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Making of Red Dead Redemption: Game Music Score as Interactive Collage

Friday, July 30th, 2010

Sure, it’s a Spaghetti-Western-inspired soundtrack to the hit Rockstar game called jokingly by fans Grand Theft Horse. But to me, a richly-composed musical score for a blockbuster video game sums up a lot of where music production is at these days. Composed by Bill Elm and Woody Jackson, Red Dead Redemption gets a score that blends Western authenticity with more experimental ambiances. We get a first glimpse of that process with a behind-the-scenes video released by Rockstar (and reproduced on CDM with permission) this week.

Watch past the boilerplate voiceover as they get into the production, and you’ll see some glimpses of real gems. Aside from harmonica legend Tommy Morgan, they’ve got themselves one seriously wonderful collection of odd instruments. (There’s some of the organic, decayed instrumental sense of Diego Stocco here, who with Hans Zimmer made the rusty clang and bang of Sherlock Holmes last winter.)

What’s this got to do with digital music? In the post-sampling age, even the oldest, most broken-down sound can become digital. And old, entirely acoustic sonic tricks are being rediscovered by today’s generation. Sometimes it takes years behind sound-alike convolution reverbs to convince you that what you should really do is just play into a kettle drum.

There’s also a new approach to composition necessitated by games, which ironically brings game scoring – itself inspired mainly by film composition – in line with techniques associated with electronic music and DJing (stems, loops, and the like). I don’t think any game has yet mastered the challenge; game industry workflows, technical limitations, deadlines, and the sheer enormity of having to re-learn compositional narrative in interactive contexts all conspire against that. But an open-ended Old West playground seems a good place to begin.

I hope to have more with the makers of this score soon, so if you have questions or ideas, let us know.

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Making of Red Dead Redemption: Game Music Score as Interactive Collage

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Toontrack Beatstation

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

When Beatstation was announced, it wasn’t clear what it was or who it was designed for. And even after spending some time with it, we’re not sure we can answer either of these questions. Stranger still, we’re not sure Toontrack could either.

They call it “a tonal and percussive open surface new generation virtual instrument”, which is accurate enough, but tellingly, the sell line for Beatstation is vague and non-committal: “It’s what you want it to be.”

Beatstation has the look of a groovebox, with the main part of the interface taken up by a bank of sample-based pads. You can add and remove pads, drag them around and select from four pad styles: one square and three circular ones of different sizes.

“Ultimately, it’s hard to say exactly what you will find it useful for – if anything – until you actually give it a go.”

The pads are designed for rhythmic sounds but there are also Bass and Lead ‘pads’ (actually mini virtual keyboards) for instrument sounds. You can change the look by loading up skins, and you can design your own with the Skin Tool. The pads can be filled up with samples from the browser sitting to the left.

Beatstation ships with content in Lowbit, Organic and Synthetix categories, and in each of these you get drum kits/instruments, MIDI grooves, REX files and individual sounds. You can load up sounds as a whole kit or on a pad-by-pad basis.

Music library

The quality of the library is generally good, with the acoustic drums being particularly impressive. There’s plenty for those who aren’t so keen on ‘real’ sounds too, though, with dance music and hip-hop fans well catered for.

Crucially, it’s possible to bring your own samples and loops in. MP3 and WAV formats are supported, and MIDI and REX files can be imported.

You can also use expansion packs in Toontrack’s EZX and SDX drum kit formats, as well as the new Beatstation-specific BTX format.

Below the browser are REX and MIDI file players, which can run independently or (in sync) together. To hear everything you’ve got loaded, just hit the play/pause button.

To the right of this are two FX busses, a master effect and a master volume control. The effects come from Overloud, which ensures better than average quality, and the range is extensive, with categories including Bitcrush, Chorus, Compressor, Delay, Distortion, EQ and Reverb, as well as instrument-specific ones for piano, bass, snare, vocals, etc. Each effect has just a single slider to play with, enabling you to dial in ‘more’ or ‘less’ of that effect.

And that, on a basic level, is it. If you want to use Beatstation very simply, run it standalone, load some sounds and/or a MIDI/REX file and click the pads or press play.

There’s not a lot you can do with your sounds, though, as parts can’t be edited and there’s no sequencer. Thankfully, Beatstation also works as a plug-in instrument, so you can use it to make songs in conjunction with a compatible sequencer/DAW program.

(2 pages; go to page: 2)

Digi Didgeridoo: Augmented Wireless Digital Instrument with Aboriginal Roots

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

The Didgeridoo is one of the human race’s great triumphs in instrument design, simple but capable of producing profound sound – thanks, indigenous Australians. Kyle Evans sends us his project to extend the instrument with powerful digitally-augmented sound-making capabilities. The ingredients:

Bluetooth wireless data transmission, connecting to a wireless mic
Additional controls, including pots, push buttons, and toggles. (One limitation of the original relative to other blown instruments is its lack of any kind of keys or finger holes – an issue if you want to play with more than one note or modify the sound with something other than your mouth.)
Max/MSP-patched synthesis and signal processing, analyzing the input and making lots of wonderful sounds

As he describes it:

I created this instrument to experiment in the combination of the organic sound qualities of a didgeridoo with the advanced signal processing capabilities of modern computer programming and sound synthesis. This custom built didgeridoo features externally mounted modules that allow the performer to process and manipulate the sound of the instrument in real time. All control data is transmitted wirelessly via blue tooth and is controlling several audio processes created in a custom-built software environment. If you have any questions about the instrument please feel free to ask.

Truly inspiring work, Kyle!

Excerpt from:
Digi Didgeridoo: Augmented Wireless Digital Instrument with Aboriginal Roots