Company News Tim Cain joins MCA over at Obsidian Entertainment

[Esquilax]

How can you be so goddamn obtuse? All that Coyote was saying to my understanding was that there were too few tracks in the Arcanum soundtrack, which at times led to it being repetitive because you'd hear the same tracks in numerous different places, which ended up detracting from the local atmosphere at time. Considering how many locations that there were in Arcanum, you notice this quite early - the combat music in particular becomes annoying very quickly because you hear it all the time. The soundtrack is great, it's just that it definitely could have used more tracks, because it's pretty sparse.

I think that working with something other than a four-string ensemble might have resulted in some nice variety, although I do get that financial constraints are a very real concern.

Personally, I think that Bloodlines did the whole soundtrack thing better, mainly because many of the tracks complemented the locations very well. The Downtown theme in particular is awesome, it really has the feel of this sinister, soul-crushing urban jungle and it works really well.

 

[made]

the score [...] represents a "general" and (in my opinion) a "static" feel for everything. This is my complaint, nothing more and nothing less.

Yes, exactly. The score reinforces the underlying mood of the game - decay, melancholy, the tragic decline of magic - rather than giving each location a distinct feel. You seem to think that's wrong, or boring. I don't. There's still enough variation to set apart the endless dwarven tunnels from the average town or the elven settlement while keeping the overall mood intact.

 

[Wunderpurps]

How can you be so goddamn obtuse?

Right back at you. A village song. Catacomby song.Orchestrals. Industrial music. Trent Reznor should have done half the soundtrack and someone like Soule the other half? Jesus Christ.

Of course it's a matter of extremes you take things to but made's post sums it up. Do you need to have music hold your hand or can it convey general themes? The main problem here is not the soundtrack but the people listening to it.

Of all the things to complain about in arcanum, how can someone hone in on the music? Sorry but it's base retardation. The soundtrack isn't awesome in every way but it's more fitting and well performed than the vast majority of games can claim and couldn't have been more effective for the money spent.

 

[St. Toxic]

So, vg music played on piano cannot sound good because it doesn't flow like classical music? You almost had me bro.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwV_lx9Qa0Q :/

What? If anything that proves my point. What that music is is the statement of an idea, along with a couple of variations, and then it loops. Notice how the piece just "stops" instead of arriving at a satisfying conclusion. (They picked a cadence in order to end on, but it still really could have ended anywhere.)

In other words, the piece is static. And that makes it uninteresting.

Sounds fine to me.

Compare:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df-eLzao63I

What that music is is the statement of an idea, along with a couple of variations, and then it loops. Notice how the piece just "stops" instead of arriving at a satisfying conclusion. (They picked a cadence in order to end on, but it still really could have ended anywhere.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXN-p14cg74

Oh wow fuck yeah.

 

[Elwro]

A tangential point: classical music is almost never good for games for a very simple reason. Game soundtrack has to loop well. Good classical music, if it's not minimalism etc, simply cannot loop well, it's against its essence. Colloquially, all good classical pieces "go somewhere" and are either in some precise form which includes all the repeats there should be, or have a specific dramatic construction which it's unreasonable to repeat (if it was, the repeat would be in the piece already!).

Kai Rosenkrantz's music for Gothic 3 or the Witcher 1 music by Skorupa are masterful game soundtracks. Outside the game context? Not so fun... (which is not a disadvantage, again!)

 

[St. Toxic]

Good classical music, if it's not minimalism etc, simply cannot loop well, it's against its essence.

I disagree. All sounds loop well.

 

[Asdraguuhl]

The score reinforces the underlying mood of the game - decay, melancholy, the tragic decline of magic - rather than giving each location a distinct feel.

But the game is not only about the decline and fall of magic but also about the rise of technology and industrialistion. According to your statement, only one half is represented throught the music. Don't you think that the other half should have been represented as well?

 

[Asdraguuhl]

Kai Rosenkrantz's music for Gothic 3 or the Witcher 1 music by Skorupa are masterful game soundtracks.

I definitely agree. The scores for The Witcher and the Gothic games are indeed excellent.

 

[.Sigurd]

The score reinforces the underlying mood of the game - decay, melancholy, the tragic decline of magic - rather than giving each location a distinct feel.

But the game is not only about the decline and fall of magic but also about the rise of technology and industrialistion. According to your statement, only one half is represented throught the music. Don't you think that the other half should have been represented as well?

