrack of
60 minutes generated between $18k and 30k for the composer. Finally, on
the AAA spectrum the most common budget was $1,000 per minute, or
$60k for one hour of music, but some composers received much higher fees
surpassing the $3k per minute and $180k per hour to even $5k per minute
and $300k per hour of music for the top game composers. Keep in mind
that the total amount of music required also varies and can be much longer
than 60 minutes of music; a major game like World of Warcraft had over
45 hours of original music composed by a team of composers over multiple
years, so the budget of the music was likely on the multi-million-dollar
range. There is no official data for Hollywood celebrity composers working
in games such as Hans Zimmer or Gustavo Santaolalla but considering that
the biggest AAA games have budgets over the $100 million mark that equal
or surpass Hollywood blockbusters, it is safe to say they can afford to pay
astronomical fees for music if they believe that a composer will genuinely
add value to their product.
Introduction 23
Alternate forms of payment

Payment for writing game music, especially for smaller or mid-budget pro-
jects, does not necessarily have to be done 100% in cash, and there are
other creative ways of negotiating payment that can be beneficial to both
parties. One common example is a hybrid deal that would include some
payment in cash, ownership of a portion of the game through royalties, and
a percentage of soundtrack sales in Steam (usually 50%). As you can see in
Figure 0.5 indie developers with smaller budgets often offer a lot of non-
cash incentives, but AAA projects prefer to do cash buyouts. This is to be
expected as which company would want to give a composer a game royalty
percentage from a billion-dollar game franchise?
By taking a per unit royalty in exchange of a smaller cash pay is a way of be-
coming a business partner and having a direct stake to the success of the game
which can obviously go either way. I have worked in games that made little
or no money as well as many that did not even get finished. However, when I
worked with the game studio Alientrap they wanted to make me feel I am part
of the team, and that the success of the game should matter to me, so they gave
me a tiny share of the game ownership in exchange of lowering my composing
fee. This worked out great for everyone as Sony ended up buying the exclusive
rights of the game for the PS4 (over the Xbox) for a very rewarding fee!
If you are taking your first steps in game composition and you are work-
ing on a very small project that has no budget, you can negotiate to be paid
Figure 0.5 A chart from GameSoundCon showcasing the type and percentage
of alternative forms of payment that composers received in different sized
game projects. 7
24 Introduction
in shares of the game, and/or do a licensing deal where you allow them
to use your music, but you retain the copyright. Indie game composers
also have more flexibility in negotiating alternate forms of payment which
can also push their income to higher levels, especially if the game or the
soundtracks sell well. These additional sources have been baked into the
reported income of indies reporting $1k+ per minute range which is entirely
possible after the games become successful.
In-house composer salaries

The nature of in-house composing work can be quite different from the
risks of the freelance world as you are paid a yearly salary, and your job
is not as directly impacted by the amount of music you produce or how
well the game sells. In-house positions that are exclusively focused on
composition are very rare, and over 80% of in-house composers from the
GameSoundCon survey reported that their job role required them to work
in additional areas of game audio such as implementation, sound design,
or audio engineering. It is therefore quite difficult to distinguish the exact
amount of payment reserved for composition. Looking at salaries of in-
house game audio employees that have roles including composition, the
reported numbers are:
1) for the USA $115k average yearly salary, $92k median yearly salary,
2) for the UK/Europe £43k average, £36k median salary (in British
Pounds), and
3) for the rest of the world $55k average yearly salary, $49k median yearly
salary.
These numbers demonstrate a much higher income for USA-based jobs,

but it is worth considering the significant disparities in the cost of living
between working in a game studio in San Francisco and a studio in Warsaw
Poland (ex: CD Project RED) which could easily be three times higher.
Will buying expensive gear improve my sound? Does my

studio need to look like a spaceship?
The appeal of a shiny piece of new gear (or an old rusty piece of vintage gear
if that is more your thing), commonly known as gear lust, is certainly under-
standable and affects all of us. Marketing campaigns try to convince us that
we need to spend a lot of money in expensive audio gear to achieve a profes-
sional standard but do not fall into the trap that this is a requirement. I have
occasionally witnessed students feeling discouraged after looking at dream
studios of other media composers such as the one owned by Junkie XL
(video example 2). Junkie XL acquired his outstanding gear over decades by
Introduction 25
patiently buying used equipment after they fell out of fashion. Interestingly,
according to his social media he has recently decided to sell a big part of his
collection as he found himself underutilizing most of it, and to downgrade
to a smaller minimal setup consisting only of his favourite gear.
The fact is that your skills affect the production standard of your music
much more than the price of your studio as expensive gear alone will have
little impact on the quality of your work. I suggest researching how multi-
ple award-winning musicians have produced major hits by relying only on
stock plug-ins. In my experience of teaching production students, far too
much time is devoted in researching and buying gear rather than learning
how to use it. Chances are that your current DAW has more power than
you realize and has everything you need to achieve a professional sound, at
least regarding the fundamentals of your mix. It might not have a shiny UI
compared to the latest plug-in bundle, or it might not have the best pre-sets
ready to go, but it will achieve a similar result if you spend the time learning
how to use it skillfully.
My advice here is not to avoid buying audio gear all-together and be-
come an audio minimalist but just to pause and consider how much of a
difference a purchase will actually have on your sound before making an
investment. Will your guitar sound better if it is recorded through a Neve
mixing desk that costs £200.000 over a Focusrite Scarlet solo audio inter-
face that costs £200? Absolutely! But if you listen to a blind test of both
recordings, and you cannot tell them apart then maybe you should save
your money and use it in something that will have a genuine impact. If you
cannot test gear physically in a local dealer, there are plenty of YouTube
blind tests of any audio gear imaginable that are good enough despite the
YT compression, so use them and make your own informed decisions of
what you personally prefer.
However, buying new gear can sometimes benefit your music in another
way that in my opinion might be more important – inspiration! After rely-
ing on the same setup for a while, you probably develop certain workflow
habits. Introducing a new instrument or FX that you are not familiar with
might take you towards a different creative path that you have not consid-
ered or explored in the past. When I bought my first Moog Grandmother
I somehow found myself making monophonic arpeggiated square wave se-
quences for hours. I might have been able to get a similar and more precise
sound much faster by using a virtual plug-in and a mouse, but it wouldn’t
be as much fun or as inspiring as using a hands-on analogue device, and it
is hard to put a price on that!
To get a better idea of some of the gear that professional game composers
have used, make sure to read the Production Tools section of each game
in the book. As you will see, some of it might be exotic and expensive but
other tools might be widely available and affordable, and it is the crea-
tivity behind their use that gives them its characteristic tone. In terms of
26 Introduction
audio implementation software, the good news is that as of the time I am

writing this book, all major software and popular game engines can be
downloaded free of charge if they are used for educational purposes only.
If you have enough hard drive space you can download Unreal Engine and
Unity, as well as the industry standards of middleware Wwise and Fmod
completely free of charge. Some of these software would normally be very
expensive, but they have changed their business model to a royalty system
in which you pay a percentage based on the sales of a game (usually 10%
for games that generate over 1 million dollars in profit). The learning curve
of these software can be significantly steep, so I strongly suggest you start
with only one of them.
Education
Should I go to college/university if I want to pursue a

career in game audio?
Deciding to pursue a formal education in music has both pros and cons,
and the education quality and career prospects you will receive from your
studies can vary significantly between different programs. After having
spent over 15 years both as a music student and teacher across seven differ-
ent universities in the UK and the USA, I believe I have an excellent insight
to help you with this decision. The following are the major factors you need
to examine when considering a particular program.
Career prospects and certif icate value

Obtaining a formal qualification can be beneficial to your game audio ca-
reer but that also depends on the type of work you pursue. For freelance
composition jobs, qualifications do not make a big difference in my opinion
but if you have graduated from a prestigious university, it can help build
some credibility. However, for full-time positions having a degree is becom-
ing more standardized. Looking at recent trends in game audio job postings
there is a clear trend that shows that game studios have started to prioritize
formal qualifications in their job requirements: over 90% of recent hires in
game studios have a formal education, and over 90% of new game audio
professionals have a formal qualification in a related field, usually in mu-
sic or production (Figure 0.6). However, having years of experience in the
industry is a more significant factor than education in terms of salary and
desirability to employers which indicates that if you can manage to get your
foot into the industry and score some recognizable credits then you can
have a successful career regardless of your prior education. Having a degree
also allows you to pursue other music related jobs that can be complemen-
tary to your freelance composition career, such as teaching music part-time.
Introduction 27
Figure 0.6 A chart from GameSoundCon showcasing the education qualifications

of new game audio salaried employees with two years or less expe-
rience in the industry. 8
My advice is to look at the graduate data from the career services of the
university you are considering and to inquire further about the methodol-
ogy used to collect it. Often institutions claim that most of their students
find employment soon after graduation, but this information can poten-
tially be misleading because their career services might consider a student
as employed on the merits of releasing their own album on Spotify. As most
musicians make a living from freelancing it might be more effective to ex-
amine recent graduate income/salary. Check what are the work and creative
opportunities that the school will offer you both during your studies as well
as any internships connections they might have for after you graduate. For
example, the Game Audio program I have designed for GSMD in London
offers students the opportunity to record with a real orchestra in a world
class performance venue (Figure 0.7).
28 Introduction
Figure 0.7 A photo taken from a GSMD game audio recording session with the
Guildhall Session Orchestra in Milton Court.
Financial costs
Tuition fees for a three-year degree can range from completely free in some
state funded EU universities, to over $160K for prestigious USA institutions
such as NYU or USC. On top of these tuition fees, you must anticipate
the cost of living in major cities such as New York or London that can be
substantial as not all universities offer student housing for the entirety of
their programs. It is entirely possible for a student studying a four-year
music degree in New York City to need $250K to fund her entire studies,
a cost that will be extremely challenging to earn back for most graduates.
Education in the UK is more affordable than the USA, and most universi-
ties cost about £10K per year for UK students and £17K for international
students in 2023. There are many options across the EU both in private
English-speaking programs and public institutions usually in the national
language of each country.
Time commitment
This can vary from 1 year certificate programs, 1–2 years for Masters,
3–4 years for bachelor’s degrees, and 3–5+ years for PhD. Many programs
are labelled as full time, but this rarely adds up to 40 hours of classes
each week. Most likely it is a combination of lectures, workshops, optional
events, individual study, and homework. It is worth checking the specific
time commitments of the program you are looking for especially if you are
considering working part time during your studies.
Introduction 29
Curriculum
The curriculum might vary considerably between programs and institu-
tions. Look at the syllabi, curriculum, and assignments of each year of your
studies to get a better understanding on what you will be learning and how
it aligns with your current knowledge and goals. When I studied for my
bachelor’s degree, most of the composition classes available in my college
were based almost entirely on 20th-century classical music, and commer-
cial music genres were frequently ignored or even frowned upon by some
of my teachers. In recent years, music education institutions are becoming
more open minded and the issue of musical elitism appears to be diminish-
ing but it is definitely worth looking into the musical culture and diversity
of the program you are considering.
Support
A good institution will offer you support in many different levels: tutoring,
financial, career placements, and mental health.
Community/networking
In my opinion, this is one of the main reasons to attend a university in the
first place as it is likely that this is where you will develop lifelong friendships
and professional connections. Belonging to a music community is a vital
part of your studies as being able to share your work, receive feedback, get
inspired by the work of others, exchange ideas, and collaborate with your
peers is tremendously helpful. I meet some students who argue that if they
quit their degree and go at it alone, they will have more time to focus on their
music and while that might be true, I find that few of them succeed in doing
so, unless they already have a network of musicians in place.
It is worth examining the type of community and culture around the in-
stitution you are considering and making sure this is a good match for you.
As an example, when I started my music studies in the UK countryside for
my A levels, I was the only international student out of 500 English pupils
which I found a challenging environment to intergrade socially as a 17-year-
old Greek student. Finally, be mindful of any programs that are delivered
entirely online as they might be lacking this communal aspect all together.
Access to production facilities

If you are paying high tuition fees you should expect to get access to high-
end production facilities and recording studios. Make sure to check how
much time share each student is allocated during their studies as often these
facilities can be overbooked and overwhelmed thus being almost inaccessi-
ble to new students.
30 Introduction
Should I focus on developing a niche or try to

write in many styles?
Both approaches are valid as each has their own advantages and disadvan-
tages. Being a stylistically diverse composer can be great fun and allows you
to pitch your music to a wider range of freelance projects. However, pro-
moting yourself as an all-around composer might be challenging as it might
appear inauthentic. In today’s internet age that game studios have access to
a giant pool of potential collaborators it is only reasonable to expect that
they will prefer composers whose previous work seems like a genuine match
to the specific style of music they are looking for. For example, if a game
in development is looking for a dubstep-based soundtrack, a producer who
is fully immersed in that scene might be more appealing over an orchestral
composer who occasionally writes dubstep on the side along many other
genres. An exception to this rule would be when studios are looking to fill
full-time inhouse positions, as composers who can write well in multiple
styles at a good standard will have an advantage as they can contribute to
multiple projects of the studio as needed.
Marketing issues aside, the main challenge for an all-around composer
is the following: can you actually write and produce great music across
multiple genres at a standard that can beat your competition? If you can,
then go for it and just make sure to tailor your application for any pitch
with what is most appropriate for each individual project. However, I have
met many students that think they can quickly learn to write in any genre:
How hard would it be to learn some jazz? Just add 7ths! Traditional Indian
music? Just use a Santoor plug-in! Produce a Synthwave hit? Just use an an-
alogue synth with an arpeggiator! While such superficial approaches might
be passable at an amateur entry level, writing and producing music in an
unfamiliar style requires a deeper understanding which will take time and
effort to develop.
Developing your own compositional voice and sound can certainly give
you the advantage of being different from every other game composer. I
have personally been given many opportunities because of my niche interest
of writing music that is influenced by ancient Greek and Roman aesthetics.
In my opinion the two drawbacks with having a specialty are (1) that you
narrow the scope of suitable projects, and (2) that you might get tired of
writing in the same style after a while. However, developing a unique style
does not mean that you have to remain static as an artist for the rest of your
career, you can still develop your voice and recontextualize it as needed,
as well as gradually add new techniques in your toolbox (this is what this
book is for!). One liberating way you can use to explore new directions
while avoiding any marketing or artistic identity conflicts is to use different
artistic aliases.
Introduction 31
What skills do I need to have to pursue a

career in game composition?
Becoming a successful game composer should be about being a good com-
poser, right? Well, unfortunately it is a bit more complicated than that as
writing music for games can require additional skills than composing music
for other media. Regardless of how you choose to gain these skills, here is
what I believe you need to know to have the best chances for success.
Composing
Well, this one is obvious, the better composer that you are the better your
chances of people wanting to work with you! Even though who is a “good”
composer is entirely a matter of personal taste that cannot be objectively
measured, actively listening to new music, learning new techniques, and
practicing your craft on a consistent basis is very likely to increase your
chances of writing music that others will find engaging.
Production
This should be obvious, but it is often shockingly underestimated by many
composers and educators, especially those who come from a traditional clas-
sical education. The production quality of your work is a fundamental factor
on how people perceive your music even if they are not aware of it. A strong
production can sometimes elevate even a mediocre composition, while a poor
production will always diminish even the most evocative piece of music – just
imagine listening to your favourite piece with unwanted distortion or strange
filtering, the emotional impact of the music can be ruined. You will also need
to be able to produce music fast, at a high standard, and relatively cheap, so
unless you want to constantly rely on paying sound engineers and other mu-
sicians for every part of the process this area should be a key priority.
Implementation/programming
One of the most common questions of new composers entering the game
audio industry is if they need to learn how to code. As we will see in many
of the case studies in this book, many well-known game composers working
in big AAA games were not involved at all in the implementation of their
music as this was handled by audio programming teams. In my opinion,
you can certainly work as a game composer without having to deal with
the technical challenges of implementation beyond a basic understanding of
how interactive music and implementation works. However, learning how
32 Introduction
to do some audio implementation on your own offers many benefits. Firstly,

unless you are working with a studio big enough to have a dedicated audio
team chances are that the game programmers are going to have their hands
full with an endless catalogue of other things to fix; and trust me on this,
testing some innovative music system will fall at the far end of their list
of programming priorities. I have had professional projects rushed to the
market in which the audio was clearly distorting under certain conditions
but the pressure to release the game in time meant that there was no time
for the programmers to fix this as they simply had bigger problems to worry
about. Knowing how to implement your audio files yourself will give you
the advantage to instantly test your music in the game engine as you are
writing, as well as make tweaks to improve the details.
Secondly, having implementation skills can also open other possibilities
such as working as an audio designer in a game studio. Learning how to
do your own implementation does not necessarily have to involve learning
how to write code but depending on the software a game is built on, it can
also be done using visual based programming systems such as Blueprints in
Unreal Engine 5, or audio middleware software such as Wwise. There are
also books available that can help you to learn basic implementation skills
without ever writing a single line of code even in game engines that are
more code reliant such as Unity.9
Business and marketing

Freelance work makes up approximately half of all game audio work
contracts, so if you take the freelance route you will need to learn how
to effectively operate a business.10 This includes managing your budget,
managing your own working hours, keeping accounting books, filling your
business taxes, marketing and selling your music, hiring musicians, writing
contracts, reaching out to new clients, etc. You can always outsource some
of these skills when needed but that will add to your costs.
Communication and collaboration skills

Even if you enjoy working alone, making video games is a collaborative
process so this is a job in which a certain amount of teamwork is required
and being a good collaborator is highly valued. You will have to learn how
to communicate your musical ideas effectively without relying too much on
music terminology, as well as exchange constructive feedback with other
team members in a respectful and professional manner. If you are difficult
to work with few people will want to work with you even if you are a good
composer. I have occasionally heard from students the idea that famous
musicians are usually self-centered and arrogant so somehow this is a per-
sonality trait they should model. What they fail to realize is that obnoxious
artists can sometimes get away with unprofessional behaviour because the
Introduction 33
skills they bring to the table are so high that people might be willing to
temporarily tolerate them, but it is certainly not something that helps their
career in any way and more often than not can also end it.
Well-being skills
The competitive and uncertain nature of freelance work can often feel like
a stressful environment to navigate so it is vital to learn how to take good
care of yourself both mentally and physically. I see many students who get
obsessed with “making it big fast” and then on the first sign of rejection feel
like a “complete failure” and want to give up, but the reality is rarely that
black or white. I encourage you to always keep a growth mindset as you
might need to adapt your strategy or re-invent your artistic identity multi-
ple times over the duration of your career no matter how much success you
achieve. Sometimes you might need to work hard to meet a big deadline,
but usually working consistently over time is much more productive and
viable than relying on pulling all-nighters in the last minute. Also remem-
ber that other life activities like going for a run, doing something fun with
friends, or just resting might be just as important than working on your
music. Finding a work-life balance that works for you is key to having a
sustainable composing career you enjoy!
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Analysis (easy) – Analyse the music functions

in a game level
Play a game of your choice, with and without its original music, and write a
bullet point list describing how your experience is different. You can use the five
categories above or you might even discover some additional uses of your own.
Task 2 – Analysis (easy/medium) – Analyse the musical

style of a game of your choice
Find a game that you consider as having a musical style that is strongly
suited to the experience. Write a few bullet points on what characteristics
makes you think so. Aim to expand beyond the obvious by doing some re-
search and analysis. For example, “I think that the music in Skyrim sounds
epic” is a bit generic, something more specific could be
I think that layering multiple takes of a massive male choir singing

in unison in a made-up language, recorded at large wooden hall with
acoustics resembling a Viking Longhouse, and melodies based on a
mixture of ancient Greek modes, is effectively evoking the comradery
and wild spirit of the Dragonborn culture!.
34 Introduction
Takeaway task 3 – Composition (medium) – Write a shor t

theme based on a piece of concept ar t of your choice
Here are some tips you might find helpful:
1 Spend some time carefully studying the picture, especially look for de-
tails that provide clues about the story and/or the required mood. Write
a couple of sentences describing your observations. For example, while
looking at the concept art from the game Horizon Zero Dawn (video
example 1, 5:00–5:30) I made the following observations:
• There is a young female protagonist wearing tribal clothing and
holding a bow perhaps suggesting she is a warrior or a hunter.
• There are colossal dinosaurs that appear to be robotic and techno-
logically advanced.
• There are some modern city ruins on the edges, possibly indicating
some apocalyptic catastrophe has taken place in the past.
• The environment is lush with wild nature and full of life despite the
apocalypse.
• The sunrays passing through the forest trees, the flying birds above
the robots, the snow-capped mountains, and the big open sky per-
haps indicate a feeling of hope and adventure.
2 Think about which are the most important elements to you, and how
can you represent them in your music. You can begin by building a pal-
let of suitable instruments that relate to your interpretation (solo voice?
tribal percussion? futuristic synths?). Perhaps there is a strange scale
you can use, or a production effect that relates to your concept.
3 If you immediately have an instinct on what to do just go for it! If you
are still not certain how to start, spend some time listening to reference
tracks of similar soundtracks. You do not have to always reinvent the
wheel; research on how others have approached similar stories in the
past might spur new ideas.
Task 4 – Analysis (medium) – Analyse the implementation

of a game of your choice
Can you identify some of the rules that control the behaviour of the music?
Try to be as specific as possible with your observations and break them into
two parts:
1. What prompts musical change? Look for specific location triggers,

game events, and/or continuous gameplay parameters (variables).
2. How does the music change? Look for crossfade transitions, use of
transition segments, use of layers, changes in tempo, addition of effects,
modulation, or any other type of development that you can notice.
Introduction 35
Task 5 – Composition/production (medium) – Par ticipate

in a game jam!
Go to https://itch.io/jams to check a detailed calendar of upcoming game
jams that happen online. There are also many game jams that happen on
location so you can do your own research in your local forums.
Notes
1 Mohn et al., Perception of Six Basic Emotions in Music.
2 Aristopoulos, “A Portfolio of Recombinant Compositions for the Videogame
Apotheon.”
3 Semel and Reznor, “Vintage Interview: Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor.”
4 “Gaming Worth More Than Video and Music Combined.”
5 Schmidt, “Game Audio Industry Survey 2021.”
9 Coggan, “Unity Game Audio Implementation a Practical Guide for Beginners.”
10 Schmidt, “Game Audio Industry Survey.”
Bibliography
Aristopoulos, Marios. “A Portfolio of Recombinant Compositions for the Videog-
ame Apotheon”. 2017. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/19298/.
Coggan, Andrew. Unity Game Audio Implementation: A Practical Guide for
Beginners. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2022.
“Gaming Worth More than Video and Music Combined”. BBC News. BBC,
January 3, 2019. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46746593.
Mohn, Christine, Heike Argstatter, and Friedrich-Wilhelm Wilker. “Perception of
Six Basic Emotions in Music”. Psychology of Music 39, no. 4 (October 27, 2010):
503–517. doi:10.1177/0305735610378183.
Schmidt, Brian. “Game Audio Industry Survey 2019”. GameSoundCon, March 11,
2020. https://www.gamesoundcon.com/post/2019/09/10/game-audio-industry-
survey-2019.
Schmidt, Brian. “Game Audio Industry Survey 2021”. Gamesoundcon, October
2021. https://www.gamesoundcon.com/post/game-audio-industry-survey-2021.
Semel, Paul, and Trent Reznor. “Vintage Interview: Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor”.
Paulsemel.com, 2000. https://paulsemel.com/vintage-interview-nine-inch-nails-
trent-reznor-2000/.
Chapter 1
Space Invaders (1978)

Mickey mousing, programmable
sound generators, and the birth of
interactive game music
About the game

One of the most commercially successful and influential games of all times
that helped to launch the golden age of the arcades in the end of the 1970s.
Players are thrown straight into the action as they are called to defend earth
from never-ending waves of space invaders. The player is limited to hori-
zontal movements to dodge incoming laser projectiles and a single button
that can shoot back at the alien armada. Unfortunately, resistance is futile
and there is no win condition – you can only temporarily hold the invaders
back for as long as possible until they eventually overwhelm you.
Fun facts
Designed in Japan in 1978, the launch of the game created such a mania
that the surge in demand for coins to play in the arcades led to a national
coin shortage and forced the bank of Japan to quadruple the country’s coin
supply!1 In the next few years the game became a global pop icon generat-
ing $13 billion in sales worldwide (adjusted to today’s money) and causing
such a hype in the US that the Supreme Court considered banning it. 2
How did the composer get the gig?

The game was designed and produced entirely by Tomohiro Nishikado, a
one-person team working for Taito Corporation. Nishikado created all the
art, animations, music, sounds, and programming and even engineered the
arcade’s hardware!
Composition technique 1 – Visual mirroring

(Mickey mousing)
The main theme and entire soundtrack of the game consists of a four-note
descending chromatic motif: C-B-Bb-A that is infinitely looped until you
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-2
Space Invaders 37
meet your inevitable doom (video example 3). Although the theme is ex-
tremely simplistic, it works remarkably well with the game for multiple
reasons that might not be directly obvious. First, the constant falling chro-
matic movement of the melody is mirroring the gradual descending motion
of the alien invaders. The technique of imitating visual movements through
the use of music is one that film composers have utilized extensively in the
past, particularly in animation films, and is usually referred to as Mickey
Mousing. In video example 4 you can quickly notice how closely the music
reflects the visual actions of the main characters in a Looney Tunes episode
of Roadrunner VS Coyote: when Coyote falls off a cliff, we usually hear
some descending pattern, if he crashes into a wall the music will respond
with a sudden accent, if he walks up a staircase then each step will be
synced by matching pizzicato notes, etc.
In addition to the visual mirroring, the main theme is entirely built upon
a repetition of minor 2nd intervals that progressively get faster in tempo.
Can you think of any other famous themes that utilize such a simple yet
effective idea? Only three years earlier than Space Invaders, John Williams
won an Oscar by imitating the foreboding movement of a great white shark
in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. The motif was based around a constant repeti-
tion of two notes, set a minor 2nd apart, that gradually increased in tempo
(video example 5, 0:33–0:50). This simple and memorable thematic idea
managed to evoke the sensation of something big approaching faster and
faster towards the audience. The audience would not actually see the shark
visually, but its existence was implied by the music which was perhaps what
made it even scarier. The dissonant interval of a minor 2nd (one semitone)
which is used chromatically also helped in evoking a sense of discomfort
due to its chromatic nature. In Space Invaders the moving shark is replaced
by aliens that are flying downwards to annihilate earth, but the result is
equally effective. This idea has been employed by composers on multiple
game soundtracks since to evoke tension and you don’t have to search far
to find popular variations of it. The exact same approach can be found in
the legendary Sonic the Hedgehog platformer that helped establish the Sega
Genesis console in 1991 as a proper rival to Nintendo. Sonic’s drowning
motif uses this technique over and over throughout the franchise’s history
to create anxiety and unease as the player tries to save their avatar from
drowning (video example 6).
Composition technique 2 – Competing with SFX

Space Invaders was one of the first games to have continuous music and
SFX at the same time. Achieving a good balance between the two can often
be challenging due to the unpredictable timing of SFX events that can clash
with the music. To solve this issue, Tomohiro separated the two in different
pitch registers. Placing the main theme in a very low bass pitch register
38 Space Invaders
(similarly to Jaws), not only made it more menacing, but also ensured that
there is enough space in the frequency spectrum to cut through the SFX
that were higher in pitch. To someone new to game audio this area might
initially appear to be a problem of the past, but the reality is that even in the
higher tech audio environment of today this is a common challenge in any
game that has a busy sound environment. As we shall see in later chapters
of this book composers have come up with various creative solutions to this
problem depending on the style of music and technology available to them.
Nonetheless, the arranging approach of using separate pitch registers is an
effective solution that provides contrast and limits masking issues.
Composition technique 3 – Adding tempo interactivity

The final and most important point that makes this minimalistic motif so
historically significant beyond its commercial influence, is that it is one
of the early pioneering examples of interactive game music. The increase
in tempo of the four-note motif is directly linked to the movement speed
of the Aliens which is in turn determined by the player’s kill count. Each
level begins with the Aliens moving rather gently but eventually picking up
speed as you start eliminating their fleet hence increasing the tension and
difficulty of the gameplay. The music reflects this change by gradually in-
creasing in tempo until it reaches an extreme climax of over 650 bpm when
a handful of enemies remain. This direct connection between gameplay and
musical tempo not only makes the gaming experience more immersive by
adapting to the visual action, it also provides direct auditory information
about the state and development of the battle. You don’t even have to look
at the screen to know approximately how many enemies remain and how
close to annihilation (or a new high score!) the player is (Figure 1.1).
The interactivity of the music makes the visual mirroring (Mickey Mous-
ing) technique even more effective as it is a direct response to the actions
of the player rather than a pre-determined passive experience. Possibly
someone playing the game today might perceive such a connection as co-
medic rather than angst evoking due to the audio quality of the music but
nonetheless the underlying mechanics of Space Invaders demonstrate how
a simple addition of an interactive musical element can make or break the
gameplay experience. Just imagine how ineffective this game would be if
the four-note music motif remained in a fixed tempo throughout the game,
or even worse if the tempo acceleration would happen irrespectively of the
development of the battle.
The connection of musical tempo to a gameplay parameter is a useful
interactive tool that composers can rely on to reflect changes in tension. A
contemporary example of this can be found in the Finnish 2019 action-ad-
venture game Control, which alters the tempo of the battle music according
to the number of enemies that are alive and in close proximity to the player.
Space Invaders 39
Figure 1.1 A screenshot from Space Invaders showcasing a moment in which

the music tempo would reach its maximum as there is only a single enemy
remaining.
The interesting addition here is that the tempo also works as a tension in-
dicator in the opposite direction and slows down as you start to eliminate
most of your foes (see Chapter 19: Control).
Production tools – PSGs (programmable sound generators)

From the beginning of the arcade era in the end of the 1970s all the way
to the beginning of the 1990s the audio quality of games was severely
constrained due to the narrow technical capabilities of the hardware. All
the music and SFX were produced by sound chips, also known as PSGs
(programmable sound generators) that synthesized audio signals from a
combination of basic waveforms, envelopes, and noise. Interestingly, the
audio limitations and inaccuracies of those early gaming sound chips
40 Space Invaders
defined the sound of that era in a style commonly referred to as chiptune or

8-bit audio (even though it was not necessarily always 8-bit). Each PSG had
its own design characteristics (ex: different polyphony, signal flow, effects,
etc.) which gave it its own sonic signature, and there is a community of
modern-day enthusiasts that replicate their sound through hardware recon-
structions and direct software emulators. 3
The original Space Invaders arcade machines used the Texas Instruments
SN76477. The chip was used in many other arcade games until it was even-
tually replaced around the mid-1980s by more capable audio technology.
Its main characteristics were:
1) The generated audio was monophonic.

