Interview NMA Fallout Profile: Charles Deenen

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Fallout

<a href=http://www.nma-fallout.com>NMA</a> has added another Fallout developer profile to their <a href=http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=7143>collection</a>. This time it's <a href=http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=7641>Charles Deenen</a>, <b>Fallout 1&2</b> Audio Director who would really like to see an action oriented Fallout.
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<blockquote><b>Any last word to the Fallout fan base?</b>
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<br>
Thank you throughout all the years for buying the game. It was fantastic to see people here at the new company enjoy a game that's pretty old by now, and rave about every element. This shows how much Tim and his team cared about the game and the little nuances they put in. I always have loved user feedback, and the fallout fans have been super about it.</blockquote>
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Hooray for the Fallout fans!

 

[Sol Invictus]

Boo. The Fallout fans are nothing but trouble. Don't you remember FO2?

You know, I'm not sure if Saint, myself or any of us 'hardcore' people even qualify as 'Fallout fans' in the sense most people refer to. We certainly liked the original Fallout but we never proposed any of the nonsense they added into FO2 just because the Fallout fanbase voted on it.

 

[Rat Keeng]

Well, Fallout 2 has always been called bigger than FO1, and it's appearantly impossible to say bigger without saying "and better". More mindless tasks, better item-hogging potential, locations filled with monsters for no reason, FO2 was just a much bigger game, can't argue there.

This time it's Charles Deenen, Fallout 1&2 Audio Director who would really like to see an action oriented Fallout.

He is honest, i'll give him that, even though i completely disagree with his taste in games in music. I can't help but laugh at some of the questions though, like number 17. Even if they are default questions, that's just ridiculous to ask an audio director.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yep, I mentioned that before too, considering that some people were involved only with VB, and some weren't designers like Charles, it makes no sense to ask them all the same questions.

 

[Sol Invictus]

He has the worst taste in music ever. Man. Janet fucking Jackson? Jesus fuck.

 

[taks]

after that booby shot during the super bowl, who wouldn't love janet's music

taks

 

[Odin]

Yep, I mentioned that before too, considering that some people were involved only with VB, and some weren't designers like Charles, it makes no sense to ask them all the same questions.

Actually the only question I feel shouldn't be asked to all is nr 17, which doesn't make it *that* bad.. Besides who really cares, talk about looking at the bad aspect of a great feature instead of the good ones..

 

[Vault Dweller]

Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty good feature. It would have been great though if questions were custom-tailored.

 

[MF]

What the fuck? How can an audio-guy name R&B and hip-hop as his favourite types of music? And Janet Jackson? I could understand Michael Jackson, that's top-notch sound-engineering, but wat he names is just generally poor shit. From a sound persective, R&B is mostly poorly synthesized and heavily compressed-for-radio-play crap, and hip-hop is nothing but a dull bass, beat and a usually annoying voice....

But really, that almost smells like a prank. Or he's not doing music at all and is strictly sound engineering. Considering his constant references to 'sound design' (whatever that is) that is probably the case. (There is what you call sound engineering, but sound is not something you can design since our ears allow for an extremely low level of abstraction)

He's probably one of those nitwit sample-shaggers, and if he did the sound for The Fast & The Furious, I know enough. That sucked. Over-the-top engine rev in that movie and horrible music.

Good thing Leon chose Maybe as the title song for Fallout and all the ambient music was Tim's choice . I guess we could thank this guy for awesome stuff like the gore splatters and minigun sounds though. Even though any moron could get those off a sample database and fix them. (I don't believe they recorded custom sounds for Fallout.)

 

[Spazmo]

The guy for Fallout's music was the incredibly good Mark Morgan, who also did PS:T's soundtrack. I doubt this guy had much to do with the Fallout music.

 

[Brother None]

The guy for Fallout's music was the incredibly good Mark Morgan, who also did PS:T's soundtrack. I doubt this guy had much to do with the Fallout music.

Actually, Mark Morgan did not do all the music for Planescape:Torment (tho' he did do the entire Fallout 1/2 soundtrack), a chunk of the Planescape soundtrack is by Charles Deenen

Check the samples FilePlanet list, tho' that ain't complete. And read this article to get a good idea of the fantastic work this guy did.

Leonard and Tim are not sound professionals, they might've picked the songs, but Charles had to combine them. Dunno how close he worked with Mark Morgan, tho'.

Charles' job on Fallout 1/2 was not as big as his work on the other BIS games, he mainly just directed the others and helped out a bit here and there, but he was the one "responsible" for the creepiness of Fallout's sound. He directed the others in a way to get that effect, really.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

lol spazmo got pwned

 

[Calis]

Also, I would like to note that Charles Deenen is a pretty cool guy (and he's Dutch, too!). He helped me get some stuff done a couple of times when I was still hard at work on The Pit.

 

[evilmonkey]

About genres of music - people misstake mainstream parts of a genre as the complete genre itself.

