Designing Music NOW

By DesigningMusicNOW

Designing Music Now is an online magazine by composers for composers. It is a central destination and a portal for all things related to composing music for video games and interactive media. It is a ... more

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FAQs about Designing Music NOW:

How many episodes does Designing Music NOW have?

The podcast currently has 45 episodes available.

Designing Music NOW episodes:

May 23, 2016 Ep. 15 video - Barney Pratt
Barney Pratt is the audio genius behind the horrifically scary, Until Dawn, which is an exclusive for Playstation 4. Until Dawn’s developers, Supermassive Games, had the goal of making a filmic experience that you can play. The ingenious “butterfly effect” that allowed for multiple outcomes based on player actions only added to the challenge of scoring the game. Until Dawn has won numerous awards including a win for “Best Original Property” at the Bafta’s this year It is also up for five awards at the Develop conference this coming July.
The game follows 8 characters, each of which you get to play during the course of a play through. The decisions you make significantly alter the outcome of the game using the aforementioned “butterfly effect.” The game is meant to be played multiple times in order to see all the possible outcomes and content. Also, if you are like me, you’ll want to play them all to hear the different music. This was “constructed” from the score that Jason Graves created, and was designed to match each decision made during the labyrinthine course of the game.
Barney hired Jason Graves to create the haunting and beautiful score. The score encapsulates the evil lurking in every shadow, but also the tenderness of the main characters as they bond during the harrowing ordeal. It also has an air of whimsy when appropriate. This humorous element is a result of the instrumentation, and is usually designed to set you up for a big scare.
In this interview, Michael Sweet and I sit down with Barney to discuss his direction from the composer’s brief through the implementation of the score in the game. Thanks to Barney and Supermassive Games for allowing us this in depth look into the architecture of the musical genius of a horror game done right!
...more
38min
May 23, 2016 Ep. 15 audio - Barney Pratt
Barney Pratt is the audio genius behind the horrifically scary, Until Dawn, which is an exclusive for Playstation 4. Until Dawn’s developers, Supermassive Games, had the goal of making a filmic experience that you can play. The ingenious “butterfly effect” that allowed for multiple outcomes based on player actions only added to the challenge of scoring the game. Until Dawn has won numerous awards including a win for “Best Original Property” at the Bafta’s this year It is also up for five awards at the Develop conference this coming July.
The game follows 8 characters, each of which you get to play during the course of a play through. The decisions you make significantly alter the outcome of the game using the aforementioned “butterfly effect.” The game is meant to be played multiple times in order to see all the possible outcomes and content. Also, if you are like me, you’ll want to play them all to hear the different music. This was “constructed” from the score that Jason Graves created, and was designed to match each decision made during the labyrinthine course of the game.
Barney hired Jason Graves to create the haunting and beautiful score. The score encapsulates the evil lurking in every shadow, but also the tenderness of the main characters as they bond during the harrowing ordeal. It also has an air of whimsy when appropriate. This humorous element is a result of the instrumentation, and is usually designed to set you up for a big scare.
In this interview, Michael Sweet and I sit down with Barney to discuss his direction from the composer’s brief through the implementation of the score in the game. Thanks to Barney and Supermassive Games for allowing us this in depth look into the architecture of the musical genius of a horror game done right!
...more
38min
April 18, 2016 Ep. 14 video - Ondrej of VirHarmonic
Interview with Founder and Violinist Ondrej of VirHarmonic, a part of the review of VirHarmonic's Bohemian Violin - part of the SOLO STRINGS REVIEW SERIES
...more
49min
April 18, 2016 Ep. 14 audio - Ondrej of VirHarmonic
Interview with Founder and Violinist Ondrej of VirHarmonic, a part of the review of VirHarmonic's Bohemian Violin - part of the SOLO STRINGS REVIEW SERIES
...more
49min
April 04, 2016 Ep. 13 video - Soundiron
Lawson Madlener and I had a chance to sit down and talk with Mike Peaslee in depth about his background and the first three libraries we will be reviewing for you from Soundiron. To listen to the discussion on Ensemble Brass directy, go to 25:00. Here is a list of topics we discussed:
0:00 Intro
2:00 How Mike got started doing sample libraries
5:15 Importance of work ethic
9:00 Gear
12:00 Journey from first sample library
15:51 Sound Library Discussion: Apocalypse Percussion Ensemble
25:00 Sound Library Discussion: Ensemble Brass
34:50 Sound Library Discussion: Mercury Boys Choir
43:50 The Future Soundiron Products
50:00 Ram optimization of the libraries
...more
56min
April 04, 2016 Ep. 13 audio - Soundiron
Lawson Madlener and I had a chance to sit down and talk with Mike Peaslee in depth about his background and the first three libraries we will be reviewing for you from Soundiron. To listen to the discussion on Ensemble Brass directy, go to 25:00. Here is a list of topics we discussed:
0:00 Intro
2:00 How Mike got started doing sample libraries
5:15 Importance of work ethic
9:00 Gear
12:00 Journey from first sample library
15:51 Sound Library Discussion: Apocalypse Percussion Ensemble
25:00 Sound Library Discussion: Ensemble Brass
34:50 Sound Library Discussion: Mercury Boys Choir