2) It could generate only one square (or pulse) wave or digital noise.
3) It only had an Attack and Decay envelope generator with no sustain or
release parameters.
4) Its VCO (Voltage Control Oscillator) responsible for generating the
frequency/pitch of the square/pulse wave was unstable and could not
produce musical scales accurately as it was mainly designed for SFX
generation.4
Synthesis 101 – Harmonics
If you are new to synthesis, it will be beneficial to understand how

soundwaves work so you can control them more effectively. The
waveform of any sound (except sine waves) consists of a combination
of many tones that vibrate at different speeds measured in frequen-
cies. What defines the timbre of any instrument from another (ex:
a piano from a guitar) is the frequency content of each soundwave,
along with how these frequencies behave over time (ex: how long they
are sustained). The base tone is known as the fundamental frequency
(or the first harmonic) and is generally louder than any of the other
frequencies. The harmonics are integer (whole number) multiples of
the fundamental frequency, and any tone that is a fractional multiple
of the fundamental is considered as inharmonic.5 Traditional musical
instruments tend to produce sounds that have a clear fundamental
frequency (the main pitch) as well as several harmonic frequencies
and therefore sound more “musical”. On the contrary, SFX and other
nonmusical sounds usually consist of mainly inharmonic frequencies
and therefore sound “noisier”.
For example, if you pluck the A string of a guitar it will typically
vibrate at a fundamental frequency of 440 Hz per second. However,
Space Invaders 41
another part of the string will vibrate at twice the speed (880 Hz) of the
fundamental but at a lower volume. This tone is known as the second
harmonic as it has a 2:1 ratio to the fundamental harmonic and it is
interesting to note that this ratio produces the interval of an octave. At
the same time, some noise from your guitar pick might produce a few
tones that are inharmonic compared to the fundamental (ex: 453 Hz is
not a whole number multiple of 440 Hz) and therefore sound “noisy”
but are still important in defining the character of the sound. What sets
the guitar tone apart from the same 440 Hz A note played on a piano
string, is exactly the number, volume, and behaviour of all the extra
harmonic and inharmonic frequencies that are produced on top of the
fundamental. When game composers want to create a SFX or a synth
sound that imitate a traditional instrument (ex: strings), they will start
with one of the basic waveforms and then manipulate their harmonic
and inharmonic content over time to shape the sound to their liking.
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Composition (moderate) – Mickey mousing

Write a motif that imitates the visual movement of an animated game
character such as moving closer, falling, jumping, sneaking, etc. The
audio-visual synchronization does not necessarily have to be airtight with
the animation; the aim is that the music should evoke the corresponding
sensation of movement. How would you know if your motif is effective in
mirroring movement? Play it to a friend without any visuals or context and
ask them to describe the action they are imagining!
A note of caution: the first inclination is often to compose something that
directly mirrors visual movement. However, this can become predictable
and obvious quite fast, and it is harder to maintain musical interest. It is
therefore usually more effective if the music mirroring is slightly more im-
aginative and sophisticated in its execution. For example, while imitating
a visual falling motion, instead of a straightforward scale run downwards,
try using a falling pattern that repeats from a different descending note of
the scale. As a source of inspiration, you can watch early Disney cartoons
such as Fantasia (video example 7) and observe some truly imaginative and
creative uses of this technique. The most impressive results can be found
in moments in which the musical aesthetic remains engaging and flowing
rather than a series of loosely joined motifs. Of course, this is easier said
than done and Fantasia was animated to pre-existing music, rather than
the other way around, but this skill can be useful for every game (and film)
composer to develop.
42 Space Invaders
Task 2 – Production (easy) – PSG sound chip emulation

Imitate the sound of an early arcade Texas Instruments SN76477 PSG by
using a virtual synth. You can create a new patch in the synth of your choice
(ex: Alchemy in Logic, Analog in Ableton, or use Helm, a free plug-in
synth for any DAW) and set it up to following rules as close as possible:
• A monophonic square wave oscillator that has unstable tuning (as it

was designed for SFX)
• A Sweepable Digital Noise Generator
• A Filter only for the Digital Noise Generator
• A single Envelope Generator that only has Attack/Decay and no Sustain
or Release
Task 3 – Career development (very hard) – Make

a game clone
This is a very ambitious idea but what if instead of chasing after game de-
velopers you would make your own game? Actors and college roommates
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, while struggling to find acting jobs decided
to write their own screenplay, Good Will Hunting, which led them straight
to the forefront of Hollywood’s attention and won them an Oscar.6
You don’t have to create the next blockbuster, even making a simple game
clone will provide a great learning experience as it will put you into the shoes
of game developers themselves, as well as give you the chance to showcase
your composition and implementation skills within an interactive project.
You can use a game project template from UE5 or Unity as a starting point
and build upon from there. There is a vast amount of online free asset li-
braries where you can download art, animations, level objects, or whatever
else you might need. Depending on your chosen game engine you need to be
comfortable with tweaking pre-existing blueprints (UE5) or copy/paste and
altering some basic C# scripts (Unity). Extra points if you can be the next To-
mohiro Nishikado and eventually manufacture your own arcade hardware!
Notes
1 “Space Invaders.”
2 Hansen, Game On!: Video Game History from Pong and Pac-Man to Mario,
Minecraft, and More.
3 ht t ps: //w w w.blackcatsystems.com /sof t wa re / Sy nt h-76 47 7- SN 76 47 7-
Complex-Sound-Synthesizer-VCO-LFO-SLF-Modulation-Modulator-Noise-
Oscillators-Sine-Triangle-Sawtooth-Pulse-Waveform-Generators-ADSR-
Envelope-Control-Custom-Sound-Effects-MIDI-One-Shot.html
4 Henry, “SN-Voice.”
5 “Tones, Overtones, Harmonics, and Partials.”
6 Goldman, “Interview: Matt Damon.”
Space Invaders 43
Bibliography
Goldman, Steven. “Interview: Matt Damon”. The Guardian, 2007. https://www.
theguardian.com/film/2007/aug/10/1.
Hansen, Dustin. Game On!: Video Game History from Pong and Pac-Man to
Mario, Minecraft, and More. New York: Palgrave USA, 2019.
Henry, Thomas. “SN-Voice”. Birthofasynth.com. Accessed 30 September 2022.
https://www.birthofasynth.com/Thomas_Henry/Pages/SN-Voice_main.html.
“Space Invaders”. Museum of the Game. Accessed 30 September 2022. https://
www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9662.
“Tones, Overtones, Harmonics, and Partials”. Apple Support. Accessed 30
September 2022. https://support.apple.com/guide/logicpro/tones-overtones-
harmonics-and-partials-lgsife4183a5/10.7.3/mac/11.0.
Chapter 2
Ballblazer (1985)
Algorithmic guitar solos
to infinity!
About the game

Ballblazer is a one-on-one strange futuristic sports game where you try
to score a goal by flying a 3D spaceship around a chessboard that has no
visible boundaries. The screen is split in two opposing perspectives and the
goal posts change in size as the game develops. It can be played as player vs
player, player vs computer, and amusingly computer vs computer.
Fun facts
This is the first game ever developed by LucasArts, the game studio founded
by George Lucas in 1982. Among the studio’s many extraordinary achieve-
ments, is that its graphics department eventually gave birth to Pixar ani-
mation studios!1

Although some sources such as Wikipedia reference Russell Lieblich as the
composer (he was actually the music programmer), the original music was
composed by the team leader Peter Langston. Langston, a programmer by
trade, was the first person hired to start Lucasfilm’s game department and
was responsible for setting up the team that developed the company’s first
two games: Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus!2
Composition technique – The riffology algorithm

The game’s main theme Song of the Grid is a pioneering example of game
music as it is one of the first uses of an algorithmic system that generated
new musical variations rather than relying on repetitive loops of the same
theme. Peter Langston, being a skilled programmer as well as an algorith-
mic music advocate, developed and published multiple interesting tech-
niques of algorithmic composition during his career including an obscure
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-3
Ballblazer 45
music generation system that utilised 100 public telephone lines connected
over a network of synthesizers with a cost of $15,000 d ollars.3 The theme
of Ballblazer makes use of one of his generative techniques termed as the
riffology algorithm: a system that makes dynamically weighted choices for
the generation of various musical parameters based on a model of human
improvisation.4
The riffology algorithm in this game is modelled around a slightly (ac-
cording to its creator) lazy musician who is playing a never-ending evolving
jazz/rock guitar solo. If you are interested in the technical implementation
of it you can find information about the entire code written by Langston at
the end of this chapter. However, no programming knowledge is required
to understand this design in a conceptual level and the purpose of this chap-
ter is to introduce you to the workflow of such a system, a process that can
be designed by any composer outside a software environment (see task 2).
To generate this endlessly varying solo, our guitarist begins by choosing
one out of the 40 riffs in her repertoire. These are basically eight note mo-
tifs based on the A heptatonic (seven tone) blues scale (A B C D D# E F G)
with many of them being heavily inspired by famous jazz riffs of the past.
After choosing a riff, she is then presented with a simple set of musical
improvisation rules to follow. These rules include decisions such as: how
fast and how loud to play each riff, when to omit or merge notes, when to
pause for a rhythmic break, and other similar but simple musical choices.
To make things a little more interesting these decisions are taken with the
use of dynamically weighted probabilities, meaning that the probabilities
themselves are not fixed but are altered by other processes as the song devel-
ops. For example, the probability that controls the energy and tempo of the
guitar solos is frequently altered to imitate a sense of musical development.
At the end of each riff, the guitarist will then pick another one from the
database and the process will begin again from the start until it is stopped
by the game system.
An interesting point to note here is that the system would also take into
consideration how the last and first notes of each riff are related to make
sure that transitions between them are relatively smooth, just as a real gui-
tarist will do while soloing. Langston had to make sure not to limit the
possible transitions too much (ex: by only connecting riffs which are too
similar to each other) as this would make the outcome more deterministic
by eliminating a large number of possible combinations. This is a difficult
compromise that algorithmic composers often have to deal with as musical
coherence often comes at the price of a more predictable output, at least in
relatively basic generative systems.
As you would expect with most jazz bands, there is also someone play-
ing the bass, the drums, and the chords which are all also generated and
controlled by the same mechanisms. However, the accompaniment uses a
simplified version of the riffology algorithm based on longer phrases of four
46 Ballblazer
bars and produces more reliable but less varied results. It is interesting to
observe that although the system has no harmonic awareness at any level,
the outcome remains relatively convincing. This is achieved by composing a
harmonic progression that would be relatively consonant with any melody
that uses the blues scale. Langston does not mention which possible chord
sequences were allowed but a safe guess would be a typical I, IV, V struc-
ture that is typically used in 12 bar improvisatory blues music.
Take a listen to video example 8 that showcases 33 minutes of generated
music from this system.
Listening to the recording we can observe that the composition does
achieve the aim that Langston intended: “an inﬁnite, non-repeating im-
provisation over a non-repeating, but soon familiar, accompaniment”. 5 The
switches in the probability values as the piece evolves do indeed create a cer-
tain sense of development and contrast especially if you compare sections
that are a few minutes apart. Langston points out that although the final
result sounds musical, it is not always particularly interesting and suggests
many areas that the algorithm can be further improved: (1) making the pro-
gram track harmonic motion in order to allow a greater variability in chord
sequences, (2) use riffs of different lengths, (3) have a more complex rhyth-
mic structure, (4) take into account the guitar finger positions, and others.6
Production tools – The POKEY PSG

As many other pioneering examples of game music of the time, this tech-
nique generative approach was developed as a creative response to the con-
straints of memory and disk space available in the gaming technology of
the time. To understand the difference of scale with today’s technology, the
ZX spectrum for which this game was ported, only used 16 KB of RAM,
while a modern-day affordable gaming PC can easily have 16 GB of ram, a
size factor of a million to one!
The Atari systems that Ballblazer was designed for used a sound chip
with a unique sound quality, called POKEY, that was also utilised in many
arcade machines of the time. What gave POKEY its characteristic bright
and rich timbre was its inability to maintain an accurate pitch, primarily
when all of the four available voices were used simultaneously to play the
same note, leading to an unexpected chorus effect. Moreover, its lack of a
low pass filter and its ability to produce different types of distortion further
added to its appeal for chiptune enthusiasts.7 It is interesting to note that
some arcades used multiple POKEY chips in a single system and Ballblazer
was one of the few games that actually had a POKEY chip embedded on
its own game cartridge in order to improve upon the original sound of the
Atari 7,800 series.8
The game was ported to different platforms that utilised a number of
sound chips each producing a different sound. You can listen to a rendering
Ballblazer 47
of the theme across all of them in video example 9.9 Some highlights to
focus on are as follows:
1) The ZX Spectrum which only had one channel available making it im-
possible to play both the guitar solo and the accompaniment at the
same time!
2) The Apple II strange synthesis system that relied primarily on clicks
3) The Atari systems POKEY and their rich chorus square waves
Synthesis 101 – Common synth waveforms
The PSGs of the 1970s and 1980s usually relied on one or multiple
channels of the following types of soundwaves: sine, triangle, square/
pulse, and noise (see Figure 2.1).
Sine
A sine wave is the purest form of sound, it occurs when a sound wave
contains only a fundamental frequency with no other tones. Such a
sound does not occur in the natural world but can easily be replicated
with a synthesizer. According to the Fourier Theorem, all sound can
be broken down into individual sine waves. The sound of a sine wave
is very soft and quiet, and the lack of other tones makes it easy to
integrate in a mix without causing masking problems, making it ideal
for low frequency sounds such as bass or kick drums.
Triangle
A triangle is a soft sounding wave, but it is a little harsher and punch-
ier than a sine as it has a series of odd number harmonics (ex: 1, 3, 5,
etc.) on top of the fundamental. It is commonly used for bass, chords,
as well as soft sounding melodic instruments (ex: synth flute).
Pulse/square
A square wave has the same harmonic structure as the triangle,
but the amplitude of each harmonic is much louder, resulting in a
harsher, richer sound. This is great for lead melodies as the sound is
very dominant. In many examples of game music of the earlier PSG
era, composers chose to double the melody using two square waves.
This made the sound especially thick and generated a chorus type of
effect, caused by the inaccurate synchronization of the frequencies of
each oscillator.
48 Ballblazer
Noise
Noise generators consist primarily of many inharmonic overtones
which are incredibly complex for our brain to distinguish their har-
monic relationship and therefore we hear them as a clatter of sound.
This is useful for designing SFX and percussive sounds (ex: snare).
There can be different type of noise waves such as white noise that
consists of every possible frequency audible to humans (from 20 Hz to
20K Hz). Noise is the only type of synth waveforms that can be easily
observed in nature. Next time you are on the beach, just pay attention
to the sound of the sea; there are thousands of different frequencies
generated every time you hear a splash!
Figure 2.1 An EQ analyser showing the frequency content of the note A

(440 Hz) produced by four different synth oscillators. Notice
that the sine has only one harmonic, the triangle and square
have identical harmonics but in different volumes, and the
noise has an extremely dense frequency content with no dis-
tinct harmonics.
Ballblazer 49
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Research (easy): Identify other algorithmic

techniques
Algorithmic composition is not only limited to video games. There is
a ton of research available in the field of computer music that has not
made its way to games which could be an exciting pathway for the fu-
ture of video game music. A good starting point if you are interested in
this area is to read Langston’s paper “Six Techniques for Algorithmic
Music Composition” which contains part of the code for the Ballblazer
algorithm.
Task 2 – Composition (medium): Create an

algorithmic flow char t
While having programming knowledge is necessary to be able to practically
realize your algorithms, you can still design such systems on a conceptual
level. An algorithm is simply a well-defined set of instructions, similar to a
precise recipe that is used to accomplish a specific task. To take your first
steps in algorithmic composition all you have to do is to create a set of
specific rules that will govern the generation of your composition. One of
the easiest ways to achieve this is to use what is commonly known as a flow
chart: a type of diagram that visually represents an algorithm. You can do
this in Microsoft Word or there are multiple free apps that you can find
online. There are some simple rules about the use of different symbols but
they are not that important at this stage.
In Figure 2.2 you can observe the flowchart I designed for one of the
levels in Apotheon that is similar to Langston’s riffology algorithm but
even simpler. It plays up to five different motifs according to a fixed
probabilities chart but also adds a random delay time before each motif
begins which results in a more unpredictable and chaotic arrangement.
In addition, it also uses a small dynamic parameter – Space Invaders
style – that adjusts the volume of the percussion layer based on the dis-
tance of the enemies. While such a system has a rather limited output on
what type of results it can generate, it still adds an element of unpredict-
ability and variation that in my opinion keeps the music engaging for
longer as opposed to a short loop of the same material. You can listen
to the result in video example 10 from 0:37 onwards while noticing
how the percussion layer changes according to the distance from various
enemies.
50 Ballblazer
THE CAVES - ASYNCHRONOUS CELLS FLOWCHART
Interrupt:
Enemy appears
Set the volume of

Player the percussive layer
enters Fade out all music according to the
Caves distance from the
player
Fade the volume of

the percussive Is the enemy
No Yes
layer to 0 alive?
Select a cell in all

layers according to
the probability
database
Cell probability
database
Violins 50%
Play the selected
Violas 40%
Delay cells immediately.
Double Basses 90%
rendom time 0 to If a cell is already
Gongs 30%
23.3” playing in a layer
Percussion 100%
then overlap the
new cell
Figure 2.2 An example of a flowchart I designed to help me visualise how the

generative music will work for the Caves level in the game Apotheon.
Notes
1 “Our Story.”
2 Langston, “BALLBLAZER and Rescue on Fractalus!.”
3 Langston, “Six Techniques for Algorithmic Music Composition.”
4 Langston, “Six Techniques for Algorithmic Music Composition.”
Ballblazer 51
5 Langston, “(201) 644–2332- Eedie & Eddie On The Wire, An Experiment In

Music Generation.”
6 Langston, “(201) 644–2332 –Eedie & Eddie on the Wire, an Experiment in
Music Generation.”
7 “POKEY.”
8 “FAQ Atari 400 800 XL XE: What Are SALLY, ANTIC, CTIA/GTIA/FGTIA,
POKEY, and FREDDIE?.”
Bibliography
“FAQ Atari 400 800 XL XE: What Are SALLY, ANTIC, CTIA/GTIA/FGTIA,
POKEY, and FREDDIE?”. Atarimania.Com. Accessed 30 September 2022.
http://www.atarimania.com/faq-atari-400-800-xl-xe-what-are-sally-antic-ctia-
gtia-fgtia-pokey-and-freddie_14.html.
Langston, Peter. “(201) 644–2332 – Eedie & Eddie on the Wire, an Experiment
in Music Generation”. In Usenix Association Meeting. Bell Communications
Research, 1986.
Langston, Peter. “BALLBLAZER and Rescue on Fractalus!”. Langston.Com,
2005. http://www.langston.com/LFGames/.
Langston, Peter. “Six Techniques for Algorithmic Music Composition”. In 15th In-
ternational Computer Music Conference (ICMC), 1989. http://www.langston.
com/Papers/amc.pdf.
“Our Story”. Pixar Animation Studios. Accessed 30 September 2022. https://
www.pixar.com/our-story-pixar.
“POKEY”. Electronic Music Wiki. Accessed 30 September 2022. https://
electronicmusic.fandom.com/wiki/POKEY.
Chapter 3
The Legend of Zelda (1986)

Music sequences, musical SFX,
and the SNES sound
About the game

The Legend of Zelda is a fantasy action-adventure game that follows the
adventures of an elf-like boy named Link, and Princess Zelda. After 19
instalments so far, it is considered as one of Nintendo’s most loved and
commercially successful franchises.
Fun facts
Composer Koji Kondo wanted to use Ravel’s Bolero as the game’s main
theme as it matched perfectly with the opening screen. However, as he sud-
denly found out that the copyright of the music had not yet expired (it
expires 70 Years after the composer’s death) he came up with the legendary
Zelda theme in a single night!1 If you compare the two compositions side
to side you can find some similarities, notably the rhythm of the accompa-
niment and the tempo.

In 1984, young graduate Koji Kondo searched his school’s job placement
board to look for his first job. He only applied to work at Nintendo that
seemed to be the right fit for him and was hired as the first person in the
company to specialize in composition. One year later, he wrote the music
for the original Super Mario Bros soundtrack, and the year after, the music
for the original Legend of Zelda. He has remained at Nintendo for his en-
tire life, currently supervising and consulting the Nintendo Sound Team. 2
Composition techniques 1 – Music sequences

The Legend of Zelda features many memorable melodies that remain widely
popular and are frequently performed almost 40 years after its original release.
One of the techniques that Kondo frequently utilized in his writing is melodic
sequences. This is a simple technique borrowed from early classical music in
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872- 4
The Legend of Zelda 53
which a motif is repeated sequentially but in a higher or lower pitch. If the sub-
sequent repetitions are exact transpositions of the original, a sequence is called
real, but if the notes are altered to match the scale, it is called tonal.
The use of melodic sequences can be an easy way of developing and uni-
fying your melody but be aware that overusing this technique can make
your musical development more predictable. To avoid this challenge, Koji
Kondo often introduces an element of surprise in his sequences by occa-
sionally varying small parts of different elements such as the harmony, the
number of repetitions, the melodic direction, and the sequence length.
Figure 3.1 An example of a one bar tonal sequence in the Zelda – Underworld
theme.
Figure 3.2 An example of a two-bar tonal sequence in the Zelda – Underworld

theme.
54 The Legend of Zelda
Listen to the melody of the Overworld theme in in video example 11 while

looking at Figure 3.1. The one bar phrase you can hear in 0:13”–0:18”
starts at Eb and is repeated two additional times, with each new segment of
the sequencing starting from a lower note. Notice that while the rhythm is
identical, the interval between the second and third notes of the motif has
been increased to two semitones apart rather than one, and the rhythm of
the last note has been slightly varied, therefore making it a tonal sequence
rather than a real sequence which would be identical. Similarly, you can
observe the use of a two-bar sequence in Figure 3.2 from the same theme
that repeats from 0:22” to 0:35”. The sequence is held twice on the same
note before moving on, and again there are some small rhythm and pitch
alterations to introduce an element of unpredictability to the development.
Composition technique 2 – Musical SFX

Koji Kondo was responsible for creating both the music and the SFX in the
game and allegedly spent an equal amount of time designing both. How-
ever, because the sampling capabilities of the original Famicom/NES sound
chip were rather limited in reproducing recorded sounds accurately, he
chose to give some of the SFX a musical quality. These “musical SFX” ac-
company some of the main actions in the game and out of a total of 28 SFX
in the game, 12 can be perceived as having an identifiable melodic pattern
that is generated by the music channels of the sound chip, while the remain-
ing 16 are more conventional SFX that are generated by the sampling and
noise channels. The different use of sound chip channels becomes evident
when music and multiple SFX are triggered simultaneously which results on
audio glitches caused by the inability of the sound chip to reproduce both
when it reaches its maximum number of voices.
Listen to all the SFX from the game on video example 12 while observ-
ing the score transcriptions in Figure 3.3. As you can quickly tell, a very
interesting design approach that is still utilized in contemporary games is
that the SFX have noticeably different musical characteristics depending on
if the action they accompany is positive (reward) or negative (punishment).
For example, one of the most recognizable positive sounds is the Chest
Opening/Item received sound. The music mirrors Link’s movement with
an upward chromatic motion as he raises the item above his hands. This
ascending motion as a response to a positive action is repeated in all the
“reward” type of SFX: the Rupee get sound is simply an ascending perfect
fifth; the get Heart (life) is an ascending perfect fourth; open door is an
ascending arpeggio, while defending Ganon, the final boss of the game,
produces a rising arpeggio that resolves into a chromatic run. This melodic
convention is reversed for any actions or events that are considered negative
which are represented by descending motions. The most elaborate example
is the life lost SFX in which you have the well-known motif of a fast-de-
scending chromatic arpeggio; enemy hit is a very fast descending tritone.
Figure 3.3 Transcriptions of some of the key Musical SFX in The Legend of Zelda.
The most famous SFX from the game that will immediately be recog-
nized by anyone who has played any Zelda game is the mysterious Secret
Found. The association of positive action/ascending motion and negative
action/descending motion is combined here with the melody first descend-
ing and then ascending, perhaps to convey a more mysterious message to
the player as many of these secrets might be challenging to solve. This

approach of using “musical” SFX as an element of sound design can be
observed throughout Nintendo’s subsequent history and some of the orig-
inal Koji designs have withheld the test of time as they remain present in
some form in many of the Zelda sequels to date. For instance, the Secret
Found motif was played by a harp to match the natural sounding orchestral
soundtrack of Zelda Wind Waker while in the most recent Breath of the
Wild it is played by a piano with more elaborate harmonic variations. Video
13 shows you the various transformations that the Get Item SFX has gone
through the franchise. Musical SFX were an important early development
in interactive music composition as they function similarly to the musical
stinger technique (see Chapter 18: Shadow of the Tomb Raider).
Production tools – The Famicom/NES PSG

The Japanese Famicom home console and its western NES version (Nin-
tendo Entertainment System) were both among the most iconic 8-bit home
console systems of the 1980s that helped establish a new era of home gam-
ing. Their integrated sound chips could theoretically produce five sound
channels: two pulse waves, one triangle wave, a noise generator (often used
for percussion), and a low-quality digital sampler based on a technique
called delta modulation. However, due to the limited available RAM in the
stock NES, the digital sampler was almost unusable, therefore limiting the
polyphony to only three available voices and noise for both music and SFX,
a limitation that required creative arranging decisions by Kondo. 3
In 1986, a peripheral add-on Disk System was launched which connected
to the Famicom and expanded its capabilities. Among other improvements,
it allowed games to use cheaper floppy disks rather than game cartridges
and expanded the music polyphony from three to four notes by adding
an additional audio channel that used a new type of wavetable/sampling
synthesis that could generate sounds that were closer to the texture of real
instruments. The Legend of Zelda was initially released only in Japan in
1986 as an exclusive launch game for this system and Koji Kondo took
advantage of this more accurate wave generator to create richer and more
impressive SFX that were not possible before, such as the laser style sound
of the sword attack SFX and the monster appear SFX.4 Kondo also used
these new sound capabilities to add vibrato at moments that there were no
sounds present such as during of the titles, game over, and end credits.
A year later than the Disk System release, the game was brought to the
stock NES in the West but as the PSG was more limited the audio had to be
reduced. If you are interested, you can observe the unique sonic differences
between these two sound chips in video example 14. Also, by observing
the gameplay in video 15 from 26:45 you can clearly notice how the NES
version was unable to replicate both the SFX and music and frequently
breaks down when there are both SFX and music simultaneously due to
having one less voice available.
Takeaway tasks
Task 3 can be combined with the other tasks or practised separately.
Task 1 – Composition (easy) – Write a theme that makes

use of melodic sequences
You might find it easier to use repetitions of tonal sequences that only use
notes of the same key signature but have a different starting note (either
upwards or downwards). Remember that after a few sequence repetitions,
the melodic direction might start to feel a bit predictable, so make sure to
balance it with introducing some element of surprise or novelty to maintain
interest.
Task 2 – Composition (easy) – Redesign 5 SFX from Zelda

using musical phrases
You can choose any sounds you want out of the series, some ideas include:
treasure chest open, get coin (rupee), boss defeated, secret found, life lost,
game over. Remember to categorize them as either positive/reward, nega-
tive/penalty, or neutral and to make sure that the musical phrase clearly
communicates this classification to the player. To test the success of your
work, play all your SFX to someone else without giving them any context
and ask them to categorize each sound using the same action groups (posi-
tive, negative, neutral). Aim to think of a creative way to clearly communi-
cate the action but in a way that is also musically intriguing.
Task 3 – Synthesis (moderate) – Write a theme modelled

after the stock NES sound chip
Write a theme modelled after the stock NES/Famicom sound chip. As the
earlier generation of game composers have repeatedly shown, sometimes
limitation can be inspirational! Many game soundtracks of the 1980s like
Zelda are heavily melodic, possibly as a response to the limited voice po-
lyphony of the gaming systems of the time. You have only the following
voices at your disposal: two square waves for melody/harmony, one trian-
gle for bass, and one white noise channel for your percussion. Remember
that the maximum polyphony can only be three notes at the same time (not
counting the percussion).
Notes
1 Kondo, “NES Special Interview – Volume 4: The Legend of Zelda.”
2 Kondo, “Koji Kondo – 2001 Composer Interview.”
3 Kondo, “The History of Nintendo Game Music (1983–2001).”
4 Kondo, “The History of Nintendo Game Music (1983–2001).”
Bibliography
Kondo, Koji. “Koji Kondo – 2001 Composer Interview”. Shmuplations.Com,
2001. https://shmuplations.com/kojikondo/.
Kondo, Koji. “NES Special Interview – Volume 4: The Legend of Zelda”. Nintendo
of Europe Gmbh, 2016. https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2016/November/
Nintendo-Classic-Mini-NES-special-interview-Volume-4-The-Legend-of-
Zelda-1160048.html.
Kondo, Koji. “The History of Nintendo Game Music (1983–2001)”. Shmuplations.
Com. Accessed 30 September 2022. https://shmuplations.com/nintendogamemusic/.
Chapter 4
Amegas (1987)
The birth of the tracker sequencer
About the game

Amegas is a relatively unknown indie game released exclusively for the
Amiga in 1987. It was heavily inspired by Arkanoid, the popular block
breaker arcade game of 1986.
Fun facts
The game has no musical accompaniment other than the Amegas main
theme that only plays over its main menu and high scores (video example 16).
It possibly marks the first game soundtrack to have been created by a new
type of music sequencing software called a tracker.

German composer and programmer Karsten Obarski developed the first
commercial tracker in 1987 named The Ultimate Sound Tracker, which he
then used to compose the music for this game. He was a friend of the game
developer Guido Bartels, who asked him to write a Commodore 64 style
music for the game. After Amegas, Obarski moved on to compose music
for several Amega games before mysteriously disappearing from the scene.1
Composition technique 1 – Tracker

sequencing in Amegas
When you look at the UI of a tracker sequencer such as the one used in
this game (Figure 4.1), it might appear confusing at first, but once you get
familiar with the basics you will realize that it offers a straightforward way
of producing music that can be even quicker than in a modern DAW. The
principal differences are that musical time runs vertically rather than hori-
zontally and that musical notes are triggered by a series of text commands
rather than MIDI notes. Songs are created using four independent channels
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-5
60 Amegas
Figure 4.1 A screenshot of the Amegas theme in MOD format within The Ulti-
mate Sound Tracker, the first commercial tracker sequencer.
(the equivalent of four tracks in a DAW) organized as Melody, Accompany,

Bass, and Percussions to match the four-note polyphony of Amega’s Paula
sound chip.
Let us examine some of the fundamental sequencing techniques that
were used in Amegas:
Text commands
Looking at Figure 4.2 you can observe how the opening of the Amegas
theme is sequenced using text commands that trigger specific samples at a
specific timing. For example, if you look at the first line of Track 03, step
00, you will notice the following text: “C-206----”. The first part of the
text indicates the note and octave to be played (C-2), followed by a column
that indicates the number of the instrumental sample to be triggered (0),
and a final column that indicate any effects to be applied (“----” meaning
no effect). Similarly, Track 01-step 0 indicates that a C-2 should be played
using instrument 01 (which is happens to be a bass) with no effects applied.
When there is no text information in a cell (ex: Track 01, steps 01 and 03)
then no new sounds will be triggered during that time unit, thus creating
a rhythmic pattern of one note followed by a pause. The interesting part is
that the duration of the note is dependent on the length of the sample. For
example, in Track 03, step 00, the C-2 note is held as the sample has a long
duration but in Track 04, step 00. The sound is staccato as the high hat
sample is very short.
Amegas 61
Figure 4.2 A screenshot of the Amegas theme in MOD format within ReNoise, a
contemporary DAW based on the heritage of classic trackers.
Illusion of polyphony
An important accomplishment with early Trackers is that although you were
limited to four channels/voices that did not mean you were limited to only
four instruments in your arrangement as you had the ability to switch in-
struments multiple times by typing the corresponding sample identification
number next to the note name. Look at Figure 4.2 again, but focus on Track
02 (which plays the melody) from steps 00 to 06. You might notice that the
sample number changes, for example in step 00 the command is to play a
E-2 using instrument 05, but in step 02 it is to play a B – 2 using instrument
02 thus creating a countermelody of different instruments within the same
track. Switching instruments in the same track through the use of coun-
termelodies can create richer textures as well as an illusion of polyphony
without taking up any additional voices as the samples are not triggered
simultaneously. This approach was useful in surpassing the sound chip lim-
itation of four voices and was frequently used in this theme. You can watch
video example 17 that shows a rendition of the entire Amegas theme to ob-
serve this technique further, particularly in tracks 02 and 03 that are full of
call and response melodies that switch between multiple instruments.
The ability to use multiple instruments in the same channel is one of
the characteristic sounds of the Chiptune era that composers have often
explored creatively. For example, you can easily change the instrument
number next to every other note in a melody creating the illusion of having
62 Amegas
multiple voices playing, a process that is much more intuitive than in a

modern DAW where you would have to spread MIDI notes across an array
of instrument tracks at the correct rhythm.
Programming FX
Although no effect commands were used in Amegas, subsequent generations
of more powerful trackers included many accessible options that could be
easily triggered by expanding the text commands with an additional three
digits. The exact list of effect commands might differ from tracker to tracker
but the general format is usually similar: the first letter digit identifies the ef-
fect, and the x/y numerical digits set the amount of the effect. Here are a few
examples from ReNoise a modern day tracker that can function as a DAW:
• Axy – Set arpeggio, x/y = first/second note offset in semitones.

• Vxy – Set vibrato (regular pitch variation), x = speed, y = depth.
• Bxx – Play sample backwards (xx = 00) or forwards (xx = 01). 2
Building a song out of patterns

If you look at the MOD file of the Amegas theme (video example 17), you
might notice that the song is structured around individual loopable patterns
consisting of 64 lines of code each. They are ten unique patterns whose or-
der and number of repetitions is determined by the Sequence List. Using
patterns as building blocks is a simple and quick way of building a song
as you can easily re-arrange the order of patterns in the sequence list and
all note data will be automatically generated to match the new form. Each
pattern can also easily be duplicated and edited to quickly create variations.
Watching the rendition of the Amegas theme you can observe how many
patterns are built upon variations of the same code.
Production tools – Contemporary trackers and

the MOD format
The Ultimate Sound Tracker played a central role in the development of
game music production during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Until that
time, game composers would usually write music on a traditional musi-
cal instrument and then go through a notoriously difficult programming
process before they would be able to reproduce it using the game system’s
sound chip. However, the unique workflow of the tracker allowed Obrarski
to quickly input musical ideas and then immediately test the musical result
using the Amega on-board sound chip called Paula. Moreover, as The Ul-
timate Sound Tracker could run as a piece of software within the Amega
OS, it allowed for wide access by indie musicians as the cost was very low
Amegas 63
especially compared to other innovative computer compositions systems of

the time such as the Fairlight CMI that would retail for over £25,000! A
further advantage was that the MOD file format that Obarski developed to
store the music data, was self-sufficient as it included an editable version of
the composition as well as the sounds samples required for its performance.
Therefore, Obraski had more control over its sonic result especially when
compared to other storage formats of the time such as MIDI, in which
the outcome would vary considerably based on the General MIDI sounds
available in different sound cards (ex: see the different MIDI renditions of
Monkey Island in Chapter 5).
If you open the Amegas Theme MOD file (it is freely available on the
internet) you will find a Global Settings file with parameters such as tempo,
a set of the ten patterns that contain all the note data, a Sequence list that
dictates the order that the patterns should be played, and 11 individual
samples each with their own instrument number. Opening or playing the
Amegas MOD file in any MOD compatible software will result in an identi-
cal performance of the composition regardless of your audio gear or sound
chip. The original MOD format allowed for up to 15 instruments and four
channels of simultaneous playback to match the capabilities of the Amega
sound chip, but the format is still available in most tracker software today
with expanded capabilities.
Unfortunately, The Ultimate Sound Tracker was not a commercial suc-
cess, but its fundamental design was preserved in many popular Amega and
Atari Tracker sequencer spin-offs that followed, as well as many later rec-
reations for Windows aimed at chiptune enthusiasts.3 The workflow is also
strongly present in more powerful tracker software of today such as Re-
Noise that combine tracker sequencing UI along contemporary DAW fea-
tures (ex: multisampling, advanced effects, MIDI, VST support). Tracker
sequencing offers an alternative producing workflow than a traditional
DAW, with its hands-on-keyboard approach that does not rely as much on
using the mouse and clicking through menus, along with the vertical use
of time and easy pattern creation. This workflow can also be appealing to
non-game composers as it can be used to produce a wide range of electronic
music using the same design concepts explored in Amegas by Obarski. For
example, in video example 18 you can see how a more modern EDM track
can be fully sequenced and produced in ReNoise.
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Remix (easy) – Create your own remix of

the Amegas theme
You can use the Amegas MOD file as a starting point to create your own
remix of the theme in any tracker. There are plenty of free trackers available
64 Amegas
(ex: Open MPT for Windows) and even the more polished and capable
versions like ReNoise offer a free demo. No matter which one you choose,
remember that they all function the same way but some individual text
commands might differ. The file contains all the original samples and pat-
terns which you can open and edit to create your own arrangement.
Task 2 – Sequencing (challenging) – Create a song using a

4 -channel tracker of your choice
For your first track, keep it simple by limiting the composition to just four
tracks similarly to the Amega Paula sound chip (Melody, Accompaniment,
Bass, Drums). Remember that four tracks do not necessarily equal four
instruments like in a traditional DAW and you can interplay instruments
at any point.
Notes
1 Borderie, “Soundtracker Origins, Part 1: Where in the World Is Karsten
Obarski?.”
2 “Effect Commands – Renoise User Manual.”
3 For more information on the complex history of the development of trackers
and the Amega demo scene you can read McAlpine, Chapter 5, pp. 125–152,
Bits and Pieces: A History of Chiptunes.
Bibliography
Borderie, Xavier. “Soundtracker Origins, Part 1: Where in the World Is
Karsten Obarski?”. Le Weblog De Xavier Borderie, 2021. https://xavier.
borderie.net/blog /2021/09/22/soundtracker-origins-part-1-where-in-the-
world-is-karsten-obarski/.
“Effect Commands – Renoise User Manual”. Renoise. Accessed 6 October 2022.
https://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/Effect_Commands.
McAlpine, Kenneth B. Bits and Pieces: A History of Chiptunes. Oxford University
Press, 2018.
Chapter 5
The Secret of Monkey Island

(1990)
The Secrets of Pirate Reggae!
About the game

The first instalment of the much-loved LucasArts series of point and
click adventure games (Figure 5.1). It follows the swashbuckling quests of
Guybrush Threepwood, a hopeful but clumsy Caribbean pirate, that must
fight the undead, win the affection of the girl of his dreams, and solve the
mysterious secrets of Monkey Island!
Fun facts
The “real” secret of Monkey Island has never been revealed although it
actually exists. Series creator Ron Gilbert intended to reveal it in the finale
of the trilogy but left the company before its completion.1
Figure 5.1 A screenshot from The Secret of Monkey Island demonstrating the
iconic point and click UI that was used in most LucasArts adventure
games of the time.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872- 6
66 The Secret of Monkey Island

Michael Land was writing MIDI software as a software engineer for Lexicon
Inc. before unexpectedly reading an advert for a composing job at LucasArts
in a local newspaper shown to him by his mom. This was the first game he
composed music for and despite the rich career that followed (including work-
ing in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones games) it remains one of his favourite
scores along with The Dig. His frustration with the MIDI system of this game
led to the development of iMUSE, an interactive system that synchronizes
music with game events that was used in subsequent LucasArts games.
Composition technique – Inventing your own

hybrid genre – Pirate Reggae!
The treasured main theme of the series (video example 19) that plays in the
opening screen of the game perfectly encapsulates the composer’s vision of
writing music in his made-up genre of Pirate Reggae, a fusion of classical
and Caribbean music. Here are some of the techniques that Michael used
that you might find interesting to explore in your own music:
Use of syncopation
One of the most recognizable characteristics of reggae that is strongly evi-
dent in this theme is the use of off-beat rhythms and in particular syncopated
8th notes. The easiest way to think of this pattern is to count a regular 4/4
rhythm such as “1 – 2 – 3 – 4” but insert the accented word “and” between
each beat, such as “1 – and – 2 – and – 3 – and – 4 – and”. This rhythm
can be expanded further by adding two syncopated 16th notes “ta-ta” at
the same place of the “and”. Syncopated rhythms such as these are usually
played by the guitarist in almost every Reggae song you have ever heard. In
Monkey Island, you can clearly hear them in the Marimba and Organ.
For a syncopated groove to really stand out, it needs to be heard in rela-
tion to another point of reference that marks the on-beat. In reggae, this is
usually achieved by having the bassist play strongly on the beat while the
drummer emphasizes the off beats with high hats and snares. The exact
same principle is evident in this theme with the bass falling steadily on-
beat while the percussion plays in syncopation, mirrored by the xylophone?
What is especially interesting is the main melody in the flute which play-
fully shifts between both on and off beat accents.
Shifting metre
One simple but interesting trick that this song plays on the listener, is that
while the music feels familiar and is seemingly easy to follow, the metre has
its own secret. If you try to clap along the main theme (video example 19
The Secret of Monkey Island 67
from 0:21 onwards), you will quickly notice that it is very easy to follow the
main pulse, but things might get tricky if you try to count the timing of the me-
lodic phrases. Some bars feel like 3/4, others like 4/4, and some phrases might
even fit a 5/4 or a 2+3 count. As the original MIDI file from the game does not
contain any information on the metre and there is no official score, there can
be multiple interpretations of which division of quarter beats per bar makes
the most sense to use for this tune. If you listen to some of the hilarious covers
on YouTube (video example 20), you will notice that musicians probably count
this slightly differently based on their performances and arrangements. Unof-
ficial transcriptions that are available online also use a range of different time
signatures to group the music, with some of them being inaccurate.
In my opinion, the simplest way to interpret the metre without over-
complicating things too much with constant metre changes can be seen on
Table 5.1. Melody 1 on the flute can work well enough in 4/4 if you just add
two 3/4 bars before and after. Melody 2 is clearly in 3/4 and only the ending
of it that functions as a transition is in 4/4, while melody 3 is clearly in 4/4.
Lastly, when we return to melody 1 in the end, it still works in a 4/4 metre
even though some strong accents on the 4th beat give a 3/4 impression. The
use of a shifting metre in this piece establishes an easy to follow but hard to
pin down groove that keeps driving the piece forward.
Parallel major/minor
The mood of the piece is clearly happy and humorous but there is one mo-
ment in video example 19 (bar 26, 01:00”) where the harmony unexpect-
edly shifts to a darker tone, perhaps hinting the presence of the evil ghost
of the notorious pirate captain LeChuck! This is a tonic minor chord (Cm)
that is borrowed from the parallel minor that immediately follows the tonic
major chord C, thus creating an unsettling feeling as the harmony tem-
porarily switches from the tonic major to the tonic minor by reducing the
major third from E a semitone downward to Eb, until it is immediately
resolved in the next two bars. It is the same harmonic trick that Gustavo
Table 5.1 The shifting metre of the mysterious Monkey Island theme
Section: 1 – Free intro 2 – Rhythmic 3 – Melody 1 4 – Rhythmic

intro break
Time: 0:00 – 0:20” 0:21– 0:25” 0:26 – 0:45” 0:46 – 0:49”

