Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Composing Ourselves

Hello hello! Last week I reported on a project that we were working on to add a musical accent to our HI logo animation. I'm proud to announce its completion, and have managed to attain a bit of insight on the process from our own resident sound engineer, James. Here's what he had to say:

In order to create the music for our animated logo, I started off by trying to think of what feelings our games invoked in me. I thought of mystery, adventure, danger, excitement, and fun. From there, I tried to imagine what each of these feelings might sound like, if it were in fact a sound, rather than a feeling. I thought of other sounds and songs I've heard that also remind me of these feelings as well. When I had a few ideas in my head that I was happy with, I started to play around on the piano with some of these concepts, trying to encourage the melodies to grow and develop.

To actually record the songs, I used a MIDI controller (which is basically just a piano keyboard that plugs into your computer) and a music software program called Reason. I selected the different instruments I wanted to use, and one by one, recorded their parts separately. Once I had these tracks completed, I added them all together and turned the whole thing into an MP3 with a program called GoldWave.

I made 5 or 6 little songs total so that our marketing team would have a variety of songs to choose from. I sent them all off and they took a listen. They told me what they liked about each one, and a few changes they'd like me to try out. After they had chosen a version of the song they liked most, I touched it up a little and sent the new version to our artists so they could make an animation for it.


Pretty awesome! Thanks for the information James! And now for those of you at home, you can check out the finished product below! We hope you enjoy it.



Peace!

- Novel 3:4 -

7 comments:

DixieGirl said...

Oh, I love it! It definitely captures all the mystery and excitement and everything -- and it's five seconds long, so that's quite an accomplishment! It will be so cool to hear this in future games. :)

Anonymous said...

Wow. That song is REALLY cool.

Sereina Elwert said...

I think it great. Can't wait to see it on the games.

Anonymous said...

I LIKE IT!!!! ^.^

Anonymous said...

I really liked it. It cuaght my attention the second I heard it. I like the "vibe" of how it felt all mysterious. Then it gave the little Her interactive "touch" with it. I personally Loved it!

Nano said...

Will it be in RAN? I like it!

HelenaBergFan said...

I really like it! It gives out a rhythm of sneakiness, mystery, excitement, and thrill. Although the ending part sounds like it came from a gameboy advance music. Well, don't mind me. I think the music is great!