Some Tracks From a New Project

Oh, I get screenshots, story documents, and I'm basically chatting with the entire dev team on a daily basis, so I basically know as much about the project as anyone - makes it really easy to envision the concepts of each piece that's requested. At this early point in development, there isn't a whole lot of ad hoc music that I'm writing - it's mostly just me playing around with themes and their potential implementation in various game environments that have been conceptualized so far. Since I'm also doing sound design, I've been running around recording various things for later digital manipulation as well, so it's quite a fun job - just last night I put together some dinosaur stomps a la Jurassic Park for the upcoming teaser trailer.

Anyhow, I'm glad you like it! I'll be posting a link to the official website (in its re-constructed form) very soon, I hope.

There's a link in the magazine clip

Very cool stuff here, I can't wait to see how it sounds in game

True say, Mark, but the page at that link isn't actually the final site - it's just where it will eventually be. I will hopefully be able to post the teaser trailer here too once it's made. At this point, it's looking quite spartan so I'm hoping I can convince them to make it a bit "more". We'll see...

Will the trailer have some of your music on it?

Well, yes in the sense that anything related to this project that you HEAR will be from me, but it might not actually be "music" per se because, with the current draft anyway, the teaser is very short and the devs want it to be extremely spartan in terms of sound design, which means that it'll likely just be some sound effects and very very subtle creepy hints of music.

I'm not actually sure at this point because I've suggested that the trailer be revised before being released but the discussion hasn't really happened on the subject yet. In any case, there will be SOMETHING, but how musical it is will largely depend on whether or not they revise the current draft to include more stuff.

Sounds good, I will be following this project with interest, and I'm glad you landed it - looks like it might get pretty big

Hats off! The first piece of you I've listened to and you definitely seem to know what you're doing. The music is very well done and probably pretty effective in such a mod. The ability to systematically work towards a specific mood is something I admire a lot about good composers of incidental music, as it's something I can't. I'll gladly listen to more of your stuff!

(By the way, your profile says you're only 17? If this is still accurate, that makes this even more impressive. There's no way I could have written effective orchestral music at 17.)

Thank you very much, Gardener!

I am still 17, yes, so the profile is accurate, and I'm happy to hear you judge my orchestration as effective - especially considering my utter lack of any manner of formal training on the subject. Just goes to show that you can make progress on your own accord too, even if the official teaching that I hope to eventually receive will no doubt improve things even more. You live and you learn though, and I like to think that every piece teaches me something new.

Thanks again for your kind words.

ive heard your themes for this, wonderful work man. you have such a terrific talent at 17!! i guess theres only one thing left to say then....

Marius is the shit

Hey Marius, finally downloaded a few pieces of the soundtrack, piano intro, plainitive piano ambience, main theme and theme teaser to be specific.

Out of the 4, I liked theme teaser the most. Playing this piece in the game will definitely give the player a huge boost of adrenaline, which is a great thing. The change at 0:30 was sweet, and the brass entrance just gives the whole piece another great feel of hugeness, of danger to it. I can imagine someone holding a gun, and preparing to kill. Something that nags me though, is the mixing. When the drums came in at the beginning, I felt that it was maybe like 5 feet away from me. Then when the orchestral samples chimed in, I felt that I was in a concert hall. That's maybe because of the EWQLSO samples you used. Maybe try adding slightly more reverb to the percussion?

Main theme: The pitch bending of the wind instrument (is it a duduk?) is great. Gives a sense of mystery. The mixing of this piece sounds better to my ears. The faster part at 1:14 was exciting, though I felt the string melody at 1:30 sounded a little Oriental. It adds a special flavour to the piece per se, but I'm not quite sure if you're aiming for this.

The piano pieces: I like the ambience you used. But the piano part was just too... bland. Just my personal opinion, I hope you don't get offended. If you remove the ambience and the wind instrument, these pieces would go perfectly in a new age piano music album, without anyone thinking it's from an FPS. The plaintive piano ambience especially. The intro sounded waaaaay to cliched and it turned me off already.

So to summarize it up, I would like to hear better piano pieces. The themes are good. Well done!