Bar length: 2 bars 2 bars 8 bars 2 bars
Metre: Free time 3/4 4/4 3/4
Section: 4 – Melody 2 5 – Transition 6 – Melody 3 7 – Melody 1
Time: 0:50 - 0:55” 0:56 - 0:58” 0:59- 01:09” 01:10 -end
Bar length: 3 bars 1 bar 4 bars 10 bars
Metre: 3/4 4/4 4/4 4/4
Santaolalla does in the Last of Us theme (see Chapter 11) and can easily be
used with switching between the parallel major/minor harmonies.
Free counterpoint
Lastly, another interesting feature of Pirate Reggae is its use of counterpoint
between different instrumental lines. Counterpoint is a complex area of mu-
sic theory with a long history dating back to at least the 14th century. There
are numerous contrapuntal systems in existence with their own strict rules
of contrapuntal motion.2 The music in the Monkey island theme is using free
counterpoint which does not follow any specific rules. The key takeaway
from this technique is to encourage you to think of your music not only in
terms of a homogenous vertical movement but also as a combination of in-
dividual horizontal voice movements that have a certain degree of rhythmic
and melodic independence from each other, yet are still harmonically co-de-
pendent.3 As we saw earlier, the theme is filled with musical lines that follow
independent rhythms over the same harmony between the bass, percussion,
chords, and melody. Moreover, there are also occasional short melodic em-
bellishments that run in between the main melody in different instruments.
For example, listen to video example 19 from 0:32” to 0:36” while looking
at Figure 5.2, and notice how there are three different melodic lines between
the flute, organ, and bass, each following the same overall chord progression
but with independent rhythm and voicing.
Production tools – General MIDI

The music of Monkey Island was produced via General Midi and rendered
in real time during the game. The sound of each MIDI instrument was de-
pendant on the General Midi sounds that came with the individual sound-
card of the system. Therefore, the composer did not have much control of
how the music will sound at each home computer other than a choice of
instrument names within the General Midi list. You can listen to different
renditions of the same theme by a range of sound cards in video example
21, including an impressive performance by a PC with no soundcard at all
which plays the MIDI through an onboard sound chip that can only play
one sine wave at a time!
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Composition (medium) – Write a theme

that uses multiple time signatures
A word of caution, if you want the music to be easy to follow make sure to
avoid tempo changes. Game and film composers use this technique all the
time (ex: listen to The Exorcist theme, or the Silent Hill soundtrack).
The Secret of Monkey Island 69
Figure 5.2 2 An example of free counterpoint in The Secret of Monkey Island

main theme using MIDI transcription. Notice how all lines are
harmonically interdependent to each other but they do not move
simultaneously.
Take 2 – Composition (difficult) – Write a simple theme

that uses a degree of free counterpoint between your
musical voices
You can start by setting a simple chord progression over four tracks in your
DAW, with each voice playing a different part of the harmony (ex: tonic,
third, fifth, octave). Then develop each voice to move independently from
each other without altering the harmony by occasionally using different
rhythms and melodic patterns. One tip you can try is to include an imita-
tion of one pattern that starts at a later point in another voice. If you enjoy
this type of writing, you can have a look at the canons and fugues of J.S.
Bach who was one of the virtuosos of contrapuntal writing.
Task 3 – Research (very challenging) – Study the five

species of counterpoint
If you are interested in the subject of counterpoint and its use in classical
music, I recommend looking into using a cantus firmus (a pre-existing mel-
ody) and studying the rules and exercises of the five species of counterpoint
that were published in 1725 by Joseph Fux and have been used by and
directly influenced many renowned classical composers such J.S Bach,
Mozart and Beethoven!4
Notes
1 “25 Fun Facts to Celebrate Monkey Island’s 25th Birthday.”
2 Sachs and Dahlhaus, “Counterpoint.”
3 Laitz, Steven G. (2008). The Complete Musician (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford
University Press, Inc. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-19-530108-3.
4 Fox and Mann, The Study of Counterpoint.
Bibliography
“25 Fun Facts to Celebrate Monkey Island’s 25th Birthday”. Grabitmagazine.Com,
2015. https://www.grabitmagazine.com/blog/post/celebrating-25-years-of-monkey-
island-25-fun-facts-you-may-not-know/.
Fox, Johann Joseph, and Alfred Mann. The Study of Counterpoint. New York:
Norton, 1971.
Sachs, Klaus-Jürgen, and Carl Dahlhaus. “Counterpoint”. Grove Music Online,
2001. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.06690.
Chapter 6
Street Fighter II (1991)

Melodic tension in Guile’s, Ken’s,
and Blanka’s themes
About the game

Released for arcades in 1991 and home consoles in 1992, Street Fighter
II was inspirational to numerous competitive fighting games and is still
recognizable today. The player engages in combat with eight distinctive
characters in street fights taking place around the world before facing the
four boss characters.
Fun facts
In the late 1980s and early 1990s the top game composers at Capcom, one
of Japan’s biggest game development studios, were all women.

Yoko Shimomura graduated from college as a classical piano major hoping
to become a piano teacher. Capcom was hiring for a composer at the time,
so she sent in an application and passed the Capcom entrance exam despite
having little composing experience and being discouraged by her music pro-
fessors. Yoko has had had an amazing career as a game composer with
titles such as Street Fighter II, the Kingdom Hearts series, Super Mario
RPG, and Final Fantasy XV.
Music theory 101 – Nonharmonic notes
Have you ever wondered why the I, IV, and V chords are so frequently
used in chord sequences? The combination of just these three chords
contains all the notes of a major scale, and therefore, can be used
to fully harmonize any melody that makes use of diatonic notes.
However, composers might choose to use nonharmonic notes in the
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-7
72 Street Fighter II
melody that do not match with the underlying chords. Some of the
most common uses are:
passing notes – nonharmonic notes that move between two chord
notes in a single direction.
auxiliary (or neighbouring notes) – nonharmonic notes that move
above or below a chord note but then return to the original chord
note.
suspended notes – nonharmonic notes that are held from the previous
chord and will resolve by step usually downwards into a har-
monic note of the new chord.
Composition technique – Creating melodic

tension with nonharmonic notes
Many of the memorable melodies in Street Fighter II incorporate dia-
tonic notes that are not part of the accompanying chords. This technique
creates an expectation that these nonharmonic notes will be resolved at
a later moment and thus drives the music forward with momentum and
tension, an approach clearly suited to keeping the player on the edge dur-
ing the constant fierce street fighting in the game. Let us examine how
melodic tension is created in three popular character themes of the game.
Melodic tension in GUILE’S THEME

I personally find this theme as one of the biggest ear worms in the history of
game music. I challenge you to listen to an Acapella cover of Guile’s theme
in video example 21 while studying the analysis in Figure 6.1 and then try
to get it out of your mind!
Intro
The song is in the key of Cm (C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C) but the melody
does not use the note C not even once during this intro. Instead, it floats
around multiple repetitions of Eb and D, until F and Bb are also introduced
in bar 3. The note Eb belongs to all three underlying chords (Cm, Abmaj7,
Fm) but the note D does not belong to any – it is instead used as an auxiliary
note that implies it will resolve to C (the tonic) but keeps returning to Eb.
The final two notes (D, Bb) of this phrase are finally matching the chord
notes of Gm but the clearly implied resolution of the tension to C does not
arrive until the Verse, as the phrase repeats again to prolong the melodic
tension for another three bars.
Street Fighter II 73
Figure 6.1 A melodic analysis of Guile’s Theme. Notice the extended use of
non-chord notes in the melody that function as passing, auxiliary,
and s uspended notes and create melodic tension.
Verse
The melodic tension is finally resolved to C (tonic) in the first note of the
verse which clearly establishes the Cm tonality with the use of passing notes
between all the chord notes and dismisses any hints towards a move to the
Eb relative major. What is noteworthy here is that the verse alternates be-
tween a playful game of tension and release from one bar to the next: one
bar of harmonic melodic movement of the triad chords is followed by one

bar of primarily auxiliary and suspended notes. The melody also keeps ris-
ing upwards which adds further to the build-up of tension. However, unlike
the intro, the Bb at the very end of the phrase is resolved to C but not in
the octave you would expect as it makes an unexpected jump to an octave
below to temporarily allow space for building upwards again.
Chorus
The chorus begins with the same melodic phrase of a Cm scale moving
upwards as the verse, but it is unexpectedly repeated twice with two new
reharmonizations of major chords, which imply that the music might have
modulated. However, the key of Cm is quickly re-established as it is re-
peated for two bars before jumping even higher in pitch to the climax of the
top Ab and then finally moving towards a familiar harmonic motion that
resolves downwards into C using entirely chord and passing notes.
Melodic tension in KEN’S THEME

This is the theme of the other American character in the game, and it takes
the idea of a rock anthem to the maximum. The melodic techniques utilized
in video example 23 are even simpler and were extremely popular in rock/
metal anthems of the 1980s (just listen to almost any song by Iron Maiden
and you are guaranteed to find it). The trick is the following: you take a
short melodic phrase and repeat it over a sequence of diatonic chords under-
neath that harmonically clash with the melody. The dissonance is eventually
resolved at the end of the sequence before repeating the entire trick again
while usually building up the arrangement along the way. This can work with
almost any chords if the first and last chord is consonant, and if the chords
are diatonic (they belong to the same key as the melody). You can also po-
tentially use some chromatic chords (see Chapter 8 on Diablo for more info)
but this might need further planning of the harmonic direction. The easiest
approach is to use the bread and butter of rock harmony, the power chord.
For the uninitiated, a power chord is simply a chord that does not have a third
which is the interval that defines its minor or major colour. A power chord is
constructed by using only a root tone, a perfect fifth, and occasionally also
an octave. Power chords are much easier to implement when building your se-
quence as there are fewer harmonic combinations that need to be considered.
Melodic tension in BL ANK A’S THEME

Yoko Shimomura was struggling to come up with a melody for Blanka’s
character until she got a strange epiphany while seeing a strange bag with
Blanka’s colours during her morning train commute to work. The me-
lodic motif that came to her mind did not seem to initially fit with the
rhythm section she had previously written as they both used a different key.
The melodic tension and dissonance created by having two different keys
playing simultaneously over each part (rhythm/melody) is exactly what
makes Blanka’s theme so fitting to his unusual character (he is a beast mu-
tant living in the Brazilian jungles), and it is never really resolved in the
song (video example 24). According to Yoko:
Blanka’s theme has some really unusual parts. So, when it’s arranged,
people often end up correcting those parts. The rhythm for Blanka’s
theme itself is in a major key, but the melody is in a minor key. Basically,
you hear an A natural and an A flat at the same time. It’s really something
that should be fixed, but if I fixed it, it’d become a different song entirely.
That strange, broken feeling is what made the song for me. People said
the music was wrong at the time, but if so many people tell me they love
it now, then I don’t think it’s wrong. I’m finally able to believe that now.1
The idea of using multiple keys at the same time is known as polytonality
while the use of two keys at the same time as bitonality. There are some
compositions that briefly used these techniques in the classical music era,
but they were really popularized with Stravinsky’s pivotal and highly con-
troversial work in The Rite of String (video example 25).
Production tools – The YM2151 frequency

modulation chip
The original Street Fighter II arcade machine had a YM2151 FM synthesis
chip and a MSM6295 ADPCM chip (four channels, used voice synthesis to
mimic human speech). It is very interesting to note that the YM2151 was
the first single-chip FM synthesizer, and it was made by Yamaha. The chip
was originally created for the early Yamaha DX series of keyboards, the pre-
cursors to the legendary Yamaha DX7 – one of the most commercially suc-
cessful professional-level hardware synthesizer of all times!2 The YM2151
chip had 8 voices, 4 operators, and 8 algorithms, compared to the DX7 that
had 16 voices, 6 operators and 32 algorithms. Nonetheless, the YM2151
could produce a great number of sounds that were not possible to synthesize
with non-FM chips. It did so by only using sine waves with no filters or effects,
and was eventually used in many arcade and console game system boards.
Shimomura recalls the complexities of programming music using a sound
chip:
Back when I was composing the SF2 music, I had to make it on a ma-
chine with a circuit sound system. We were using a type of FM sound
chip, which I think was called YM2151. With that chip we could play
the music and adjust it with a program, kind of like an app nowadays.
Maybe app isn’t quite right, but we had a PC that could run that soft-
ware basically. At that point we had about a system each for composing
songs, so I was composing on my own PC. So, while thinking about
what it’d sound like with the FM sound, I brought in the data, the ac-
tual MIDI data, and played it with the FM sound, and then adjusted
accordingly. When it didn’t play the kind of sound I expected, I’d fix it
right there, and since it was an FM sound chip, I could create sounds.
Altogether I could save up to 128 or maybe 255 sounds, so I could keep
saving them and editing them, then make new ones and edit them again.
Ethnic sounds, unique sounds, or something like a guitar is really dif-
ficult with FM sound, so I kind of approximated them. And we used
a system called ADPCM for the drums only, so we sampled them and
played them back, and finally played everything back together.3
FM synthesis 101
Frequency Modulation synthesis can be a confusing subject especially

with the highly complex capabilities offered by modern FM synths. How-
ever, the premise of early FM synths is relatively simple at its core: sounds
are produced by having one sine wave (the modulator) modulate the pitch
of another sine wave (the carrier). Each sine wave is produced by an oscil-
lator which together with its envelope is known as an “operator”. Each
FM synth would have multiple operators (ex: the YM2151 had four) that
could be arranged in a different order known as an “algorithm”.
The primary properties that define the FM outcome are:
1) The frequency ratio between both operators controls the fre-
quency content of the new sound. For example, if the frequen-
cies of the two operators are inharmonic (not direct multiples of
each other) the resulting sound will also be inharmonic. Using
inharmonic ratios is ideal for quickly producing complex sounds
quickly (ex: bells, metallic sounds, synthetic brass).4
2) The amplitude (volume) of the first operator (the modulator) con-
trols the amount of FM synthesis to be applied to the other opera-
tor (the carrier). For example, the louder you make the modulator
the more Frequency Modulation you will get.
3) Each operator is made of a sine wave oscillator with an envelope.
My controlling the ADSR of the envelope you can design its am-
plitude over time (ex: staccato, legato, fade-in, etc.).
4) The order in which the oscillators are connected with each other
(known as the algorithm) controls all of the above as it determines
which oscillator is acting as the modulator and which as the car-
rier. For example, the YM2151 had eight algorithms, meaning
that its four operators (a sine oscillator with an envelope) could
be connected in eight different ways that would produce eight
different types of Frequency Modulation.
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Remix (challenging) – Create a SF2 remix using

FM synthesis
Download the MIDI file from any of the songs in the game (they can be
found by a quick google search) but replace the instruments with your
own sounds made with an FM synth. There are plenty of powerful FM
synths that come with most DAWs such as Operator in Ableton, or EFM1
and Retro Synth in Logic. You can start with just two sine wave opera-
tors (one being the modulator, and one being the carrier), and no effects.
Then adjust the parameters discussed earlier: the amplitude and pitch of
the operator and the ADSR of the envelope. Make sure to experiment
with both harmonic and inharmonic ratios between your operators (you
can click fixed and set a specific frequency number in Hz in Ableton). If
you are using Ableton’s Operator, you can then add more operators and
make sure to explore the 11 different algorithms. You can also open dif-
ferent pre-sets (ex: Brass) and reverse engineer them to understand how
they work.

melodic tension for one of the original SF2 characters
You can use one or more of the melodic tension techniques discussed in this
chapter. Look at Figure 6.2 and the description of each character below to
get inspiration:
• Ryu: the winner of the previous tournament. A Japanese fighter that

seeks no fame but only to develop his Karate skills.
• E. Honda: a Japanese sumo wrestler that is strong but slow moving.
• Blanka: a Brazilian beast mutant who seeks to uncover his forgotten
past.
• Guile: a former USA special forces soldier that seeks revenge for the
death of his best friend.
• Ken: Ruy’s best friend but also biggest rival, from the USA.
• Chun-Li: a Chinese martial artist seeking revenge for the death of her
father.
• Zangief: a Soviet Union wrestler seeking to defeat his American oppo-
nents with his bare hands.
• Dhalsim: a pacifist yoga master from India who seeks to gain money to
help the less fortunate.5
Figure 6.2 A screenshot from the Player Select menu in the original Street
Fighter II displaying all the available fighter options and their country
of origin.
Notes
1 Shimomura and Dwyer, “Interview: Street Fighter II’S Yoko Shimomura.”
2 “Frequency Modulation (FM) Synthesis.”
3 Shimomura and Dwyer, “Interview: Street Fighter II’S Yoko Shimomura.”
4 “Frequency Modulation (FM) Synthesis.”
5 “Street Fighter II Characters.”
Bibliography
“Frequency Modulation (FM) Synthesis”. Apple Support. Accessed 30 September
2022. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/logicpro/lgsife418213/mac#:~:-
text=FM%20synthesis%20uses%20a%20modulator,range%2C%20thus%20
producing%20new%20harmonics.
Shimomura, Yoko, and Nick Dwyer. “Interview: Street Fighter II’S Yoko
Shimomura”. Https://Daily.Redbullmusicacademy.Com/, 2014. https://daily.
redbullmusicacademy.com/2014/09/yoko-shimomura-interview.
“Street Fighter II Characters”. Street Fighter Wiki. Accessed 7 October 2022.
https://streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Street_Fighter_II_Characters.
Chapter 7
Mortal Kombat (1992)

From the arcades to the dance
floor, formulaic writing makes
a classic hit
About the game

An all-time classic fighting game released for the arcades in 1992 that
shocked the public with its unprecedented levels of fantasy violence
and gore. Several fictional themed warriors enter a martial arts tournament
and fight to the death for the freedom of their magical realms.
Fun facts
The design was initially inspired by the fighting films of Jean-Claude
Van Damme who is imitated in-game by the character of Johnny Cage
(Figure 7.1).1
Figure 7.1 A screenshot from Mortal Kombat showing the character Johnny
Cage that was unofficially modelled after Van Damme.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872- 8
80 Mortal Kombat

The music of the original game was written by Dan Forden who also worked
on the sound effects and was part of the company’s design team. However,
the famous Mortal Kombat franchise theme, also known as “Techno Syn-
drome”, was not part of the first release of the game in the arcades. It was
composed by Olivier Adams, a member of the Belgian electronic duo The
Immortals, when the band was asked to write a TV promotional song to
support the game’s release into home consoles. 2
Composition technique 1 – Formulaic pop writing

The composition techniques behind the MK theme song (video example 26)
are incredibly simple and formulaic, yet very effective in creating a memo-
rable track inspired by 1990s dance music that managed to become a global
hit that unexpectedly reached fans beyond the gaming community and was
frequently played on commercial radio stations and dance clubs worldwide.
It currently has over 150 million views on YouTube which eccentrically
places it at top spot of the most popular game theme of all times on the
platform. It has been covered extensively in the last 30 years in a very wide
range of genres, from orchestral to heavy metal styles (video example 27),
as well as some bizarre versions including medieval acapella groups and
even cat singing remixes!
Pop song structure

The structure of the song is based on the well-tested pop song writing for-
mula of a verse-chorus-bridge, along with constant small variations in the
arrangement and instrumentation. There are four main phrases, all of them
four bars long and in 4/4 that play in the following form: Verse x2, Chorus
A x3, Chorus B x3, Bridge x2.
Repetitive lyrics
The lyrics also follow the looping structure of many dance music hits of the
time with continuous repetition of a few catchy words and key phrases that
become memorable. For example: “Test your might, Test your might, Test
your might, Test your might, (scream) MORTAL KOMBAT!”
Four on the floor kick

The drums are built around the bread-and-butter of 1990s dance music, the
characteristic four to the floor kick. In contrast to pop/rock where the kick
drum hits at beats 1 and 3, while the snare hits at 2 and 4, four to the floor
dance music has the kick hitting in all four beats, even under the snare hits.
Mortal Kombat 81
Following a four-chord formula

Some of the game soundtracks discussed in this book follow a complex
harmonic development but this theme is not one of them. It predominately
relies on a repeating four-chord progression formula of i – III – VII – VI
based in Aminor (Am – C – G – F) that is found in countless pop songs,
while the Chorus is only a repetition of an A minor chord, and the Chorus
B is mainly based on repetitions of A minor – G – C chords.
If you are not familiar with four-chord formulas you might be shocked
when you discover how many popular songs are built upon the exact same
chord progression yet sound quite different from each other. In video ex-
ample 28 (this is a must see!) the brilliant music group Axis of Awesome
comically demonstrate this concept on a similar four-chord progression
of I–V–vi–IV.
Composition technique 2 – Phrygian mode

Most of the MK theme song is based on the key of D minor aeolian which
is simply another name of the ascending natural D minor scale: D, E, F, G,
A, Bb, C, D. Notice that the 7th is not raised as in the harmonic minor that
would have a C#. This is just the same key signature as its relative major,
F, but starting on a D, in the same way as A minor is relative to C major.
What gives this theme a little bit of a unique colour that helps set it apart
is the descending pattern in the melody of the chorus unexpectedly happens
in the mode of D Phrygian video 26, 0:40. The D Phrygian (D, Eb, F, G, A,
Bb, C, D) is a minor mode that is parallel to D Aeolian and has the same key
signature with the only key difference that it also has a flatten 2nd which
gives the mode its unique colour.
Parallel modes 101
Using parallel modes is a great way of introducing a different sound

to your music. Many music theory books overcomplicate this subject
by teaching you how to build modes starting from a different note
of the C major scale. While this is useful in quickly remembering the
structure of each mode, it is not very practical as all of these will
belong to a different key (depending on the starting tone). Modes are
much easier to use in parallel, meaning that they should all be trans-
posed to start on the same note. You can easily construct all seven
of them by taking any major key and then applying the following
formulas:
82 Mortal Kombat
Table 7.1 T
he formula for constructing all seven parallel modes
starting from a major key and altering specific notes of the
scale as needed
Ionian 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(major mode)
Dorian 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7
(minor mode)
Phrygian 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7
(minor mode)
Lydian 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7
(major mode)
Mixolydian 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7
(major mode)
Aeolian 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7
(minor mode)
Locrian 1 b2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7
(diminished mode)
Notice that the Dorian, Phrygian, and Aeolian are all minor modes,
while the Ionian, Lydian, and Mixolydian are all major modes. The
Locrian is a special mode as it resembles the diminished scale and is
quite eccentric to use. It is also easier to move from a minor mode
to another minor mode (and vice versa for major modes) as the key
signatures are more closely related. For example, as we saw in the
Mortal Kombat theme, moving from D Aeolian to D Dorian only
needs one note to be altered, but moving from D Aeolian to D Lydian
will need four hence making it a more abrupt change.
Production tools – SFX sampling

Another technique that makes the MK theme so successful is its catchy use
of sampling. It might not be directly obvious at first but if you pay atten-
tion, you will quickly notice that many musical elements of the production
are actually sound effects samples taken from the game itself. There are
gongs, punches, kicks, special attacks, character voices, and of course the
characteristic Mortal Kombat scream that is taken from the Sega Genesis
TV advertisement and pitched down an octave. These samples are used mu-
sically to create rhythmic patterns, and a lyrical accompaniment, over the
rest of the music, and the entire song was produced using an old Atari ST
1040 home computer.3 This Atari was a fantastic music making machine at
the time as it had built-in MIDI ports, it could take floppy disks, and had a
large amount of memory that gave it a comparatively strong capability for
Mortal Kombat 83
audio sampling. It is interesting to mention that some of the most popular

DAWs of today, such as Cubase and Logic Pro, originated on the Atari ST!4
Takeaway tasks
These three tasks can be combined or attempted separately.
Task 1 – Composition (easy/medium) – Formulaic writing

Write a theme song that is based on formulaic popular writing techniques.
Select a four-chord progression (ex: I-V-vi-IV in C major would be C, G,
Am, F) and develop your arrangement around building blocks such as an
intro, verse, bridge, and chorus. There is nothing wrong in using such for-
mulas as a starting point for your music but be cautious that if the gener-
ation of all your elements is formulaic then the final result most probably
will sound generic. The key to making this interesting is to also have some-
thing slightly unexpected.
Task 2 – Composition (challenging) write a shor t theme

using a mode
You can easily transition between parallel modes within the same compo-
sition by following Table 7.1. An important point to remember is that after
constructing a mode to use in your melody, you need to also alter your
diatonic chords according by using the same note alterations. For exam-
ple, if you are using C Lydian that has a #4, you need to alter any chords
that have an F to an F#, thus Dm (DFA) becomes a D (DF#A), F becomes
a F#dim, and Bdim becomes a Bm. Remember that modes have a very id-
iosyncratic colour it is rare to use more than two in the same composition
and is also much easier to transition between modes of the same quality
(major/minor).
Task 3 – Production (easy/medium) – Create an

instrument from in-game SFX
You can use the Mortal Kombat SFX library (video example 29) or sample
any other game of your choice. The Mortal Kombat approach of using
samples might have a slightly comedic effect with a strong 1990s ambiance
but you can also use this technique creatively in other ways. You can use the
SFX either through a sampler instrument (ex: Logic – Quicksampler) that is
performed in a MIDI keyboard like any other instrument, or you can cre-
ate instrumental patterns by placing the audio files directly into your DAW
session by using a quantized grid.
84 Mortal Kombat
Notes
1 Kantor and Iannone, “The Untold Truth of Jean-Claude Van Damme.”
2 Grebey, Adams and Engelen, “The Team Behind the Mortal Kombat Theme
Song Had No Idea They’d Created a Knockout.”
3 Grebey, Adams and Engelen, “The Team Behind the Mortal Kombat Theme
Song Had No Idea They’d Created a Knockout.”
4 Needs, “Dirty Dozen – Micro Music – Jun/Jul 1989.”
Bibliography
Grebey, James, Olivier Adams, and Maurice Engelen. “The Team Behind the
Mortal Kombat Theme Song Had No Idea They’d Created a Knockout”. Vulture.
Com, 2021. https://www.vulture.com/2021/04/the-mortal-kombat-theme-song-
creators-on-their-knockout-hit.html
Kantor, Jonathan H., and Jason Iannone. “The Untold Truth of Jean-Claude Van
Damme”. Looper.Com, 2021. https://www.looper.com/35987/untold-truth-
jean-claude-van-damme/
Needs, Paul. “Dirty Dozen – Micro Music – Jun/Jul 1989”. Muzines.Co.Uk.
Accessed 1 October 2022. http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/dirty-dozen/5214
Chapter 8
Diablo (1996)
Chromatic chords and non-functional
harmony in Tristram Village
About the game

Diablo is a straightforward hack and slash action RPG that was praised
for its highly immersive gothic atmosphere and addictive gameplay design.
Players must fight their way through a haunted cathedral filled with de-
monic forces that descends all the way to hell. The game world is based
on a procedural system that gives the game a very high replayability value
by generating unpredictable dungeon designs, randomized item drops, and
variable quest lines.
Fun trivia
Diablo is one of these rare games that were so influential that it man-
aged to create an entire gaming sub-genre referred to as Diablo Clones.
The franchise has such a passionate and overdemanding fan base,
that after the studio announced that the long-awaited sequel – Diablo
Immortal – will be released as a simpler mobile phone game rather than
as a fully fledged PC/console title, the developers were booed off stage
in their own game conference, the company’s stock went tumbling, and
the promo trailer became one of the most disliked videos in the history
of YouTube.
How did the composer get involved?

Matt Uelmen got the gig by persistently cold calling several developers
of a small game studio named Condor Games that he found on an old
Nintendo document and offering to create a demo for their games. After
working on a few titles together, the studio team started developing Diablo
before being purchased and renamed as Blizzard North. Despite the wide-
spread popularity of the game, the original Diablo soundtrack was released
15 years later as an anniversary release.1
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-9
86 Diablo
Music theory 101: Diatonic and chromatic chords
If a chord is constructed by using notes that come from the native

key of a song, then it is a diatonic chord. For example, in the key of
C major (all the white notes on a piano C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C) the
diatonic triad chords that can be naturally constructed using this scale
are C, Dm, E, F, G, Am, and Bdim. There are countless examples of
well-known pieces of music that exclusively rely on the use of these
simple diatonic triads to construct their harmonic sequences.
However, if a chord is constructed by using one (or more) notes that
do not belong to the native key of a song it is a chromatic chord. In
the example of C major, any chord that contains at least one of the
black piano notes (C#, D#, F#, G#, A#) is a chromatic chord.
Composition technique 1: The chromatic chords

of Tristram Village
The most well-known piece of the Diablo franchise is the 12-string acoustic
guitar piece that plays while the player is taking a break from fighting the
forces of evil and pays a visit to the (seemingly) safe local village, named
Tristram. It is interesting to note that Tristram is an alternate spelling for
the common German name Tristan which might or might not have been a
hidden tribute to Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde and especially its use
of the Tristan chord; a dissonant chord that resolves to another dissonant
chord that has spurred endless debates among musicologists about its am-
biguous harmonic functions. Mat Uelmen has not suggested any associ-
ation, but the Tristram Village theme is full of mysterious and dissonant
chords that resolve into dissonant chords. This harmonic development can
be interpreted in many ways, but the point of this chapter is not to advocate
a specific interpretation but rather to demonstrate the technique of using
chromatic chords to introduce unexpected musical colours. The word chro-
matic originates from the Greek word chroma (χρώμα) which literally
means colour.
Harmonic analysis of the Tristram Village opening

section
Have a listen to the opening chords of the theme (video example 30) until
1:14” while looking at the harmonic analysis of this section in Figure 8.1.
As you can probably immediately observe, none of the chords used are your
typical major or minor diatonic triads. Although the piece is predominately
based in A minor, there is no use of the A minor chord anywhere in this
Diablo 87
section. In fact, except for the final chord that resolves in Em there is no use
of any basic minor or major triads anywhere. In their place, we find an ex-
tended use of numerous chromatic chords that are echoed in groups of two.
Figure 8.1 A harmonic analysis of the opening section of the Tristram Village
theme.
88 Diablo
The qualities of these chromatic chords are based around three different
types of alterations to the diatonic triads:
1) The sus2 chord (1, 2, 5) which simply omits the third (the note that de-
fines the major/minor quality of the chord) and replaces it with a major
second.
2) The 5(#4) chord (1 #4 5) which omits the third and replaces it with an
augmented fourth. This is an especially dissonant chord as the aug-
mented fourth produces a tritone with the tonic as well as a minor
second with the perfect fifth (ex: A, D#, E). It can also be respelled as
a 5(#11) and although no such formal use of this type exists, it can be
argued that it can be classified as a sus#4 chord.
3) The b5 chord (1 3 b5) is a major chord that has its perfect fifth flattened
and thus produces a tritone with the tonic (ex: Bb, D#, E).
The chromatic chords in Tristram are always sequenced together in

groups of two in a question-and-answer format that is always repeated at
least once before the harmony develops further. In section A, the first pair
of A sus2 – A5(#4) is repeated twice before moving to the repetition of the
pair Dsus2 – Bbb5 and then echoed again from bars 9–12. This constant
repetition of chromatic sequences helps establish the qualities of each
chord before the piece progresses and achieves a sense of coherence in a
harmonically ambiguous context. The melodic lines of the other instru-
ments (not notated here) add an additional layer of harmonic complexity
as they move between the A minor scale and the chromatic alterations of
the chords.
In section B, these chord types are expanded further to include the use
of major sevenths and the pair B Fmaj7(b5) – Bmaj7(sus4) before moving
to the next chromatic pair that adds 9th and 11ths. The voice leading in
section B is particularly effective as the bottom two voices move up and
down chromatically while the top two voices remain unchanged using
the open strings of the guitar, a technique that is regularly explored in
this song.
Traditionally sus2 and sus4 chords are formed by holding a tone from
a previous chord that has been suspended and needs to be resolved up-
wards or downwards to the third. However, none of the suspended notes
resolve to the third here nor do the tritones resolve to perfect fifths. The
only resolution that follows the rules of traditional classical harmony
arrives in section C bar 27 (01:00”) where a diminished 7th chord finally
resolves fully to a minor chord and creates a sense of conclusion before
the piece moves on to further harmonic adventures. It can therefore be
argued that this entire highly dissonant section is similar to a prolonged
version of Wagner’s use of the Tristan chord with a prolonged resolution
lasting 28 bars!
Diablo 89
Composition technique 2: Ambient music as an

open-ended storytelling device
One of the fundamental premises of Diablo is that it offers an almost
never-ending adventure within a procedurally randomized world. As you
can see in Chapter 2 – Ballblazer, Chapter 14 – Apotheon, and Chapter 15 –
No Man’s Sky, there are many generative music techniques that can be
implemented to produce variation. However, the music of Diablo does not
contain any generative elements despite the game world itself making heavy
use of randomization to produce new content (see Figure 8.2). Moreover,
contrary to most of the case studies explored in this book, the music is
not particularly interactive either. The game consists of extended ambient
themes that are designed to evoke a particular atmosphere for each major
location in the game. Each theme is looped for as long as the player remains
in that area and it does not adapt to the developing action in any of the
usual ways: there are no boss themes, no quest triggers, no exploration/
battle modes, no stingers, nor any other kind of interactive techniques com-
monly found in most game soundtracks.
Instead, the composer intentionally wanted the music to remain as open
ended as possible in terms of its suggestive experience. Although such an
approach might appear counterintuitive at first, it works remarkably well
within the action heavy context of this game as players might encoun-
ter similar types of generated events thousands of times and any clearly
Figure 8.2 A gameplay screenshot from Diablo demonstrating a randomly gen-

erated dungeon design during a main quest.
90 Diablo
distinguishable musical responses would quickly become repetitive and in-

trusive (ex: battle starts/ends). The overall feeling and atmosphere of each
area is represented in the music, but the details of the adventure are left to
the player’s imagination. In an earlier interview, Matt Uelman stated that
“it’s kind of a piece that never really goes anywhere. It’s funny – it’s a hard
thing to do, because every musician wants to take people on a journey”2 . It
is noteworthy that many Blizzard’s games that followed Diablo often have a
similar non adaptive and rather ambient approach but, in my opinion, none
have done so as successfully, precisely because of the use of a non-functional
musical language that leaves space for multiple interpretations. Perhaps by
avoiding telling a very specific story, the composer can also avoid the risk of
telling one that is different to the one that is being played out.
Most other level tracks of the soundtrack are harmonically simpler than
Tristram Village, but they similarly use an ambiguous tonality and har-
monic direction. This ambient aesthetic approach, aside from being highly
suitable to the dark and haunting atmosphere of the game, has some ad-
ditional advantages that can be beneficial to a game composer’s toolbox.
First, the lack of a predictable harmonic direction assists in concealing the
position and length of the loop as the listener cannot easily identify its po-
sition. This makes the music feel more seamless and less repetitive which is
especially useful considering the soundtrack’s relatively short duration. Sec-
ond, any sudden transitions to other musical segments that are occasion-
ally triggered by sudden developments in the gameplay (ex: level change,
player death, menu) often might feel less jarring as the harmonic journey
is not interrupted in the same way as in a composition based on functional
harmonic development.
Production tools – Lo-fi charm