To give a good example of such "hip-hop is nothing but a dull bass, beat and a usually annoying voice.... " one should check out the following Andreas Tillander (Mokira and other aliases), Beans, old Anti-Pop Consortium, Prefused 73, EL-P, Soviet and alot of other producers and artist - not to forget large parts of the old crews and turntabalists. What is named above cited from MF, is a clear example of the "nu" wave of hiphop, or rather cut of rap pie (rap being a narrow cut from the hip-hop pie, and the narrow cut that sells in mainstream channels).

This goes for more or less all music, but calling Prefused 73s mixes "a dull bass, beat" is like calling written notes, read, played to the key - freeform.

If you hate breakbeat sure, but more or less any song have a break, and nothing forces a hip-hop tune to actually abide by that one break taken from an other tune to rally over the whole new mix - as such you can create as varied music as you want - as you can in most styles of music, yet perhaps even more freely as you must just abide by the loose rule of building the music on more breaks, if not all breaks - compared to other styles of music.

You can also take up similar defences for more or less any style of music, as such also RnB.

The moral of the story is that any genre can have good music, and of course bad music - and any thought otherwise should remain a thought, and hardly a moral argument - the later you see too much in everyday arguments of things of thought and tastes - what it can be, and what you find it to be - well before you poise yourself to beat down the oppossion thing through your thoughts first.

As for ye creators.
Beides that I have a friend that only listens to EBM (electro body music, or dance industry music), yet he can make anything from jazz, blues, candy electronica, rock to baroc - as he got an ear for music, nothing in his jazz reminds me of his EBM taste, and I don't fancy the trance like darkness of the EBM myself, and yet the results are there and are nothing like his own taste of music. Or rather, once taste in music/arts etc shouldn't really affect the creator if he got talent enough, besides knowing the craft.

Sidenote 2.
Asking a artist design questions is weird, nothing about being an artist says "game designer", and the same goes for the music creator - the questions asked over at NMA is as such dumber then I could ever imagine questions to be.

 

[Spazmo]

EL-P? That's entirely different from Emerson, Lake and Palmer, right? Because if you're suggesting that ELP is hip-hop, you die. Prog rock > hip-hop, foo.

 

[mearas]

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=am ... jvea134xd7
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=am ... djvwbla9uk

 

[evilmonkey]

Mearas> http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=am ... dgyl3jxpcb

&
oh come on spazmo - the old ELP was only good for a
short period of time, and King Crimson was better anyway

 

[MF]

About genres of music - people misstake mainstream parts of a genre as the complete genre itself.

To give a good example of such "hip-hop is nothing but a dull bass, beat and a usually annoying voice.... " one should check out the following Andreas Tillander (Mokira and other aliases), Beans, old Anti-Pop Consortium, Prefused 73, EL-P, Soviet and alot of other producers and artist - not to forget large parts of the old crews and turntabalists. What is named above cited from MF, is a clear example of the "nu" wave of hiphop, or rather cut of rap pie (rap being a narrow cut from the hip-hop pie, and the narrow cut that sells in mainstream channels).

Sure, but off-topic. I even like some rap like the Lost Prophets, since they're a bit closer to the blues. Still doesn't say anything about the sound qualities though. Deenen said "R&B and hip-hop" and namet Janet Jackson as an example artist. That does not imply that he likes the more obscure artists you just listed, so while I appreciate your attempt at educating me on early hip-hop (which is just a form of Techno branching off when breakdancing became popular) it has little to do with the topic at hand.


[quote="Calis]Charles Deenen is a very good guy (and dutch too!)[/quote]

I'm sure he is, but his taste in music (and probably knowledge thereof) stinks, and I don't like sound engineers on the wave-editing level who interfere with music. Everyone has his area of expertise, and his is probably, at least form what I can hear, not music.
I don't think he does that all too often, either. Just don't credit him with it.

 

[evilmonkey]

well I didn't mention any early hip hop peeps at all - so no about the early teachings, it was more about late 90s and now.

 

[Odin]

Asking a artist design questions is weird, nothing about being an artist says "game designer", and the same goes for the music creator - the questions asked over at NMA is as such dumber then I could ever imagine questions to be.

Asking anyone but a designer a designer question is wrong, yes. But like I said, there's only one question that was specific designer question. Which means that the so called questions isn't that bad, besides if you don't like them then just stay way..

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

 

[MF]

SPAM! SPAM! SPAM!

Evilmonkey : You're right, sorry. Just remove the 'early' and it's all fine.

 

[evilmonkey]

1. yes MF.

2. oh well and Odin thats why I haven't bothered reading the intreviews for a long time now, since I know it still have those stale questions I bitched about above.

3. and saint I'm all peaceful, no fights here, no?

 

[Odin]

oh well and Odin thats why I haven't bothered reading the intreviews for a long time now, since I know it still have those stale questions I bitched about above.

Then why bitch about it ? git!

 

[evilmonkey]

oh well see it was brought up in the thread, and as sidenote I expanded on it from my side - all in keeping with the topic and all that.

Besides it is hardly a trolling opinion - and if you have the opinion and it fits the thread you are writing in why not?

or perhaps I'm just to affected by /.