The perils of going cheap with music.
Your game’s budget is going to be a major factor in determining the quality of your game. With more money, you can hire more talented programmers, artists, and audio personnel. With less money, the talent level is going to drop unless you are very lucky. All of that is pretty obvious. What’s less obvious is how dangerous cutting corners with your game audio can be. One of the first areas to be cut when trimming a game’s development budget is audio, unfortunately. Here is a list of some of the common ways developers try to cut corners with audio and how they can jeopardize the overall quality of your game.
- Licensed music
Pros
- Save money
- Often very well produced and professional sounding
Cons
- Extremely difficult to fit the character of your game
- Can be used in other places beyond your control
- Difficult to maintain consistent soundscape
Licensed music can add some good production values to your game, but it does so at a cost. The music will often not fit the character of your game and sort of sit on top of your game rather than be an integral part of it. It is this sort of superficiality that often forces players to turn the music off in a game and does nothing to help immerse players in the world you’ve created. This goes for the latest pop tune by Snoop Dogg (which wouldn’t save you money to license anyway) or the generic circus piece off that music licensing site you found on some game dev forum.
Also, you have no control where that music might be found outside of your game. If the piece is used in a toilet brush ad and becomes that annoying toilet brush song that everyone knows and comes to hate, well, you’re stuck with it in your game.
- Go in-house
Pros
- Save money
- Communicate easily
Cons
- Speed of turn-around
- Lower quality production
- Quality of music itself
I’m all for people creating their own music. It can be immensely satisfying for hobbyist composers to write their own music. It exercises the mind and is a great way to pass time. The problem comes when some of them try and turn that into a professional gig. I’ve seen it time and again, hobbyist composers who bite off more than they can chew. That scripter or producer on your team may fancy themselves a composer, but actually creating effective game music requires skills that are, frankly, pretty rare. Keeping up to date on the latest sample libraries and improving compositional techniques requires time and resources that are already being taken up with their day-to-day duties of their job.
Composing music is going to take time away from their primary duties on your team. They will also take more time to actually compose the music, as their undeveloped compositional skills will probably necessitate lots of trial-and-error and guesswork. They will also probably not, as hobbyists, have dedicated a large budget to their sound libraries and their music’s production quality will suffer for it. At best, it will sound a few years old. At worst, it will be a joke.
- Super cheap composers
Pros
- Super cheap
- Maybe local, easier communication
Cons
- Very inexperienced
- Lower production quality
- Poor quality of music itself
- Legal issues with pirated samples
I don’t want to sound curmudgeonly here, but there’s probably a reason why the $50-$100/minute composers are only charging that much. Sure, give them a fair shake. Maybe they’re just coming out of college or otherwise just starting their career, but even then they should be charging more than that if they think they have the chops to create top quality music. Much of what I’ve heard from this particular group of composers is the flavor of the month: their own pale imitations of The Lord of the Rings or the latest Michael Bay movie or Final Fantasy. Giving you music which feeds off of and adds to your game is probably not going to be their forte.
There is also the real danger of the use of pirated samples in their music. It’s just not likely that they can feed themselves, pay the rent, and buy professional samples if they’re charging so little for their music. That hurts the industry as a whole and can come back to bite you if the sample developers find out about those pirated samples in your game.
- Super cheap foreign composers
Pros
- Super cheap
- Possibly high talent level and production quality
- Good experience level
Cons
- Language barrier
- Equally possible to find low talent level
- Lack of transparency
- Legal issues with pirated samples
Many foreign (non-U.S.) composers are very well trained composers coming from excellent universities. The biggest two problems with this group could be communication and issues with piracy. Communication between developer and composer is extremely important when adding music to a game. If the composer does not speak English well, much of the nuance you are trying to communicate about your music direction is going to be lost. This could lead to frustration and sub-par results.
The other problem could be issues with piracy, even more so than the “super cheap” US composers. Piracy rates around the world (especially in Eastern Europe and China) can be extremely high and, while the cost of living may be lower, the price of samples is at least as much as in the US. I don’t want to paint all non-US composers as despicable pirates. I’m simply going on the possible pitfalls and unfortunate instances that I’ve observed. Don’t let difficulties in communication prevent you from assuring that the foreign composer you picked is on the up and up.