The production aesthetic of Diablo has a distinct sound that does not
match the crispiness found in other 16-bit soundtracks of the same era.
According to Matt Uelman the music production of the soundtrack was
very low budget. His setup was built around an Ensoniq ASR-10 hardware
sampler, an entry level AKG microphone, and a primitive DAW of the time
called Sound forge. He states:
I think Diablo accidentally had extra originality to it just because my

whole approach was so low budget, structuring everything around
that ASR-10, it gave me a distinctive sound compared to what some-
one much more pro would have been doing with the standard LA
soundtrack hack Akai libraries of the time. 3
The ASR-10 shipped with 2MB of internal memory which was expandable
to 16MB and came with a number of floppy disks containing stock samples.
Diablo 91
It was a complete production studio in a box featuring a sequencer, a re-

corder sampler capable of capturing 30 kHz or 44.1 kHz rates at 16 bit, and
62 types of effects processing including a vocoder. The sampler is it is still
popular today and it frequently sells for approximately over $1K4 because
of its idiosyncratic sound and unusual architecture that allows eight simul-
taneous sample layers that can be modulated by numerous synth envelopes.
Matt made extensive use of the effects processing of the ASR-10 with
frequent use of echo as a rhythmic effect, prolonged reverbs, and constant
pitch shifting. The combination of acoustic instruments with processed
natural sounds come from psychedelic rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s
such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Bauhaus. However, this approach is
taken a few steps further in Diablo in order to create the demonic and hell-
ish soundscape that the game required. You can regularly find processed
and disturbing recordings of human agony that are discretely mixed with
the rest of the music: screaming, breathing, grunts of pain, laughter and
even distant baby cries. There are also sampled elements borrowed from
church music such as bells, angelic choirs, organs, and voices that add to
the gothic atmosphere (video example 31).
Another important technique that contributed to the distinct sound of
the music, was that all the files were down sampled to 22,050 Hz to ac-
commodate the Windows 32 release, and even further to 11,025 Hz for
the PlayStation 1 release! Down sampling has no impact on the playback
speed or pitch of the signal but according to the Nyquist-Shannon theorem
your sampling rate needs to be at least double than the highest sampled
frequency to avoid a sampling error known as aliasing. For example, a
sampling rate of 22,050 Hz will only accurately represent frequencies up
to 11,025 Hz. Therefore, the low sampling rate of the natural sounds and
instruments in the music caused a lot of the higher frequencies to be less ac-
curate and the overall production to become more unclear. This low fidelity
sampling matches well together with the low resolution of the visuals and is
a technique that can easily be recreated to evoke a sense of 1990s nostalgia
in contemporary games (see task 2).
Takeaway tasks
These two tasks can be combined.
Task 1 – Composition (challenging) – Compose a theme

for an area in Diablo that makes use of chromatic chords
After you feel comfortable with using basic diatonic triads the next step is
to start exploring chromatic chords. You can begin by writing a diatonic
chord sequence and then experiment altering one or more notes of each
chord. To achieve a sense of coherency, try to rely only on a few chord
92 Diablo
structures that are appealing to you and avoid making a sequence that in-
corporates too many new chord types at the same time unless you want the
piece to feel completely atonal. There are plenty of harmonic possibilities to
explore here: aug, b5, sus2, sus4, borrowed major/minor/dim chords from
other keys. You can also go beyond triads and explore chromatic extended
chords where the possibilities are much greater but so is the harmonic com-
plexity (ex: add 9ths, 11ths, 13ths).
Task 2 – Production (easy) – Emulate the sound of early

digital samplers
A straightforward way of emulating the limited capabilities and sonic char-
acteristics of older pieces of digital recording and sampling gear such as
those explored in Diablo is to reduce the bit depth and sample rates of your
audio files. Most DAWs come with a plug-in effect that can be used it for
this purpose: Logic Pro and Cubase come with Bitcrusher (Figure 8.3),
Ableton Live with Redux, and Pro Tools with the D-fi family of plugins.
Using Logic’s Bitcrusher you can change the down sampling knob from
the value of 1x, that is having no effect on the signal, to a higher multiple
that reduces the signal proportionally (ex: 10x reduces the sample rate to
one-tenth of the original so a 48 kHz will be resampled as a 4.8 kHz). The
other audio fidelity parameter is the bit resolution that usually ranges from
1 to 24 bits. Reducing the bit rate alters the precision of the sampling pro-
cess and lower values will generate more distortion, introduce noise, and
further sampling errors. You can experiment with these parameters and use
them creatively but try to conduct before and after comparisons to begin to
familiarize yourself with how sampling parameters affect different sound
material. Usually, any reductions in the bit rate below 8 will introduce
Figure 8.3 A screenshot of the free Bitcrusher distortion plug-in in Logic Pro X.
The Resolution and Downsampling parameters can help with
r educing the audio fidelity of your sounds.
Diablo 93
significant distortion as they raise the noise level of the recording. Reduc-
tions in sampling rate behave quite differently depending on the harmonics
of your recorded material and you can get some interesting coloration in
your higher frequencies that can be used creatively.
Notes
1 “Matt Uelmen - The Music Of Diablo 1996 - 2011: Diablo 15 Year Anniversary.”
2 Breckon and Uelmen, “From Tristram To Torchlight: An Interview With Com-
poser Matt Uelmen.”
3 Uelmen, “Interview With Matt Uelmen.”
4 “Ensoniq ASR-10 |.”
Bibliography
Breckon, Nick, and Matt Uelmen. “From Tristram to Torchlight: An Interview
with Composer Matt Uelmen”. Shacknews, 2009. https://www.shacknews.com/
article/60997/from-tristram-to-torchlight-an.
“Ensoniq ASR-10 |”. Vintage Synth Explorer. Accessed 1 October 2022. https://
www.vintagesynth.com/ensoniq/asr10.php.
“Matt Uelmen – The Music of Diablo 1996 – 2011: Diablo 15 Year Anniver-
sary”. Discogs. Accessed 1 October 2022. https://www.discogs.com/Matt-
Uelmen-The-Music- Of-Diablo-1996-2011-Diablo-15-Year-Anniversary/
release/3243711.
Uelmen, Matt. “Interview with Matt Uelmen”. Games Today, 2019. https://
gamestoday.info/pc/diablo/interview-with-matt-uelmen/.
Chapter 9
Assassin’s Creed
Music as a time travelling device
in four historical games of
the franchise
About the games

Assassin’s Creed is an open-world action-adventure video game franchise
developed by Ubisoft. It follows a variety of stealthy fictional assassins in
their quest to restore peace within different historical settings.
Fun facts
Many Assassin’s Creed games, feature Discovery Tours “that let visitors
freely roam Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and the Viking Age to learn
more about their history and daily life. Students, teachers, non-gamers,
and players can discover these eras at their own pace, or embark on guided
tours and stories curated by historians and experts.”1
How did the composers get the gig?

There are multiple composers involved in these games, each with their own
specialties and personal career journey. Jesper Kyd, is one of the most es-
tablished and busy game composers of AAA games, he wrote the original
scores for the first three games of the franchise and returned to co-write
the music for AC Valhalla. Sarah Schachner, after graduating from Berklee
College of music began assisting Hollywood composer Brian Tyler who
wrote the music for AC Black Flag. She then got a headline composing role
for AC Origins, and AC Valhalla. AC Syndicate was written by Austin
Wintory that has had a flourishing career since his work on Journey came
to prominence (see Chapter 10). Einar Selvik, had previously worked on
the TV series Vikings before being hired to work on AC Valhalla. He is
a Norse music specialist that frequently lectures on historical Norse mu-
sic as well as performs as the lead singer with his well-known folk band
Wardruna.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-10
Assassin’s Creed 95
Historical authenticity 101
Music can be a very powerful tool for evoking various historical

settings and cultures. For example, listening to a few seconds of
a sliding electric guitar accompanied by a percussive rattle might
easily conjure a setting in the Wild West, while a pentatonic mel-
ody on a bamboo flute accompanied by taiko drums might be sug-
gestive of a Samurai setting. Musical reimaginations of historical
periods often contain stereotypes and inaccuracies. For instance,
even though the electric guitar is frequently present in many Wild
West themed soundtracks (ex: in the Red Dead Redemption fran-
chise), the instrument had clearly not been invented until after
the era known as the American frontier (1607–1912). The con-
nection of the electric guitar to this context originated from the
popular Spaghetti Western films of the 1970s and the music of
legendary composer Ennio Morricone. Authenticity is sacrificed
here in favour of entertainment as the use of the guitar effectively
relates to other cultural associations that the audience might have
of that era: the presence of nylon stringed guitars, the discovery
of electricity, the railroad, and the rugged atmosphere of cowboy
shootouts.
Game composers usually reimagine historical music with varying
degrees of authenticity in relation to the original musical cultures.
Sometimes, composers might simply lack sufficient musicological
knowledge, or historical precision might be sacrificed in favour
of entertainment and storytelling purposes. This semi accurate
historical approach often mirrors the use of creative freedoms in
historical game design that tend to prioritize excitement and fun
(Figure 9.1). Composer and musician Einar Selvik points out in an
interview about his work on AC Valhalla that few players would
actually want to play a game that fully simulates the life of an aver-
age Viking based on scientific evidence as 99.9% of the time would
need to be spent on mundane tasks such as farming or fishing, and
maybe a fraction of that time, if any at all, in epic raids for glory in
foreign mysterious lands. 2
96 Assassin’s Creed
Figure 9.1 A gameplay screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla depict-

ing the 845 AD Viking siege of Paris. While many of the main
events and locations are historically accurate, the battles are
obviously filled with a dose of historical fantasy!
Composition technique 1 – Music as a time

travelling device
Let us examine some of the techniques and production tools that com-
posers used in four games of the Assassins Creed franchise to evoke four
historical eras of the past.
Assassin’s Creed – Origins

Period: Ancient Egypt – end of the Ptolemaic Period (49–43 BC)
Travelling back to the world of ancient Egypt, our knowledge of a cul-
ture that existed over 2,000 years ago is limited and is only based on as-
sumptions deriving from archaeological findings. This gave composer
Sarah Schachner the liberty to reimagine the music with few constrains: “I
wanted to create a hybrid sound of old and new with an air of ambiguity
and mystery to represent this otherworldly culture that was so immersed
in mythology.”3
Instrumentation
In terms of instrumentation Sarah relied on traditional middle eastern in-
struments such as the oud, lutes, lyres, bells, winds, and hand drums that
were heavily processed and juxtaposed against a synth foundation. As the
game also included sci-fi elements in its story, the combination of modern
and traditional instruments was a logical conceptual approach.
THE HARMONIC SCALE
In many films and games the harmonic scale is one of the core elements
that is used to evoke an ancient Egyptian setting, as it has a strong con-
notation to the Middle East (ex: the main theme from the Hollywood
film The Mummy). Similarly, both the harmonic and the double harmonic
scales are dominating many of the melodies you will hear in the Origins
soundtrack (usually in D minor) such as in video examples 32 (from 0:44)
and 33. These scales are easy to identify as they both have a very dis-
tinguishable sound that cannot be mistaken with any other scale. Their
characteristic sound is produced using a three-semitone jump that is both
preceded and followed by a semitone movement. The harmonic minor is
the simplest variant of this scale, which contains this jump only once,
instead of the double harmonic minor that has two of them in succession.
The formulas to construct these two scales are as follows:
For the harmonic minor take any natural minor scale and simply raise
the 7th by one semitone. For example, A minor that contains only the white
notes on a piano (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A) will become A minor harmonic
by only raising the G by one semitone: A, B, C, D, E, F, G#, A. Likewise,
D minor (D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C, D) will become D harmonic minor by raising
its 7th: D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C#, D.
For the double harmonic minor take any minor scale, flatten the 2nd, and
raise the 3rd and 7th notes by one semitone. For example, A minor double
harmonic: A Bb C# D E F G# A, and D minor double harmonic: D Eb F#
G A Bb C# D.
Production
Sarah relied heavily on the use of reverberation, an aesthetic that is com-
monly found on many soundtracks that seek to reflect ancient themes,
perhaps because it can add an ethereal and mystical quality to the music.
She resampled many of the instruments through a simple app on her iPad
and run them through the Strymon Big Sky reverb pedal. The recurring
eerie drone that is found across the soundtrack was also created by mod-
ulating high amounts of reverb feedback through her Eurorack modular
synth.4
Assassin’s Creed – Valhalla

Period: Viking expansion into Britain (9th century).
Instrumentation
To transport players into the brutal and heroic world of the Vikings, com-
posers Jesper Kyd, Sarah Schachner, and Einar Selvik explored a collection
of ancient instrument replicas, some of them directly related to the Viking
culture and others chosen primarily for their timbre. The restraints of the
ancient instrumentation posed some creative limitations requiring the com-
posers to keep inventing new ways to compose. “Primitive styles of regional
folk music that aren’t necessarily harmonically complex can seem deceiv-
ingly easy to write and produce,” says Sarah Schachner. “But that was far
from the case. The rustic instruments are fairly limited and were not easy to
play. I was continuously trying to find new ways to write for them to keep
the score from feeling repetitive.”
Here is a selection of some of the most interesting historical instruments
used in the soundtrack:
Morin Khuur – Is a Mongolian two stringed lute also known as a “horse

head fiddle”. The name comes from the Mongolian legends surround-
ing the instrument’s origins in which the hair of beloved horses were
used after their death to create the strings and bow of the instrument.5
It was one of Jesper Kyd’s favourite instruments in the soundtrack.6
Carnyx – A Celtic war horn made from bronze that was used in battle.
The pitch is manipulated only by a change in breath and embouchure.
For AC Valhalla, Schachner chose the Deskford version of the Carynx
because of its raspy tones an unusual harmonic series which directly
influenced the compositional approach of the pieces it was used on.7
Skalmejen – A type of primitive oboe capable of basic non chro-
matic melodic lines.
Lyre – A instrument dating back to 1400 BC. The iteration thought
to have been used in the Viking age was a 7-string Nordic lyre tuned
to the Pentatonic scale. According to archaeological findings this was
the most common instrument in the Nordic regions at that time.8
Tagelharpa – A bowed version of the Nordic lyre (see Figure 9.2).
The instrument allows the player to maintain a root note drone and
play melody lines on top and was used extensively in the Valhalla
soundtrack.
Paleolithic Flutes (Bone Flutes) – A type of primitive flute or re-
corder made from hollowed animal bones. In the Viking age, these
were often made from sheep bones.9
Animal Hyde Frame Drum – A small to medium sized hand drum
often made with Goat Skin, played with a variety of beaters, or with
the palm of your hand.
Figure 9.2 A photo of musician playing a Tagelharpa similar to the ones by

Einar in AC Valhalla. Photo provided by musician and instrument
maker VeduvianArt.10
Viking vocal techniques

According to an early account of Viking singing by Roman Emperor Julian
Apostata in 350 AD, the singing of Vikings sounded similar to the cries of
crows.11 This could be a reference to Kulining singing: a Scandinavian high
pitched vocal call that was used to communicate with animals over great
distances. Other historical accounts describe Vikings having a raspy and
throat-centric type of singing possibly originating from the heavy drinking
that took place in war celebrations. Einar Selvik’s voice played a funda-
mental role in conjuring the Viking spirit in the game. You can listen to his
unique vocal interpretations of Viking singing throughout the soundtrack
and in particular in video example 34 Odin’s Ride to Hel and video exam-
ple 35 (from 01:45”) Skullcrusher.
One of the pieces that Einar considered to be the closest to an authentic
reimaginations of Viking music in the game is Lust for Battle (video ex-
ample 36). The song is based on the Skaldic tradition which is the Viking
version of an Irish bard. According to Einar: “The Norse culture was pre-
dominantly an oral society and so we clearly see that in the oldest song
traditions we have here in the north, rhythms and melody are often guided
by the (often) complex poetic structures.”12 The lyrics are an excerpt of an
old Viking poem which expresses the rousing and build up before a battle,
and it is sung by the in the game characters when you travel with your war-
ship in anticipation of the next raid. The rhythm and the melody are guided
by the poem, and is cyclical in nature, with multiple cycles of two melodic
phrases around C natural minor: (1) C-F-Eb-Eb-D x4, and (2) a melisma of
C-F-Eb-F-G-Ab-G-C. Melisma is a simple but ancient vocal technique that
can be traced all the way to the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries, in which the
same syllable is held over multiple note runs. It is interesting to note that
the 7th tone of the minor scale is never used in the song perhaps suggesting
a peculiar pentatonic (five notes) or hexatonic (six tones) tunning partly
based in C natural minor.
Production
Evoking a historical atmosphere can also be explored through the use
of different recording techniques. Sarah Schachner recorded all the
stringed instruments with a very close-miked setup to emphasize their
raw and imperfect characteristics. She used a large diaphragm con-
denser Neumann TLM 103 running through a Manley Force 4 track
tube preamp. Many of the sounds were run through external processing
such as the Elektron Analog heat distortion/saturation effects unit, and
the Strymon Big Sky reverb.”13 On the contrary, Jesper Kyd chose to
record using a long-distance miking setup: “I would record things and
the mics would be quite far from the instrument; I would have this air in
the recording to simulate being outside amongst the mountains, fjords
and forests”.
Assassin’s Creed II
Period: Italian Renaissance (end of 15th century)
The Italian Renaissance is a historical setting in which we have a very
clear idea of how music sounded like, contrary to the earlier examples of
ancient Egyptian and Viking music. However, Ubisoft did not want Jesper
Kyd to compose very realistic renaissance music as they thought it might
feel too boring for a modern gaming audience.14 Instead, Jesper chose to
highlight the emotional aspects of the dramatic story focusing on the main
character Ezio, and his family.
Ezio’s Family (video example 37) is arguably the most famous piece from
the Assassin’s Creed universe but also one of the simplest. This track be-
came so iconic that it was eventually used in many sequel games that fol-
lowed even though they had nothing to do with that character. Jesper said
the following about it:
I originally envisioned the theme to represent Ezio’s loss and struggles

and I tried to capture the emotion Ezio felt when thinking about this
act of betrayal and tragedy. This moment defines who he is and who he
becomes and of course why he joins the brotherhood and becomes an
Assassin. There is always a sacrifice and struggle for all the characters
in the series when they join this secret brotherhood and to me, that’s
what Ezio’s Family has come to represent. It’s absolutely wonderful to
hear all the different versions of Ezio’s Family not only in the games but
also the many fan versions on YouTube. This theme has evolved so far
beyond anything I could have imagined.15
Even though the music that Jesper wrote is clearly not sounding any-
thing like authentic renaissance music, there are musical elements that
still contain hints of the rich musical culture of the era such as the use
of lute-type instruments, the operatic use of voice, the dramatic char-
acter of the music, and most prominently the central use of ostinato: a
repeating short phrase that forms the basis for the entire composition.
Ostinato is the Italian word for “stubborn” and it was frequently used
by renaissance composers as a basis for variation, such as in the operas
and sacred works of Claudio Monteverdi. The Ezio’s Family theme is
based entirely on a minimalistic ostinato of only two bars long consist-
ing of eight continuous quarter notes in a question-and-answer format
between each bar. This short melody is memorable and easy to sing, but
it is orchestrated beautifully by moving the ostinato voice across dif-
ferent instruments in the arrangement which creates a natural sense of
development despite the melody and chord progression of Dm-C-Bb-Dm
remaining unchanged. Listen to the piece (video example 37) while ob-
serving how the ostinato moves between approximately 20 different in-
strumentation variations.
Assassin’s Creed – Syndicate

Period: Victorian London during the 2nd Industrial Revolution (mid-19th
century)
AC Syndicate is set in 1868 Victorian London during the second indus-
trial revolution. It focuses on the political inequalities between the indus-
trial workers and their struggle for liberation from the Templar cult. It is
interesting to note, that similarly to the Italian Renaissance setting of AC
II, composer Austin Wintory did not place historical realism as the highest
priority of his score:
I think that a score should be primarily focused on the characters and

of the ideas being presented by a game and trying to figure out the
subtext of those. If it manages to wink towards the era while doing
those things then great. But I don’t think it’s necessary to build the
score around the time period as the starting position because the game
already gives you that.16
One musical element of Austin’s music that clearly connects it to Victorian

London was his invention of “murder ballads” that are sung by in-game
characters during pivotal story moments, as well as by in-game musicians
in various London locations such as pubs or street alleys. The songs are
based on a type of theatrical entertainment that was popular in London
at the time known as the Music Hall genre. Have a listen to the murder
ballads in video examples 38–40 while looking at the analysis in Table
9.1. The songs share many similar characteristics that were prominent in
this genre: they rely on a solo vocal and piano accompaniment, repetitive
lyrics, and catchy melodies. The harmonic direction is simple and cyclical,
always starting on the tonic (I), usually arriving at the dominant (V) half-
way through the phrase, and then returning to the tonic via the use of a
common cadence such as II-V-I or IV-V-I. These features were deliberately
implemented in the music to allow the (usually drunk) audiences of music
halls to quickly learn the tunes and easily sing along. The introduction of
the music hall genre by Wintory was a clever method of adding a historical
touch to some of the music in the game without limiting the language of the
rest of the score.
Table 9.1 Harmonic analysis of three diegetic songs from A .C. syndicate
‘Give Me the Cure’ – Austin Wintory

Piano & Voice – 3/8 – ♩. = 70 – Verse Sequence
Bar: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
I I vi sus4 vi IV IV V V
Bar: 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
V V vi I IV V I I
‘The Late Pearl Attaway’ – Austin Wintory

Piano & Voice – 4/4 – ♩ = 120 – Verse Sequence
Bar: 1 2 3 4
I IV I Vsus4|V
I IV|vi ii|V I
‘Feating on a Lord’ – Austin Wintory

Piano & Voice – 4/4 – ♩ = 95
Bar: 1 2 3 4
i|V i vi I
III|vi vi|V i I
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Composition (difficulty depends on the chosen

period) – Compose a theme that is evocative of a specific
historical setting
You can select a historical setting from any of the 20 AC franchise games
in existence. Feel free to use any of the scales, instruments, forms, and
recording/production techniques discussed in this chapter, or even conduct
your own research to other relevant musical culture characteristics. You
can test the success of this task by doing a simple blind test with friends/
family. Can they identify the time period only by listening to the music?
Remember, the success might also depend on the perception of a listener
with a particular culture, but the average audience member is already ex-
posed to a wide range of period music through Netflix, games, adverts,
and other media.
A note of caution for your future work with historical games; extracting
only selected elements from other musical cultures especially in cases in
which there are unbalanced power dynamics, might be considered as cul-
tural appropriation if it is executed poorly and without consideration. This
is an ethical question that in my opinion composers should pause to reflect
upon before replicating any harmful stereotypes, as the commercial power
of games can exert a strong influence on cultural perceptions.
Notes
1 “Discovery Tour by Ubisoft: Teacher Learning Resources.”
2 Selvik, Einar Selvik on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
3 Parisi and Schachner, “Sarah Schachner Sojourns to Ancient Egypt for ‘Assas-
sin’s Creed Origins’ Score.”
4 Reseigh-Lincoln and Schachner, “Composer Sarah Schachner on Bringing
A ncient Egypt to Life in Her Assassin’s Creed Origins Soundtrack.”
5 “Mongolia – Morin Khuur (Horse Head Fiddle).”
6 Mesecher and Kyd, “Q&A with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Composer: Jesper
Kyd.”
7 Mesecher and Schachner, “Q&A with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Composer:
Sarah Schachner.”
8 Pope and Selvik, “Interview: Einar Selvik Talks Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.”
9 “Historic Pastimes & Musical Instruments.”
10 VeduvianArt, Selfmade Tagelharpa – Jouhikko ANNAÐ (Forest Clearing).
11 Friis, “Vikings and Music.”
12 Pope and Selvik, “Interview: Einar Selvik Talks Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.”
13 Sundstrom and Schachner, “History in the Making: Scoring Assassins’ Creed
Valhalla.”
14 Price and Kyd, “Jesper Kyd Interview – Revelations.”
15 Blackett and Kyd, “Jesper Kyd Interview.”
16 Ebbinghaus and Wintory, “Composer Austin Wintory about Scoring Assassin’s
Creed Syndicate.”
Bibliography
Blackett, Colum, and Jesper Kyd. “Jesper Kyd Interview”. The Ones Who Came
Before, 2019. https://www.theoneswhocamebefore.com/jesper-kyd-interview.
“Discovery Tour By Ubisoft: Teacher Learning Resources”. Ubisoft. Accessed 2
October 2022. https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/assassins-creed/discovery-
tour.
Ebbinghaus, Peter F., and Austin Wintory. “Composer Austin Wintory about
Scoring Assassin’s Creed Syndicate”. Behind the Audio, 2015. https://
behindtheaudio.com /2015/12 /composer-austin-wintory-about-scoring-
assassins-creed-syndicate/.
Friis, Mogens. “Vikings and Music”. Viking.No, 2004. https://www.viking.no/s/
life/music/d-musikk-mogens.html.
“Historic Pastimes & Musical Instruments”. York Archaeology, 2019. https://
www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/resilience-year-2/2019/6/17/historic-pastimes-
amp-musical-instruments.
Mesecher, Andy, and Jesper Kyd. “Q&A with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Composer:
Jesper Kyd”. Music Connection Magazine, 2020. https://www.musicconnection.
com/qa-with-assassins-creed-valhalla-composer-jesper-kyd/.
Mesecher, Andy, and Sarah Schachner. “Q&A with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Composer: Sarah Schachner”. Music Connection Magazine, 2020. https://www.
musicconnection.com/qa-with-assassins-creed-composer-sarah-schachner/.
“Mongolia – Morin Khuur (Horse Head Fiddle)”. Royal Collection Trust. Accessed
2 October 2022. https://www.rct.uk/collection/95705/morin-khuur-horse-head-
fiddle.
Parisi, Paula, and Sarah Schachner. “Sarah Schachner Sojourns to Ancient
Egypt for ‘Assassin’S Creed Origins’ Score”. Billboard.Com, 2017. https://
w w w.billboard.com /music /music-news/sarah-schachner-ancient-egypt-
assassins-creed-origins-8005935/.
Pope, Erica, and Einar Selvik. “Interview: Einar Selvik Talks Assassin’S Creed
Valhalla”. Soundtracks, Scores And More!, 2020. https://soundtracksscoresand-
more.com/2020/11/13/interveiw-einar-selvik-talks-assassins-creed-valhalla/.
Price, Andy, and Jesper Kyd. “Jesper Kyd Interview – Revelations”. Music Tech,
2018. https://musictech.com/features/jesper-kyd-interview-revelations/.
Reseigh-Lincoln, Dom, and Sarah Schachner. “Composer Sarah Schachner on
Bringing Ancient Egypt to Life in Her Assassin’S Creed Origins Soundtrack”. Mu-
sic Radar, 2018. https://www.musicradar.com/news/composer-sarah-schachner-
on-bringing-ancient-egypt-to-life-in-her-assassins-creed-origins-soundtrack.
Selvik, Einar. Einar Selvik on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Video, 2021. https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=69JKD5Ic85Q&ab_channel=FaceCulture.
Sundstrom, Matthias, and Sarah Schachner. “History in the Making: Scoring
Assassins’ Creed Valhalla”. Music Tech, 2020. https://musictech.com/features/
scoring-assassins-creed-valhalla-history-in-the-making/.
VeduvianArt. Selfmade Tagelharpa – Jouhikko ANNAÐ (Forest Clearing). Video, 2021.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GehySR5nMw&ab_channel=VedunianArt.
Chapter 10
Journey (2012)
A masterclass in monothematic
scoring
About the game

Journey is a third person story adventure game in which you take on the
role of a silent protagonist that meditatively wanders across a vast desert.
The player discovers the ruins of what was once a thriving civilization and
will have to battle alone, or with the company of other online players,
against sandstorms, snow, and wind in a transformational journey towards
the peak of a distant mountain.
Fun facts
The music takes the auditory and narrative lead throughout the game as
there is minimal sound design and no dialogue. It made history by being the
first video game to receive a GRAMMY nomination for its soundtrack.1

During his studies at USC, composer Austin Wintory wrote the music for
a game called Flow that was another student’s Master’s thesis. This indie
game unexpectedly went viral, and Sony picked it up for full-scale produc-
tion as a PS3 title. 2 Austin stayed in contact with the original team, and
eventually collaborated again in Journey for the full three years of its de-
velopment.3 The success of this soundtrack was pivotal for Austin’s career4
and helped establish him as one of the most celebrated game composers (see
his work on Assassin’s Creed in Chapter 9).
Composition technique – Monothematic scoring

This soundtrack is a masterclass in monothematic scoring, the art of rely-
ing on a single central theme for the entire soundtrack. The theme is used
as a symbol of you, the player, and develops in numerous interesting as
the journey unfolds. Let us examine some of the techniques Wintory uses
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-11
106 Journey
to develop his main theme by comparing three different musical moments

taken from three different points of the journey: the beginning (Nascene),
the middle (Threshold), and the end (Apotheosis) (Figure 10.1).
Figure 10.1 An analysis of the thematic development of the original Journey

theme at different moments in the game. All notes have been
placed in the G clef for simplicity.
Journey 107
Nascence
Austin wrote this theme (video example 41) the day he was hired months
before any game development even begun. Surprisingly it does not appear
in this version anywhere in the game, but it forms the basis of every single
note he wrote for the rest of the soundtrack. The theme is introduced as
an 8-bar melody played on a solo cello (performed by Tina Guo), with
no underlying harmony, an approach that leaves space for different har-
monic interpretations. It is then repeated an octave above on the bass flute
accompanied by a pizzicato double bass line and harp chords. The theme
feels emotionally ambiguous, neither happy nor sad. Although the melody
is strongly centred around the notes of the Bm chord, Austin evades a firm
establishment of the theme in the Bm minor tonality by avoiding the use of
the F# dominant chord and hinting towards the parallel major of D, as he
uses the I, IV, V chords (D, G, A). The theme is then played a third time,
but the size of the ensemble grows considerably with the C flute doubling
the cello in a high register while a descending counter melody is played by
a large string orchestra, perhaps to foreshadow that this is going to be an
epic and emotional journey.
There are traces of musical influences that can point towards different
cultures, but the overall musical language is difficult to place within a spe-
cific context. This approach was something that Austin carefully planned.
He recalls:
I didn’t want the music to feel ethnic or cultural in any way. The civi-
lization around you in the game has influences in various societies but
we really wanted the music to feel timeless and universal. So I didn’t
make an effort to draw from anywhere, and in fact a few times the
music accidentally sounded like it was from various cultures and so I
would change to get rid of it. Like an early bit of music had some per-
cussion which almost made it sound Arabic so we took that out. Or at
one point it felt a little Irish so I change that too, etc. 5
Threshold
This track (video example 42) encompasses most of the music you encoun-
ter in the open desert after first stumbling on to the desert creatures.6 At
this point in the journey, the arrangement is still based on a small ensemble
and has not yet built into a full orchestra. An interesting point is that the
harp and viola are only playing when another player joins your journey and
their level in the mix depends on the distance between you (Figure 10.2).
A lot of the thematic material is clearly recognizable from the original
theme (Figure 10.1), but some parts have started to transform. The meter
has shifted from 4/4 to 3/4 and we have a slightly faster tempo of 130 bpm
that gives the melody a lighter and more playful feel. In this piece we can
108 Journey
Figure 10.2 A gameplay screenshot from Journey showing two players playing
the game as a co-op. These connections happen randomly, and
players can choose to travel together or continue alone at any
moment. The usernames of everyone you met across the way are
displayed at the end of the game.
observe some simple but useful thematic development techniques that Win-
tory implements to develop the thematic material. He often keeps the first
half of the melody close to its original form to maintain thematic consist-
ency but then develops the second half to new unexplored directions. We
hear these variations multiple times in the piece, which suggests that they
are intentional theme transformations, rather than free flowing material.
• Motif v2 (video example 42, 0:41) is similar to the original motif but
the melody is now centered around F# minor in the flute and in the sec-
ond half it temporarily travels to F# Dorian minor that has a distinctive
quality. This is achieved by raising the 6th tone from D to D# (for more
info on modes see Chapter 7 – Mortal Kombat).
• Motif v3 (video example 42, 1:17) follows the same rhythm as the orig-
inal theme; however, the melodic line, now in C# minor in the viola,
is inverted leaving us with a descending motion downwards. By this
point, the rhythm has become familiar enough for the inversion to re-
semble the theme even though the melodic direction is different.
• Motif v4 (video example 42, 1: 32) is almost identical to the first bar of
the original aside from the placement in C# minor tonality in the viola,
but in this instance rather than continuing the development of melody
with the familiar melodic jump after the first bar, we get an exact rep-
etition of the same motif but starting a note higher, a technique known
as a tonal sequence (for more info on sequences see Chapter 3 – Zelda).
Journey 109
Apotheosis
This version of the theme (video example 43) plays during the final push
to the summit of the mountain. The melody is very similar to the origi-
nal theme with some small yet powerful differences. The arrangement has
grown to include a full string section which increasingly moves higher in
register as the players continues their ascends above the clouds and towards
their apotheosis (an ancient Greek word meaning an elevation to a divine
level). Wintory brings the theme back to its roots in Motif v5 (video exam-
ple 43, 2:54, Figure 10.1) by applying the following powerful techniques:
1) Rhythmic augmentation and diminution

The tempo has changed from 70 in the opening theme to a faster pace
of 120 in this piece to accommodate for a more energetic rhythmic ac-
companiment and the metre has returned to the original 4/4. However,
the pace of the melody feels slower and more lyrical at the same time.
To achieve this, Wintory uses a technique known as a perfect rhyth-
mic augmentation to expand the rhythmic values of the melody by an
equal amount, therefore slowing it down by half without changing the
tempo. The opposite technique is a rhythmic diminution in which the
duration of each note would be cut in half. Motif v5 is nearly identical to
the original, but the half notes have become whole notes, and the eight
notes have become quarter notes. Wintory applies multiple imperfect
augmentations throughout this piece in which the rhythmic patterns are
expanded by similar but not identical amounts.
2) Reharmonization
After a long journey through different tonalities, we are back at the
melody being centred in the Bm chord. However, the melody is trans-
posed to start on the D, the third note of the Bm chord, rather than the
original B, the tonic. This simple change reframes the melodic move-
ment into a major third rather than a minor third, as the melody now
moves from a D to an F# instead from a B to a D, perhaps adding
a touch of optimism as the journey is reaching its end. More impor-
tantly, on the two landing points of the ascending phrases, the melody
is now supported by a G7 and a Cmaj7 chord for the first time. The
restrain shown by Wintory to save this harmonic shift for this climac-
tic moment makes the last bar of the melody especially powerful as
the melodic centre of B now becomes the seventh of a Cmaj7 chord,
shattering the B minor tonality and momentarily elevating the tonality
by a semitone to C, perhaps mirroring the elevation of the player into
their apotheosis.
Production tools – Remote recording