I think the fact they used a Victorian style of music already spoke for itself.

 

[Forest Dweller]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df-eLzao63I

...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXN-p14cg74

What are you trying to prove here?

 

[jiujitsu]

Is it possible that Tim is just trolling us?

 

[Asdraguuhl]

The score reinforces the underlying mood of the game - decay, melancholy, the tragic decline of magic - rather than giving each location a distinct feel.

But the game is not only about the decline and fall of magic but also about the rise of technology and industrialistion. According to your statement, only one half is represented throught the music. Don't you think that the other half should have been represented as well?

I think the fact they used a Victorian style of music already spoke for itself.

Could you please elaborate? Do you mean that the Victorian style (i.e. use of a string quartet) automatically represents the industrialisation of the world?

The game starts in 1885 during the Romatic era of music, where orchestras grew in size, and at a time where Wagner was one of the leading composers. The developers could easily have chosen a Wagnerian approach to represent this era in which case the soundtrack would have taken a completely different direction (one that I admit would be closer to my preference). And the same rational arguments to defend the current approach would have been applicable as well to defend another style as long as it relates to the era.

But according to the composer's own notes, the musical style is not modelled after the Romantic era but based on earlier music such as the Renaissance and Medieval era. It is mainly the music ensemble (string quartet) that is taken from the Victorian era. So ironically, we cannot speak of a pure Victorian style of music.

 

[Elwro]

"Victorian Music"? I guess something symphonic in the vein of C. Stanford would be more fitting than a string quartet...

 

[Forest Dweller]

Yeah those requirements are so vague that they don't really translate to anything, and in addition, those well-versed in music will recognize them to not really be true.

As Asdraguuhl said, what's most distinctive about the Romantic era is the expanded orchestra, not a string quartet, which was already well established in the Classical era. This is the time of the symphonic poems, Wagner's operas, and new inventive orchestrations by the likes of Berlioz, Mahler, and Strauss. That's really the most prominent thing when you think "Romantic music." Probably the next biggest thing is the expansion of the piano, both texturally and in terms of virtuosic technique by the likes of Chopin and Liszt. Perhaps instead of a string quartet they should have used a piano, with heavy use of the sustain pedal.

Anyway, the composer should have known all this, which further leads me to believe that the idea of "string quartet as representative of the Victorian era" was imposed by Tim and co as opposed to the composer. Bad boy, Tim. You should have let the composer do his job.

EDIT: Just sent a pm to Lyric Suite telling him to get the fuck in here.

 

[J_C]

Someone should rename the thread to "Discussion about the music of Arcanum".

 

[made]

Ohnoes I shaved my balls and now it burnsss??? Help me rpgcodex!!!

In case anyone has forgotten who's talking here.

No one is buying your pathetic attempts to style yourself as a connoisseur of classical music, you little shit. You are not LS.

 

[Elwro]

Well, DS posted some examples of his orchestral pieces in the past. You could do worse than take advice from someone with first-hand experience with the topic.

edit: also, iirc, some harmonic turns etc in Arcanum's music would push it straight to late-romantic or even post-romantic era. If you tried hard you could cut out a sample and say Britten or Barber (yeah, I know, he's American) wrote it. But I guess one could make a case for the statement that some of the tracks could be written in the times of Thaikovsky and Dvorak...

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Kai Rosenkrantz's music for Gothic 3 or the Witcher 1 music by Skorupa are masterful game soundtracks. Outside the game context? Not so fun... (which is not a disadvantage, again!)

While I generally agree with your point I actually think you picked a bad example here. This is more applicable to the other PB games, in which as you say Rosenkranz did some fantastic work but it doesn't necessarily work outside the game context. G3 is the main exception to that, because, while it still has fantastic music, much of it works very well outside a game environment for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXjJiLBz0wU and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkc7RqeUqxw I would easily listen to just to listen to.

Pretty minor quibble I guess, I just really love the G3 soundtrack.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Ohnoes I shaved my balls and now it burnsss??? Help me rpgcodex!!!

In case anyone has forgotten who's talking here.

No one is buying your pathetic attempts to style yourself as a connoisseur of classical music, you little shit. You are not LS.

I don't even have words.

Well, DS posted some examples of his orchestral pieces in the past.

Small correction: I've written music but I have yet to write anything for orchestra. Well, I've done a few transcriptions, but no actual original pieces yet. That will change in the near future though.

By the way, you're very knowledgable and you've mentioned composers I've never heard of before. Are you a musicologist, by chance?