- Lowballing established composers
Pros
- It may work
Cons
- Lose future dealings with that composer
- Lose future work with that composer’s associates
- Composer’s effort is commensurate with pay
“What? $1000 a minute? That’s ridiculous. How about $200 a minute?” Besides outright insulting that composer, you are essentially giving yourself away as someone who does not understand the value of good music in a game. You may like that composer’s music and really want to work with him or her, but you’ve just kissed away any chance of working with them, at least for this game and maybe more games in the future. That composer is likely to tell this ridiculous story to their composer friends and they’ll all have a good laugh about you and they’ll all steer well clear.
Of course negotiations are important and composers are happy to find a way to get their music into your game at a fair price. Just remember lowballing is extremely risky when negotiating with anyone who brings unique talents to the table.
- Cut minutes of music from the game
Pros
- Save some money
- Afford established talent
Cons
- Players may get sick of music
- Less immersive game experience
It’s painful to cut tracks from a game, but sometimes it’s the only way to bring on board that talented composer. Instead of cutting whole tracks, maybe you can shave 15 seconds here and there. A good composer will make shorter loops more tolerable. Or, since you have shown your regard for having good music in a game by hiring an established composer, the composer will be more amenable to throwing in a little extra for the game. The better the game does, the better the composer does. A hit is good for everyone.
Just make sure you have “critical mass” for music in a game. One play loop is not sufficient for an entire game. For instance, if there are 4 general locales get 4 different play loops. If you do not have enough music in your game, it doesn’t matter how great the composer you have is. The music will get old fast.
So, there you have it… some things to watch for when trying to bring down your game’s budget. These are not hard and fast rules, of course. You can find a diamond in the rough in any of these groups. But the time you take sifting through the dirt while looking for those diamonds is time that you will lose on the actual development of your game and game soundtrack. When time is money, you actually may not be saving a dime. Bring in the best music you can and that will help you reap the rewards from an all-around excellent game.
Thou Shalt Not neglect silence. (#7)
neglect silence.
Music is of course an integral part of any video game experience. But while other components of video games (like graphics and user interface) are absolutely necessary throughout the entire game, music isn’t always necessary and in fact sometimes should be left out. If a game has wall-to-wall music, one important possibility of musical contrast is left out: the simple and effective contrast between sound and no sound.
Nothing encourages a player to reflect or see a new perspective like eliminating music for a while. It doesn’t have to be long. One common way to use silence is to place it right after finishing a level on the score screen. When the music stops, the player is free to breathe to their own tempo which helps them take control of their own thoughts and regroup. If the game immediately launches into new music without that break, the player is left at the mercy of the music’s beat and remains mentally at the surface of the game experience. ..no reflection, just an urge to launch into the next level. Never underestimate the power of silence to help deepen the player’s experience.
To take a couple of examples spanning a couple decades, think about Super Mario Brothers and Grand Theft Auto 4. In SMB, at the end of a level after jumping up to get a flag or kill the final baddy, a short victory piece is played and then there is a brief period of silence. The player can catch their breath and think back on their hard earned victory. If new music started immediately, the player would naturally be in “anticipation” mode rather than “satisfaction” mode. Sure, even with silence they’ll still anticipate a little but it’s important for the player to get that reward. Music’s not totally left out of the end of SMB levels… they do get the victory music. But silence is an important way to help make the player look back and feel satisfied about their accomplishment.
Grand Theft Auto 4 has a ton of musical content, but it isn’t constantly bombarding the player. You’ll commonly only find the music when you’re driving around or inside buildings. Often, you’ll finish a mission in your car listening to some heart-pumping rock. As soon as you park and step out of your car, you’re greeted with the quiet of a park or the bustle of a city street. Either way, the player is encouraged to reflect on their accomplishment to their own rhythm. The player doesn’t need to be baby-fed their emotion through music. They can find it within themselves with the help of silence. And you can’t always predict how they’ll feel. After mowing down half a dozen baddies, you can feel a little weird then walking around a quiet park with the sounds of the battle still echoing in your own head.
So, be sure and get plenty of musical content for your game. But remember to leave some space for silence. Trust the player to generate their own emotion sometimes. I did write about this in an earlier blog but, sure enough, I found it in the good game music rule book (the long lost and now found Ludus Sonitus Decretum).