One of the many interesting aspects of this soundtrack is the lyrical and
expressive performances of the musicians. The soundtrack was produced
110 Journey
by combining a small ensemble of five highly skilled soloists that form

the foundation of the score and the occasional use of larger string sec-
tions from The Macedonian Radio Symphonic Orchestra that were re-
corded remotely. The cello, that represents the player and is omnipresent,
is played by the world-famous virtuoso Tina Guo whom Wintory also
met in college.7 There is also a solo flute (doubling as a bass flute), a
solo harp, a solo viola and a solo French wind/brass hybrid instrument
known as the Serpent. This is the only brass sounding instrument in the
score and Wintory overdubbed it multiple times to create its character-
istic lower rumble heard in the cave areas that are filled with magical
dragon creatures.
It is interesting to compare the intimate production sound of the original
Journey score with its epic reimagination by Wintory in a massive ensemble
of 134 musicians including the London Symphony Orchestra and the Lon-
don Voices choir in the game’s 10 -year celebratory album named Traveller
(video example 44 with commentary by Austin).
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Arranging (moderate) – Create your own

variation of the Journey theme
Take the melody from Figure 10.1 as your starting point and try to ex-
plore some of the techniques we discussed: augmentation/diminution of the
rhythm of the theme, reharmonization using a different scale (both me-
lodic/chords alterations), melodic inversions, creating free material with
using fragments of the melody, different arrangements, different tempo,
different meter, different transposition, different pitch registers. You might
find it helpful to set a narrative context for yourself so you can use it as a
guide. You can select an image from in game artwork/screenshots or you
can set your own setting by using your imagination!
Notes
1 “First-Time Grammy Nominee: Austin Wintory.”
2 Sua and Wintory, “Interview with Journey’s Composer Austin Wintory.”
3 Workman and Wintory, “Interview: Talking Journey’s Majestic Music with
Grammy Nominated Austin Wintory – Gamezone.”
4 Hester and Wintory, “Why Austin Wintory Re-Recorded Journey’s Soundtrack
10 Years Later.”
5 Borkowski and Wintory, “Austin Wintory – Journey.”
6 Napolitano and Wintory, “Exclusive: A Journey Through Journey’s
Soundtrack.”
7 Oteiza and Guo, “Tina Guo – Interview.”
Journey 111
Bibliography
Borkowski, Mariusz, and Austin Wintory. “Austin Wintory – Journey”. Gamemu-
sic | Listen to Games, 2013. https://gamemusic.net/austin-wintory-journey/.
“First-Time Grammy Nominee: Austin Wintory”. Grammy Awards, 2014. https://
www.grammy.com/grammys/news/first-time-grammy-nominee-austin-wintory.
Hester, Blake, and Austin Wintory. “Why Austin Wintory Re-Recorded
Journey’s Soundtrack 10 Years Later”. Game Informer, 2022. https://www.

gameinformer.com/2022/03/14/why-austin-wintory-re-recorded-journeys-
soundtrack-10-years-later.
Napolitano, Jayson, and Austin Wintory. “Exclusive: A Journey through
Journey’s Soundtrack”. Destructoid, 2012. https://www.destructoid.com/
exclusive-a-journey-through-journeys-soundtrack/.
Oteiza, Gorka, and Tina Guo. “Tina Guo – Interview”. Soundtrackfest, 2019.
https://soundtrackfest.com/en/articles/tina-guo-interview/.
Sua, Michael, and Austin Wintory. “Interview with Journey’s Composer A ustin
Wintory”. That Videogame Blog. Accessed 1 October 2022. https://www.
thatvideogameblog.com/interview-with-journeys-composer-austin-wintory/.
Workman, Robert, and Austin Wintory. “Interview: Talking Journey’s Majestic
Music with Grammy Nominated Austin Wintory – Gamezone”. Gamezone, 2012.
https://www.gamezone.com/originals/interview-talking-journey-s-m ajestic-
music-with-grammy-nominated-austin-wintory/.
Chapter 11
The Last of Us (2013)

When less is more – Space and
silence as storytelling devices
About the game – Story synopsis

To be able to follow this chapter it is necessary to give you a synopsis of the
story in case you are not familiar with the game. Warning, major spoilers
ahead! The game tells the story of Joel, a solitary and rugged smuggler who
is trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world after a Zombie pandemic
takes over the USA. The game begins by showing us how Joel tragically fails
to save his young daughter at the start of the crisis as she is unexpectedly
killed during the riots. Then, we flash forward to a shattered world 20 years
later and take control of Joel as he is trying to survive by completing dif-
ferent dangerous jobs. In one of these missions, he must transport a young
teenage girl named Ellie across the desolate USA. During their hazardous
journey, the emotional bond between them gradually grows to the point
that he eventually sees her as his own daughter. When he discovers that her
DNA is immune to the pandemic virus, he must decide between saving her
life or sacrificing her in the hopes of developing a vaccine.
Fun trivia
Argentinian composer Gustavo Santaolalla follows a quite unconventional
scoring process as he prefers to compose all the music based purely on the
story and on conversations with the director, instead of relying much on the
visuals. He has scored multiple films before they have even started shooting
and the creative director of The Last of Us gave him total freedom to follow
a similar approach with this game, which resulted in the music inspiring the
designers to add things to the story that were not originally there.
The way that I work is from the story, and having conversation with the
director, not really from images. Even in the films I make most score
before they even screen one frame. I don’t consider myself as a film
composer. 90% of composers work at the end, I find that very uncrea-
tive, I do my own take before the film or the game.1
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-12
The Last of Us 113

This was Gustavo Santaolalla’s first game soundtrack, he was approached
by the game designers based on his previous music and world-renowned
film scoring background. Gustavo’s solo album Roncoro in 1998 led to
multiple prominent film directors such as Michael Mann and Alejandro
Iñárritu asking to use extracts in their films, and eventually to a very suc-
cessful career as a film composer with two academy awards for Best Origi-
nal Score for Brokeback Mountain in 2005, and Babel in 2006. Despite his
immense media scoring success, Gustavo does not consider himself to be a
film or game composer and is an active touring musician.
Composition technique 1 – Use of space and

silence as storytelling devices
“I like space and silence. I don’t want to manipulate the audience, I ‘d rather
make it less obvious, I applied this to The Last of Us.”2
Santaolalla’s avoidance of using wall-to-wall music and minimal textures
has been strongly evident in his prior film work but becomes even more pro-
nounced in The Last of Us perhaps due to post-apocalyptic context of the
story as well as the much longer duration of the game lasting approximately
15–25 hours for an average player. The exact amount of total music that
is heard during that time is hard to calculate as it is dependent on how the
game is played, but the official OST contains 56 mins of music. In my per-
sonal experience of playing the game, I found the use of music very sparse
noticing multiple instances of over one hour of playtime with little or no
musical accompaniment. Let us examine how this approach enhances the
storytelling experience of the game.
Exploration
First, the use of silence allows the player to experience the sonic nuances of
the desolate landscapes during the long journey across the USA. Without
the use of music, it is easier to notice the emptiness of the environment
and focus on ambient details such as the rain falling on tin rooftops of
abandoned buildings, the wind rustling through grass and trees, the muddy
footsteps and horse gallops, and of course the occasional zombie growls!
Minimal exploration music cues are triggered as the characters journey
through key location points across the abandoned and desolate post-apoc-
alyptic environments which provide us with insights on their emotional
state. These cues are discrete and surprisingly short, often consisting of
a few notes on a single instrument or a subtle atmospheric texture (video
example 45, 30:20). The simplicity and scarcity of these cues is possibly
reflective of the emptiness of this new world and the loneliness that the
114 The Last of Us
protagonists are experiencing. It is also possible that the absence of music

is utilized to portray an absence of emotion from Joel. After the traumatic
event of losing his daughter, he has become withdrawn, and basically just
tries to keep on going as the years go by. However, as the journey continues
and the bond between Joel and Ellie grows, there are also some musical
hints of hope (ex: when they unexpectedly encounter a pack of Giraffes in
video example 45, 9:07:00).
Second, it is precisely the lack of music that provides the necessary
contrast needed so when rare musical moments do occur, they feel more
meaningful and significant compared to the rest of the experience (video
45, 7:07:24). A lot of the exploration of the world is experienced without
any musical accompaniment but there are pivotal moments that mark its
development and those are accentuated by discrete use of music. This
use of contrast is particularly useful for games in which players travel
within large worlds and has been explored by game composers in com-
pletely different genres. As an example, the composers of the MMORPG
World of Warcraft intentionally reserved the grand epic themes for spe-
cial locations such as when you first stumble upon the main human city
of Stormwind after a long session of silently wandering through a quiet
forest.
Battle
A similar minimalistic approach is taken for the battle sequences which is
quite rare for an action-based game. The soundscape of many battles often
focuses on the use of diegetic sounds emerging from the battlefield such as
terrifying screams (both human and otherwise), loud gunshots, and charac-
ter Foley. This enhances the sense of realism and avoids the typical switch
between battle and exploration music that can quickly become tiresome in
other games. It also allows the player to focus on the directional sounds of
the combat and be mindful of any vital information on the positions of the
moving zombies (video example 45, 3:04:50). Sound plays a special role
in the mechanics of the game as some Zombies use echolocation to detect
the position of the player, meaning that if your movements are too noisy
(ex: by running over some broken glass) you have a higher chance of being
eaten alive! There is also a sense of awkwardness and tension that can come
from silence itself, especially when you are trying to sneak around a highly
threatening environment.
The use of music during battle sequences, when it does occur, is usu-
ally discrete. Many cues consist of drawn-out rhythms in a single percus-
sive instrument, or a few understated drones (video example 45, 3:06:10).
This minimal aesthetic here can also be interpreted as a reflection of Joel’s
withdrawn emotional state as he has become indifferent to the constant
violence and sees it as a part of daily life. In more intense moments, the
The Last of Us 115
music reflects a growing sense of anxiety and tension, primarily through

using dissonance, faster rhythmic pace, and bigger arrangements (video 45,
2:29:00). These higher intensity cues are reserved for the climactic action
sequences which again creates a dynamic contrast with the rest of the game
that is much quieter. However, even in the biggest fights the music never
gets epic or heroic, but rather more intense, perhaps because Joel does not
view himself as a hero (video 45, 3:07:45).
Composition technique 2 – Leitmotifs and

storytelling
Aside from the use of silence and space, Santaolalla also incorporates leit-
motifs to enhance other aspects of the storytelling. A leitmotif (from Ger-
man meaning leading motif) is a theme or musical idea “whose purpose is
to represent or symbolize a person, object, place, idea, state of mind, super-
natural force or any other ingredient in a dramatic work.”3 Leitmotifs have
been used for storytelling purposes from at least as early as the 19th century
in operas, as well as in popular 20th century films (ex: the Force leitmotif
in the Star Wars saga). There are many game examples in which leitmotifs
are utilized to unify the story or suggest changes through variations of the
musical elements, but The Last of Us is one of the most effective case stud-
ies, primarily because Santaolalla manages to tell the powerful story of the
game with just two minimal leitmotifs. These two leading themes populate
most of the central storytelling and cinematic moments in the game and are
titled as The Last of Us and All Gone in the accompanying OST that can be
found on Spotify. Tracks 3, 8, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 23, 27, 28 in the OST are
different instrumental arrangements of just these two themes but it is note-
worthy that the melodies themselves remain almost completely unchanged.
Both themes are a very simple and minimal, yet their haunting melodies
play a central role in portraying the emotional journey of the protagonists
through the use of strong symbolisms. The simplicity of the musical lan-
guage is a key factor as it makes it easy for the player to recognize them and
follow any associations between the music and the narrative. As a contrary
example, the two times Oscar winning score of the Lord of the Rings tril-
ogy makes use of over 30 leitmotifs (one for the ring, one for Shire, one for
the Wraiths, etc.) which allows the music to tell a more complex story, but
it comes at a price of making it harder for the listener to identify what each
motif represents and keep track of them as the story unfolds.
Analysis of the two leitmotifs

Have a listen to the first motif, The Last of Us, in video example 46 (0:20)
which is the main theme of the game. As you can tell by looking at Figure
11.1, all the musical elements are extremely minimalistic. Motifs 1 and
116 The Last of Us
Figure 11.1 An analysis of melodic movement in the two leitmotifs.
variation A are identical except that one ends on the 3rd and the other one
at the 5th of an Em chord. Motif 1 is repeated and answered by variation
B which has an identical rhythm, but it temporarily replaces the Em with a
diminished 5th before moving downwards to resolve back to Em. It is hard
to imagine a simpler melodic structure than this as all the held notes are all
part of the E minor triad. You can listen to the second leitmotif, All Gone,
in video example 47. This is also based on just an E minor chord and is per-
haps even simpler than the main theme. The phrase is repeated three times
before it moves to a downwards arpeggio of Em.
How the two leitmotifs assist storytelling in the game

Now that you have familiarized yourself with the structure of these two
leitmotifs, we can examine their use in the key narrative moments in the
game in the analysis of Table 11.1. Video example 45 contains a walk-
through of the entire game with a length of approximately ten hours but
you can use the indicated timecodes to locate each moment. The music
underplays a lot of the horrible and dramatic events that occur, but on rare
occasions it breaks the extended use of silence to highlight what is impor-
tant: in a journey through a violent world full of grief and loss, these two
protagonists only have each other, and the rest almost does not matter.
Table 11.1 Use of leitmotifs in key narrative moments of the game
Timecode Leitmotif Symbolism
00:00 All Gone When the main menu screen is loaded, we hear the motif for the first time as a single melody in a lower
octave. The music evokes a melancholic tone for the game before the story even begins.
02:30 The Last of As Joel puts his daughter to sleep, we hear the motif for the first time as a single melody on a higher
Us octave. This establishes a connection between the music and his relationship with his daughter.
16:00 All Gone As Joel’s daughter is shockingly and unexpectedly killed at very beginning of the story, we hear the
theme on the violin with just one guitar chord as an accompaniment. The use of this theme during this
remarkably sad moment creates a strong association between the music and the notion of loss. This
connection will be repeated multiple times in the game.
17:00 The Last of In a cinematic fashion the opening credits of the game come in surprisingly late, approximately 15 minutes
Us into the story. We hear the motif in its biggest and fullest iteration. This establishes this music as the
main theme and is one of the longest musical sequences in the game, the other one being the end titles.
57:00 No Music Joel meets Ellie for the first time but notice that surprisingly, there is no music of any kind to support
or foreshadow this fundamental narrative point. This makes dramatic sense, as Joel does not yet have
any connection to Ellie and this encounter is just part of another meaningless job. What is particularly
powerful here is that as the relationship and connection between them starts to grow from nothing, so
does the use of music.
01:02:38 The Last of When Ellie tells Joel that his watch is broken (it was gifted by his departed daughter), we hear the motif
Us reminding us of the father-daughter connection. This is especially impactful as we had little music
for almost over one hour of gameplay. It also serves as a time transition as Joel falls asleep, possibly
dreaming of his lost daughter.
03:11:00 All Gone As one of the people we encounter discovers the body of his partner, the motif comes back which is again
used to signify loss during this personal moment.
6:54:43 The Last of After a disagreement, Ellie goes missing and Joel rides to look for her while we hear this motif in a full
Us arrangement. Until that moment, both characters tried to appear rather indifferent towards each
keeping an image of toughness and grit. However, as Joel rushes into the forest to search for Ellie, the
same music that has so far represented his daughter is heard, but for the first time in reference to Ellie.
This is a powerful moment which discretely implies that Joel now sees Ellie as his own child, as this has
now become her theme too.
The Last of Us
9:48:28 All Gone We hear the motif to symbolize the possibility of loss As Joel is trying to save Ellie’s life, we hear the
motif associated with loss that subtly symbolizes the possibility of her not making it through.
9:53:00 – Home & During the ending of the game, we get neither of the two leitmotifs, but instead two new themes, perhaps
117
end The Path to suggest a more hopeful tone for the new chapter that begins in Joel and Ellie’s lives.
118 The Last of Us
Production tools – Guitar based techniques

To accompany this post-apocalyptic story Gustavo relied on unconventional
uses of acoustic and traditional instruments from South America, which
has been a characteristic of his sound as an artist and as a film composer.
Two of the dominant instruments used are the ronroco and the charango
(Figure 11.2), two small guitar like instruments from the Andes which have
a long musical tradition dating back to at least the early 18th century. They
have five double strings and were traditionally constructed from wood at
the top and an armadillo shell for the back, but this is no longer the norm.
The ronroco has a lower pitch and a longer sustain than the charango, and
Gustavo plays it in an unconventional using finger picking to play a melody
and accompaniment at the same time. It has been a pivotal instrument in
Gustavo’s film music career that thrived following the release of his first
album based entirely on ronroco compositions.
Additionally, Gustavo used an electric resonator dobro guitar with
all strings tuned down two whole notes from a EADGBE tuning to a
Figure 11.2 A photo of a ten-string Charango guitar from the Andes. The photo
was provided by the film composer Americo Martin.
The Last of Us 119
CFBbEbGC. By using such an extreme tuning the loose strings create a

darker, almost out of tune timbre. This was particularly useful, as he also
used a violin bow on the guitar strings themselves, an unusual technique
which produces a very interesting harmonic timbre that sounds like a
harsher version of a cello, as the strings themselves are metallic (stainless
steel). This technique has also been explored by film composers such as
Taylor Bates in the 300 soundtrack and has even led to the birth of a new
instrument, the guitar viol.
Finally, the orchestral ensemble recorded for the game was also modified
to use predominately lower pitch instruments to fit Santaolalla’s vision for
the game. The string section had no violins and used only violas, cellos,
and double basses, while the wind section used predominately bass clar-
inets and bass saxophones. In terms of percussion, many of the rhythmic
textures are generated from uses of scrap items such as PVC pipes, springs,
used cans, custom bells, and buckets leading to a very different production
aesthetic for the action cues compared to the clean drum ensembles found
in Hollywood blockbusters and AAA games.
Takeaway tasks
The two tasks can be combined or completed separately.
Task 1 – Composition (moderate) – Write a minimalist

leitmotif
You can write a short theme to represent any idea, person, or place you
find inspiring from the game. To fit the musical language of the rest of the
soundtrack, try to make use of the minimal aesthetic of the other leitmotifs
by using minimal instrumentation, harmony, textures, structure, and de-
velopment. Remember that sometimes less is more!
Task 2 – Composition/production (challenging) – Write a

theme that uses unconventional guitar techniques
Create a short composition that relies on unconventional uses of guitar
techniques such as the ones discussed in this chapter. You can start by ex-
perimenting with using a bow on the guitar strings. You need to use string
rosin on the bow to get a proper sound. What will also help is if you add
reverb and/or delay in order to enhance the sustain, as well as tuning down
your strings so they have more slack. You can try this on an acoustic or an
electric guitar, or bass. If you do not have access to a violin bow, do not
worry, you can try a drumstick or even a pencil! Just watch video example
48 for inspiration on similar experimental techniques.
120 The Last of Us
Notes
1 Reese and Santaolalla, “Gustavo Santaolalla and the Last of Us.”
2 Reese and Santaolalla, “Gustavo Santaolalla and the Last of Us.”
3 h t t p s : / / w w w. o x f o r d m u s i c o n l i n e . c o m / g r o v e m u s i c / v i e w / 10 .10 93 /
gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000016360.
Bibliography
Reese, Emily, and Gustavo Santaolalla. “Gustavo Santaolalla and the Last of
Us”. Podcast. Top Score, 2019. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/top-score/
id434473316.
Chapter 12
Alien Isolation (2014)

In space none can hear you
scream – Controlling tension with
a vertical layers system
About the game

A survival horror game inspired by the original film by Ridley Scott. Set a
few years after the events of the first film, the game follows Amanda Ripley,
daughter of Ellen Ripley, as she tries to understand the disappearance of
her mother whilst stranded on a large space station. It takes the form of a
first-person stealth horror with linear, closed world level design.
Fun facts
When the game is played on a console it can track your real-world noise
levels using the Microsoft Kinect and PlayStation camera hardware. Ac-
cording to the audio designing team: “if you scream on your sofa you’ll give
away your position in-game!”.1

The music for the game was written by The Flight, an East London based
composing duo consisting of Joe Henson and Alexis Smith who started col-
laborating in 2005. The duo already had some media credits primarily in
UK TV series and documentaries before moving into writing for games.
They were approached by Creative Assembly, one of the biggest UK game
development studios, and asked to pitch for a demo of the game.2 After the
success of Alien they have contributed additional music to many well-known
AAA titles such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Horizon Zero Dawn.
Composition technique – Controlling tension with

a vertical layers system
As you would expect, a survival horror scenario in which you are locked
up in a claustrophobic spaceship while being hunted by a highly evolved
predatory alien will inevitably lead to some grippingly anxious moments.
In the original Alien film of 1979, the composer could carefully plan how
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-13
122 Alien Isolation
to create maximum impact precisely at the right moments as the dramatic

development and timing of events were predetermined. However, when the
same scenario is realized within a video game format it will unavoidably
require a radically different musical approach as the fluctuating levels of
tension are controlled by the relatively unpredictable actions of the player.
One common interactive technique that can be remarkably useful in this
context is the use of a musical system based on vertical layers.
Interactive composition 101 – Vertical layers
Vertical Layers is a simple yet powerful interactive technique that is

based on breaking down a musical arrangement in several vertical
layers (also known as stems) which can be added or removed from the
arrangement in response to gameplay changes. These changes can be
tracked in real-time using a range of numerical values such as “num-
ber of enemies present” as well as specific triggers such as “health is
below 10%” or “final boss has arrived”.
In theory, any composition can easily be fragmented to smaller
parts which can be used as layers if it is recorded in a multi-track
format. However, for a vertical layer system to work successfully it
needs to be designed and tested accordingly so it can be function well
in a range of scenarios. For example, a single layer might play on its
own for a long period of time during exploration mode or a peculiar
layer combination might suddenly be triggered. Therefore, it might be
more effective to think of layers as interdependent compositions that
can work vertically with each other in musically interesting ways,
rather than single instrumental tracks that are extracted from a big-
ger arrangement.
The composers of Alien wrote the music with a vertical system in mind:
We worked very closely with the developer on the music system. This
was based on many factors – the environment, the state of play, the
proximity of the Alien, its ‘state’ – whether it knows you are there, is
facing you etc. They had an idea of what they wanted the music to do
in this game, and we had to find a way to make it happen. 3
After the music was composed and delivered to the audio team in a “kit”
format, the audio files were implemented in a sophisticated layer system
designed in Wwise using RTPC (Real Time Parameter Controls) to control
the volume of individual layers.
Alien Isolation 123
Let us examine some of the behaviours of the vertical layers in the game.
In video example 49, (4:09:30–4:10:41) you can observe a gameplay cap-
ture of the alien searching for you within a confined space. As the creature
moves around you the system reads numerous parameters from the game in
real time (obstructed distance from the Alien, player stealth, total threat)
and accordingly adds or removes instrumental layers from the mix to build
up or reduce the musical tension.4 Notice how the lower pitched layer re-
main consistent to provide continuity but as the alien comes closer you the
first time a chaotic string texture is added and then removed as he walks
away. The second time he approaches the chaotic strings return but are
enhanced by more strings in a higher register along with another layers of
distorted synths (Figure 12.1).
This technique is undoubtedly effective in synchronizing the audio-visual
changes of suspense but if the layers were always directly connected to the
same parameters (ex: the distance between the alien and the player) then
the musical build-up would quickly become predictable. Moreover, after
you will feel familiar enough with the music to become aware with this con-
vention, it would become detrimental to the playing experience as the music
would always give away the Alien’s position, thus ruining any elements of
surprise. To counteract this problem, the audio team designed a range of
different layer behaviours that the music engine can pick to avoid making
the musical mechanisms easy to perceive and to constantly keep you on
edge. Something I observed while playing the game is that the music is also
Figure 12.1 A chart illustrating an example of how the audio volumes of three
musical layers respond as the distance between the player and the
alien is altered.
124 Alien Isolation
being used to build a false sense of security that can be turned against you
right when you begin to trust it. In video example 49, 6:18:12, you can
notice that there is a lack of scary music, the arrangement is calm, and
everything feels temporarily safe, but as soon as you turn around you sud-
denly notice a familiar face staring at you!
The vertical layers do not only adapt to the actions of the alien; some
of the action music adapts to the AI state of hostile humans as well as the
amount of danger of various tasks that you are pursuing according to three
levels of intensity.5 In video example 49, you can observe how a layer of
very heavy percussion is added to the rest of the mix the moment the player
activates a particular objective (06:25:00), which is then subdued once that
objective is completed (06:25:41). Some of these jump scares are also syn-
chronized using gameplay triggers and a closely related interactive tech-
nique that is known as music stingers. The main difference is that stingers
are usually much shorter, and do not necessarily have to be synchronous to
the rest of the layers as they can be triggered at any point. (For more infor-
mation on stingers see Chapter 18: Tomb Raider).
Production tools – Extended orchestral

techniques
The game’s soundtrack includes over three hours of music that was in-
spired from three key themes from Jerry Goldsmith’s score from the
original film Alien.6 During the recording of the game’s soundtrack, the
composers worked with the Chamber Orchestra of London at Air Studios
which included some of the original players from the iconic film score
recording of 1979! This opportunity granted the composers access to
some inside information on the original techniques used by Goldsmith
that they would not have been able to work out without their input. They
recount:
One example was the ‘Alien Whale’ sound; we had been trying vari-
ous techniques to replicate this, from bowed drums to rubbing super-
balls on the underside of a piano. One of the original players told us
they thought it was a conch shell. We used all three of the techniques
throughout the game!7
You can listen to the Alien Whale technique in the main menu music in
video example 50. You might also notice that the strings sound rather dif-
ferent than your usual orchestral score. This sound was achieved by using
several different string techniques borrowed from 20th century orchestral
music that are usually referred to as “extended” to differentiate them from
traditional instrumental writing. Goldsmith’s score, that was allegedly not
used as he wanted in the film, was filled with interesting uses of extended
Alien Isolation 125
orchestral techniques ranging from screeching atonal strings to using mul-

tiple household objects on a prepared piano.8 In Table 12.1 you can observe
some of the extended string techniques from video example 50 that are also
utilized often throughout the soundtrack.
Table 12.1 E xamples of extended string techniques used in the Alien

soundtrack
Technique Description Notation
Sul pont Bowing close to the bridge. Written Instruction

Produces a thinner less rich tone. above the stave
Bow on Not the same as Sul Pont which is Written Instruction
bridge near the bridge. On the bridge above the stave
produces a high screeching sound
with little discernible tone.
Sul Tasto Making bow contact with the Written Instruction
string close to the fingerboard. above the stave
Produces a soft, almost muted
tone.
Con Lengo Usually played with a bouncing Written Instruction
staccato motion by directing the above the stave
player to make contact with the
strings with the wood in the back
of the bow (ex: the triplet motif
in the opening of Mars from
Holst’s Planet’s).
Bartók Pizz Often called “snap pizz”, this
pizzicato technique requires
players to get their finger of
underneath the string and pull it
upwards, releasing the string so
that the string snaps against the
fingerboard.
Harmonic Used most notably by Stravinsky, a
Glissando harmonic glissando runs through
the harmonic series on any
given string and is performed by
the player running their finger
up and down the string. It can
be combined with an irregular
tremolo and more erratic left-
hand movement to create high,
screeching sounds.
Sempre Similar to the technique above
Sul Pont without focussing on the
Glissando harmonics and instead focusing
(Screeching on fast or irregular tremolo
Strings) played near the bridge. Heard
most notably in George Crumb’s
“Black Angels”.
126 Alien Isolation
Takeaway tasks
The following two tasks can be optionally combined.
Task 1 – Composition (challenging) – Write a string-

based composition that explores some of the extended
techniques discussed in this chapter
Ideally you want to do this task with an instrumentalist as these techniques
are rarely found in your typical sample libraries unless they are on the
higher end of the professional range. However, you can find some of them
in specialized libraries such as Spitfire Labs Strings 2 that is available for
free on the company’s website! An alternative solution is to do this task by
using a prepared piano in which you place various objects in between the
strings, similarly to Jerry Goldsmiths creative use of a rubber ball to pro-
duce the Alien Whale sound, but be careful not to damage the instrument.
Task 2 – Implementation (moderate) – Create a ver tical

layer arrangement that will react to four different
levels of tension
Here are some tips to remember: a single layer could contain multiple
instruments, all possible combinations should be musically interesting, layer
1 should work on its own and each additional layer should clearly contribute
to a rising level of tension. If you are not familiar with an implementation
software in which you could test your system (ex: Wwise), you can easily
simulate this in your DAW by fading in and out layers at a random timing to
emulate hypothetical game triggers.
Notes
1 Bullock et al., “Listen or Die.”
2 Larson, “Gaming Music: ALIEN: ISOLATION Interview with the Flight
(Joe Henson & Alexis Smith).”
6 Usher, “Alien Isolation Interview: How Composers Evolved a Legacy.”
8 “Alien – The Complete Original Score.”
Bibliography
“Alien – The Complete Original Score”. Jerrygoldsmithonline.Com, 2022. http://
www.jerrygoldsmithonline.com/alien_review.htm.
Alien Isolation 127
Bullock, Byron, John Broomhall, James Magee, and Haydn Payne. “Listen or Die”.
Audiotechnology, 2015. https://www.audiotechnology.audiotechnology.com/
features/listen-or-die.
Henson, Joe, and Alexis Smith. “The Music of Alien: Isolation – Interview with the
Flight”. MCV/DEVELOP, 2015. https://www.mcvuk.com/development-news/
the-music-of-alien-isolation/.
Larson, Randall. “Gaming Music: ALIEN: ISOLATION Interview with the
Flight (Joe Henson & Alexis Smith)”. Buysoundtrax.Com, 2014. http://www.
buysoundtrax.com/larsons_soundtrax_12_2_14.html.
Usher, Will. “Alien Isolation Interview: How Composers Evolved a Legacy”.
C INEMABLEND, 2014. https://www.cinemablend.com/games/Alien-Isolation-
Interview-How-Composers-Evolved-Legacy-68091.html.
Chapter 13
Mario Kart 8 (2014)

Music as an information device
About the game

Mario Kart 8 is the most recent instalment of Nintendo’s kart racing fran-
chise originating from Super Mario Kart for SNES in 1992. Players choose
one of the iconic characters from the Mario universe and race in colourful
racetracks filled with magical objects that can be used to boost their vehicle
or malevolently against other players to hinder their progress. It is allegedly
responsible for many ruined friendships!
Fun facts
Mario Kart 8 is the best-selling Wii U game of all times with more than 8
million copies sold, and the best-selling Switch game of all times with more
than 47 million copies sold.1 Even though it is available exclusively for these
two Nintendo consoles, it is still the best-selling racing game of all times in
any platform, and the no.7 best-selling game overall (with Minecraft being
number 1).

Mario Kart 8 was developed by a large team of composers over many years.
All the composers have had a long working relationship as full-time in-
house employees of Nintendo Japan: Kenta Nagata joined in 1996, Ryo
Nagamatsu in 2006, Shiho Fujii in 2007, Atsuko Asahi in 2010, and Yas-
uaki Iwata in 2013. Many of these composers have spent their entire career
working exclusively for Nintendo and are also responsible for other beloved
musical gems such as the Zelda series, Super Mario, and Animal Crossing.
This business model of relying on in-house composers is relatively uncom-
mon in the gaming industry outside Japan, as most studios rely on freelanc-
ers hired on a project-by-project basis.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-14
Mario Kart 8 129
Composition technique 1 – Music as an

information device
The music of Mario Kart 8 interacts with the gameplay in multiple crea-
tive and entertaining ways that are not just decorative but provide impor-
tant feedback on what is happening in a race. In fact, someone familiar
enough with the soundtrack can tell quite a lot about what is happening
in a race even with their eyes closed! Having these additional layers of
musical feedback on top of the fast-paced visual information can make
the game easier to play and quicker to learn, especially for younger au-
diences. The music possibly plays such an integral role in the game that
Nintendo does not give you the option to play it with the music turned off.
Let us examine some of the different bits of information that the music
communicates.
Racetrack location
Mario Kart 8 is the first game in the series to have each of the 32 racetracks
feature its own exclusive level theme, making it clear to the player where
the race is taking place. Some of these themes have been developed from
previous games in the franchise and others are unique.
Race stages
The music clearly emphasizes each stage of the race: there is a cue for pre-
viewing the racetrack, another short motif for preparing players that the
countdown is about to begin, the main level theme for the actual race, and
a cue for the outcome of the race. Depending on the position you finished
in the race you get one of three different musical themes, one for 1st place
finish, one for 2nd–6th, and one for 7th–12th place. 2
Specific zones within racetracks

Beyond being able to recognize levels by their musical theme, there are
also specific sublocations within many racetracks that can be identified by
their imaginative music embellishments when the player drives through
them. In video example 51 you can see the 3DS Music Park racetrack
which contains various road surfaces made from keyboard instruments
(ex: piano, xylophone, glockenspiel). As you drive through each surface
chromatic runs from that instrument are added to the arrangement that
are perfectly synchronized with the tempo and pitch of the level mu-
sic theme. Another great example that contains one of the game’s most
130 Mario Kart 8
popular music themes can be seen in video example 52 that showcases a

drive through the Dolphin Shoals racetrack. As soon as the player leaps
out of the underwater section (0:53) the melody is replaced by a blistering
live saxophone solo that falls perfectly in time, and the music modulates
upwards. To make the switch sound natural, there is a splashing sound
effect that masks the crossfade. 3
Movement of in-game objects

Many in-game objects have their animations synced to the music and there-
fore give away the timing of their movement. For example, the giant ene-
mies shaped as musical notes on the Melody Motorway level are jumping in
time with the music; or the piranha plants on Piranha Plant Pipeway snap
their teeth on beats 2 and 4!
Position in the race

The game uses an innovative system called front running beats to audi-
bly indicate that a player is in first place. The ‘beats’ are a rhythmic top
layer, usually consisting of fast punchy kick, with off-beat hi-hats that
trigger when a player has taken a big enough lead in the 1st place from
the other karts. This increases the pressure on the leader whilst alerting
other players in multiplayer mode that the leader is getting away. This
drum layer is stripped if you are hit by a shell or when you fall from the
course. In video example 53, 1:27, you can observe how these front run-
ning beats are added as the player’s lead increases and in video example
54, 0:10, how they are removed as the player suddenly crashes and loses
the lead.
Final lap
When you reach the final lap of the race the level music becomes more fran-
tic by speeding up the tempo by 30% and pitch shifting upwards by one
semitone (video example 52 from 2:02).
Gameplay events
With a few exceptions such as the car sounds and the voices, most SFX
in the game have an innately musical quality to their design (ex: Star Item
received is a quick Dmaj7 – Cmaj7 chord pattern). These musical SFX are
usually added on top of the level music and can communicate various pieces
of information to the player in an entertaining way that aids the synergy
Mario Kart 8 131
between SFX and music and avoids overwhelming the player with addi-
tional text in busy races. The practise of musical SFX design is typical of
Nintendo (also see Chapter 3 on Zelda).
Gameplay states
There are some gameplay events that are reflected with the addition of pro-
duction effects in the music. For example, when a player deploys a lightning
strike, the audio echoes this by applying a fast-moving flanger effect to the
top melody lines of the music, as well as the engine notes and character
noises. The further you are in front, the longer these audio changes seem
to last, indicating to other players that the leader is still slow, and therefore
easier to catch up.
Composition technique 2 – A masterclass of key

modulation
Changing the tonal centre of your theme through modulation can be a
useful way of adding further interest to your music. Mario Kart 8 offers
a true masterclass on the use modulation as the music constantly changes
keys, often multiple times within very short thematic segments. Perhaps
the music makes such extensive use of modulation to reflect the frenzied
pace of kart racing. Some of the uses of modulation are part of the writ-
ten music, while others occur as responses to gameplay events (ex: pitch
shifting by one semitone on the last lap). There are many techniques used
to modulate, let us examine some of the most common ones found in
the game.
Modulation 101 – Circle of Fifths
You can use the Circle of Fifths (Figure 13.1) as a tool to find the sig-
nature of different keys and to understand the relationships between
them when planning your modulations. Generally, the closer two
keys are in the circle, the more notes they will have in common. If you
take any key and look at its neighbouring keys on the left and right,
you will notice that their key signatures only have one note difference
(one sharp moving clockwise and one flat moving anti-clockwise).
You can also see the minor keys that share an identical key signature
with their relative majors.
132 Mario Kart 8
Figure 13.1 A diagram of the Circle of Fifths showing the relationship

between the 12 major keys, their associated minor keys, and
their key signatures. 4
Pivot chords (common chords)

