Hello again,
It has been a while, but that is life. So I am just checking in to see how you are and what you’ve been up to?
Oh! … Busy! … Like me =)
A while ago, I posted some videos of music that I replicated for the RPG "Escape From New York” which was a dream project. A lot of my early life was spent on a crappy Casio keyboard in front of my TV screen, waiting for my favourite TV shows to start or finish, just so I could play along with the theme song. And once I was allowed to touch the VHS, I found a film my dad had recorded from late night TV, which was this John Carpenter classic. Then most of the time, I was playing music from that.
The publisher, Evil Genius, that brought us that project also brought us a Universal Soldier RPG too and it was handed off to me. This was a film that I never watched but knew the context and the actors behind it. I’d never heard the soundtrack and was worried a little bit about how detailed and complex it might be. Doing something like a John Williams or Michael Giacchino score would be an immense challenge for me. Very anxiously, I found it on Spotify and clicked “play.” My ears were a little bewildered as the sounds that I was hearing were not going to be as easy for me to replicate. But the more I listened, the more I recognised certain elements, instruments and playing styles. Noting the composer's name a few moments later, everything fell into place.
Christopher Franke, who I knew of from some Tangerine Dream albums I owned but most prominently knew from Babylon 5. If I was to say that I am a fan of one TV show that changed my life, it is this one. Own the DVDs, books and soundtrack. Been to a convention. Even have a uniform (geek).
So anyway, the more I listened to this soundtrack the more I was able to compare it to the Babylon 5 soundtrack (and there are thousands of hours of sounds that I know of from that). Ideas that he created for Universal Soldier were found in the other. Orchestral hits with the 90’s feel. The jumping around of keys and tempos, as well as melodies to keep suspense and follow the mood of the situation. Again, never seeing the film gave me the idea of what was going on. There is a gun fight here, then a moment of dialogue, followed by what seems to be a chase and more gunfire. It was like I knew how he emphasised the emotions that the director wanted at that moment. And it all seemed to fall into place when I sat down.
After reading the adventure, I could pace out the action, dramatic and moments of exploration, relating it to a track from the film. Then it was a case of finding the right sounds that came from that era. Samples were used for stabs and hits. The BBC orchestra from Spitfire was perfect for live sounding instruments. That just left the meaty synth basses and pad sounds, which I have in abundance. Again, cherry-picking the ones that sounded of that time frame. And having that inner ear when demoing each synth of, that sounds like it was in B5, so yeah. Let’s use that. So what started as a slightly stressful project just fell into place.
These videos block the music together into thematic moods. So if you are playing the game, you have these in your library for when you get to those moments… Enjoy
Now it’s back to work for me. What am I working on?
Cthulhu: The Sutra Tale of Pale Leaves for Syrinscape.
Kobold Press adventure for Labyrinth, again for Syrinscape.
And a new area coming this year for the board game The 7th Citadel.