How to talk to developers.
A couple of months ago I wrote some tips about for game developers on how to talk to their composers. I thought it was about time to give some tips to the composers out there on how to talk to your designers and producers. These tips come from observations I’ve made over the course of my career as I’ve communicated with many different developers.
First, before getting into the important discussions about the music direction, get as much info as you can about the game. Read any design documents, look at any art assets, or play the game or prototype if it’s that far along. Then take a step back and think about what you think would be the best kind of music for the game. And then also consider a couple alternatives to that. Don’t get too excited about your music direction, though, as the developers may have something else entirely in mind. Then file that away for the time being.
When you finally sit down to talk with the producer or designer who’s making the calls on the music, just listen and carefully consider their vision for the music. You already have your direction in mind, but the developers will probably have insights into the game that you were not able to consider. Even if their direction sounds really bad at the outset, just take a little bit of time and give them a fair hearing. They have the best interests of the game in mind, as well as a good overall vision of the game, so their idea is probably going to be alright, if not absolutely suitable.
They will probably ask for your thoughts on the music direction at some point. That’s when you can compare your vision to theirs. Chances are some concepts will line up. Concentrate on those. If there are significant differences between your visions, go ahead and lay out your best argument for your approach to the music. They may have considered your approach already and decided to abandon it. Hearing those reasons will probably enlighten you to aspects of the game you hadn’t seen or been privy to.
A good developer will seriously consider your approach if it is new to them. You do, after all, make your living doing music for games and have significant experience in the industry that is of value to them. As long as your vision for the music is well thought out, well explained, and appropriate for the game, they will give you a fair hearing. When explaining your vision, keep in mind that developers have widely varying experience with music. I’ve dealt with anyone from tone-deaf musical illiterates to accomplished instrumentalists. Generally, the more experience a developer has with music the more they will be willing to listen to you. And that’s fairly counter-intuitive. I think the reason for this is because musicians get used to working with other people. An orchestra or band is composed of different people all working toward the same goal of making the best music possible. Musicians understand teamwork whether making music, making games, or making music for games.
So keep their musical experience in mind when discussing the music direction. You won’t always approach the music direction the same way when the discussion first starts, but it’s important to fully understand each other’s approach. If you don’t understand where the developer is coming from, be sure and ask questions. Trust that they’ve put some thought into it. Get as detailed a description as you can. To come to a music direction you can both be excited about, it’s important to communicate clearly. Get as technical as you can, depending on how much detail they are able to provide.
The best way to describe your visions to each other is to use examples. Look at other games, movies, and pieces of music and say what aspects apply to your vision. A developer of any musical skill level will be able to understand you better when you pick appropriate examples. If they have no examples to provide to you, then provide some for them and ask if those examples are what they were thinking. They can then confirm or look to give you other examples. Examples are very important for successful communication between composer and developer.
So, all of this advice is assuming your producer or developer is willing to listen to you and use your experience to help make a great soundtrack. What if they are stubborn and refuse to budge from their vision of a Britney Spears-inspired soundtrack for their giant monster turn-based strategy game? Well, you’ll sometimes just have to shut your mouth and do what they want, nonsensical as it may sound. The reality is that they’ve decided to hire you because they think you can do what they want. And, of course you can, even if what they want is truly awful. So at that point, just do the work and await your paycheck. Be prepared for some bad sound/music reviews because of poor music direction, but take heart knowing you were under orders.
But those kinds of developers are fairly rare. If you go in with a willingness to cooperate, chances are you will all come up with a music direction that will best fit the game and make you all proud to have been a part of it.
Video Game Music Quiz
I came across something today that you may want to check out. It’s the most well done video game music quiz I’ve ever come across. Granted, I haven’t come across many but this one easily stands out as the best. Apparently, there are hundreds of game music clips and the site picks them randomly as you go through the quiz. You can find it here:
Don’t be scared off by the austere look of the site or the fact that you have to register to get started. Registration is instant and the quiz interface is easy to use. About the only problem with using the quiz is the fact that you have to download MP3′s of the music clips. Streaming playback of the clips would be nice, but it’s not a big deal.