One easy way of using the circle of firths to change keys smoothly that is
used in classical music is by using pivot chords. These are chords that are
common between both keys and can be used to link them. The closer the
keys are to each other in the circle the more chords they will have in com-
mon that could be used as a pivot. For example, from the key of C major to
G major, there is only one note difference (F#) which results in four of the
chords being identical (I, iii, V, vi). However, if the modulation is towards
a distant key, for example from C to Db, there are no common chords be-
tween them that can be used as a pivot.
Mario Kart 8 133
Secondary dominant
Although common chords are used frequently in Mario Kart 8, this tech-
nique is thrown out of the window in the main theme! Listen to the first
ten seconds of the theme in video example 55. The theme starts in G major
(a key signature of one sharp) and only five seconds later it has already
modulated to Ab major, a completely unrelated key with a key signature of
four flats that has no common chords. Yet, this big change stills manages to
sound smooth as these unrelated keys are connected by a dominant chord
that comes in 00:05” in the brass right after the bass solo. This connecting
dominant chord (Eb7) clearly does not belong to the first key, but it func-
tions as a dominant seventh chord in the context of the new key of Ab and
prepares its arrival. This modulation technique is known as a secondary
dominant.
Phrase modulation
Another modulation technique that is used constantly in this soundtrack
is phrase modulation. Repeating a phrase directly in a new key can be a
great way of bridging big tonal jumps as the linear harmonic relationship
between the notes of the phrase is already familiar to the listener, and the
new key can provide a fresh context. This idea is frequently utilized in
in pop music, when you have a repetition of an already familiar chorus
modulating higher towards the end of a song. Listen to section B of video
example 55 from 0:33 to 1:04. The music moves between multiple modu-
lations by using repetitions of the same phrase but each time in a new key.
The same technique can be found in Dolphin Shoals where the music uses
a tonal sequence to modulate upwards by one semitone from Fm7 Bb7sus4
to F#m7 B7sus 4 (video example 56, 0:15–0:25), and also in the Mount
Wario theme (video example 57, 0:30–01:00) where the music constantly
transposes upwards through phrase modulations.
Parallel modes
Finally, another technique used is parallel modes (for more info on how
to build modes see Mortal Kombat C hapter 7). Although this might not
technically be a modulation, as the tonal centre remains the same, the use
of parallel modes is frequently used in jazz solos to quickly move between
different scales that are compatible with the underlying chord notes and
thus adding further harmonic interest. For example, if you have a C7 chord
(CEGB) your melodic solo can be in C major scale, but it can also move to
C Lydian as the F# does not clash with the harmony. A good example in
Mario Kart are the guitar solo in the first 30 seconds of the main theme
which temporarily moves to Ab Myxolidian by flattening the 7th note of
the major scale.
134 Mario Kart 8
Production tools – The Mario Kart Band

Another feature that makes this soundtrack so much fun to listen to is that
most of the music was recorded with a live band, the Mario Kart Band!
This is an all-star group consisting of some of the top Japanese jazz musi-
cians, many of them coming from the band Dimension.5 As you can see in
video example 58, the performances are captured live, but the musicians are
separated by acoustic panels to allow the isolation of individual stems that
can function interactively in the game. It is worth mentioning that there is
a plethora of instruments and specialist musicians added for recording each
racetrack that go far beyond the usual jazz big band instrumentation. Some
examples from different racetracks include Twisted Mansion that features
an organ and a theremin, Sweet Sweet Canyon that uses an accordion and
a recorder among many peculiar percussive instruments, Dragon Driftway
that features a Chinese Erhu, and Thwomp Ruins that features an Indone-
sian Gamelan!
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Analysis (easy) – Analyse the use of music as a

source of information in another game of your choice
What is the music telling you in direct or indirect ways? For example, you
might notice that in an action game the music clearly indicates when you
have been detected by enemies. Make a short list of your observations with
references to gameplay conditions. Some of these might be obvious (ex:
win/lose music) but there might be a lot of more subtle information that is
given indirectly (ex: a new instrument being introduced when your health
is low, etc.).
Task 2 – Composition (challenging) – Write a theme for a

Mario Kart 8 level of your choice that makes significant
use of modulation
You can look at the circle of fifths in Figure 13.1 to help you plan your
modulations. Remember that you can use pivot chords, phrase modu-
lation, and even parallel modes. If you have access to live musicians (or
even better a live band), you can use them to co-compose and record your
theme. You might find it useful to provide the musicians with an overall
chord sequence and main melody but allow them the freedom to contrib-
ute their own improvizations as they like that you might then incorpo-
rate in the final mix. Remember to isolate each sound source as much as
possible so you can have more options during the mixing and (potential)
implementation stages.
Mario Kart 8 135
Notes
1 “Sales Data – Top Selling Title Sales Units.”
2 “List Of Mario Kart 8 Media.”
3 Schilling and Nagata, “The Music of Mario Kart 8.”
4 “The Ultimate Guide to the Circle of Fifths.”
5 “Liner Notes – Mario Kart 8 Original Soundtrack.”
Bibliography
“Liner Notes – Mario Kart 8 Original Soundtrack”. Super Mario Wiki. Accessed 1
October 2022. https://www.mariowiki.com/Mario_Kart_8_Original_Soundtrack.
“List of Mario Kart 8 Media”. Super Mario Wiki. Accessed 1 October 2022.
https://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Mario_Kart_8_media.
“Sales Data – Top Selling Title Sales Units”. Nintendo Co., Ltd., 2022. https://
www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/software/index.html.
Schilling, Chris, and Kenta Nagata. “The Music of Mario Kart 8”. Kotaku Australia,
2014. https://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/06/the-music-of-mario-kart-8/.
“The Ultimate Guide to the Circle of Fifths”. https://www.musical-u.com/.
Accessed 17 October 2022. http://musl.ink/c5ths.
Chapter 14
Apotheon (2016)
Recombinant cells – A generative
technique for producing musical
variation
About the game

A 2D platform indie game inspired by ancient Greek art and mythology
(Figure 14.1). The game was developed by Alientrap, a small independent
Canadian studio and was selected by Sony as a PlayStation Plus release.
Both the game and the soundtrack have been a commercial success with
multiple awards and high sales for an indie game. The music was nomi-
nated for best soundtrack of 2016 year by the Canadian Game Awards and
was surprisingly even placed an honourable mention of the best PlayStation
Soundtracks of the Decade by Push Square magazine!1
Figure 14.1 The art style of the game is based on the black-figure pottery paint-
ings from ancient Greece.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-15
Apotheon 137
Fun trivia
This soundtrack was composed by me! It was an incredible honour to have
extracts of the music performed to accompany the Olympic Flame Initia-
tion Ceremony in Athens for the 2019 Special Olympics (video example 59).

Prior to Apotheon I had written ancient Greek music for various TV docu-
mentaries in Greece, and I was quite active at writing music for mod games
I found online. One of the Total War mods I wrote the music for was called
Troy and I had placed its entire soundtrack on Indie Db as a free download
for non-commercial uses. The developers of Apotheon, unbeknownst to me
had been using this music as a temp track during their early stages of proto-
typing Apotheon and reached out to me to request a licencing deal. I happily
accepted the offer but also proposed to write new music to their specifica-
tions which led to a successful collaboration that lasted almost three years.
Composition technique 1 – Recombinant cells

Recombinant cells is a relatively simple generative technique that can be
used for producing musical variation in game soundtracks. It works by re-
combining musical motifs in real time using a range of probabilities that
are connected to gameplay parameters. I developed this technique in col-
laboration with Apotheon’s programmer Lee Vermeulen to avoid playing
identical loops of the same music in key areas of the game in which players
might spend large amounts of time. This idea was inspired by the aleato-
ric techniques of Mozart’s musical dice games from the 18th century that
used the roll of two dice to generate waltz compositions from two sets of
pre-composed motifs that could produce 759,499,667,166,482 unique yet
similar waltzes.
A similar recombinant approach has been explored by other composers
in earlier games such as Ballblazer, Times of Lore, Legend of Zelda: Oc-
arina of Time, and Red Dead Redemption. One primary difference with
the use of this technique in Apotheon is that the recombination of musical
phrases can occur simultaneously across multiple layers that are affected
by gameplay parameters and conditions. The exact rules of the generative
system in the game were adapted to the design of each level, but each of
the musical phrases needed to be composed specifically with those rules in
mind to generate a musically interesting output.
How recombinant cells work in the opening level

The most elaborate version of this technique can be found in the opening
level of the game called The Village of Dion, a large open area that included
138 Apotheon
many sublocations that players could visit and complete quests in almost
any order. A walkthrough demonstrating the entire level is provided in
video example 60. The recombinant music system consists of a collection of
37 different musical phrases (the cells) that were composed to correspond to
all the possible gameplay developments for this area. Each cell has its own
default occurrence probability, trigger conditions, and layer group accord-
ing to their function in the arrangement (ex: melody). For example, as you
can see in Table 14.1. The qanun, a type of traditional string instrument
found in Greece, is part of one layer that contains five phrases with an equal
10% change of being triggered, and there is a 50% chance that no qanun
phrase will be played thus reducing the number of instruments being played
in the arrangement. Similarly, the battle string layer contains five phrases
with an equal 20% chance of being triggered but only if there is a battle
occurring in the game. The length of most cells was usually proportional to
each other to ensure they will remain in sync, unless some level of rhythmic
anarchy was desired, an idea that was used extensively in another level (The
Table 14.1 T he default occurrence probabilities of the cells in two mini

quests from The Village area
FIND THE APOTHECARY (ACADEMY) QUEST
Cell Name Cell Probability Layer Probability
ambience- 01, ambience- 02 50% 100%

qanun-f1, qanun-f2, qanun-f3, qanun-f4, 10% 50%
qanun-f5
percussion- 01, percussion- 02, 20% 100%
percussion- 03, percussion- 04,
percussion- 05
battlestrings- 01, battlestrings- 02, 20% TRIGGERED
battlestrings- 03, battlestrings- 04, when there is
battlestrings- 05 battle
FIND THE BL ACKSMITH (BL ACKSMITH’S HOUSE) QUEST
ambience- 01, ambience- 02 50% 100%

anvils- 01, anvils- 02, anvils- 03 33.3% 100%
battlepercussion- 01, battlepercussion- 02, 20% 100%
battlepercussion- 03,
battlepercussion- 04,
battlepercussion- 05
battlebrass- 01, battlebrass- 02, 20% TRIGGERED when
battlebrass- 03, battlebrass- 04, there is battle
battlebrass-5
Timpani-f1 100% TRIGGERED when
there is battle
Apotheon 139
underground caves in the Forest). The harmonic language of the cells was
heavily based around different parallel modes to make it easier to match
overlapping cells together as they would share the same tonal centre (for
more info on parallel modes see Chapter 7 Mortal Kombat).
What gives this system more value than a curated random music gen-
erator is that all the cell probabilities are not permanently fixed but are
dynamically altered according to what is happening in the game (see Figure
14.2). As the player completes various objectives and moves through the
map, different cell probabilities are modified over time resulting in a much
more adaptive soundtrack that transitions smoothly between gameplay
changes. For example, if the player moves to a new location in the map,
a set of melodic cells will replace the previous melody, but the rest of the
layers might overlap between the two sets creating a hybrid arrangement.
Likewise, if the final boss (The Tyrant) quest for the area is triggered, all the
selection probabilities of the cells will be altered to favour cells that evoke
an epic mood, and any cells that are not relevant will be removed from
the selection pool by having their probability set to 0%. In this way, the
music generation is closely driven by the gameplay action, but it (almost)
never repeats an identical arrangement. After eight years of having created
this generative/interactive theme, although its execution is far from perfect,
I still get occasionally surprised by interesting new re-combinations that
have morphed the original material in a familiar, yet ever-changing shape
that prolongs the life of the music and the re-playability of the game. If you
are interested in learning more about this technique you can read my PhD
thesis that is available for free in The British Library Thesis database. 2
Production tools – A virtual choir singing in

ancient Greek
In the grand finale of the game, you must face the king of the Greek gods,
Zeus, to reach your apotheosis (video example 61). During this battle I
wanted to have the biggest choir sound imaginable. I was inspired by the
Viking choir in Skyrim that was achieved by overlaying multiple takes of the
same performance but due to budget constraints I used 12 different layered
instances (as many as the gods of Olympus) of East West’s Symphonic Choirs
virtual choir. The MIDI data was triggered through the WordBuilder plugin
which allows users to type in syllables for the virtual choir to sing (see Fig-
ure 14.3) but each audio instance was recorded individually and then mixed
together for the interest of variety as slightly different samples would be trig-
gered from the MIDI with each take due to the round-robin sample play-
back. The lyrics were written by me in ancient Greek and were loosely based
on extracts taken from my old high school textbook of Homer’s Odyssey.
Sometimes, gibberish words were chosen purely for their acoustic resonance
rather than their meaning but there is a clear reference to the story of the
140 Apotheon
Start
APOTHEON recombinant cells algorithm for
“The Village” level. Version 4.01
What is the
player’s
location?
Blacksmith Hunter’s house

General Map
Granary Boat
Load the
corresponding
cell layers and Location
occurrence Database
probabilities from
the location
database
Select a cell in
each of the
ambient and battle
layers according
to the occurrence
probability
database
Play the selected

Play the selected
ambient and battle
ambient cells. If a cell
cells. If a cell is
is already playing in a What is the
Ambience Battle already playing in a
layer then play the new game
layer then play the
cell only when the state?
new cell only when
previous on has
the previous one has
finished.
finished.
Has the
player
Yes entered a No
new
location?
adjust the In certain locations

volume of the the battle cells
ambient cells cross fade with the
according to ambient cells,
the transition while in others they
database are mixed together
Figure 14.2 A Flow Chart of the recombinant cells system for The Village of
Dion area.
Apotheon 141
Figure 14.3 Parts of the ancient Greek text sung by the virtual choir in King of
the Gods, written in separate syllables using East West’s WordBuilder
software.
Titans, who were the previous rulers of the world before being overthrown
by Zeus. The composition is structured around two themes; the main theme
in 7/4 and a secondary theme that follows in 7/8.
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Algorithmic composition (very challenging) –

Create your own recombinant cells system
You can give this technique a try by creating a simple composition of three
layers organized according to function (ex: melody, accompaniment, per-
cussion) that each has approximately five phrases. You can assign each
phrase with a probability percentage (it does not have to be an equal %
among them), and make sure to include a probability for silence to occur
in each layer so you do not always have the same number of instruments.
Some tips include to use proportional lengths for each phrase (half or dou-
ble) if you want the rhythm to remain in sync, and a harmonic approach
142 Apotheon
that would work in most combinations (ex: most cells could be following
the same chord progression, but some rare cell combos could be more disso-
nant or break away from this pattern). There will probably be a lot of trial
and error needed before you are satisfied with the musical output, but the
beauty of this idea is that once it works well it will generate a nearly endless
number of variations. You can read the next chapter on No Man’s Sky to
get more ideas in this area!
Notes
1 Banas, “Soundtrack of the Decade: Honorable Mentions That Mustn’t Be
Ignored.”
2 Aristopoulos, “A Portfolio of Recombinant Compositions for the Videogame
Apotheon”. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/19298/.
Bibliography
Aristopoulos, Marios. “A Portfolio of Recombinant Compositions for the Videog-
ame Apotheon”. 2017. https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/19298/.
Banas, Graham. “Soundtrack of the Decade: Honorable Mentions That Mustn’t
Be Ignored”. Push Square, 2020. https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/01/
soundtrack_of_the_decade_honorable_mentions_that_mustnt_be_ignored.
Chapter 15
No Man’s Sky (2016)

A conversation with the
audio director Paul Weir
About Paul Weir

Paul Weir is an audio director, composer, and sound designer who has
worked in over 40 games including Discworld II, Lego Batman, the Last
Campfire, and No Man’s Sky. Aside from being the audio director of Hello
Games he runs Earcom, an audio production company with a specialty in
generative audio.
About the game

No Man’ Sky is an exploration and survival game that lets players e mbark
freely on an epic voyage set in an infinite procedurally generated universe
(video example 62). Despite the relatively small development team of
Hello Games the game received massive publicity and has constantly been
updated since its launch in 2016 (Figure 15.1). The music was composed by
the English post-rock band 65daysofstatic.
Figure 15.1 A gameplay screenshot from No Man’s Sky. The flora and fauna ecosystem
of each planet is procedurally generated and there are over 18 quintillion
possible planets to explore.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-16
144 No Man’s Sky
Composition technique – Generating music for an

infinite universe
MARIOS ARISTOPOULOS (MA): Would you describe the music system in

No Mans Sky as generative or procedural? What is the difference be-
tween these terms?
PAUL WEIR (PW ): Most of my work, although it gets called procedural, I
would say it is generative. For me, that is dynamically arranging and
creating music. It is taking elements, often at a micro level, and decide
what to play and how to play it. What procedural music does instead,
is to use a musical algorithm to define musical terms and phrases and
build brand new elements of music. I see it at as a scale, from linear
composition on one end of the scale to procedural on the other. I have
done everything and often the most effective approach is a combination
of different techniques. What it comes down to is as a composer I am
trying to achieve a certain goal, or a set of goals. I want the player to
feel something, and I am not interested in technology for technology’s
sake. No Man’s Sky is not linear, there are no levels, I don’t know what
the player is going to do at some part of the game, so it makes enor-
mous sense when the game is in free form to have free form music.
MA: Do you think that generative music systems can offer benefits beyond
generating variation?
PW: For me it is a lot more than trying to prevent people from getting bored
by generating some new variations. It is how do you wrap the musical
experience around what the player is doing to create moments of syn-
chronicity. In No Man’s Sky if you behave in a certain way the music
will change to reflect that, so it feels like it is a personalized experience.
You are building all these bridges with the player.
Another good example of that which is not in games, comes from the
generative systems I wrote for real world spaces, principally shopping
malls, banks, places like that. These were not art installations; they
were not meant to be noticed and they were completely commercial.
One big one I did was the main transport hub in Helsinki and that is
remarkably similar than working in a game, in that you are trying to
enhance the environment, and enhance people’s experience and make
people feel something. The system could take any number of inputs,
for example look at how busy the environment is through speech level
or noise levels, and obviously season, time of day, or whatever it is,
the system could absorb any of that and control the values. Maybe if
people are rushed and stressed then just bring the mix down a little bit
and calm the arrangement, or if it gets busier then you may introduce
different elements, so it is much more of a kind of dialogue with the
personal experience of the music.
No Man’s Sky 145
MA: Could you summarize how does the PULSE System work in No Man’s
Sky?
PW: It is very simple in many ways. It sits on top of Wwise and it absorbs
music content that we feed in to it, usually simple phrases or a couple
of bars of a drum loop, or things like that, and we can then create what
we call instruments out of that. For example, drones are very easy, here
are 20 files, I am going to create a drone [video example 63]. You can
attach behaviours to that: how often does this sound play, what scale
can I play in, it might need to be re-pitched, or play it every X number
of bars. If it is a drum loop, it is utterly important that every bar plays
sequentially, and a lot of work was put into making sure that time keep-
ing is very reliable. Then you can take collections of these instruments
and move between different behaviours in a type of canvas. These be-
haviours would be connected to different sections of the game. For
example, during space flights, gameplay parameters such as am I mov-
ing, am I facing a planet, am I heading towards a planet, and things
like that would affect the music generation [video example 64]. As you
move around the behaviour changes, very gradually and smoothly by
morphing very nicely between different steps.
To a certain extent, I am not that bothered about what the behav-
iours are, it was really to solve a problem in that a lot of generative mu-
sic, yes, it is kind of randomized, it does kind of adjust over time, but
it never actually changes, as it is using the same rules. If you slice any
point over time, it sounds the same. That is the limitation we also had
with this commercial retail music. You want these gameplay drivers to
keep changing the music, to keep forcing different behaviours.
MA: Does the PULSE system develop the music only when there is a game-
play parameter change?
PW: The system can do both, generate variations but also play this very
specific music for a situation. There are multiple types of programming
logic: it can do this AND that, this OR that, or if it is doing that then
NOT do that. It is not a fantastically sophisticated system as we were
a small team, 15 people, we spent a lot of money on creating proce-
dural SFX, which are properly procedural, and we already had a lot of
experience building this kind of music systems, and because we were
working with 65 Days. It was a nice middle space, where we could do
something which we knew it will help the game, where 65 Days felt
comfortable with, but also that suited the game and suited our techni-
cal approach.
MA: How did you ensure that there will be a sense of musical coherence
and meaning with the system?
PW: That is partly done by 65 Days in their music. We did the sensical
theme, first of all letting them compose in a very traditional way, letting
146 No Man’s Sky
them basically write an album [video example 65]. But because they are
very technical as a band, alongside that, I wrote a set of rules and ex-
plained how I was going to use it. Not all composers feel comfortable
writing this way, some think of the implementation process too much
rather than what it is they are trying to compose. We are quite careful
about that, do not worry about technology, I know what I need from
you, because I have done it before. Write what you think is effective
music. That is where the cohesion and meaning came from.
MA: How much were the composers, 65 Days of Static, involved with the
technical side of the generative system?
PW: 65 Days didn’t use PULSE, they just had this set of rules and then they
would write me a text list of what should go where in the game, and
I would interpret that into the system. There are two things to avoid.
You give a composer a set of rules and they compose to the rules and
they kind of lose their sense of composition. You do not want that. The
other thing you do not want to do, and I have seen both in my career, is
to try and repurpose existing music in a kind of generative way. Proba-
bly it is not going to work unless you do stem mixing which for me has
nothing to do with generative music [see Chapter 12 Vertical Layers].
The middle ground is nudging people carry on doing what they are
great at doing but guide them to give you the technical elements you
need. For example, I really like those 4 bars can you give me more var-
iations on these? Do not worry about time, we ‘ll fix all of that. Setting
some light rules and then separate the music that you need to feed the
system to make it work. The rules can be very simple (ex: key, tempo,
number of bars), and the outcome can be very complex. If you flip it
the other way, if your rules are overly complex, you are just creating
barriers all the time. No Man’s Sky is in many ways a very complicated
score, but each individual element is really simple.
MA: When I created my generative score for the game Apotheon, I strug-
gled with creating a real sense of development for longer section. After
a while, I felt the music gets “predictably unpredictable”. What was
your experience with this?
PW: This is the exact feedback we got on NMS early on, exactly that, “it
is great, but it always sounds the same”, that is why a lot of the work I
have done is on how to drive change in the system, and again that can
be really simple, but inevitably you need inputs from the game. What-
ever it is just choose some inputs, you can do it in Wwise with some
RTCPs or even just don’t have generative music going for too long. We
did a game called The Last Campfire, that is mostly linear music but
there is some generative music in the larger areas which none picks out,
it has never been commented on! That is because it is super simple,
every piece, could have random elements of music in there with time,
beats, key, which generates a nice evolution over time by just adding
variations to the linear elements.
No Man’s Sky 147
MA: Where do you see the future of generative game music for the next
decade?
PW: Obviously, people are already using Machine Learning for music gen-
eration. That is a whole other conversation, a separate conversation
to have. The pure machine learning driven compositions I have heard,
are perfectly functional but not very interesting to me. It has clearly
evolved but it is not where I sit, that is not my job, it is someone else’s
job doing all that. I think where Machine Learning could be really
interesting is expanding music that you create, feeding it into a system,
understanding what you are doing, and generating more music that is
building on that.
Another area that I am interested is how do you develop your mu-
sic based on player input in a way that feels musically satisfying and
effective for the player in a more intelligent way. That could be going
towards more, using a lot more metadata to describe what each musical
element is, and to describe what behaviours could be attached to it.
Almost to create chunks of logic. For example, this bit of logic is great
at making chords that make you feel awesome, attaching that as a be-
haviour and having a cloud of behaviours. This has nothing to do with
ML, it is all scripted in a way. Rather than having a bunch of phrases
and randomize these, you are pulling behaviours on top of elements of
music and combining them.
Production tools – Software for getting started

with generative music
MA: Which software would you recommend for someone who wants to
start getting involved with generative music?
PW: Wwise could be really good for that. You can use random containers,
you immediately have enough technology there to start experimenting
and playing with ideas. Also, it is not hard to mock up these things
yourself using any sequencer like Reaper or PreSonus Studio 1 that
I use. You can create a bunch of phrases, throw them into Reaper,
and tell Reaper to randomize their placement, see how it feels, that
is an easy way to start. I don’t use Ableton Live, but I know it can
be useful in this area. Reaktor is also great but it is a little bit more
complicated.
Sometimes in generative systems there is this tendency to be a bit
gentle a bit ambient or harmonically very simple, so everything fits
together. You should aim to be harsh on yourself, in a positive way. If
your system only works if you make the music exactly in a certain way,
then push it and evolve it. Throw stuff all over the place and test to see
if your system is still working. Think about what you can do to make it
more challenging, I always try to do that in my career.
148 No Man’s Sky
MA: I remember in your GDC lecture, you mentioned that a good genera-
tive system does not need to be incredibly technical.
PW: No, it really doesn’t. I always come up to you are a composer compose,
how can you best service the interests of the game. A lot of coders will
make sometimes overly complex systems to prove how cool their code
is. I have been fortunate to work with many amazing coders, such as
Sandy White, who built procedural audio systems and helped build
PULSE, what he said about programming, for him, he has been going
up for 50 years, programming is not what you type into a computer,
programming is what you are writing pen and paper and designing
a system, that is all. The creative aspect of it, that is programming.
Everything else is figuring out the technical details.
Career tips from an audio director
MA: Do you have any advice for student composers?

PW: I think a lot of it is mindset, with composers. As always, listening to
a wide range of music, I am self-taught, being free, experimenting, not
feeling constrained, I should be able to do this but I can’t do this, fine,
just have a go! Explore and have fun but at the same time have a critical
creative brain, that is the essential bit in of all the work we do. Your
internal critic, in a positive way. Is this working, is it not working, what
is most effective, what can I try, how can I push it, how can I take ele-
ments of music I have already listened to and feed that in. I always say
to my students, you need to be enthusiastic, you need to know about
the industry, but you also need to be skilled. But if you are good at what
you do and you are enthusiastic and you have knowledge then you will
get a job. It is true for all creative arts.
MA: I find that this is true for in-house audio design jobs but for composi-
tion jobs I think that the game industry can be a brutally competitive
environment!
PW: I acknowledge that I am fortunate, I do not look for work. For a while
I worked mainly in sound design, but for most of my career it has been
a 50/50 balance between composition and sound design. It is brutal but
there are paths into the industry and again it is a creative industry, if
people who are established listen to a student and their work is excep-
tional, they will acknowledge and support them.
MA: Do you have any advice for how composers can reach the right people?
Audio directors usually have little time to check an influx of music
demos.
PW: The path is still the same as when I started which is get to know peo-
ple. You obviously need to have a strong portfolio, but you almost cer-
tainly will not get work only on the back of it. It will be meeting and
No Man’s Sky 149
connecting and then being able to back that up with your work. Other
than that, it is the usual: do your game jam, get to know people in the
same level, that is a very effective way, absolutely. I see almost everyone
go through that pathway now. The problem with sending music to au-
dio directors or composers, if for example someone sends music to me,
is that I will listen to it but I do not know what to do with it because I
am a composer so I am not going to give my work to a student. Some
composers have more of a factory approach, but I don’t work that way.
So, I am not the right person to give it to, you are asking work from me
but that is my work so why would I give it to you!
Having said that, that is how I got a job in the industry. I was very
lucky, I was not looking for a job. I was going to a completely different
job interview but met the audio director and he said well we are ex-
panding at the moment so he listened to my music, and he literally was
like “yes your music sounds good, we have loads of games, I will give
you a job”. You can have that lucky break. But, it is a human connec-
tion. There is a composer I spoke to a while ago, she was an excellent
piano player, I direct her to go to the right places, go to the conferences,
go to the meet-ups, do the game jams, she is getting work in the indus-
try now. I think that is where other composers can help, you might not
have my work, but I can point you at the right direction for who you
should be talking to and support you.
MA: Fantastic, thank you Paul!
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Generative composition (variable difficulty) –

Create a simple generative piece inspired by the
techniques discussed in this interview
You can set your own rules as you like but a good starting point is to
have a fixed key and tempo. You can test your system in any software you
are familiar with. For example, in Ableton Live you can explore the nine
different “Follow Actions” that control what happens after a clip finishes
playing, in UE5 you can use sound cues that allow many options for ran-
domization through visual scripting, and in Wwise you can use playlists
and random containers. Once you get something working try to push the
system further to produce output that is unexpected but also remains mu-
sically interesting.
Chapter 16
Doom (2016)
The Doom Instrument – Using FX
chains creatively
About the game

This is a reboot of the all-time classic Doom franchise that helped estab-
lish the genre of First-Person Shooters in 1993. You take the role of Doom
Slayer, a space marine on planet Mars that must overcome endless hordes
of demons using any means necessary (from chainsaws to plasma blasters!).
The game has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from fans primar-
ily for its fast-paced action, brutally violent 3D graphics, and adrenaline
pumping soundtrack.1
Fun trivia
Doom games have a history of containing numerous easter eggs left for
players to find and five of them have been discovered so far within this
game’s soundtrack. Running specific parts of the audio through a spec-
trogram or tempering with the tempo and pitch will reveal hidden voice
messages and diabolical images meant as a joke by the composer. 2

Mick Gordon began his composing and sound designing career by send-
ing demos to developers in the early 2000s. After gathering some in-
teresting credits under his belt (Need for Speed, Marvel Super Hero
Squad) his career really took off with the music for season 1 and 2 of the
fighting game Killer Instinct in 2013. He was then asked to compose the
music for another iconic FPS franchise, Wolfenstein: The New Order
in 2014, developed by the same company as Doom in 2016. After the
enormous success of the Doom soundtrack, he moved on to compose the
music for the sequel Doom Eternal released in 2020, but sadly, accord-
ing to recent interviews from both sides he might not be continuing with
the franchise after disagreements on the mixing of the accompanying
soundtrack. 3
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-17
Doom 151
Production 101 – Signal flow
To understand how the Doom Instrument works it is important to

first understand the fundamentals of audio signal flow. Signal flow is
a term that describes the path an audio signal takes from its original
source to its final output. It is a simple yet powerful concept that can
cause a lot of wasted time and unsatisfying mixing results if it is not
applied correctly. As a metaphor, you might find it helpful to think
of water flowing from a lake through a complex system to reach your
tap. By using valves and pipes you can control the flow of water as
you wish but if the flow within a pipe is interrupted it will not reach
its destination. Similarly, if you cannot hear any sound from an au-
dio system, the easiest way to troubleshoot the problem is to track
the signal flow starting from the source (ex: a microphone) and then
testing if audio is present at each stopover (ex: an FX unit) until you
find what is blocking the flow (ex: a muted channel, a broken cable, a
fader, lack of power, etc.).
When Effect Units are incorporated into an audio system, they are
usually connected so the audio signal will flow in Series and/or in Par-
allel. In serial, the signal will go through each FX unit one after the
other, adding up any processing along the way. In parallel, the signal
will split to a new path that will be unaffected by any processing that
happens beyond that point in the previous path, but the two paths
can be recombined at a later stage. For example, in a DAW the audio
effect slots within a channel are connected in series, while using a
send to an Aux track is a parallel connection.
Composition technique – Creating The Doom

Instrument with sine waves and FX
Inspiration for The Doom Instrument

The audio team of id software has a music tradition called Weird Wednes-
days in which members jam with each other with complete creative freedom
to encourage new ideas that have not been tried before. While exploring
possible musical directions for the game, composer Mick Gordon found
inspiration in the game’s concept of Argent Energy.4 This is a new form of
renewable energy that is powering the entire world and it is controlled by
an evil corporation that supposedly mines it from the planet Mars, while in
secret it is taking it directly from hell!
To mirror the idea of pure energy running through a futuristic power
grid (Figure 16.1), Mick came up with The Doom Instrument, a system that
152 Doom
Figure 16.1 A gameplay screenshot from Doom showing the flow of Argent En-
ergy that inspired Mike Gordon’s concept for the creation of his
Doom Instrument.
starts with loops of low frequency sine waves (the purest form of sound)
that run through multiple arrays of analogue high-end audio processing
units.5 This instrument produces harmonically complex textures that are
constantly evolving and it became one of the core features throughout
the Doom soundtrack along the massive metal guitars and drums (video
example 66).
Signal flow in the Doom Instrument

The system begins with an input of sine wave riffs that loop within the sub-
woofer range. The signal is immediately split into four parallel FX chains,
each serving a different purpose.7 As you can see in Figure 16.2, the first
two paths can add numerous types of different distortion and therefore
harmonic content to the sine waves. Some of the pedals might change but
the concept remains the same. The third path is primarily adding reverb
and delay through vintage tape machines, and the fourth is adding real time
feedback by playing the audio through a mini guitar amp that is using a live
microphone within another closed feedback loop.
The third and fourth pathways can also serve as additional sources of
light distortion through the guitar amp or by simply over boosting the sig-
nal beyond what each circuit can handle before being distorted. If all the
effects were used in series (one after the other) like in your typical guitar
pedal setup, the output would quickly become a blurry mess as each effect
Doom 153
Sine Wave Riff Looper
Pedal 1 - Distortion Box Pedal 1 - Bitcrusher Pedal 1 - Tape Echo Mini Amp
Retro Mechanical Labs 432K WMD Geiger count WEM Watkins Copicat Fender Mini Tonemaster
Pedal 2 - Tube Distortion Pedal 2 - Tube Feedback Pedal 2 - Valve Distortion Microphone
Metasonix KV-100 Metasonix TX-3 Trogotronic p77 Trogotronic p77
Pedal 3 - Bitcrusher Pedal 3 - Phaser Tape Machine

Splitter
WMD Geiger Counter Mu-Tron Bi-Phase AKAI Reel to Reel 1/4” Tape
Pedal 4 - Fuzz Pedal 4 - Phaser Spring Reverb Compressor

Dwarfcraft Devices DOD Phasor
Splitter Compressor Compressor Compressor
Mixer
Hard Compressor
Figure 16.2 A chart showing the signal flow in the Doom Instrument along
all the specific pedals that Gordon used based on his 2015 GDC
lecture. 6
would build upon the sound of the previous one in the chain. Just imagine
having eight distortion pedals along two tape echos, reverb, and constant
feedback on the same signal! However, by splitting the sine waves into
four independent paths and by adding further splitters along the way at
key points (ex: at the end of the first path and in the middle of the fourth
path) the composer wields a much tighter control of the sonic output. For
example, he can add reverb to the pure sine waves but not add it to the
distorted ones, or he can create feedback loops only between specific FX
units.
Adding chaos into the system

