Miscellaneous
-
Indie Music, Miscellaneous
Composer Alexander Brandon Releases “Just Fun Custom” Album
January 30, 2018 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Composer Alexander Brandon Releases “Just Fun Custom” Album Share this
The composer of Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament and Jazz Jackrabbit 2 has gone ahead and released a second album as a follow up to his Just Fun Kickstarter campaign in 2014. Composer Alexander Brandon has released Just Fun Custom for both kickstarter backers and for general listeners to enjoy a new crop of diverse game-inspired music.
“The second album is comprised of backer requested tracks! As the first was funded via Kickstarter the top backers each got to request a track. They also kindly allowed all the tracks to go out in a compilation, each song with its own story of what the backer wanted to hear.” – Alexander Brandon
If you check out the album on Bandcamp, each individual track has a blurb attached to it describing who requested each song and why, as well as additional details about the song’s composition. Many of the songs feature MOD files within their 8-bit compositions as well, throwing back to Brandon’s demoscene days.
Just Fun Custom was created with help from Materia Collective and features 9 tracks with a range of genres from jazz, ambient and synth-techno. I personally enjoyed “Cloudbreak” for its atmospheric ambiance. The album itself is currently available to non-backers of the Kickstarter for $5 on Bandcamp.
-
Indie Music, Miscellaneous
Legend of Zelda Inspired Band Master Sword Release Album “Shadow and Steel”
If you’ve never heard of the video game-inspired band Master Sword, then let me take a brief moment to educate you. Hailing from Washington, DC and taking their name from The Legend of Zelda and their music subsequently inspired by the series itself, this five-piece American progressive power metal band celebrates both the series and gaming in general with a hard rock edge. Coming into their own in the VGM community music scene and who recently performed at MAGFest Labs and BitGen, Master Sword released two singles earlier this year and and EP Epoch in 2015 and now are revving up to release their first full-length album.
Shadow and Steel was originally conceived as a Kickstarter campaign which made it’s goal, and the band got to work making good on their visions.
Shadow and Steel is Master Sword’s long awaited full-length album, featuring 10 songs inspired by Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda series. Hear your favorite game melodies played in a completely new way, with screaming guitars, pounding bass, expressive keyboards, innovative drumming and the siren vocals of Lily Hoy serenading you with the lost stories of Hyrule.
You can preview the album above for a taste of the band’s style, as well as check out their MAGFest sets for live performances of tracks from the album. Shadow and Steel is currently available for pre-order on the band’s Bandcamp page in both digital and CD formats. You can also stream their other music on Soundcloud.
-
Game Music, Miscellaneous
Classic Christmas & Video Game Music Combine with Scarlet Moon Christmas Vol.2
November 30, 2017 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Classic Christmas & Video Game Music Combine with Scarlet Moon Christmas Vol.2 Share this
It’s the end of November, and if you’re the type that waits at least until December 1st to start celebrating the Christmas holiday season, then Scarlet Moon Records has got your first offering of Festivus tunes to start you off right. Scarlet Moon Christmas Volume II brings back the festive styles of last year’s Volume I and continues their tradition of arranging both classic Christmas songs and video game tunes into remixes ready to get you in the spirit. Featuring the likes of composer Vince Dicola (Transformers, Rocky IV), Osamu Kubota (Beatmania IIDX), Norihiko Hibino (Metal Gear Solid) and performers Grant “Stemage” Henry (Metroid Metal), Mustin & William Carlos Reyes (The OneUps) plus a lot more, the album gives a diverse offering to listeners.
-
Game Music, Miscellaneous
Community Question: What do You think of Super Mario Odyssey’s Music?
As of this writing I’ve just completed one of Super Mario Odyssey’s most self-referential areas, the Metro Kingdom, AKA New Donk City. If you’ve seen practically any footage of the game up to this point then you’ve probably heard the swingin’ vocal theme from that world, “Jump Up, Super Star!”. That song has been buzzing in my head since E3 as I’ve been eagerly anticipating the rest of the Nintendo soundtrack and the full game. But now that it’s here I’m shocked to find myself saying: I’m just not that into you.
Granted, I don’t know how much of the game is ahead of me but in any other Mario title I’d have a playlist full of favorite themes after a dozen hours. So far I’ve only earmarked two songs that I really like, but on the upside this disconcerting focus on the soundtrack has tuned my ear to the game’s surprising lack of music.
There isn’t a consistent soundtrack bopping along in the background of most of the game’s worlds. There has typically been an initial space outside of the major platforming areas where you’re introduced to the visual style, characters, and mechanics of each world. In these outskirts you’ll largely hear only environmental sounds with the music building in layers as you near the center of activity. From there entirely new tunes come into play as you enter warp pipes or duck into hidden corners. It may not be my favorite Mario soundtrack but I can’t fault them on the technical sound design: it’s been very effective even if it’s not so catchy.
What about you, fellow Odyssey players, what’s your take on Mario’s latest soundtrack? Let us know your overall thoughts or individual favorite songs in the comments below.
-
Game Music, Miscellaneous
Community Question: What Artists have You discovered through games?