So far I’ve been able to identify 2 out of the 40 tracks I’ve heard. Ouch. And one of the pieces I only knew because it came from the game’s cartoon series theme. Double ouch. A lot of my tunes seemed to come from old Nintendo or Playstation games that I’d never played (not having owned many of the older gaming systems). And I realized something. I’m glad I never listened to the music in those games! Most of what I heard was terrible. It sounded like awful low-fi wannabe dance music. I would have been embarrassed to write that music and it gives me great relief to hear how much game music has improved over the last 20 years.
I know there is a great base of fans for much of that music and that may sound heretical, but I have to be honest. Much of the older video game music was simply unacceptable. It seems many current composers would agree with that sentiment though, as the overall quality level of game music has continued to improve since the dark days of the NES.
Maybe I just got a particularly bad batch of random quiz tunes, though. I’ll definitely be playing this some more.
Your music, out of your control!
Watching the presidential debate today reminded me of a story from a few months ago. Back in June, John McCain used some music from a video game in one of his ads. It was all fine and dandy until the composer of that music came forward and said he doesn’t support John McCain, and is in fact an Obama supporter. You can read more about it here. Sounds like a horrible scandal, right? Except the way our business is set up right now, this sort of thing is bound to happen and is legally and ethically fine.
Unfortunately today it is common for a composer to completely sign their rights for their music over to the developer or publisher they did the work for. This is called “work for hire” and benefits the developer or publisher greatly. If a cartoon series develops based on the game and they want to use your music for it, they can. Or if they want to use your music to advertise the latest greatest rat trap, or for any other reason, they can go ahead and use your music for that too. Once you sign that contract, your music is out of your control.
The composer of the game music used in the McCain ad, Christopher Lennertz, was upset that his music was used for something with which he does not agree. Sadly for any composer who signs such work for hire contracts, the composer’s thoughts on the matter are almost completely irrelevant. Legally the music is the developer or publisher’s to do with as they please. As long as McCain or anyone else buys a license to that music, it can appear anywhere. You’ve got to just roll with it. You decided to sign the contract, so accept that it just may appear somewhere you may not agree with.
I said above that the composer’s thoughts on the matter are almost completely irrelevant because the Lennertz case shows that it can backfire at least a little bit if the full background of the music is not considered by those using it. Even though nothing illegal or inappropriate happened, the McCain campaign still got some negative press because there is at least the appearance of some disharmony within the campaign. The question could be asked, why couldn’t they find some music by a McCain supporter?
This is in fact one of the risks inherent in using library assets for anything. It bit Hillary Clinton’s campaign in their infamous “3am” commercial. In that, they used some stock library footage of a little girl sleeping soundly during the night and asked who the viewer would trust to protect the country if a catastrophe struck late at night. It was a wonderful, fear-mongering ad that would stick in people’s minds. The problem is, the girl in the ad is now 18 and a fervent Obama supporter. Read more about that story here, it’s actually pretty funny.
So what do we do to keep people from using our music in the next project that we personally find offensive? It’s all about who owns the copyrights. The contracts are still weighted heavily in favor of the companies we do the work for, but we can do our best to change the terms. Keep 100% of our copyrights if possible, or at least keep any of the rights we can… like “ancillary rights”. That is, for any project that comes from that game (cartoons, spin-off games, sequels, TV shows, etc.), they will have to get our permission to use our music again. That increases the possibility of making more money from your music, which is only fair. If the game springs further revenue streams, the composer who is partly responsible for that success should share in the rewards.
Of course, it is a compliment when our music is found to be of value by anyone other than the people for whom we originally created it. But sometimes we don’t like the people giving us that compliment. That’s just part of being human. Not everyone gets along. All we can do as composers is keep on fighting to get fairer copyright terms in our contracts. That way, we don’t need to apologize for our creativity being used for purposes we do not agree with. Now if you don’t mind, I need to go finish a PETA ad with licensed music by Ted Nugent…
Some good books.
Today I thought I’d recommend a few books for people looking to get into the game music biz or looking to improve their craft. These are all books that have proven to be quite helpful in educating me about music and the business of game music. And a disclaimer, I will put links to Amazon for all these books but I don’t see a dime from these recommendations, so there are no ulterior motives here. These are just some books that you might find useful.
