Think back to your favorite video game. Was it Pac-Man? Donkey Kong? Mario
Bros.? You got to go on far-reaching adventures, shoot down enemies, and
rescue the maiden. But there was always that one drawback, that incessant
high-pitched squealing – that beep-beeping and bloop-blooping. It made you want
to yank the sound cable out of the game. As games moved on to home computer
status, people did the equivalent of plug pulling; they turned the volume all
the way down.
But as technology has progressed, those beeps and bloops have been transformed
into musical scores that would make John Williams ache to slay a medieval
dragon just to hear the fanfare when he succeeded. Then again, it may not be
long before Williams is doing the composing himself. “In two to five
years, computer games are going to be on the same level as movies,” says Marc
Schaefgen, a jazz guitarist and co-founder of Midian, which creates music for
software companies’ programs. “There will be serious composers, and people will
be crossing over doing movies and multi-media.”
Schaefgen, whose business partner Dona Glover has ghost written scores for
films like Batman and Hellraiser, predicts that this trend will
become an industry standard when studios start releasing video games in
conjunction with films, which is what happened for the film Stargate.
This would be greatly beneficial to game producers, because it would increase
their budget exponentially. While right now, composers do all the music for
games on MIDI (musical instrument digital interface, which allows instruments
to be recorded on computer) keyboards relatively cheaply, they would be able to
bring in a full orchestra for about $250,000. “Once budgets approach movie
budgets,” says Schaefgen, “you’re going to have a nicely scored game.”
Origin, an international computer software entertainment company based in
Austin, is starting to approach movie budgets. Origin is the biggest of the 30
Austin and 300 Central Texas software entertainment companies. It is best known
for its Wing Commander interactive series.Wing Commander III alone has sold over half a million copies worldwide, and has been translated
into six languages. Perhaps its greatest feature, however, is that it’s single
handedly resurrected the career of Mark “Luke Skywalker” Hamill, who stars in
the games with Malcolm McDowell.
Origin’s George Oldziey, who also plays with Susanna Sharpe & Samba
Police, composed the music for Wing Commander III, although he admits to
having “no computer background.” He received his BA from the Manhattan School
of Music and started composing after he picked up a sequencer and MIDI
keyboard, and decided to go for his Masters degree. A friend told him about
Origin. “I just put together some Star Wars-type space demo,” he
remembers. His score for Wing Commander III was so successful that he
may end up conducting an orchestra in Munich for Wing Commander IV.
While Schaefgen admits Origin is “on the high end of game development,” and
other companies cannot afford to do the things they do, the industry is growing
so quickly that anything is possible in the future. CD-ROM games, which barely
existed only two years ago, are now taking over stores such as Babbage’s in the
Highland Mall. Games such as Sega’s Beavis and Butt-head use pop music,
which may open the way for musicians to serve as studio hands for video games
in just two years. What a soundtrack is now to a movie, so it may be soon for a
video game. Musicians are already flocking to computer companies. Britt Daniel,
who does sound effects and orchestrates cinematic sequences for Origin, as well
as play guitar in the punky band Spoon, has noticed the influx at Origin.
“People who were working straight jobs or in crappy little stores are now
getting to work here and express themselves. And there will be work for more
musicians as the field expands.”
The field is already growing and becoming more competitive. Origin composer
Paul Baker, who also plays sax in the Tony Campise Band, beat out over 200
other applicants to land his job at Origin, and things are even tougher now.
“We get some very good tapes coming in,” he says, “and it’s like, whew, I’m
glad I’ve already got my job.”
But not everyone can do this. “You have to be familiar with MIDI composition
or at least be a good keyboard player,” says Daniel, who, although never having
heard of Origin before he applied for the job, gained experience at UT where he
received a Radio-TV-Film degree. “I don’t think anyone just waltzes in here and
says, `Hey, I just wrote a punk song, let me compose.'”
This is because computer game scores are more complicated and intricate than
any movie score John Williams has ever written. “With a movie,” explains Baker,
“you get a fixed time. You get more details, such as facial expressions. The
music can write itself. While with computer games it’s like, `It’s a space
battle scene. Go.'”
Since these are games, and the user controls the action, the music must set
the mood but also be able to change at a moment’s notice. Certain characters
have certain themes, and different situations have different music. For just
one scene in the upcoming Prowler game for Origin, composer Joe Basquez
wrote six different pieces of music, which he labeled “normal,” “interest,”
“low combat,” “high combat,” “victory,” and “failure.” “There can be abrupt
changes at any time,” says Basquez. “You have to write music to accommodate
that.” Not only that, but Basquez, like all computer game composers, writes the
music based solely on the storyline. The graphics do not come until later.