In a recent press release announcing that composer Tobias Gustavsson had joined Paradox Interactive as Head of Music, Chief Product Officer Johan Sjöberg put into words something I’ve been thinking about for years.
“Music becomes iconic when it appears in the right game, whether it’s an original composition for that game or not. How many of us remember ‘Superman’ or ‘All I Want’ as ‘The songs from Tony Hawk and Crazy Taxi?’”
I still prefer original music in my games but in some contexts a licensed song can make the perfect fit. Over the years they’ve also been my lens to the world of popular (and not-so-popular) music. So, putting aside our proclivities for original compositions I’d like to ask the community:
What are some songs, artists, or bands
you’ve discovered because of video games?Naturally, dance and rhythm games are packed with licensed music and I’ve discovered so many artists and bands from the likes of Dance Dance Revolution, Pump it Up, Eye Toy: Groove, Rock Band and Dance Central. But for my example I’ll skip those and dig back a little farther for just one story.
-
Miscellaneous
Layoffs Spell Further Danger for Soundcloud
July 14, 2017 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Layoffs Spell Further Danger for Soundcloud Share this
It would seem music-streaming site Soundcloud is in some serious danger. Last week it laid off some 170+ employees and closed it’s offices in San Francisco and London. Citing the closures and layoffs were to “to ensure our path to long-term, independent success” while is secured more funding from investors, it seems that was just the start of a rapid spiral downward for the audio-streaming site.
As TechCrunch reports, a meeting held by the company across all channels explained that the layoffs were simply a way to buy a bit more time to figure out how to save Soundcloud as a whole. The company, which hosts millions of music uploads from indie and professional musicians across the world, has been hemorrhaging funds and having a difficult time closing with new investors. It also sounds that, given the suddenness of the layoffs and lack of foresight, remaining Soundcloud employees don’t seem to have a lot of faith in the company being able to turn things around, stating “The morale is really low”.
A large amount of content from indie game composers and video game musicians are hosted on Soundcloud, as an alternative to Bandcamp and Spotify in terms of streaming music and sharing with audiences without having to pay a fee. Certainly, it’s been a useful tool for OSV when linking to artist’s music and sharing with readers, so the news of it’s potential crash is a troubling one all around.
Be that as it may, users and artists of Soundcloud are urged to back up their works in case things go even more sour than they have already. Soundcloud’s founders Alex Ljung and Eric Wahlforss stated the layoffs bought time for funds to last into the 4th Quarter, with anything beyond that being a matter of securing more invested funds or being able to secure better revenue streams by restructuring Soundcloud’s subscription services that expand is library and remove ads for users. For the time being, we wait and see what the future of Soundcloud and its value to the VGM community ends up becoming.
-
Game Music, Miscellaneous
Community Question: What Can Composers Do When Protecting Their Work?
June 28, 2017 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Community Question: What Can Composers Do When Protecting Their Work? Share this
Here at OSV, we’ve had more than a few discussions about the power that video game composers have or don’t have when it comes to the use and distribution of their work, as well as being fairly compensated for their craft. The usual topic touched upon is the unfairness that composers and musicians have to face when attempting to be hired in terms of being fairly paid for their work, with often the idea that “exposure” should be compensation enough. The discussions were meant to highlight how much work video game composers and musicians of all calibers should be fairly compensated for their hard work and creative efforts when composing music for any video game, from small mobile titles to AAA games.
The question we haven’t touched on is how far composers should go with regards to protecting their own works from unfair use. Recent issues regarding Starr Mazer DSP composer Alex Mauer and her disputes with developers Imagos (Whose soundtrack we’ve reported on before.) bring to light the importance of having strong contracts between game composers and game developers as well as good communication between parties especially when it comes to compensation, as too often things can go wrong.
When things do go wrong, then it becomes a matter of how a composers should go about protecting their work. In Alex Mauer’s case, she used social media and DMCA takedown notices to attempt to abolish what she perceived was her work being unfairly distributed after she accused the devs of insufficient compensation. Imagos has come out with statements documenting their agreements and communications with Mauer with regards to her composing for Starr Mazer DSP that support their following the contract both parties agreed upon and proposed solutions, though Mauer contests this. Regardless of where you stand on the situation, it highlights an facet of creative license and content authority that does affect how video game composing and musicians function with developers with regard to who controls what and what extent a composer can and should go to in order to protect their work. DMCA issues, while they can protector content creators from having their work unfairly stolen, can obviously also be abused. Certainly we don’t ever want to see a composer being treated unfairly or being cheated out of compensation, but what happens if the pendulum swings the other way? What rights and responsibilities do the content creators have, and can they take protection of their work too far to the point of doing more harm than good?
My question is to all the musicians and game composers out there who have any experience or opinion on the matter. What are your thoughts with regards to the protection of your own work? What provisions do you put in your contracts about compensation? What advice do you have to other contract composers with regards to content protection? We’d like to hear your thoughts and discuss how to prevent further issues like the aforementioned from happening in the future to the benefit of composers and the community.
| « Next Entries | Previous Entries » |
|---|
Join Us Online Or Log in
Search
@OSVgamemusic Feed
Copyright © 2018 by Original Sound Version.
All rights reserved.