The Game Composer’s Blog

Live orchestra… give it a thought.

There’s no getting around the fact that a live orchestral recording is going to sound much, much better than even the best sample-only orchestral recording. The subtleties that are lost in sampled music are hard to ignore. Live musicians bring their own feel to the music and make a whole that is much bigger than simply the sum of its parts. There is a warmth to live music that simply cannot be replicated by samples (at least not yet).

And, of course, that warmth and liveliness comes at a price. A pretty whopping huge price, comparatively. You can pay a typical composer $1000 per minute of music and get some pretty good sounding sampled music. That is, right now, good enough for most games and their players. Samples are always improving and, truth be told, 80%+ of the game players out there couldn’t tell the difference between live and well-sampled music. That’s somewhat disheartening to admit, but that’s where we are.

With that said, if you want the highest production values possible and you want your players to really be blown away, consider adding a few thousand bucks to your music budget. You can hire a session orchestra in Europe for around $2-3000 an hour. Each hour will yield 3-4 minutes of music. Even with 3-4 minutes, you have your main theme and maybe another significant piece in the game. The main theme is very important. It’s the first taste your player gets of your game and you want it to be of the highest quality. Though I said most players can’t tell the difference between live and sampled, I would bet that deep down, they will find a live orchestra to in fact be superior, however subconsciously that feeling is.

I do have mixed feelings about sending orchestra gigs overseas. As a semi-professional instrumentalist here in Seattle I do like to see gigs stay local. Local musicians work hours a day practicing their craft, constantly seeking new gigs. They deserve compensation for their hard work. But as a game composer, I simply want to see games have the highest quality sound possible. While the caliber of player in European orchestras is an unknown quality, overall they will achieve very good results. The nice thing about staying local, however, is that you can physically sit in on the session and be much more efficient. Though the cost per hour of orchestra time in a local orchestra may be 1.5x to 2x that of a European orchestra, the cost per minute of recording the local orchestra may only be 25% more:

European orchestra: 3 minutes @ $2400/hour = $800 per recorded minute

local (Seattle) orchestra: 4 minutes @ $4000/hour = $1000 per recorded minute

So either way, you’ll be in good shape. One thing, though. Be sure your composer is an excellent orchestrator. Many game composers aren’t trained in orchestrating for real instruments and don’t know how to use such an ensemble effectively. Composing for samples is completely different from composing for real instruments. The last thing you want during an expensive recording session is to have players constantly having to re-write parts because they just don’t work on their instruments. Professional musicians are good at covering up a composer’s mistakes (because they can play almost anything) but you still want the parts to fit well on their instruments, and within the orchestra.

Can’t cough up that much money? Well, you can do the next best thing and find a little extra cash to enable your composer to hire a live musician or three to come in and sweeten up the tracks. It may not be a complete live orchestra, but even having one live player will infuse the music with some much needed life. Especially for a piece that has a solo instrument highlighted, get that live player in there. $100 should be good to get at least a semi-pro in your composer’s studio for an hour to spruce up your game’s music. Again, make sure your composer has experience writing for real instruments. I should warn you, having a college degree in composition is no guarantee of having the ability to write for real instruments. Ask to hear some of that live-performed music. Time is money. Don’t take chances on this.

So, there you have it. A couple ways to help take your music to the next level. Maybe you don’t have the cash to do it now, but keep this in the back of your mind for a project down the road. You’ll be happy you did.

September 23, 2008 - Posted by thegamecomposer | Developer Music Tips | live recording, orchestra