Nabeel Ansari

Do you think maybe it has something to do with the fact that Nintendo is more likely to be complained about because of a larger fanbase of the company itself? I mean it's been around for a big while, has some pretty iconic franchises that you think of when you hear "Nintendo". Also the fact that it's not at the forefront of the console wars and probably never will be makes Nintendo habitually look like it's going to be eradicated. Sony, on the other hand, has always had this air of huge corporate structure, so it's not as interesting to talk about losing $$$. This is different from Nintendo which seems more corporately unprepared for events like this. It may or may not be, I'm talking about the perception (which media news plays off of) Is any of this even relevant?

Bring the piano out more, it's buried by the accompaniment (ironic, isn't it?) I like the rhythm but try to work on the phrasing of the main melody a little more. Try to make it flow more naturally. Sometimes it feels like "he ran out of beats and crammed the melody notes in" in certain parts. Otherwise, this is pretty !@#$ing good. The arrangement is long enough. You have enough content in the measures to make it so it's not short. Absolute time and perception of time are two very different things.

This video game composer took a stand to say what we were all thinking.

But you have to admit, picking into a match-up you're not supposed to win and then winning is pretty damn hilarious. Makes the game much more enjoyable.

I think you're thinking about this way too hard.

thisthisthis

That's true, and my main point I want to get across here is that the problem with game music is the type and amount of games themselves, not necessarily the attitude of the game audio industry.

More lazy game composers =/= game composers are getting lazy.

The difference is that I'm blaming the game market in general while you (or at least, the article, which you seem to support) are blaming game composers and are trying to say that there's less good music now than there was back then because composers are getting lazy. What I'm saying is that there isn't less, there's actually more now than there was back then, but relatively speaking there is a lot more bad than good. Remember, there is a difference between ratios and absolute values.

No one in this thread ever said otherwise.

Except it's not because there are plenty of counter examples to your "stupid obvious theory that is correct but pointless"

Just because you don't take time to try and craft your process into something that is expressible and consistent doesn't mean you're not good at what you do. I don't explain to people how complex my project files are, doesn't mean they aren't. Also, I echo that "myeh" production sentiment. In the more recent year I've been kind of shying away from it. This is because I'm really bad at writing and good production is incapable of saving bad writing, so I'm putting it on the backburner and focusing on part-writing.

I don't see the logical connection between and

Not to mention the fact that "The Makers Overworld" uses a very minimal amount of notes in the entire song and still manages to be my favorite battle song (I heard it merely once at my brother's house and got it stuck in my head, "no hooks" my ass). Just gonna drop this here: (melody at :30) @haters: These all have very strong melodies, and I didn't even try to link the rest of them on the soundtrack. If you want to call these generic, please find at least one example of a film or game score that sounds anything like these. Because Darksiders II is the most unique soundtrack I have ever heard. It doesn't even sound like Kyd's other work. I literally just explained this it's called MARKET SATURATION. An absolute value of 50 carries a different statistical significance when comparing populations with both different sizes and circumstances. Top 50 of an era when only the big names could afford and had the development tech to create video games is completely different than top 50 of an era where games have literally become a manufactured commercialized commodity. There are literally thousands more games now in this generation than there were in older generations, it's no surprise that there's a lot more bad/uninteresting music coming out for them. It's almost common sense if you stopped to think about it for a few seconds. Like I said already, and you agreed, the problem is modern games, not specifically music for these games. I'd be surprised if you found more than 2 or 3 people in this thread who actually said that.

Just, no. Okay? No.

We're talking about Darksiders 2's " ". The main melody is played on a choir and strings, which prompts him to say it's generic. See 1:34.

Pretty much, for me, it's album project pressure that gets me going. That's like me saying a piano is limiting as an instrument because it can only do solo piano music "and other things I haven't heard of".

I'm looking at my FM library and there's like 2000 presets here, half of which don't fall under "keys", "bass", "bells", "pads", or "perc". If you want to get an idea of what FM can do, check out Sega Genesis soundtracks. The point is that FM was a really bad example for "limiting yourself", it has the most potential for sound diversity of any type of synthesis.

Just because you couldn't figure out FM leads doesn't mean that the synth industry didn't. FM has the most interesting synth leads I've ever heard. Just browse an FM synth "leads" preset library. Saying that FM can't do leads is just... plain incorrect. You basically just insulted the last 40 years of FM synthesizers.

Agreed.

I find this a gross understatement of Koji Kondo. Find any game or film score that sounds like Darksiders II and I'll believe you. Oh wait, that's not what generic means. You'd have to go ahead and find 20 in the last 5 years to even approach backing up that it's generic. If instrument makes it generic and forgettable, then I think pretty much all NES music is generic and forgettable, because it all sounds the same (a couple oscillators and a white noise generator), just with different melodies (see how that doesn't work).

How you figured that FM can't do leads is beyond me.

My mixing process has (d)evolved from: Get inspiration, work on remix for a week or two, getting feedback from my friends like Zircon and Willrock To: Get assigned to do remix for [x] project directed by DarkeSword Procrastinate for months Stay up until 5AM doing mix before due date ??? Done!

Seems like chorus and strings = film score style and apparently that is bad?

I see the expanding texture of VGM as a good thing. The fact that every song no longer has to be a catchy melody with a triangle bass line allows for better narrative elements. The Darksiders II soundtrack is melodic, but doesn't really have any fantastic traditional melodies (all right, it has a few, Abyssal Plains and Crowfather are pretty great). It's the combination of timbre and rhythm that made it have its identity. It's not anything compositionally amazing, but it is an amazing soundtrack nonetheless. It is unique and each track has its own place in the narrative. I listened to it at least 50 times before ever actually playing the game. It boils down to your taste in music. If you only actually like and ever liked game music, of course you're not going to like non-catchy music. But with expanding types of gameplay and narrative means catchy music isn't always appropriate. We're not playing many side scrollers and straight up turn based RPG's anymore. I do agree the generic factor that comes into play with very popular genres (FP shooters). The market is saturated with games that are all the same, which gives the illusion that game composers are writing the same music over and over again out of laziness when it's actually the market genre diversity. I think the problem is modern games, not specifically "game music lost its way". If we saw more, in AAA, turn-based RPG's, side scrollera, isometric games (Pokemon still has good music, surprised no one said that), we would see the catchy music comeback, because it's appropriate there. Of course this won't ever happen.