What makes this system particularly playful is not just the exotic and ex-
pensive collection of guitar pedal candy, but also the chaotic textures that
it produces as a response to simple changes in signal amplitude. This is
achieved by using several gates and hard compressors at key points. In case
you are not very familiar with compressor and gates: A compressor reduces
the dynamic range by making loud and quiet waves more similar, while
a gate can open and close based on a given loudness threshold and thus
stopping or allowing quiet sounds of going through a signal chain. Gates
are typically used in music production for blocking out unwanted noise by
shutting down a signal when there is not much going on (ex: to take out
the guitar buzz). However, they can also be used more imaginatively. In the
154 Doom
iconic track Heroes that was inspirational to Gordon, David Bowie used
three different reverbs placed in parallel, each with their own gate that
would block the signal at ascending threshold levels. This allowed Bowie to
dynamically control the amount of reverb in real time only with the power
of his voice, as calmer moments would sound closer while louder dynamics
would open more of the reverb gates (video example 67).8
In the Doom Instrument, the presence of multiple gates with different
attack, release, and hold times (how long the gate remains open), introduces
unpredictability into the system as sine waves of different amplitudes might
open and close different gates at different times. Therefore, the composer
can sit down and play this system as an instrument by manipulating a pa-
rameter on one FX unit and observing the impact on the rest of the system.
According to Gordon at some point: “the machines start doing things on
their own rather than you sitting down and using the machine”.
At the final stage of the signal flow the signal of each path is mixed to-
gether, and a hard compressor (with a very high ratio such as 20:1) puts the
cherry on the cake by altering the sound in two distinguishable ways that
are evident across the soundtrack: First, by having a longer attack time, the
hard compressor allows the aggressive and loud staccato riffs to go through,
and completely crushes everything that comes after. This on/off punchy ap-
proach was a conscious choice by the composer to ensure that at least some
of the music would be able to cut through the very hectic SFX mix from the
battles. It is interesting to note that this is another creative solution to the
same game audio problem of music clashing with action SFX mentioned
in Chapter 1: Space Invaders. Second, by having a very quick, almost in-
stantaneous attack time and a very long release time the hard compressor
completely crashes the loud sounds but gradually allows all the intricate de-
tails of the electronics of the Doom Instrument to swell in and produce the
beautiful screeching type of effects that give this soundtrack another one of
its signature sounds (ex: video example 66, 24:20–25:50).
Production tools – The doom guitar sound and

using a Shepard Tone
The doom guitar sound

Doom has some of the heaviest metal guitar sounds you will find in any
video game. The amusing part is that the developers initially clearly speci-
fied in the brief that the music should not have any guitars at all but thank-
fully Gordon was able to change their minds. To achieve this massive wall
of guitar sound he followed three steps:
1) He started by drop tunning a 7th string electric guitar but as the result
did not feel low enough, he used a 9th string electric guitar instead!9
Doom 155
2) He used a technique inspired by Marilyn Manson in which you record

the guitars an octave higher and in double speed, but then you pitch
shift them down and slow them to the original tempo by using an an-
alogue tape machine playing in half-speed. According to Gordon this
might not work as well if it is emulated on virtual tape plug-ins as you
need a slow playing tape to get the natural saturation and harmonic
distortion needed.10
3) A secret ingredient that is used occasionally in the soundtrack is the
use of an audio morphing plug-in called Morph that uses different al-
gorithms to combine the guitar sounds with different SFX from the
game (ex: a chainsaw recording) and transform them into a new hybrid
sound that shares sonic characteristics from both.11 To make the best
out of this technique, it helps if the two sounds are set in the same key.
Shepard Tone
The demon slaying cinematics that trigger in the game (known as glory
kills) have a varying length, so Gordon created a number of risers using a
Shepard Tone. A Shepard tone is a fascinating aural illusion in which a se-
ries of tones can appear to rise (or fall) indefinitely, and it is produced by a
superposition of sine waves that are altered in volume and are separated by
octaves or major sevenths.12 It is named after the cognitive scientist Roger
Shepard who invented the technique and has been creatively utilized by
many media composers: in Super Mario 64 the music rises infinitely to mir-
ror climbing an endless staircase (video example 68), in the film Dunkirk it
was used extensively by Hans Zimmer to create a constant feeling of ten-
sion, while in another Christopher Nolan film, The Dark Knight, Shepard
patterns were used on real vehicle recordings to create the hypersonic sound
of the Batpod (video example 69).13
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Production (very challenging) – Create your own

Doom Instrument
You do not have to necessarily rely on expensive guitar pedals or analogue
gear, you can replicate this in your DAW using AUX tracks, buses, and stock
plug-ins. You can also swap any of the effects to whatever you prefer as long
as the concept remains the same: you use parallel FX arrays with gates and
compressors along the paths to dynamically respond to changes in volume
and add some chaos into your textures. You could start this with two arrays
and then expand the system to your liking. Remember that tweaking the at-
tack and release of a hard compressor (over 20:1 ratio) at the end of the chain
can make all the difference in determining how the sound will be shaped.
156 Doom
Task 2 – Production (challenging) – Creating

an infinite riser Shepard tone
There are multiple ways to create a Shepard tone illusion. I recommend
starting with two sine waves or two notes on a simple instrument that are
placed an octave apart and either ascend or descend along the chromatic
scale at the same speed. The trick is to make a perfect loop in which the
ending of each sequence feels like the beginning of the next. To make the
illusion more effective you can start with staccato notes and adjust the vol-
ume (or MIDI velocity) of the first sequence so it eventually matches the
exact volume of the 2nd sequence. As you cannot obviously keep increasing
the volume indefinitely you might need to fade out to match the volume of
the beginning of the 3rd sequence. You can then just copy/paste this pattern
across multiple octaves and that should be enough to do the trick! Have a
look at how this technique works using a MIDI vibraphone in Super Mario
64 music (video example 70).
Task 3 – Production (challenging) – Recreate

the Doom guitar sound
If you have access to a guitar, you can follow the three steps described ear-
lier using substitutions as needed. A great plug-in that you can explore for
audio morphing is Tone Transfer made by magenta and Google Research
that uses machine learning to create hybrid sounds from two different sam-
ples. I also recommend using Xfer Records OTT, a free re-creation of a
very aggressive multiband compressor. This plug-in is usually popular with
dubstep producers, but it can also be used creatively to make any sound feel
extremely loud and punchy.
Notes
1 “DOOM on Steam.”
2 Ruiz, “Doom Soundtrack’s Final Easter Egg Found Two Years after Release.”
3 Wojnar, “DOOM Eternal Devs Say They’ll No Longer Work with Composer
Mick Gordon.”
4 Gordon, DOOM: Behind the Music Part 2.
5 Gordon, DOOM: Behind the Music – GDC.
9 Gordon, DOOM: Behind the Music Part 1.
11 Gordon, Mick Gordon Interview – Warren Huart: Produce Like a Pro.
12 Shepard, “Circularity in Judgments of Relative Pitch.”
13 Malinverno, “The Shepard Tone: What It Is and How It Works.”
Doom 157
Bibliography
“DOOM on Steam”. Store.Steampowered.Com. Accessed 5 September 2022.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/379720/DOOM/.
Gordon, Mick. Doom Music Panel with Mick Gordon – PAX AUS 2016. Video, 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu4dB_Wy1-E&t=1571s&ab_channel=
GrandJasonGaming.
Gordon, Mick. DOOM: Behind the Music – GDC. Video, 2017. https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=U4FNBMZsqrY&ab_channel=GDC.
Gordon, Mick. DOOM: Behind the Music Part 1. Video, 2016. https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=ua-f0ypVbPA&ab_channel=MickGordon.
Gordon, Mick. DOOM: Behind the Music Part 2. Video, 2016. https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=1g-7-dFXOUU&ab_channel=MickGordon.
Gordon, Mick. Mick Gordon Interview – Warren Huart: Produce Like A
Pro. Video, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bsXuaIVMB4&ab_
channel=ProduceLikeAPro.
Malinverno, Matteo. “The Shepard Tone: What It Is and How It Works”. Splice.
Com, 2022. https://splice.com/blog/how-shepard-tone-works/.
Ruiz, Michael. “Doom Soundtrack’s Final Easter Egg Found Two Years after Re-
lease”. Dualshockers, 2019. https://www.dualshockers.com/doom-soundtrack-
easter-egg-final/.
Shepard, Roger N. “Circularity in Judgments of Relative Pitch”. The Journal
of the Acoustical Society of America 36, no. 12 (1964): 2346–2353. doi:10.
1121/1.1919362.
Wojnar, Zak. “DOOM Eternal Devs Say They’ll No Longer Work with Com-
poser Mick Gordon”. Screenrant, 2020. https://screenrant.com/doom-eternal-
devs-composer-mick-gordon-controversy/.
Chapter 17
Call of Duty: WWII (2017)

A conversation with the composer
Wilbert Roget, II
About the composer

Willbert Roget, II is a veteran composer that started his career in the game
industry as a staff composer for LucasArts where he worked on titles such
as Star Wars: The Old Republic (Figure 17.1). He later became a freelance
composer scoring multiple AAA games such as Mortal Kombat 11, Lara
Croft and the Temple of Osiris, Destiny 2, and Call of Duty: WWII.
Figure 17.1 A photo of game composer Wilbert Roget, II.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-18
Call of Duty: W WII 159
About the game

Call of Duty: WWII is a first-person shooter game set in World War II. It is
the fourteenth installment in the Call of Duty series, one of the best-selling
gaming franchises that have sold over 400 million copies. Players land in
Normandy on D-Day and experience the horrors and braveries of intense
combat in a series of campaign missions across historic European locations.
Composition techniques – Synchronization and

competing with SFX
MARIOS ARISTOPOULOS (MA): One area that I found incredibly well

done in WWII is how tightly synchronized the music feels in relation to
the ongoing action. How did you (and perhaps the audio programmers)
achieve such a cinematic precision to the development of the music?
WILBERT ROGET, II (WR, II): The Sony PlayStation music team handled imple-
mentation for Call of Duty: WWII, which was a brilliant collaboration
given that their studio is practically across the street from Sledgehammer
Games! For this title, they generally opted for a detailed linear scripting
approach, rather than systemic dynamic music. Every major moment in
the campaign – for instance, defeating a group of enemies to move on
to the next area, or triggering a cutscene – is accompanied by a custom
trigger that plays a music cue specifically edited for that moment [video
example 71, example of a trigger at 17:30]. We also had a very basic sys-
tem for stealth music, playing stingers as enemies become aware of the
player, and triggering action music if they engage in combat.
MA: Relating to the previous question, the horizontal music transitions
and stingers that appear to be triggered by gameplay events feel very
natural and musically coherent. How did you plan this from a compo-
sitional perspective?
WR , II: When writing game scores with Sony PlayStation, their music su-
pervision team usually asks composers to write through-composed
“suites” of music rather than specific individual game-ready loops.
These are typically a few minutes long, beginning with an intro and
having a natural musical progression through the different moods re-
quested, and ending naturally as well. We deliver in a few dozen stems,
and record the orchestras with deep striping, so that the music editing
teams have as much material as possible to work from when cutting
together cues for in-game use.
MA: Another area that I felt you have approached very skillfully is how
well the music works in relation to the intense SFX coming from the
battlefield (see Figure 17.2). This is a common challenge for game com-
posers in action games, could you please give us some insights of your
approach?
160 Call of Duty: W WII
Figure 17.2 A gameplay screenshot from Call of Duty: W WII. Intense combat
scenes such as this are usually accompanied by loud battle SFX which
makes it challenging for the music to cut through.
WR , II: Several months before I was hired, the first conversation I had with
our audio director Dave Swenson was about this exact problem. On
a previous Call of Duty title, he had to mix a very dense, bombas-
tic score against dense, bombastic sound design – both occupying the
same frequency ranges with punchy and impressive high-tech sounds.
Unfortunately, this meant that the music had to suffer in the mix, as
gameplay-relevant SFX needed to take priority.
My solution for Call of Duty: WWII was to remove elements of typ-
ical action-score orchestration that could potentially clash with the
game’s sound design: There are no trumpets, high woodwinds, or mal-
let instruments, nor are there any snare drums or other percussion with
very sharp transients. I also avoided writing particularly high parts for
the violin section, loud traileresque action drums, or overt synthesizer
parts. I then used solo strings and string quartet in most of the action
cues for extra rhythm [video example 72, from 27:00], as well as ex-
tensive musical sound design based on processed recordings of WWII
weaponry and vehicles to give a hazy “fog of war” vibe.
With all these restrictions and tweaks to the instrumentation, I ended
up with a sound that could easily blend with the in-game sound design
without the need for intense ducking. As a final check before delivering
cues, I would play my in-progress music against video clips from particu-
larly busy levels from previous WWII-era Call of Duty games – if any-
thing poked out of the mix, or was completely masked, I would remove it.
Production tools – MIDI orchestration

MA: The orchestrations in the game sound very powerful and expressive.
Unfortunately, most smaller games rarely have the budget for record-
ing a live orchestra. Do you have any tips on how to get a similar or-
chestral aesthetic with MIDI instruments?
WR , II: This is a very complicated subject that I covered in my 2016 Game
Developers Conference lecture, “AAA Virtual Orchestration On An
Indie Budget”. First, I’d recommend researching your favorite scores
to find out where they were recorded, and model your sampled or-
chestra after that – not only the mix, but even your choice of what
samples to buy in the first place. I had the opportunity to work with
the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road for my final Star
Wars score at LucasArts, so I modelled my setup after that sound very
specifically.
Next, I’d recommend working with reverb multi-dimensionally –
having just one single reverb over the whole mix can create a flat,
washy tone, so instead I use a hall reverb send, multi-mic samples,
overhead as well as distant hall IR reverb sends for the samples that
don’t have multi-mic, and finally a subtle mastering reverb on the
full mix.
For the IRs, I mix dry vs. wet send levels based on the individual
instruments’ overall loudness in real life, not on how “verby” I think
it should be in the abstract. For example, a trombone is generally
louder than a bassoon, so it would be louder in the distant hall mi-
crophone set, and thus I’d turn up its distant IR send levels. The
bassoon might need more support in a live-recorded mix, so I’d turn
up its dry signal or overhead IRs send levels. The idea is to use reverb
“in reverse”, pretending that the samples were recorded live and only
allowing myself to use mixing techniques that would be possible for
a live recording.
Once this is set up in my template, I don’t allow myself to make
broad changes to the mix, and force my mix problems to be solved
with proper orchestration instead. For example, if a clarinet melody is
inaudible, the solution is to thin out the accompaniment, double it with
another instrument, or change the tessitura of the melody – I won’t just
reach for the volume slider or add EQ, compression, or other mixing
effects, as tempting as it may be.
MA: I read in another interview that you wanted the orchestral mix to
mirror the first-person perspective and focus on the protagonist’s expe-
rience. What production techniques did you use to achieve this?
WR, II: The idea of “scoring in the first-person” isn’t a production technique,
but more of an overall mentality that you can bring into the compo-
sition. When I was scoring the unfortunately unreleased first-person
shooter Star Wars: First Assault, I would load the game and fly through
the levels, taking in the artwork and sound design, and imagining
162 Call of Duty: W WII
myself as a combatant. What specific emotions do I feel, and for how

long? When a firefight breaks out, how do my emotions evolve over
time? Those questions influenced my writing in terms of orchestration,
harmony and especially form.
MA: I have seen this photo on your social media of a single Reaper Session
that contained the entire soundtrack (Figure 17.3). Why did you prefer
Reaper as your DAW of choice and why work within a single project
session? You must have a supercomputer!
WR , II: Actually, I scored Call of Duty: WWII, Guild Wars 2: Path of
Fire, and my Lara Croft Temple of Osiris score on a fairly modest
2012 Windows machine, with only about 32gb of RAM. Reaper is
extremely CPU-efficient, project size doesn’t really affect its perfor-
mance at all, and I’m usually more efficient with my RAM usage than
most composers due to my experiences in much older game music gen-
erations where we had limited amounts of RAM for samples during
gameplay.
Keeping everything in one project file made starting new cues and re-
vising old ones much faster, which was crucial with our unusually short
deadline and high numbers of revision requests. It also let me easily copy
recordings and musical sound design from cue to cue. With Reaper’s
render region system, each cue would export as though it was a separate
file anyway – my orchestration and mixing teams don’t see any difference
between this and a typical setup. For the record, I only use the single-
project method on scores that have a fairly consistent arrangement with-
out too much variety in instrumentation or synth production – on Mortal
Figure 17.3 A screenshot from Wilbert’s DAW session in Reaper containing all
4 hours and 20 minutes of the Call of Duty: W WII soundtrack in a
single session.
Kombat 11 for instance, I used separate project files for everything since
its instrumentation changes so dramatically from cue to cue.
Career tips from a AAA game composer
MA: The most common question from student composers is how to find
work and network effectively with game studios. Any tips here?
WR, II: The most important advice I can give is to simply make friends in all
aspects of the industry – other musicians, sound designers, programmers,
QA testers, artists, designers. They all have fascinating stories to tell about
their side of the craft, which can be greatly influential to your approach as
a composer. Working in games is a very unique passion that isn’t easily un-
derstood by people outside the industry, so it’s important to have a balance
of friends in and outside. As far as finding work, close friendships are what
leads to gigs – not loose convention acquaintances or shotgun-method
“networking”. Spend your time with talented people you jive with, regard-
less of their position or status, and you’ll grow a network of real friends
that can eventually lead to more personal and effective introductions to the
audio directors and game directors that might later hire you.
MA: Thank you so much for the interview!
Takeaway task
Task 1 – Production/arranging (challenging) – Recreate an

orchestral recording of a game theme of your choice using
only MIDI instruments
This task is harder than it seems as there are many details that need to be
fine-tuned to achieve a realistic result. Apart from exploring Wilbert’s MIDI
tips from this chapter, having access to a good orchestral library that con-
tains multiple dynamics, mic positions, and articulations can certainly make
things easier from a production perspective. There are many fantastic options
with high end professional libraries such as Vienna Symphonic Library and
Spitfire Audio, but they can get very expensive. East-West Composer Cloud
is an excellent subscription based option that you can turn on/off as needed,
and another personal favorite of mine is Symphobia which is a little rigid
but sounds great without any editing, so it is great when you are pressed for
time. Choose a library that you personally like the sound of, as they all have
different sonic characteristics and make sure to look for student discounts as
most of the companies mentioned offer them. If you are on a limited budget
there are also many free libraries available that can be very good to begin
with such as Spitfire Labs, BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover edition, and
Studio Strings/Brass if you are a Logic Pro user.
Chapter 18
Shadow of the Tomb

Raider (2018)
Music as meditation, lost
instruments, and 3D mixing
About the game

This is the 12th entry in the Tomb Raider series that follows the adventures
of Lara Croft across numerous tropical settings in a thrilling race to save
the world from a Mayan apocalypse.
Fun facts
The design team consulted with historians and locals to ensure that cul-
tural depictions of the various indigenous civilizations portrayed in the
game were accurate and respectful.1

At the very beginning of the game’s development, audio director Rob
Bridgett started searching for composers who were specialists in South
American music. Through a recommendation they found Brian D’Oliveira,
a multi-instrumentalist, researcher, and composer from Trinidad and To-
bago that was also based in Montreal Canada, a hotspot for game devel-
opers. Brian had previously composed additional music for games such as
Little Big Planet 3, and Resident Evil 7.
Composition technique 1 – Getting into the zone/

composition as meditation
Brian D’Oliveira chose to limit the instrumentation of the soundtrack to
only acoustic sources, and to obtain as accurate representations as possible
of many rare pre-Columbian instruments. He personally composed and per-
formed all these instruments himself, with each take recorded in full, with
no interruptions. There was no use of looping or editing of the material
afterwards to make corrections and the performances were left intentionally
imperfect and natural. His exploration of Pre-Columbian musical culture
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-19
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 165
also led him to experiment with other methods of music making practises
that went beyond just implementing authentic instrumentation. He recalls:
I had a major creative epiphany when I realised that expressing music

from the viewpoint of the Pre-Columbian state of mind was accomplished
with the understanding that all beings are intrinsically and unequivocally
interconnected. Thus, it is a big reason why it’s implicit in their ritual
practices and daily lives and not seen as ‘entertainment.’ The deeper I
went, the more my compositional methodology transformed, and I even-
tually reached a point of musical ease and transcendence where during the
recordings I literally became a medium – without the need for thoughts
or planning. So, towards the end of the game, composing for Shadow
was mostly a matter of intent and then emotive expression. Often times
it even felt as if the instruments and melodies were playing themselves,
certain songs such as ‘Return to Paititi’ [video example 73] have an insane
amount of fluid rhythmic complexity and non-tempered scales and tex-
tures that would have been impossible to create using a logical approach.2
The legendary film composer Vangelis was also a very strong advocate of
such an improvizatory and meditative approach to music making. Vangelis
wrote many of his iconic film scores by recording unedited performances in
real time while watching the film on a projector. Although Vangelis made
extended use of electronics, contrary to Brian’s purely acoustic approach,
the fundamental strategy that both composers shared is the immersion into
a deeper exploration of improvizatory ideas that are captured in an un-
interrupted process. It is important to clarify that, as it can be seen from
Vangelis’s interviews, some technical preparation and planning was a key
element that took place before the recording would begin to allow the flow
of ideas to remain uninterrupted. You can observe this preparatory process
in video example 74, where Vangelis sets numerous foot controllers to be
able to change his orchestration on the fly.
Implementation 101 – Music stingers
A music stinger is a common technique in interactive game composi-

tion in which a short musical phrase is triggered by a specific game-
play action. Stingers can be either synchronous or asynchronous in
relation to the primary music track. Asynchronous stingers are ex-
tremely simple as they basically work like SFX: they can be triggered
at any time and are unrelated to the timing of the rest of the music.
For example, as we saw in the previous chapters on Zelda and Mario
Kart, discovering a secret or receiving a power-up would result in a
166 Shadow of the Tomb Raider
short musical motif that worked in the same way as a musical sound
effect. On the contrary, synchronous stingers are aligned with the
timing of the primary music and must be harmonically compatible.
Using audio implementation middleware software like Wwise can
provide sophisticated options on the design of synchronous stingers.
Wwise keeps track of the tempo and meter information of the music
being played, and once a stinger is triggered the system can wait for
a specific timing to play it so it will be perfectly synchronized with
the rest of the music. As you can see from Figure 18.1, you have dif-
ferent timing options on when to fire the stinger such as immediately,
at next beat, or at a specific cue timing that can be indicated by the
lines within the wave editor. Wwise can also select among multiple
stingers depending on the key, or even play pre-determined transition
segments before them to ensure musical compatibility.
Figure 18.1 A screenshot from the stinger system within Wwise audio
middleware software. The playback menu on the right and the
audio editor in the bottom which allow multiple synchroniza-
tion options.
Composition technique 2 – Adding interactivity

with music stingers and music triggers
Despite the music being recorded linearly, the game features an impressively
tight synchronization between gameplay action and musical accompani-
ment. This was achieved by handing over all the recorded stems to a team
of audio implementation specialists who broke down and organized the

music into smaller segments that were programmed to work interactively. 3
This process of composing music in a traditional linear fashion first, and
then adding interactive elements later might appear strange for an interac-
tive context, but it is common for bigger AAA games that can afford to hire
both composers and audio programmers to focus on a different part of the
process that fits their expertise. It is noteworthy that Wilbert Roget II in
Call of Duty: WWII and the band 65daysofstatic in No Man’s Sky both
followed a similar approach.
One of the primary techniques that the audio programmers used to
achieve this in Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the addition of music stingers
that are intertwined with the rest of the score in a natural way using both
synchronous and asynchronous methods. The audio programmers did such
an excellent job with editing and designing this system that these mecha-
nisms might occasionally even pass unnoticed by players unless they are
actively looking out for them. Have another look at video example 75 and
observe how the music responds to sudden gameplay changes at 0:38, 0:45,
and 1:10. It is obvious that during these unexpected moments that Lara
almost falls to her doom, the music does not just happen to be perfectly syn-
chronized to the action, but there is a trigger connected to each event. The
music highlights and enhances these tense moments often instantaneously,
or with minimal delay so it can synchronize with other animation triggers.
Aside from the good technical setup of these music stingers, this technique
also works well because of the ambiguous rhythmic and tonal language
of the compositions themselves, which make is easier for new elements to
blend in the overall musical texture. For a stinger to be successful, it needs
to balance between retaining musical unity with the rest of the underlying
music and providing enough emphasis on the new event. Overall, the sting-
ers in the game usually have one of the following elements:
1) fast and strong swells

2) sudden accents
3) new instruments
4) extended instrumental techniques (ex: flutter tonging, tremolo sul
ponticello)
5) textures/sound design on the higher or lower extremes of the pitch
registers
Composition technique 3 – Mixing the music

within the 3D game world
Lastly, another interesting feature of the music that further immerses
players deeper into their exploration of the ancient Aztec tombs, is a so-
phisticated mixing technique called sound spatialization (also known as
sound localization). This term is achieved by a wide variety of audio tech-

nologies working together within a game engine to simulate the natural
reproduction of sound phenomena in a 3D space in relation to the posi-
tion of a player/listener. To achieve this simulation a game engine calcu-
lates numerous parameters in real-time such as the player orientation,
the distance between the player and the sound object, any occlusion and
obstruction by materials that might alter the sound, and the reverbera-
tion characteristics of that position.4 Once all the parameters of sound
spatialization have been set by the audio programmer/sound designer, the
sound mix will be automatically adjusted by the game engine (or audio
middleware) (Figure 18.2).
In contemporary games, the use of such spatialized sound techniques
are very common in the implementation of environmental SFX. However,
in Tomb Raider many of the Pre-Columbian musical instruments are also
placed in 3D around the tombs using similar techniques. The practical
implication of this is that as the player explores the tombs, the mix of
these musical elements changes as their volume and panning adapt to the
player movements. This approach discretely adds to the immersion as the
Figure 18.2 A screenshot of an imaginary Tomb Raider style environment rec-

reated in UE5, to demonstrate how spatialized audio works. The
sound on the left will only be heard while the character remains
inside the cone radius. The sound on the right will fade-in once the
character enters the outer sphere and play in full volume once he
reaches the inner sphere.
music mix becomes a part of the tomb design itself rather than working as
a fixed stereo image. The game was mixed in Dolby Atmos in Pinewood
Studios in London but the spatialized effect also works with simple head-
phones. 5 You can observe it throughout all the tombs in video example 75
but it will feel more pronounced if you experience it interactively within
the game.
Production tools – Hunting for lost instruments

and the instrument sculpture
The setting of the game and its connection to the Pre-Columbian ancient
civilizations was a major influence in Brian’s choice of instrumentation:
As Lara is in a much darker place emotionally, and a more danger-

ous place physically, the music needs to represent both of these things.
The South American jungle and the Maya civilization both play a cen-
tral role in the instrumentation of the score, and we are also reaching
deeper into Lara’s emotional point-of-view.6
To recreate these sounds, Brian went on an extended instrument-hunting

trip around Mexico where he brought back eight bags full of 900 differ-
ent instruments from small villages across the country.7 He also spent
time with local artisans and musicians to respectfully learn and under-
stand how to play and customise the mechanics of many of them. Some of
the unique instruments that can be heard in the score are volcanic rocks
that were tuned in different pitches, clay skulls of various sizes, various
wooden percussion instruments, and most important of all, an Aztec In-
strument known as the Death Whistle, which is shaped like a puma but
also sounds like a puma scream when you breath into it. According to
Brian, the Death Whistle and the cello were the two primary instruments
used to represent the two sides of Lara in the score, while various types
of native flutes were used to represent the sound of birds from the Amazo-
nian jungle.8 You can see and listen to many of these amazing instruments
in video example 76.
The instrument
Another truly unique and exceptional instrument that was also used in the
game, primarily as a source of sound effects, is a custom commission from
sculptor Matt McConnell shown in Figure 18.3. This instrument was made
in collaboration with the composer Jason Graves that used it in the music of
an earlier Tomb Raider game in 2013. There is an iOS app available where
you can play a digital interactive version of it.
Figure 18.3 A photo of “The Instrument” sculpture created especially for the
Tomb Raider games by Matt McConnell. 9
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Composition/implementation (easy/medium) –

Create a set of stingers for an imaginary level
in Tomb Raider
Here are some suggestions but feel free to come up with your own events:
animal attack, sudden drop, trap mechanism activated, danger averted, an-
cient treasure discovered. You can apply the same idea of musical SFX as
in Zelda (see Chapter 3) but here you are not limited to using basic synth
waves, the sky is the limit!
Task 2 – Composition (hard) – Compose music by

recording an uninterrupted improvization
You can use a screenshot, concept art, or a gameplay video taken from
any game for inspiration and context. This exercise can be harder than it
seems if you have never attempted this. Remember that properly setting up
everything in advance is what might allow you to really get into the zone.
Make sure you have all the instruments you would like to use easily acces-
sible and setup the recording so it can flow completely uninterrupted. If you
want to try the full Vangelis method, then all performing/mixing/produc-
ing must happen on the fly. This improvizational approach might not be
right for every occasion, but it can be liberating for composers who want
to get away from the constant stop/go type of writing and editing, clicking
through menus, and recording fragmented ideas in a DAW environment.
Afterall, there might be something magical to be discovered if we allow
ourselves to get immersed deeper into our creative process.
Task 3 – Implementation (medium/challenging) – Create a

3D spatial music mix
Take all the instrumental stems of one of your pre-existing compositions
and mix them as individual spatial sources within a 3D environment. You
can use a free template in a game engine such as UE5 (ex: Third Person
Template) and experiment with different attenuation settings and positions
for each instrument. If you have never used a game engine before then the
learning curve might be quite steep, but the process is relatively straightfor-
ward if you become familiar with the basics of 3D mixing.
Notes
1 Weber, “5 Things We Learned about Shadow of the Tomb Raider from the
Official Lara Experts.”
2 Banas and D’Oliveira, “Interview: A Chat by the Campfire with Shadow of the
Tomb Raider Composer Brian D’Oliveira.”
3 Banas and D’Oliveira, “Interview: A Chat by The Campfire with Shadow of the
Tomb Raider Composer Brian D’Oliveira.”
4 “Spatialization Overview – UE5 Documentation.”
5 “Shadow of the Tomb Raider | Pinewood Studios.”
6 D’Oliveira, “Brian D’Oliveira Helming Music Composition for Shadow of the
Tomb Raider.”
7 Remington and D’Oliveira, “Brian D’oliveira Follows Lara into the Jungle in
‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider’.”
8 Bridgett and D’Oliveira, Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Sound and Music.
9 McConnell, “‘The Instrument’ – Mcconnell Studios.”
Bibliography
Banas, Graham, and Brian D’Oliveira. “Interview: A Chat by the Campfire
with Shadow of the Tomb Raider Composer Brian D’Oliveira”. Push Square,
2019. https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/01/interview_a_chat_by_the_
campfire_with_shadow_of_the_tomb_raider_composer_brian_droliveira.
Bridgett, Rob, and Brian D’Oliveira. Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Sound and
Music. Video, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6LRk7SXaE8&ab_
channel=TombRaider.
D’Oliveira, Brian. “Brian D’Oliveira Helming Music Composition for Shadow

of the Tomb Raider”. The Music of Tomb Raider, 2018. http://www.
musicoftombraider.com/2018/07/brian-doliveira-helming-music.html.
McConnell, Matt. “‘The Instrument’ – Mcconnell Studios”. Mcconnell Studios.
Accessed 2 October 2022. https://www.mattmcconnell.com/the-instrument.
Remington, Kate, and Brian D’Oliveira. “Brian D’oliveira Follows Lara into the Jun-
gle in ‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider’”. WSHU – Public Radio, 2019. https://www.
wshu.org/culture/2019-02-12/brian-doliveira-follows-lara-into-the-jungle-in-
shadow-of-the-tomb-raider.
“Shadow of the Tomb Raider | Pinewood Studios”. Pinewood Studios. Accessed
2 October 2022. https://pinewoodgroup.com/pinewood-today/credits/shadow-
of-the-tomb-raider.
“Spatialization Overview – UE5 Documentation”. Unreal Engine. Accessed 2
October 2022. https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/spatialization-overview-
in-unreal-engine/.
Weber, Rachel. “5 Things We Learned about Shadow of the Tomb Raider from
the Official Lara Experts”. Games Radar+, 2018. https://www.gamesradar.
com/5-things-we-learned-about-shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-from-the-official-
lara-experts/.
Chapter 19
Control (2019)
A conversation with the composer
Petri Alanko
About the composer

Petri Alanko is a BAFTA nominated Finnish composer and producer who
has written music for many hit games of the Finnish game studio Remedy
Entertainment such as Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and Control (com-
posed in co-operation with Martin Stig Andersen) (Figure 19.1).
About the game