Some composers, such as Brent Fariss, who is currently on contract to write
the music for Enclave, an upcoming medieval fantasy game from local
company Maelstrom, have little difficulty working in this manner. “Usually, if
I write music, I always see a scene in my head anyway, so everything I write is
sort of a soundtrack,” says Fariss, who also plays bass in the grunge band
Drone. “This time, I’m just told what the soundtrack is. I’m setting moods. And
that’s one of the best things about music. That’s my interest in it.”
For Basquez, writing for these games presents a whole new musical challenge,
namely, writing on computers. Like most computer game composers, Basquez’s
background is predominantly as a musician. A drummer since age 13, and a
guitarist at 19, Basquez also scored the independent film Ninth Life,
with Johnny Reno. He picked up a MIDI synthesizer in 1983. When he heard of an
opening at Origin, he simply submitted an audition tape. He now enjoys
composing on a computer. “The software is like composing on a cassette player.
You can go back in and take out the bad notes,” he says. “The computer is
like your musicians, except the drummer always shows up on time.”
Although many of the composers still perform in their off hours, they are
thankful for the jobs they have. Says Basquez, who worked at the Department of
Human Services before hooking up with Origin, “The fact that I’m able to
compose music eight hours a day and get paid for it is phenomenal.” The one
thing the composers do not enjoy, however, is the lack of respect they garner.
The frustration shows in people like Laura Barratt, who scored Origin’s
Wings of Glory. “Wings of Glory is getting all these great
reviews in national magazines, but nobody mentions the music,” she says. “They
love the action, the colors, the zeppelin graphics, but nobody mentions the
music.”
Origin’s Barry Leitch is more concise. “Nobody gives a fuck about computer
music. It’s disposable music.”
The computer companies themselves understand the importance of a good score.
Joel Manners, who co-founded Maelstrom last year with Edwin Herrell and Gilbert
Austin, calls game music “fantastically important.” He says, “Any average
moviegoer is aware of the dramatic effect of the right score in a movie, and
how ludicrous the wrong score is. It’s getting to be the same in computer
games. The music adds another dimension of reality.”
Baker, who often spends a full day composing one minute of music, feels the
lack of respect from the general public comes from the history of the games.
“People’s first thoughts are of beeps and boops,” he says. “So, until games get
the same level of prestige as movies, people won’t realize what we do.” Things
are moving in that direction. Origin has already released music from various
games on CD, and there is talk of turning some of the games into movies or TV
shows, which would enable the composers to write the themes, and thus gain
notoriety and esteem from their peers.
That is the plan for Fariss. “The ultimate goal of this is to lead to other
things, like film scores. When someone writes a film score, nobody considers
that selling out. But computer music isn’t highly regarded yet because of the
limitations. And you still have some musicians who say, `True musicians don’t
use computers. Everything has to be real.’ I’d get excited working with real
musicians and scoring for real musicians, but it’s just not practical. The
computer makes it all feasible.”
But the computer does have its limitations. Although the general MIDI language
consists of 128 sounds, only 16 can be produced at one time. And these sounds
are still computer synthesized. A saxophone in Wing Commander does not
sound as warm as it does on a Branford Marsalis record. Instead, it has a
tinny, cheesy quality. But with new digital audio technology, composers can
produce CD quality music. For the Origin game Chopper Assault, Leitch
plugged an electric guitar into an effects generator, which went straight into
the computer. Users need a more advanced computer to appreciate the difference
in sound, but it’s worth it. Game platforms that utilize computer technology,
such as 300, come equipped with Dolby Surround Sound. The players now feel as
if they’ve been thrown in the middle of a sweeping David Lean epic, as opposed
to listening to a truck backing up.
But it’s not that simple. Even with new CD-ROM technology, which lets the
composers write music at 44 KHz and 16 bits (CD quality), there is not space on
the game disc, which must hold all the other aspects of the game, to store that
much information. During battle scenes, where each enemy has artificial
intelligence, music quality is reduced to 11 KHz and 8 bits to make room for
all the action. It’s frustrating for the composers. “It’s inevitable,” says
Basquez, “but we just have to accept it and fight for what we can get.” In the
meantime, Origin audio recording engineer Randy Buck predicts that within two
years time, all music will maintain CD quality throughout the entire game.
The talent is there, and once the technology catches up, these people may
finally get the recognition they deserve. And who knows, in a few years, John
Williams may be fighting to compose the music for Wing Commander V.
This article appears in June 16 • 1995 and June 16 • 1995 (Cover).