Sophia Tong over at the Gamespot Sound Byte blog has a fine video interview up with ‘Dragon Age: Origins’ composer Inon Zur.
From Power Rangers to Digimon, and Fallout 3 to Dragon Age: Origins, award-winning composer Inon Zur has worked on video games, movie trailers, television, anime, and film. With more than 40 video games already under his belt, he is currently working on the music for Fallout: New Vegas as well as several other unannounced projects.
Posted by Asbjoern Andersen, Epic Sound - Contact
game audio 
composer, dragon age: origins, game music, inon zur, interview, music, video interview — 
A great TED talk:
An orchestra conductor faces the ultimate leadership challenge: creating perfect harmony without saying a word. In this charming talk, Itay Talgam demonstrates the unique styles of six great 20th-century conductors, illustrating crucial lessons for all leaders.
Posted by Asbjoern Andersen, Epic Sound - Contact music conducting, ted, videos — There’s an interesting read over in The Independent’s science section on the audio in horror films:
It is probably the most scary scene in cinematic history. The shower curtain is drawn back and actress Janet Leigh lets out a spine-chilling scream that warps into a frenzied cacophony of staccato music as she confronts an unseen, dagger-wielding madman.
When Alfred Hitchcock put the soundtrack to his 1960 masterpiece Psycho he was almost certainly unaware that the discordant musical notes he was adding to the disturbing shower scene were in fact based on the sort of non-harmonic sounds used in the distress calls of wild animals.
Scientists have found that many of the emotionally-evocative moments in some of the most popular films are enhanced with a sound score that exploits the human brain’s natural aversion to the “non-linear” sounds widely used in the animal kingdom to express fear and distress.
Read the full article here.
(via Designing Sound)
Posted by Asbjoern Andersen, Epic Sound - Contact sound research John Schafer over at the Soundcheck talkshow has an interesting podcast up about the return of the advertising jingle:
Advertising jingles used to play a crucial role in drumming up sales, but with time they became hokey and hopelessly outdated.
Now, they’re making a surprising comeback. Stuart Elliott, the advertising columnist for The New York Times, discusses the recent trend. And pianist and composer Roy Eaton tells us about his days as a jingle writer.
Posted by Asbjoern Andersen, Epic Sound - Contact music jingles, music, sound advertising — My colleague David Filskov pointed me to this rather nice short which gives a new meaning to the “ship” in starship:
Over at the Gamespot Sound Byte blog, Sophia Tong has posted a great interview with Starcraft 2 audio director Russell Brower:
GS: In terms of sound design, how did you approach Starcraft II to get the right sound for the game?
RB: Well, we built upon the soundscape that was established in Starcraft, so we do consider the sound for Starcraft II evolutionary rather than revolutionary. So that meant continued use of mechanical sounds. We recorded an endless number of small contraptions. There were large machines; there are sounds made from electronics and synthesizers; and of course with the zerg, there were a lot of fairly gross sounds that came from our various concoctions of flour, water, salt, and goop…and a lot of unmentionable stuff that made our studio a challenge to clean up afterward.
Read the full interview with Starcraft 2 audio director Russell Brower here.
And check out the game trailer below:
Posted by Asbjoern Andersen, Epic Sound - Contact game audio,music,sound design audio direction, audio director, Blizzard, interview, music, Russell Brower, score, sound design, Starcraft 2, Starcraft II — Gaming site G4 features an interesting interview with Alan Wake composer Petri Alanko. I recently had the chance to play Alan Wake and it’s easily one of the most impressive productions I’ve tried this year, both aurally, visually and story-wise.
If you haven’t tried it yet, be sure to take it for a spin! And for a lowdown on the score for this brilliant game, have a peek below:
The Feed: Tell us about what went into composing the score for Alan Wake. Were there inspirations or preconceived ideas you started from or did you let the muse of the game speak to you?
Alanko: Heh, sort of allowing the muse to recite, I’d say. It’s been natural for me to “dive into a picture”, to feel and to dissect things from it, analyzing the minor details in order to build a big picture. I always link a picture to a sound or a theme, melody, atmospheric background etc. I do believe everyone has some of that in them, in different amounts and flavors, there’s nothing extraordinary and it’s just a matter of practicing.
In the beginning we did have a discussion of possible styles, but the end result was a bit different. A lot of the score depended on the raw material, as I felt the long trees needed some scale of distance, length, air, space, and everything around the Bright Falls was more or less surrounded by mountains, bathing in sunlight. That’s an easy view to compose to.
Read the full interview over at G4.
Marius Masalar over at Tracksounds has posted a review of the Alan Wake soundtrack – and if you want to see the trailer for the game, have a look below:
Posted by Asbjoern Andersen, Epic Sound - Contact game audio alan wake, composer, game music, interview, music, Petri Alanko, score, soundtrack — Original Sound Version has an interview up with the sound team on Super Mario Galaxy 2:
We’ve been very fortunate to sneak some of Mahito Yokota, Koji Kondo, and Ryo Nagamatsu’s time away from their new projects to talk about their work on Super Mario Galaxy 2, which is surely one of the best soundtracks of the year.
We discuss the influence of Yoshi on the game’s score, each composer’s respective contributions, the retooling of music from the original Super Mario Galaxy, and the return of “Gusty Garden” as an anthem for the series. We also talk about some of our favorite tracks from the game, including “Yoster” and “Square Timber.”
Here’s the trailer for the game:
Read the full interview with the sound team here.
Posted by Asbjoern Andersen, Epic Sound - Contact game audio composers, interview, Koji Kondo, Mahito Yokota, music, Ryo Nagamatsu, score, super mario galaxy 2, super mario music — You are currently browsing the The Epic Sound blog archives
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