220c Project
Spring'07
Emiko Arai
"Digital Sound and Music in Video-Game"
The Purpose of This Project
The intention of this project is to examine the fact of video-game music and to investigate the relationship with computer music.
Week 1
Brainstorming for the project
Week 2
Determined the rough plan of the research
Correct references and sample music / images of video-game music
Week 3
Researched about the historical overview of video game music to develop a understanding of that field
[Progress of Video Game Music and Computer Music]
1970's (early stage) "Atari" -------- as sound effects
1980's "Rally X" ------- BGM with playing
1990's "Super Mario", "Dragon Quest" ("Dragon Warrior" in U.S) -------- PSG, 8-bit, few tracks sounds
mid 1990's FM synthesis etc...
2000 ~ using recorded sounds, PCM
Video-game music becomes one of genres of music
- Orchestrated
- Concert / Live
Week 4
Read an article "The History of Electronic and Computer Music in Japan" (Leonardo Music Journal, vol.4)
Specify the questions
The impacts of video game music on the progress of computer music field in Japan
- Concert of game music
- In Japan, audio CDs containing game soundtracks as well as adaption of popular tunes featured in video games are commonplace, whereas they can hardly be found in Europe or the U.S.
Week 5
How game music are different from other compositions?
The quality of game really depends on the quality of the game sound/music. Sound design for game music?
Step 1
--- Genre of the video game -- from "Writing for video games", V Gal, C Le Prado, S Natkin, L Vega - Proceedings Laval Virtual (IVRC), 2002
1. Action games
Action games typically feature violent physical force, especially shooting, as their main interactive feature. (Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter)
2. Adventure games
investigation which may include exploration, puzzle-solving, interaction with game characters, and have a focus on narrative rather than reflex-based
challenges. (Myst, Indiana Jones series)
3. Role Playing games
the type of game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters and collaboratively create or follow stories (Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy)
4. Strategy games
the players' decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome, (Battle Chess series (board game), Tactics)
5. Simulation games
It leads the players to exercise themselves on simulated situation, economic, war, sport, dance.
6. Puzzle games
(Tetris series, Dr. Mario)
7. Discovery games
discover a historical or geographical problematic embedded in a game (Versailles -- leads the player to discover the life of the king through a puzzle game)
Step 2
- The key points of the composition & sound design of game music
*Sound design along with stories
*Sound effect design (image of actual sounds)
*Capture the public attention
- Arcade vs. Home from "Digital Sound and Music" by Jorg Weske
"~ different approach that has to be taken in arcade and home games. Whereas the home game customer invests in a game first and then wants his money to pay off, an arcade game has to grasp a potential player's attention and get him to produce a coin from his pocket to sink into the machine. Also, an arcade game has to seduce the player to spending more money on a game that typically ends after a period of 3 minutes, whereas the home gamer will be much more patient and enduring in most cases trying to get the most out of his newly purchased title – even if this includes upgrading his hardware in some cases."
Week 6
---- Features of the game music composition
* Sound design including sound effects as well as compositional aspects
based on the types of game, stories, scenes
e.g) role playing game --- in order that player can tell the difference between previous scene and next scene
* Rhythm
appropriate rhythm for the game
e.g) super mario --- synchronized with the movements of the character
According to Kondo (2007 @ Game Developers Conference), built-in sounds is better than recorded sound because recorded or orchestra sound is based on the player's sense of rhythm rather than movements of the character.
* Balance between music and sound effect
timing of the sound effects, volume balance of both sounds
* Interactive sound
As computer games have a real time responses, interactive sounds improve the realistic sensation.
Changing tempo, using percussion sounds, FM synthesis etc.
e.g) super mario
1. the melody becomes fast when we are running out of time
2. sounds change between small mario & large mario (from "Game Studies" http://gamestudies.org/0401/whalen/)
---- Interaction among music, players, and game display ---
"Interactive Sound Design & Music Composition"
Week 7 ~ Final Presentation
Capture the moving image of the video game & compose for it
I made a sounds for following movie
- Composition procedure -
List up related parameters (jumping, getting something, change the scenes... )
Analyze the action of characters
Collect & make sound materials
Basically the main sound of this music is a loop sound though I make some changes by adding base lines and percussion sounds. For this project, I concentrated to have enough sounds effects for getting interaction between sounds and movie, and I added water sounds to it as a background sound.
Workspace for the Sounds
I used a software 'Soundtrack' to make this sounds.
The workspace is as follow:
----------*--------------------------*---------------------------*--------------------------*---------------------------*--------------------------*---------------------------*--------------------------*----------
Topic Related to Final Presentation
For the final presentation, I mainly focused on the three topics as follows:
Video Game as a Interactive Art
Technological Development of the Video Game Sounds
Cultural / Musical Influences of the Video Game Music
Super Mario Music Links
Orchestra http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmIG-8Wi87s&mode=related&search=
Flute http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crfrKqFp0Zg&mode=related&search=
Bassoon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gXh83hNnWw
Big Band http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROyre-95gl4
Conclusions
This study is a good opportunity to know the developments of the computer sounds as the technology for video game music follows the progress of music technologies. Currently, most of video games have really sophisticated quality for both movies and sounds. This situation is the result of that people pursue the reality and interaction. While the qualities of sound and music increase, the question is whether the pursuit of these quality is directly linked to the quality of video games. Especially in sounds, many of games use recording sounds. The recording sounds are usually made based on the intention of composers or performers for the music. The sound compositions in the first phase of the video game history might be technically relying on the movements or concepts of the games due to the technological reasons at the time. Although the quality of current sounds are further superior to that of old time, the high quality sounds and technology are not necessary directed to the quality of the game itself. I consider that the quality of the game sounds is determined by the interaction between sounds and characters / other parameters.
Acknowledgment
I am really obliged to people who helped me and my project; Chris, Sook Young, and all of MA/MST classmates.