The Study of Orchestration by Samuel Adler: I refer to this as my bible. It has an excellent overview of all the individual instruments of an orchestra as well as how they work together in their groups (strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion), and how the groups function within the orchestra. It is full of musical examples from lots of different literature which illustrate the concepts very well. The descriptions of the various characteristics of different ranges of each instrument are very helpful. There’s nothing like good old experience when writing for live instruments, but this book will definitely give you a head start.
The Complete Guide to Game Audio by Aaron Marks: This book is a wonderful primer for getting into game audio. It covers several topics including music, sound effects, and voice. I particularly enjoyed the author’s personal stories about his dealings with game company execs. Hearing his stories helped me be a little more confident in standing up for myself and my craft in such dealings. I hope his stories encourage other audio providers to feel the same way. The book includes several examples of what to expect when dealing with contracts and other legal matters, which is extremely helpful. It doesn’t delve too much into the technical, but there is some good material on how to make your sound effects stand out. Overall, an excellent overview of our industry and a great “pep talk” for getting into the industry.
On a related note, Aaron Marks teamed up with Jeannie Novak to write Game Development Essentials: Game Audio Development which looks like it’s an updated take on the same things. I’m sure there’s much to be updated in the seven years since the first book was released. I haven’t read it yet, but I look forward to it as apparently I’m profiled in the book.
Practical Recording Techniques by Bruce Bartlett and Jenny Bartlett: This book definitely eased my apprehension when recording various live instruments. It will help you get the best sound out of that pianist, guitarist, and flautist that you hire for your music. It covers every kind of mic out there and tells you which mics you should use for which situations… and even how to best position them. The book definitely eliminates a lot of trial and error that you could go through. No sense reinventing the wheel. Check this book out.
Mastering Audio: The art and the science by Bob Katz: I’m still wrapping my head around some of the stuff in this book. It completely changed how I look at mixing and mastering. But the main point is, my music sounds better because of this book. It’s easy to neglect or ignore the steps of music production that come after composition, but you’re not done creating music until all the bits and bytes are in your game. Mastering isn’t just a technical requirement of producing music. It’s part of the art, and an art itself.
So there you go, the books from my “essential collection”. Pick up one or two and I’m certain you’ll get just as much help out of them as I have.
Soundtrack of the Month #4: World of Warcraft
With September coming to a close, it’s time I hurry up and pick the game soundtrack to review for the month. And chances are you’ve had this soundtrack drilled into your head after hour upon hour of gameplay. I only have a level 45 mage so I’m sure that most of you have much more experience in the game than I have, but even getting to level 45 has allowed me to memorize at least some of the pieces from the game. And, happily, they’re not half bad.
If I could pick one word to describe the WoW soundtrack, it would be “suitable”. There’s nothing groundbreaking by any means, but instead an appropriately crafted lot of music. The two biggest gripes I have with the soundtrack are:
1- The music comes from the Lord of the Rings school of music, meaning overall it’s pretty clumsy and obvious. There is nothing subtle or deep about the music. It just hits you over the head with its mood. But, while LoTR has a memorable melody or two , WoW does not, instead employing too often at least a portion of a minor scale as its melody. All of this may actually be just fine though, considering the player is going to hear each piece so many times. So that’s not really too big a problem. The music is “suitable” for its purposes. That said, whenever you enter Stormwind and hear that music, you can’t help but feel a little noble or courageous.
2- It too often sounds too much like samples. If I recall correctly, they hired a live choir for some of the pieces but at times the orchestra sounds tinny and thin, as samples often do. I’m sure if they had known when they were developing the game the insane amount of success they would have with the game, they would have gone live with everything. Indeed, the expansion Burning Crusade used the Northwest Sinfonia Orchestra. But WoW definitely suffers from some sample-itis.
Those two issues aside, the composers of the WoW soundtrack did a good job supporting the gorgeous world with proper music. They could have pushed the envelope a little more and increased the production values by hiring a live orchestra, but overall they helped further immerse the player in the game world. And that’s what game music is all about, right?
Verdict: Not Too Shabby
About This Blog
This blog is dedicated to topics concerning the creation of music and sound for games. It will deal with issues that come up in the day to day work of The Game Composer as well as thoughts on the industry as a whole. I hope it will be useful for developers and other game audio professionals. Feel free to contact me: thegamecomposer@gmail.com
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