 

[Asdraguuhl]

Ohnoes I shaved my balls and now it burnsss??? Help me rpgcodex!!!

In case anyone has forgotten who's talking here.

No one is buying your pathetic attempts to style yourself as a connoisseur of classical music, you little shit. You are not LS.

Oh, please! That is just plain pathetic. Attempting to pull others down in order to make yourself look more relevant. That is textbook loser psychology.

If you cannot contribute anything meaningful through your own merits, then please move along. Go find a Kindergarten to play in and let the big boys do the talking.

 

[Turjan]

I never said that the music should be replaced. The string quartet does indeed give Arcanum a unique feel, which is something that I never questioned. Instead of "replacing", I always thought that more elements or variety should have been ADDED to the score. When you listen to the score, you don't know whether you are in a city, forest, technological or magical locations, etc. I said it over and over and will repeat it again: my main issue is that the score does not represent these things effectively, it only represents a "general" and (in my opinion) a "static" feel for everything. This is my complaint, nothing more and nothing less.

This. While Arcanum's soundtrack contains several pieces with different moods, you hardly ever hear them, with exception of the combat music. The music in Quintarra is very different, but how often are you there? I just played the game, and the music became depressing after hours and hours of the same mood. My first post regarding the game was about how I could replace the ingame music (I was really fed up with it at that point). It's not a good representation of silent film music, either, as that film music follows the action on screen. It stresses moods. Arcanum's music does not really do that.

 

[Asdraguuhl]

The problem is you quickly go full retard. Adding in industrial music to arcanum is the worst comment I can imagine someone making.

I think there has been a misunderstanding that I wish to correct. I indeed used the term "industrial" in my first post but it has nothing to do with what you interpret as "industrial music" so let me explain.
I suspect that you assumed that I was talking about adding "industrial music" in terms of a modern style of music that is heaviliy "synthesized". That is certainly NOT what I meant to express. I was referring to "industrial" in the sense of tone colour where certain sound effects could be added to enhance a certain atmospheric flavour.

I like e.g. the way Kai Rosenkranz (Gothic) uses isolated sounds with distinctive tone colour. Also filmcomposer Jerry Goldsmith effectively knew how to add modern sounds to accoustic/orchestral ensembles. I was thinking in such a context.

And believe me, if I am correct about this misunderstanding, than I would be shocked as well. But please, try to channel your disbelief and anger in a less destructive manner.

 

[Elwro]

you've mentioned composers I've never heard of before. Are you a musicologist, by chance?

Well, I'm not a "professional" musicologist, but in the last 10 years I took many courses in it, I do some musicological work and it was the secondary discipline I had to pass a huge exam in in order to get my PhD. It's a constant hobby of mine. I did e.g. a very detailed course in Baroque music, complete with preparing a modern score of a piece published in the late XVIIth century (as a set of parts, filled with errors) and analyzing it. In recent years I have been working on manuscripts preserved in Dresden, which contain some great music by Zelenka (but: bad water damage), and also not so great music by e.g. the aforementioned Lucchesini (which I have transcribed just for kicks). I don't really have much time for this, but hopefully (this will take at least a year or two) I'll be able to prepare a modern, free edition of two unpublished Zelenka masses using Lilypond. (My last, short transcription, with a sketch of a commentary (nothing professional)).

I also completed a course in orchestration ran by the former head of the Krakow Academy of Music, that's why the "doubling" remarks above were so funny to me :D To finish, I also sing in two choirs, one specializing in Baroque, the other in Renaissance music (we did some first modern performances of forgotten pieces). And I'm constantly reading about music, musicology is actually a pretty new and fast progressing field.

What about you? Are you studying composition? I'd swear you had posted some pieces for at least 8 instrument ensemble, with a vibraphon iirc...

 

[Forest Dweller]

Ah. So are you are a professor then. I had a suspicion that you might be. If it isn't in musicology, is it in theory?

Anyway, here's what I posted:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic ... 14#1084714

The instrumentations, in order, are as follows:

Flute, oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, and marimba four-hands

Piano

Brass quartet plus timpani

SATB choir, woodwind quartet, and piano

I guess that last one qualifies as an 8+ member ensemble. No vibraphone though .

I'm currently working a piece for flute, oboe, tenor sax, violin, cello, and three percussionists.

 

[Mr Carrot]

what the fucking fuck?

So no arcanum 2?

Fuck you.