Control is a third-person action-adventure game released in 2021. It follows
the story of agent Jesse Faden as she investigates the strange supernatural
Figure 19.1 A photo of composer Petri Alanko.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-20
174 Control
phenomena that occur within a secret US government facility. The game

was praised by fans for its innovative combat system and highly destructi-
ble environments.
Composition techniques – Sonic manipulation and

found sound
MARIOS ARISTOPOULOS (MA): Could you please describe your overall

approach when composing a piece that uses found sound? Do you
prefer to plan ideas in advance or is it more of an improvizatory
process?
PETRI AL ANKO (PA): Oh, I tend to rely on embracing the moment. I rarely
regret anything, and usually I’ve got a field recorder in some form with
me – and to be fair, iPhone’s microphone is surprisingly good for “char-
acter sound”. It’s my go-to nowadays. It’s mostly improvization, I must
say, and the sound leads, not the plan. I guess this is crucial for the re-
sult and for my own happiness – there’s nothing more frustrating than
trying to control a howling wind to settle down to C# when the rest
of the globe wants it to be a wee bit flat F#… I know one OCD sound
designer who has perfect pitch, and he tries his best to avoid field re-
cording because of his ability. Poor lad!
MA: I read on another interview that you relied on unusual sound sources
such as an espresso machine, a microwave, and even put a piano on
fire! Could you please indicate some of these on the OST so the reader
can listen to how they turned out?
PA: Oh, yeah. Quantum Break and Control suffer most from these, and
something leaked over to Crossfire, too, but only a little. In QB the
piano and espresso machine surface in the low range quite often –
the espresso machine’s “mmm-MMMMM-mmm-MMM” trans-
former-like low hum doubles many bass sounds. Piano is being used
as a riser in, for instance, QB’s “Dodging Bullets” – the background
tonal field is piano being mistreated with a toothbrush and lighter
fluid and a drill [video example 77, 0:40]. Piano bowed with a bottle
brush is being used in the intro of “A Whisper”, underneath the fragile
string layer.
I recycled some of QB-era sounds with Control, and extended the
libraries with something more aggressive [video example 78]; I went
to extremes at some point and dropped a piano frame on the concrete
from a forklift. I produced a nice sound, but the frame decided to
land in a different angle and the contact mics got crushed in that…
and, of course the floor had a crack, so it cost me quite a little to fix
all that.
Control 175
MA: What was your recording and editing process like? Do you ever record
your sounds in sync to picture?
PA: Sometimes, but very, very rarely. I like to have a lot of material and then
build something out of it. It is my preferred way to create anything –
and usually, there’s not much picture to record to, when I’m doing the
first phase. With luck, some early placeholder cines at best, but usually
still concept pictures and a screenplay only. I just dive into the ocean
of imagination and try to deal with my brain. Some themes are rather
happy accidents, especially when dealing with feedback – or natural
overtones.
MA: Do you usually think about how an object will be processed and
transformed before recording it?
PA: I’d love to say some sound designers have an ability to “see” an effect
plugin/insert chain when they hear a certain right raw sound, a little like
seeing a Roland SH-101’s front panel and “hearing” the sound in your
head. A lot like that happens with my doings: I tend to categorize raw
sounds for granulators, for spectral smearing, extreme stretching etc.,
you get there if you have been doing editing and processing long enough,
that certain kind of a “brain pathway” from a raw sound to something
you need for a sound effect or a virtual instrument. I nowadays use a lot
of contact microphones to catch most of the vibration – I’ve noticed that
for some reason, contact mic sounds react best to extreme stretching.
All noise gets multipled in that, so it’s feasible to avoid it.
MA: Are you a fan of generative techniques such as using probabilities and
randomization to vary the musical outcome?
PA: OH YES I AM! I love chaos and finding some meaning in the chaos,
but usually I utilize randomization with other parameters than pitch –
except for special effects, and one piano sound that tunes its strings
a little off every time the key is pressed down, and of course in the
higher range two strings and then three… but nothing overly ran-
dom. With percussion, I tend to mimic a certain “hitting the skin in a
slightly different place every time with a slightly differing force” effect
every time, even with the electronic percussion, but the changes have
to be really careful. Otherwise it’ll sound like a badly programmed
toy organ.
But, yeah, at some point I was experimenting in Kontakt scripting
environment with root notes and altering the other intervals according
to bass note (4th, 5th or 7th up or down), but as I’m not much good
with LUA [a programming language], I gave up soon. However, I’d be
willing to continue that exploration at some point, as the results were
interesting.
Controlled Chaos, yes, that would be my imaginary theme park’s
name (Figure 19.2).
176 Control
Figure 19.2 A gameplay screenshot from Control. The player can wreak havoc on
her enemies by using telekinesis and other psychic abilities to turn
the destructible environment against them.
Composition techniques – Using rule sets and

interactive FX
MA: What type of interactivity is there between the game and the music?
PA: Nowadays, with WWise and FMod and Unreal5’s audio engine… oh
man, what an open world there is! Of course the open endedness brings
its own trouble, but it also adds up to immersion, and that is something
one must embrace – to catch the gamer and carry them into another
world. The more we can support the gamer’s actions, the better. But
also: the more we can control the gamer’s actions, twice better. It could
work both ways, but subtlety is the key here, and it should be like
a pendulum: sometimes it’s the gamer that leads, sometimes it’s the
game. That way, the intensity is kept alive.
In Control, the sound designers and integrators did a huge amount
of work to create a template with maybe hundreds of rule sets – “if
this, then that, otherwise that and those” – and it resembles a liv-
ing creature, really. Or cthulhu, actually. But the main thing is, it
really reacts to the environment and the events and the action. The
downside is it can sound a little Schoenbergian or serialistic, or even
random, but with certain right type of a sound set it really is an
effective tool.
With AI and machine learning arriving, we’re soon facing some-
thing really interesting. At some point I was Slush’s (the yearly Finnish
startup/geek festival in the fall) Music Director, and had a chance to
Control 177
talk with quite a few machine learning devs about music and its role in
the future, and that’s something that’s going to change in the upcom-
ing years. Right now we’re in the standby position, really, but the AI is
there in the background, learning and running through its classes. Right
now there are some AI services offering something like “build your own
track with AI in a minute” and the results are garbage, but it’s like with
the first synths: first there were oscillators only, then arrived the filters,
then came the MiniMoog topology – and after two decades, a Syncla-
vier arrived. We’re now somewhere after the MiniMoog, but Synclavier
is already dawning in the horizon. I can hardly wait – I don’t belong to
the “fear for your profession” school, I’m more of an “I’ll embrace my
machine overlords” person. Maybe a composer’s role will change, but to
be honest, if an AI puts you out of business, there maybe was something
wrong with your choice of profession in the first place. I, for instance,
would gladly turn into a curator/condutor – that’s a profession we’re
going to need when the AI strikes. They’re effective, but they’re initially
emotionally stupid despite their endless intelligence, unless some degree
of curating is conducted. And, of course, they’ll learn that, too. Another
layer is inventing, another judging/valuating.
MA: Are there any FX applied in real time during gameplay or is all the au-
dio processing rendered before implementation? I believe that some of
the music appears to slow down when there are no enemies present but
I might be imagining that! [video example 79, especially from 09:30 to
10:15]
PA: There’s that, you’re right. It’s no imagination. With Quantum Break,
we already tested some filtering during a… teleport? Whichever is the
correct term, that “thing” caused some filtering to be active during a
rush or a sped-up attack. With Control, even more so. In Quantum
Break, a certain Finnish individual was used for creating a granular pl-
ugin straight into the sound engine that was used for some of the inven-
tions, but to my knowledge, that wasn’t taken into action in Control.
Whoever was the dude, I’m under the impression he was a little hard
to catch. Academic doctor level people tend to have their own pacing,
you see…
Usually it’s Impulse Responses or convolution reverbs that are
done in the playback engine, but other stuff is there, too. With
music –
especially during a cinematic or a pre-rendered section –
there’s no other processing except very occasional dynamic
processing.
Production tools – Electromagnetic microphones

and granular synths
MA: Do you have any favourite gear or production tools you used in the
game? I read that you used a special microphone for radiation!?
178 Control
PA: Yes! It was made by LOM and was called – I think – ElektroSluch 3+.
Basically it picks up anything from electronic devices (well, electro-
magnetic microradiation) and amplifies that. For instance, if you put
the device on your iPhone when the screen’s off and call your phone
from another, it’ll be a majestic mayhem! Similar sound sources could
be found everywhere in your home – and I actually used one for finding
an electric wire in a wall before drilling, so they’re very, very usable. I
strongly suggest one, and please – do some time stretching or spectral
smearing! [video example 80]
MA: Could you please share with us some of the sonic manipulation tech-
niques that you used? I assume some of it must be using granular
synthesis?
PA: Yes, granularity I love. I’ve got a few Reaktor based ensembles I created
long ago that I still like to use on a daily basis, and when Waldorf Quan-
tum arrived, I bought it immediately: it’s still one of the rare hardware
machines able to produce quality granular effects to be played back
musically. Some ready-built granular effects or instruments are some-
one’s fever dreams and beyond playability so badly they need to rethink
their philosophy right away. What is wrong with 12 tone keyboard con-
trol? Of course, it is necessary to offer people choices and freedom, but
let’s just say I’ve tried my fair share of “playing” some “granular game
changers” with a laptop touchpad and – no thanks. At some point I
found a Tasty Chips GR-1, which I used for some sounds, but it’s either
Reaktor or Quantum for me.
Another thing totally are the Kyma sounds that can literally trans-
form your stuff into something else. I used to use Kyma a lot, but after
Control, it’s been resting in my rack peacefully. I love it and the sounds
and the algorithms, and there still is that certain type of sound that
only it can bring – and then, of course, the harmonic vocoding thing,
plus Tau stuff. It’s, unfortunately, a tame black hole, really.
Career and creative tips from a Veteran composer
MA: The most common question from student composers is how to find
work when you do not have a pre-existing relationship with a game
studio. Any tips here?
PA: Be persistent. If you know you’re good in something, do a good demo
that leaves no discussion. There’s no room for “I made this two years
ago and tried to play a guitar but it was too late and then I tried
playing drums but I had no money and….” demos, make it work
with what you got. That turns heads and proves your point of your
Control 179
usability and flexibility and ingenuity. I once ran into a demo that was
done with only sounds coming out of the mouth of the candidate –
of course, some were processed really beyond recognition – and a
certain game company employed the guy right away. Don’t be in the
crowd, find your expertise and stand out. Just like any career, audio
and music careers depend on your self-confidence and ability to move
people.
I’m willing to say one demo, be that in YouTube or Vimeo or just a
lonely clip in someone’s Dropbox, can change their world, but it has
to be so good. The same happens with TikTok and other social media
services; pop stars can be made almost overnight, and the same applies
here. Just be good. It’s easy to say, but it’s true. Nobody lays their ears
on something they’ve already heard a dozen times, be that Williams or
Zimmer.
MA: Any creative advice for composers that are just starting to explore
found sound techniques in their work?
PA: Just record something and try turning it into a polyphonic in-
strument! That’s where it starts with me. I usually take the pad/
longer sounds under the loop at first and the shorter ones are sure
to appear!
Try making something tonal first, as noises are easy. When you
deal with natural overtone series, I’m certain that the “Eureka!”
moment arrives in an hour. If you’re unsure, avoid noise – but in
my opinion, noise can help create very, very interesting tones when
stretching it to the max; it no longer behaves like noise, it becomes
random tones, and with some plugins, it’s easy to turn that into some-
thing more controlled. Maybe that’s the key: try finding order in a
chaos.
MA: How important is it to have an agent as a game composer? Many
freelance composers assume that an agent will help them find work,
but my understanding is that they mainly handle contracts, press, and
negotiate fees?
PA: Well, it depends. There’s the upside and the downside, and according
to my experience, the companies relate better to individuals without
any negotiators. Or maybe I’ve sold my ass too cheaply, don’t know…
Anyway, the agent can take some 15–20% off your certain income
(usually the technical fee), but they can be of great help when it comes
to agreements and rights and so on. In my case, I’ve got a “gentleman’s
agreement”, where I deal with Finnish and Swedish spoken areas my-
self and other fields are being used through the agency – but, due to my
long-lasting gig with Remedy, they’ve been somewhat idling lately. I’d
love to see that change in the future.
180 Control
If you’re willing to deal with things by yourself, ask a colleague.

Which was what I did, and decided to use an agent for abroad projects.
MA: Thank you Petri!
Takeaway tasks
Task 1 – Composition/production (challenging) – Compose

a piece of music inspired by Control using only found
sound
Limit yourself to using only sounds you have recorded yourself using a field
recorder or even your phone. You can use any sonic manipulation tech-
niques you want but time stretching, pitch shifting, and reverb can give you
a good start for textured based sounds. I also recommend exploring gran-
ular synthesis if you have not tried it before. Logic Pro has a free granular
sampler inside Alchemy and Ableton has Granulator II as a free download.
For percussive based sounds you might find it easier to start with material
that has clear transients.
Chapter 20
Cyberpunk 2077 (2021)

Diegetic music in Night City,
riff-based composition, and
the sound of sci-fi
About the game

An open world, action-adventure AAA game taking place in a dystopian
Cyberpunk future. The game became infamous by the huge amount of
player hype during its prolonged nine years of development that resolved
into countless complaints due to the heavy technical glitches found in the
initial release, which led to Sony removing it from the PlayStation store and
offering full refunds. Among other things, the game has been praised for
its high quality graphics (that are almost impossible to render without a
powerful system) and its musical score.
Fun trivia
Johnny Silverhand, a world-famous fictional rock star that lives inside the
player’s mind as a cybernetic A.I. is played by Hollywood superstar Keanu
Reeves!

The game is scored by a collaboration of three composers: Marcin Przy-
byłowicz and P.T. Adamczyk were in-house composers for CD Project and
had previously worked on Witcher 3, while Paul Leonard-Morgan had pre-
viously worked on the Warhammer 40K games and was brought into the
project by Marcin. The material was divided according to different quest
lines/areas over a three-year process.
Composition technique 1 – Diegetic music in

Night City
One of the reasons that roaming in the open world of Cyberpunk 2077
feels particularly immersive is that music often originates from within
the actual game world, an approach known as diegetic or source music.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003146872-21
182 Cyberpunk 2077
This technique has been used frequently in film music (ex: the cantina
band scene from the original Star Wars) as well as in many of the games
discussed in this book: Joel and Ellie in the Last of Us occasionally play
an acoustic guitar, Link in Zelda plays an ocarina instrument to unlock
all sorts of mysteries, street musicians in Apotheon play the lyre as you
explore ancient Athens, and in-game characters in Assassin’s Creed Syn-
dicate sing murder ballads during important narrative moments. Such
uses of diegetic music can be beneficial for multiple reasons: (1) it can
enhance the sense of realism and immersion of a game world, (2) it can
be used interactively with the player, (3) it can aid the storytelling, and
(4) it can provide cultural information about the people who live in this
virtual world.
Perhaps more than any game to date, the large world of Cyberpunk
2077 that is set primarily in the futuristic setting of Night City, is filled
with diegetic music: every bar, night club, car radio, and live concert
venue features a plethora of original songs that is meant to be heard by
the game characters as well as the player, often fusing the distinction
between the two. The impressive depth of diegetic music in the game was
achieved by licencing more than 157 original and diverse tracks writ-
ten by several big commercial artists and bands such as A$AP Rocky,
Grimes, SOPHIE, Refused and many others.1 One of the primary ways
these are experienced is through a selection of 11 radio stations that are
available to play in vehicle radios while the player drives around Night
City (Table 20.1):
The open world design of the game with its extensive playtime duration
could have easily fallen victim to the common pitfalls of repetitive game
soundtracks. However, the use of this car radio mechanic effectively acts
like a curated exploration music playlist that can be set by players according
Table 20.1 T
he radio stations that the player can choose from while driving
in Night City 2
In- Game Radio Station Genre
89.3 Radio Vexelstrom 90s rock

92.9 Night FM EDM
101.9 The Dirge Hip-hop
103.5 Radio Pebkac Techno
88.3 Pacific Dreams Lounge
107.3 Morro Rock Radio Classic rock
98.7 Body Heat Radio Pop/j-pop/k-pop
106.9 30 Principales Latin
96.1 Ritual FM Black /death metal
95.2 Samizdat Radio Club music
91.9 Royal Blue Radio Jazz
Radio off No music
Cyberpunk 2077 183
to their mood and musical taste which ensures a more variable and individ-
ualized experience. This use of diegetic music also avoids the need to add
complex interactive mechanics behind its playback as it does not need to
respond to changes in the action. It automatically gets switched off when
the player exits the vehicle or will be replaced by underscore if a particular
quest trigger requires so for dramatic reasons.
It is worth mentioning that this creative use of a diegetic car radio system
that is used as exploration music is not original, it originates from the well-
known Grand Theft Auto series that introduced the same idea. However,
in Cyberpunk this technique is expanded upon further. The same hits from
the radio stations are also played within clubs and venues, as well as by
various street musicians, creating a sense of multiple cultures within the
city. What is particularly interesting is that the production of the songs is
adapted to emulate the acoustics of each space that it is being reproduced
in. For example, when visiting the rock club Afterlife (video example 81)
the mix is very different from the radio version and uses more reverb and
different EQ to replicate the sound of large club speakers. It is also imple-
mented directionally within the 3D environment, so the sound is spatial-
ized accordingly as you walk around the club, a technique that further adds
to the realism of the diegetic experience.
Another dimension of diegetic music occurs when you get to expe-
rience performing as the Rockstar Johnny Silverhand that is modelled
and voiced by Keanu Reeves. After jamming on the guitar while relax-
ing at your sofa you go on to play in a big rock concert with Silver-
hand’s band Samurai. What is particularly impressive here is that the
game is trying to break the barrier between the player and Silverhand
(the cybernetic A.I. living inside your head) through the use of an in-
teractive performance. The chaotic live concert (video example 82) is
one of the most entertaining moments in the game as it successfully
encapsulates the energy of performing as a rock star on stage. This is
accomplished by:
1) Using an actual rock band called Refused that has written original
songs and lyrics from the viewpoint of this character. The band’s singer
even worked with a specialist vocal coach specialist to imitate the voice
delivery of Keanu.
2) Creating a new version of the song to match the noisy live setting with
each instrumental layer mixed from the live performer’s perspective.
Depending on where you look during the performance the mix is ad-
justed and panned dynamically (ex: if you look at the drums, they
sound louder than when you look at your other band mates).
3) Giving players some interactive control over the development of the
song as they can occasionally choose to either start singing, playing a
raging solo or just riff along.
184 Cyberpunk 2077
Music theory 101 – What is a riff ?
In rock music a riff is a memorable short phrase or chord sequence

that is constantly repeated usually in the guitars, and forms the basis
of a song. It is similar to the classical concept of ostinato (see Chapter
9 on Assassin’s Creed) but riff-based songs usually incorporate sev-
eral riffs that alternate in a cyclical way to establish the main parts
of the structure (ex: verse, bridge, chorus). A central feature of most
rock songs is that the riffs themselves rarely develop but the songs
still maintain a sense of progression primarily by gradual changes in
the arrangement. A good example of this is the rock classic Smoke on
the Water (video example 83) that consists of three main riffs. This
is quite a different approach from using a repetitive motif as the basis
of a composition within a classical context. For example, listening to
Beethoven’s famous fifth symphony you can quickly observe that the
principal motif itself is going through significant changes as the sym-
phony progresses in its rhythm, pitch, dynamics, phrasing, accents,
and voicing.
Composition technique 2 – Riff based composition

Many of the most memorable pieces in Cyberpunk 2077 follow a simple
riff-based structure that is commonly found in classic rock and metal songs.
Creating songs following this well tested riff-based formula is nothing new
but what is interesting here is that the composers use simple riffs outside
of a rock/pop context along with a strong use of distortion, and creative
arranging techniques to create a very memorable soundtrack. These tech-
niques can be a useful addition to your composing toolbox that are rela-
tively easy to execute.
Riffs in Cyberpunk
Have a listen to V’s theme (the main protagonist) in video example 84 which
plays in the main menu among other moments in the game. As you can see
from Figure 20.1 most of the riffs are only one or two bars long. The piece
builds up over time by using the same riffs but adding more layers on top
of the arrangement. It begins with bass and drums, but it gradually builds
up with strings and arpeggios. However, to avoid a fully predictable linear
build-up there are also sudden drops and pulls back that add an element of
surprise and keep things interesting.
These riffs can also work on top of each other in a vertical arrangement
as they are all based around an A minor chord with different chromatic
Cyberpunk 2077 185
Figure 20.1 A transcription of the main riffs of V’s theme. Notice how they are
all heavily centred around the A minor chord.
passing notes. The harmonic simplicity of these riffs is especially useful in

a gaming context as it is easier for the music to adapt to sudden gameplay
changes and triggers without sounding jarring. This is because the number
of layers can easily change without clashing as all the riffs are based on
the same harmony. Moreover, any horizontal transitions with other themes
are easier to plan (such as the player exiting the main menu and loading a
particular save) as the harmony of this theme always remains in A minor.
186 Cyberpunk 2077
The track Musorshchiki (video example 85) is basically made up of only

two riffs. Both have a distinctive sound and are great examples of how a
riff does not need to have a strong melody in order to be memorable. Riff 1
that repeats from 0:00 to 0:29 sounds almost like random radio static that
glitches and stutters in a rhythmical fashion. Riff 2 that repeats from 0:30
to 0:56 plays a straight eight note pattern that uses a characteristic cyclical
shift of the accents at notes 3–5–7 while simultaneously pitch bending. The
song structure is very straightforward and just alternates between these
two riffs but there is a number of details in the arrangement that keep it
interesting:
1) The glitch rhythms of riff 1 are occasionally varied which creates a

sense of unpredictability.
2) The filtering and use of production effects changes over time.
3) New details and samples are introduced at key points of the arrange-
ment (ex: 0:29” has a short choir shout).
4) There is constant detuning and pitch shifting in the background layers
that occurs at a different pace from the riff looping. This helps to avoid
a structure of identical loops in each section and creates a sense of
development.
The Rebel Path (video example 86) is one of the hits from the soundtrack
according to the number of Spotify plays (over 5 million) and undoubtedly
creates some of the most satisfying battle sequences in the game. The piece
is based predominantly only on a single riff that consists of a very simple
yet memorable rhythmic bass pattern of just three syncopated 16th notes
that continuously loop. Observe how the use of filtering of the riff changes
over time: the piece begins with most of the highs cut-off (almost resem-
bling diegetic electronic music being heard outside a club) and develops
with more aggressive harmonics and resonance being emphasized at cli-
mactic moments (ex: 0:55”). Similarly to V’s theme, there are complimen-
tary counter motifs that work on top of each other but stay in the same
harmony (ex: lead melody at 3:16”).
Composition technique 3 – Defining the

sound of sci-fi
Any game that takes place in a dystopian future must inevitably answer
the question of how music might sound at that time. Most often, this im-
aginary musical culture incorporates some version of synthesizers and elec-
tronic instruments as a means of representing technological innovation, as
well as some use of traditional acoustic instruments that usually represent
the human element. This electronic/acoustic duality has been long explored
since the time of early sci-fi film and two iconic soundtracks that defined
Cyberpunk 2077 187
the genre are Bernard Herrmann’s use of Theremin and orchestra in The
Day the Earth Stood Still in 1951, and Vangelis’ use of detuned analogue
synth textures (ex: Yamaha CS-80) combined with ethereal vocal and sax-
ophone melodies in Blade Runner (1982).
In Cyberpunk 2077 this synth/acoustic hybrid is utilized by taking some
of the main principles of rock composition (ex: riff-based arrangements,
heavy distortion, pitch bending) that relate to Jonny Silverhand and blend-
ing them with elements of electronic, noise, orchestral, and world music to
reflect the threatening yet stylish world of Night City and the diverse cul-
tural backgrounds of its residents. The traditional instrumentation includes
rock instruments (real drums and guitars), orchestral instruments such as
the cello (which is electrified), and Japanese traditional instruments (to re-
flect the Japanese Asaka corporation heritage). The use of electronic instru-
mentation includes a large collection of unusual and eclectic synthesizers
that have quite unique sonic signatures. These range from 1980s vintage
gear such as the Soviet Formanta Polivoks Synthesizer, to new experimen-
tal modular synths such as the Folktek Mescaline (Figure 20.2). The use of
retro gear is a common trend in the contemporary sci-fi genre perhaps due
to those long-standing associations between synths and futurism as well as
Figure 20.2 A photo of the Folktek Mescaline, a 10 note polyphonic synthesizer

with Eurorack compatible boards that was used in the production
of the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack. The photograph was kindly pro-
vided by Perfect Circuit. 3
188 Cyberpunk 2077
the sense of nostalgia that is generated by using obsolete technology. This

approach is just one possible direction for sci-fi instrumentation that can
be modified as needed in your game music according to your own vision.
Production tools: Use of distortion and an

interactive low pass filter
One of the characteristics of the production style of the game’s action music
(not the diegetic radio tracks) is its extensive use of heavy distortion which
according to the composers is applied to every single stem of the audio! Audio
distortion can be broadly defined as any alteration to an original audio signal
but when it is introduced intentionally it is typically for the purpose of aug-
menting the frequency content of a signal in some way. The composers used
long and uncommon routing paths through multiple amps, filters, and effects
of analogue synths and other audio gear in order to add colour and charac-
ter to the audio. For example, the output of a moog synth would be routed
into an Arturia Matrixbrute synth, then into a vocoder FX, and then into
a Folktek synth before being recorded, thus being slight distorted by each
unit.4 Moreover, they experimented with innovaitve types of distortion FX
units beyond the typical guitar pedals such as the Plasma Rack (Figure 20.3).
By using a High voltage step-up flyback transformer, PLASMA RACK

turns your instrument’s signal into a rapid series of electric discharges
in a Xenon-filled tube. These powerful discharges (up to 5,500 Volts)
then get picked up by a specially designed electromagnetic receiver
and turned back into audio-level signal. This process results in a large
amount of punishingly heavy distortion, and also saturates the sound
with a wide range of harmonics and overtones. 5
This extensive use of distortion is quickly evident by listening to any track

from the game’s underscore. Have a listen to the track Мусорщики
again (video example 85) while looking at the very large number of har-
monics and noise frequencies across the entire spectrum in Figure 20.4.
Figure 20.3 A photo of the Plasma Rack high voltage distortion effect unit used
in the production of the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack. 6
Cyberpunk 2077 189
Figure 20.4 A spectrogram analysis of two bars from the track Мусорщики.
The image provides an overview of the spectral content of the
a udio, with the the horizontal axis showing time and the vertical
axis showing the audible frequency range (20 Hz–20 kHz).
There are three interesting points to notice here that demonstrate how the
use of heavy distortion is carefully balanced and controlled:
1) There is a hole carved in the low end (below 150 Hz) so the deep bass
can cut through the noise and hit strongly on beats 1 and 2.
2) Distortion is used rhythmically on the upper range with the noise stut-
ter elements coming in primarily on beats 2, 3, and 4.
3) The snare and other percussion elements sound quite small/thin com-
pared to the rest of the production. This was done intentionally by the
composers to provide enough space for the rest of the distorted instru-
ments to cut through the mix but also to avoid clashing with heavy
battle SFX such as machine gun fire.7
An interactive low pass filter

In contemporary games it is quite common to apply audio effects inter-
actively within a game engine to process SFX in real time. For example,
a different reverb effect is usually applied to the same footstep sounds to
match the varying acoustics of different locations. However, in some more
rare cases interactive FX can also be used creatively to process elements of
the music. A simple but effective way that Cyberpunk explores this concept
is by using an interactive low pass filter in some action sequences in which
190 Cyberpunk 2077
the cut-off and resonance adapting to changes in the gameplay tension. One
of the most impressive uses of this technique that works very effectively in
increasing the feeling of synchronization and immersion can be observed
in video example 87 (24:15–25:45). This video demonstrates a gameplay
capture of an early mission in which the player must locate and rescue
a particular character within a heavily guarded apartment. As the player
starts sneaking across the room, observe how the high end of the music is
filtered out when the threat of getting capture is low, but as the risk of get-
ting caught increases by moving close to an enemy, the filter dynamically
opens to a higher range, allowing the music to become more piercing and
aggressive just at the perfect moments in the action.
Takeaway tasks
All three tasks below can be done individually or combined.
Task 1 – Composition (medium) – Write a diegetic theme

that originates from Night City
Pick a location, character, or context within the game that you find in-
teresting. You can look at a night drive gameplay capture of the city for
inspiration (video 88). Also, think about how it could be implemented into
the game and adjust your production approach accordingly. Is it playing
through speakers in a club? Is it a musical performance by an NPC? Is there
an instrument that the player interacts with?
Task 2 – Composition (easy/medium) – Write a riff-based

theme
You might find it fun and easy to compose a piece of music based on short
riffs rather than try to develop longer sections of music. Remember that
riffs do not have to be used only in a rock guitar context but can be ap-
plied to any genre, and that the sense of development might have to come
through creative arranging and production techniques.
Task 3 – Production (medium/challenging) – Produce a

track in which you explore different uses of distor tion on
every instrumental layer
You do not need to own an exotic collection of analogue gear, you can
experiment with distortion FX from a variety of sources (ex: pedalboard,
audio inserts, synth effects, external racks, unusual mixing paths in your
DAW, Re-wire, etc.). Remember that FX of the same type (ex: overdrive dis-
tortion) that come from different sources are still likely to have their own
Cyberpunk 2077 191
individual sound characteristics as they alter the audio signal in a different

way (ex: adding a different ratio of overtones). You might be surprised to
find interesting FX within a cheap synth plug-in that you otherwise do not
like. Also, make sure to try to shape the distortion over time and balance it
with the rest of your stems by using filters and/or FX automation, otherwise
this task might quickly add up to a noisy mess!
Notes
1 Anderson, “Here Is Every Song in the Soundtrack for Cyberpunk 2077.”
2 “Cyberpunk 2077: In-Game Music Credits, All the Songs Listed!.”
3 “Music Technology & Synthesizers – Perfect Circuit.”
4 Ruppert et al., “Sitting Down with the Composers Behind Cyberpunk 2077’s
Soundtrack.”
5 “PLASMA Rack.”
6 “PLASMA Rack.”
7 Williams et al., “An Interview with the Composers for CYBERPUNK 2077.”
Bibliography
Anderson, Maia. “Here Is Every Song in the Soundtrack for Cyberpunk 2077”.
M xdwn Music, 2020. https://music.mxdwn.com/2020/12/11/news/here-is-every-
song-in-the-soundtrack-for-cyberpunk-2077-including-asap-rocky-health-metz-
and-more/.
“Cyberpunk 2077: In-Game Music Credits, All the Songs Listed!”. Soundtracks,
Scores and More, 2020. https://soundtracksscoresandmore.com/2020/12/09/
cyberpunk-2077-in-game-music-credits-all-the-songs-listed/.
“Music Technology & Synthesizers – Perfect Circuit”. Perfect Circuit. Accessed 15
October 2022. https://www.perfectcircuit.com/.
“PLASMA Rack”. Gamechanger Audio. Accessed 2 October 2022. https://
gamechangeraudio.com/plasma-rack/.
Ruppert, Liana, Marcin Przybyłowicz, P.T. Adamczyk, and Paul Leonard-Morgan.
“Sitting Down with the Composers Behind Cyberpunk 2077’s Soundtrack”. Game
Informer, 2020. https://www.gameinformer.com/2020/11/19/sitting-down-with-
the-composers-behind-cyberpunk-2077s-soundtrack.
Williams, Tommy, Marcin Przybylowicz, P.T. Adamczyk, and Paul Leonard-
Morgan. “An Interview with the Composers for CYBERPUNK 2077”. Geek
Tyrant, 2020. https://geektyrant.com/news/an-interview-with-the-composers-
for-cyberpunk-2077.
Index
Note: Page numbers followed by “n” denote endnotes.
3D mixing 167–9, 171 copyright 20–1, 24, 52

65 Days of Static see No Man’s Sky counterpoint 68–70
Cyberpunk 2077 181–91
Adamczyk, P.T. see Cyberpunk 2077
adaptive music see interactive music D’Oliveira, B. see Tomb Raider
Alanko, P. 173–80 developing a composing niche 30–1
algorithmic music 44–6, 49–50, Diablo 3, 85–93
76, 140–4 diatonic chords 71–4, 83, 86, 91–2
Alien Isolation 121–7 diegetic 102, 114, 181–3, 190
ambient music 89–90, 113–14 distortion 46, 92–3, 100, 152–5,
Amegas 59–64 187–91
Apotheon 50, 136–42, 146 Doom 150–7
Aristopoulos, M. see Apotheon The Doom Instrument 151–4
Assassin’s Creed games 94–104 dynamic music see interactive music
audio director 15, 18, 160, 163; see also
No Man’s Sky electromagnetic microphones 177–8
audio middleware 10, 13, 17, 26, 32, extended orchestral techniques 124–5
166, 168 Ezio’s Family 100–1
Ballblazer 44–51 The Flight see Alien Isolation

Bassignani, L. 18–19 flowchart 49–50, 140
Beta testing 5 Fmod see audio middleware
Bitcrusher 92–3, 153 Folktek Mescaline 187
found sound 174–5, 179–80
Call of Duty 158–63 four-chord formulas 81–3
career development 13–20, 148–9,
178–9 game jams 13, 16, 149
chiptune 3, 40, 46, 61, 63–4n generative music 44–50, 89, 136–42,
chromatic 36–7, 54–5, 86–8, 91–2, 129, 143–9, 175
156, 184–5 Gordon, M. see Doom
circle of fifths 131–2 guitar based techniques 118–19, 154–5
competing with SFX 37–8, 154,
159, 189 harmonic scale 97
composer agent 179–80 harmonics 40–1, 47–8, 93, 125, 188–9
composer salaries 19–20, 23–6, 28 historical authenticity 95
Control 173–80 Horizon game series 4, 6, 18–19
194 Index
implementation 6, 11–14, 26, 31–32, parallel modes 67–8, 81–3, 107,

159, 165–8 133, 139
“The Instrument” (sculpture) 169–70 Paul, W. 143–9
interactive low pass filter 189–90 Phrygian mode 81–2; see also parallel
interactive music 6–13, 38, 89, 121–4, modes
165–7, 176–7, 183, 189–90 Plasma Rack 188
procedural music see generative music
Journey 105–11 Przybyłowicz, M. see Cyberpunk 2077
PSG 39–40, 42, 46–7, 56–7,
Kondo, K. see Zelda 60–4, 75–6
Kyd, J. see Assassin’s Creed games PULSE system 145–6, 148
Land, M. see The Secret of Monkey randomization 89, 149, 175; see also
Island generative music
Langston, P. see Ballblazer Reaper 147, 162–3
The Last of Us 112–20 recombinant cells see Apotheon
leitmotif 115–17; see also musical SFX reggae 66
reharmonization 109
Mario Kart 128–35 remote recording 109–10
meditation 164–5 ReNoise 61–4
melisma 100 rhythmic augmentation and diminution
melodic sequences 52–4, 57 109
melodic tension 72–7 riff 44–6, 152–4, 183–7, 190
metre 67–8, 109 Roget, W. II. 158–63
Mickey mousing see visual
mirroring sampling 54, 56, 61, 82–3, 90–3
MIDI 18, 63, 66–8, 77, 139, 161–3 Santaolalla, G. see The Last of Us
MIDI orchestration 18–19, Schachner, S. see Assassin’s
160–2, 165 Creed games
MOD file format 60–3 The Secret of Monkey Island 65–70
mods 14, 137 Selvik, E. see Assassin’s Creed games
modulation 131–4 Shadow of the Tomb Raider 164–72
monothematic scoring see Journey Shepard Tone 155–6
Mortal Kombat 79–84 Shimomura, Y. see Street Fighter II
murder ballads 101–2 signal flow 151–3
music as an information device sonic manipulation 174–5, 178; see also
129–31 found sound
music stingers 2, 89, 124, 159, sound chip see PSG
165–7, 170 sound spatialization see 3D mixing
musical SFX 54–6, 130, 170 sound tracker 59–64
musical style 3–4 Space Invaders 36–43, 154
Street Fighter II 71–8
networking 14–15, 29, 163 syncopation 66
Night City 181–2, 187, 190 synthesis 40–1, 47–8, 57, 75–7, 178
Nishikado, T. see Space Invaders
No Man’s Sky 143–9 Tagelharpa 98–9
noise 39–42, 47–8, 54–7, 92–3, 144, Techno Syndrome see Mortal Kombat
153, 175, 179, 188–9 tempo manipulation 37–9, 45, 107–10,
nonharmonic notes 71–4; see also 130, 150, 155, 177
chromatic triggers 11, 124, 130, 138–9, 159,
165–7
Obarski, K. see Amegas Tristram Village see Diablo
Index 195
Uelmen, M. see Diablo Viking instruments 98–9

Unreal Engine 10–13, 26, 32, visual mirroring 36–8, 41
42, 149, 168–9,
171, 176 well-being 33
use of silence 113–17 Wintory, A. 94, 101–5; see also Journey
Wwise 11, 14, 27, 34, 122, 126, 145–9,
Vangelis 165, 171, 187 166, 176
vertical layers 122–6,
146, 184 Zelda 52–8

The Game Music Toolbox

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The Game Music Toolbox

• Exclusive interviews from industry experts

Marios Aristopoulos is a composer and sound designer for new media

Composition Techniques and

ISBN: 978 - 0 -367-70550 -3 (hbk)

Introduction: 15 Questions on game composition 1

Task 2 – Analysis (easy/medium) – Analyse the musical

1 Space Invaders (1978): Mickey mousing, programmable

2 Ballblazer (1985): Algorithmic guitar solos to infinity! 44

3 The Legend of Zelda (1986): Music sequences, musical SFX,

Composition technique 2 – Musical SFX 54

4 Amegas (1987): The birth of the tracker sequencer 59

5 The Secret of Monkey Island (1990): The Secrets of

Take 2 – Composition (difficult) – Write a simple theme

6 Street Fighter II (1991): Melodic tension in Guile’s, Ken’s,

7 Mortal Kombat (1992): From the arcades to the dance floor,

8 Diablo (1996): Chromatic chords and non-functional

9 Assassin’s Creed: Music as a time travelling device in four

10 Journey (2012): A masterclass in monothematic scoring 105

Task 1 – Arranging (moderate) – Create your own

11 The Last of Us (2013): When less is more – Space and silence

12 Alien Isolation (2014): In space none can hear you

13 Mario Kart 8 (2014): Music as an information device 128

Composition technique 1 – Music as an information device 129

14 Apotheon (2016): Recombinant cells – A generative

15 No Man’s Sky (2016): A conversation with the

Production tools – Software for getting started with

16 Doom (2016): The Doom Instrument – Using FX chains

17 Call of Duty: WWII (2017): A conversation with the

18 Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018): Music as meditation,

19 Control (2019): A conversation with the composer Petri Alanko 173

20 Cyberpunk 2077 (2021): Diegetic music in Night City,

Composition technique 1 – Diegetic music in Night City 181

Welcome to the Game Music Toolbox!

Aims of the book

How to use this book

About me and the team behind the book

This extended introduction is based on the most frequently asked questions

What is the purpose of game music?

It adds enter tainment value

It evokes different moods

It assists with memory and understanding of the game world

How do you choose the right musical style for a game?

• What is the thematic and narrative context of the game? Pirates,

• What is the platform’s audio system? Mobile phone, PC speakers, home

What is the process of scoring for games? Is it that

If a composer is brought on into a project at this early stage, she or he will

What is interactive music?

Does good game music need to be highly interactive?

How does audio implementation work?

Interactive music instructions do not have to be limited to entire composi-

Technical Implementation Stage

Figure 0.2 A screenshot of a UE4 Blueprint demonstrating how to program the

Figure 0.4 A screenshot of a UE4 Blueprint demonstrating how to program a

How can I break into game composing?

Work as a composer’s assistant

Take the in-house route

Network both in person and online

Release and promote music and let developers f ind you

Figure 0.2 A screenshot of a UE4 Blueprint demonstrating how to program the

Figure 0.4 A screenshot of a UE4 Blueprint demonstrating how to program a

Figure 0.6 A chart from GameSoundCon showcasing the education qualifications

Figure 1.1 A screenshot from Space Invaders showcasing a moment in which

Figure 2.1 An EQ analyser showing the frequency content of the note A

Figure 2.2 An example of a flowchart I designed to help me visualise how the

Figure 3.2 An example of a two-bar tonal sequence in the Zelda – Underworld