43:50 The Future Soundiron Products
50:00 Ram optimization of the libraries
...more
56min
March 24, 2016 Ep. 12 video - Chance Thomas
This podcast is a followup to our text based interview from March 4th with Chance Thomas. We met up with Chance at GDC 2016 and sat down together for our very first live, in person interview. We spoke about Chance’s musical path to success in video games, his brilliant new book, “Composing Music for Games,” about his musical contribution to the location based VR experience, “The Void,” and we wrap up with his thoughts from GDC 2016. All this in about 23 minutes!
Distinguished ServiceChance tells us some very interesting stores about his early years as the son of an opera singer, and his musical path from there to becoming a video game composer. This amazing journey included performing on a cruise ship as a duo with his wife Pamela on 126 cruises. Kismet working again in his life, his very first video game score was one of the world’s first orchestral scores for a Sierra Online Game, “Quest for Glory V,” which won music of the year! He then delves into the inspiration and process for writing of his book, and discusses some of the collaborators who helped him in the process such as Penka Kouneva, Marty O’Donnell, Inon Zur and even Warren Buffet! Then we briefly discuss “The Void” and his reflections on GDC 2016.
Also, at the G.A.N.G. Awards this year, Chance was honored with the Distinguished Service Award. Congratulations and very well deserved!!! It was a fun interview, and we hope you enjoy Chance’s humble and holistic approach to life, music and video game scoring!
...more
23min
March 24, 2016 Ep. 12 audio - Chance Thomas
This podcast is a followup to our text based interview from March 4th with Chance Thomas. We met up with Chance at GDC 2016 and sat down together for our very first live, in person interview. We spoke about Chance’s musical path to success in video games, his brilliant new book, “Composing Music for Games,” about his musical contribution to the location based VR experience, “The Void,” and we wrap up with his thoughts from GDC 2016. All this in about 23 minutes!
Distinguished ServiceChance tells us some very interesting stores about his early years as the son of an opera singer, and his musical path from there to becoming a video game composer. This amazing journey included performing on a cruise ship as a duo with his wife Pamela on 126 cruises. Kismet working again in his life, his very first video game score was one of the world’s first orchestral scores for a Sierra Online Game, “Quest for Glory V,” which won music of the year! He then delves into the inspiration and process for writing of his book, and discusses some of the collaborators who helped him in the process such as Penka Kouneva, Marty O’Donnell, Inon Zur and even Warren Buffet! Then we briefly discuss “The Void” and his reflections on GDC 2016.
Also, at the G.A.N.G. Awards this year, Chance was honored with the Distinguished Service Award. Congratulations and very well deserved!!! It was a fun interview, and we hope you enjoy Chance’s humble and holistic approach to life, music and video game scoring!
...more
23min
March 10, 2016 Ep. 11 audio - Jason Graves
We were beyond thrilled to sit down and talk shop with two-time BAFTA winning composer Jason Graves, whose previous titles include Until Dawn, The Order: 1886, Evolve, Tomb Raider and the Dead Space Series. We ask Jason a wide range of questions from his childhood music experiences to his award winning video game scores. He graciously gave us over an hour and a half of his time for this podcast, keeping us by turns engaged, laughing and fascinated by his stories and lightning quick answers. Jason’s musical genius is well known, but we were impressed as much by his breadth of knowledge about video game music as his down to earth and humble attitude about his life as a composer. Jason will be giving two talks at the upcoming Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco next week, so if you are going to be at GDC, be sure to check those out!
“As a classically-trained composer and world percussionist, Graves created an entirely live organic score for Far Cry® Primal, blending a diverse array of sounds from the natural environment and incorporating many animal effects into the score. The evocative soundtrack features a unique set of textures representing each of the tribes that players will encounter, including a ram’s horn and solo flute (Wenja); Aztec death whistles, female vocals, ritualistic percussion (Izilia); raw sounds from Far Cry’s Stone Age natural environment including bushes, bones, antlers, clay pots, wooden artifacts and male vocals (Udam). Crafted together the sounds bring the rich and primal gameplay alive to players challenged to survive in a hostile environment and rise to become the apex predator.”
Music Designer of Ubisoft Montreal: “Jason manages to convey the beauty and the roughness of the land of Oros with his music,” said Jerome Angelot, Music Designer – Ubisoft Montreal Studio. “Far Cry Primal’s score is a fresh mix of savant sound design, epic percussions and attention to detail. It will surprise the players; each time I hear the screams and the chants in the Izila tracks, I get chills.” – From the recent press release about Far Cry Primal
...more
1h 27min
February 24, 2016 Ep. 10 audio - Sonokinetic
Dale and I were lucky enough to catch co-founder Son Thomsen and Kontakt scripting wizard Ken Black to sit down with us and talk about Sotto in great detail. In the interview, we talk about their musical backgrounds, the founding of the company, and then we dive into Sotto and how phrase based libraries are designed, recorded, scripted and perfected. Thanks to Son and Ken for sharing their knowledge with us!
...more
51min

FAQs about Designing Music NOW:

How many episodes does Designing Music NOW have?

The podcast currently has 45 episodes available.