Friday, May 25, 2012

Music and Captain Heart sound effects

Week 3: 5/17/2012

This week was to work on more of the music of the Captain Heart game. This is getting harder and harder for me to do. With my Mid-Term project I only had to write 6 songs, with the Senior Project I will have to write a between a total of 14 to 16 songs for this game. The reason for this is because the Captain Heart has all these mini games with in it and all my team mates want their own songs for each particular game. That is not including the menu, title, ending, and storyline of the game. This more then I ever written in my life.

I've been trying to step put of the box more on video game music, because when I went to the GDC this year I talked to a couple companies that liked my music but sounded too much like music that has been done before in games. In this games I'm really trying to go beyond the typical sound that you hear in Mario Bros, Zelda, and so many game music we have heard time and again. I'm also trying to appeal to the generation of today and what would be exciting in this game as well to the client and players of the future of this game.

This week I only thought I would do another 3 songs in the studio, but it became a writing session too. I ended up with actually 5 songs for the session. It turn out to be a real good session.

My friend and co-writer Chris was in on the session, Mike co-writer and studio owner was in the session, and myself. We wrote for the mini-games Red Blood Runner, Red Blood Cell Maze, Food Mix & Match, Brick Game, and another piece for another level in Blood Pump Rhythm Game.

The Red Blood Runner is a platform game that the blood cell has to collect oxygen and kill of the cholesterol. This was up beat, medium tempo, pop sound music. It really works well with the game. This was done with Reason and a keyboard and layered with different sounds in ProTools.

The Red Blood Cell Maze is a game that the player has to move the red blood cell from the heart down to the toe, through a maze in the body. This was a jazz piece. Has that "Pink Panther" kinda groove to it. The instruments was used was, drums, shakers, guitar, and bass.

The Food Mix & Match game is where the player has to drag good or bad food to Captain Heart to a response from Captain Heart, in order to win the player must make Captain Heart health at all times. This sound that was composed was more of a rock beat. It was up beat with a bass line, guitar, and keyboard.

The Brick Game is a game with a paddle and ball to brake the foods down on screen, eventually when the player wins it will show picture of Captain Heart. This was a Dub Step kind of piece. This sound was created by using Reason and a keyboard. No other instruments was used. It is heart pounding, fast tempo, with four layers of sounds that created the piece for this game.

The last mini game is the Blood Pump Rhythm game. My team mate Geoff who created this game wanted a different piece for each level. I did not know this until last week. I started working on more music for this game. Since the first piece I did was a hard rock piece, I wanted to make sure that I did something completely different. This piece is a medium medium fast tempo, with more of a pop, sound, and more settle sound. It used mostly Reason for a couple sounds and a tambourine with a skin head, to play out the rhythm on the tambourine's head while the cymbals on the side shakes out.

For recording I used the AKG 414 to mic the guitar amp with (cardioid pattern) and the tambourine too. For the drums I used a Shure 57 on the snare, AKG 112 for the bass drum, and two rodes NT 1000 over the the cymbals and hi toms. The bass was patch right into the console into ProTools. The Keyboard was a controller used into Reason then recorded into ProTools.

AKG 112 specs info: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/media/powerslave,id,261,pid,261.pdf
Shure 57 specs info: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/media/us_pro_sm57_specsheet.pdf
AKG 414 specs info: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/C414XLII/
Rode NT 1000 specs info: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/NT1000

This songs where done in about a little over eight hours (writing, recording, editing, and mixing) for these mini games. This session went a lot more smoothly then the last one that I had to do for music. That one only three songs where done in almost the same amount. We where just rocking it in the studio that day.

The step in the music area for this game will be with a writing session with my friend Jami next week Friday to finish up the writing of the music of the game. That is all for this week. Until next week.......

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