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.
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Advertising jingles used to play a crucial role in drumming up sales, but with time they became hokey and hopelessly outdated.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.
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.
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.
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:
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.”
‘Inception’ opened in Danish theaters yesterday, and I’m really looking forward to seeing it. Check out this recording from the ‘Inception’ US premiere, featuring live performances of some of tracks from the movie: