Dreamy Game Soundtrack

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to work on a game soundtrack in which some game producers would build a game around the music I created. I thought this was an amazing opportunity. However the turn around time was very short I had a weekend essentially to for fill my concept I had pitched with then a completed track and a full idea of how the game would play to present on Monday morning. This was hectic as, I had just stared working an a few other projects and even though the project is completed I'm only now having the space to reflect and show you the game!

So I had an idea that I wanted the game to be relaxing and beautiful and really aesthetic. I wanted the sounds and the colours to reflect each other so that is was a full experience of the senses for the player. The game play would be minimal allowing the player to slowly relax as they are taken on a first person journey through different environments. I had thought of some places underwater, in the clouds and on mountain tops as the environments I wanted the game to progress through. I wanted each environment to flow into the other along with the music as it would change ever so subtly as you progressed through the game. The music is synth inspired lots of long notes and textual sounds that are interesting for your ears. The key words I wanted people to feel while listening a playing were dreamy, soft and relaxed.

So that was the vision : an audio game experience designed to take the player to a stage of relaxation. All while not being like a mindfulness game but just something beautiful to take your mind off things. So I had a big weekend ahead of me I am going to show you the process I went through as I created sounds and made aesthetic choices regarding audio for the game.

Firstly being on a time schedule I knew that a few things would change such as referring to my reference tracks and making everything exactly how I imagined probably wasn't going to happed. So I found songs that enraptured the aesthetic feeling that I wanted rather than processing wise I guess. I found some songs I specifically I found aesthetically pleasing.

1. Beach House- Space Song

I really like the way there is a lot of different textures in this song such as the arpeggiator and lo-fi sounding drums.

2. Hot Sugar- Sinkies

This song is filled with all sorted of bubble sounds and has feature sounds through each section. This is something I wanted to use as the transitioning element for the three environments I was going to create each of them would have a feature sound even though the rest of the score wouldn't change so much.

So these songs represented the over all vibe I was going for. I decided to treat the creation of this score the same I would any other composition and start with the drums first.

Last year I brought the Arturia synth package which has a lot of interesting synths and beats I thought that going there for sounds and inspiration would be a good start when composing. As far as the chords behind this its simply a two chord pattern the whole way though pretty much but the use of melody and layering has the effect that there is more involved in the chords. I found a synth that I liked that was an 80's back beat sorta vibe. I thought that is would be a cool place to start. I added an EQ on it get that lo fi vibe I was after. Here is the EQ's I used to get rid of the high end and left mostly just the mids. I love this EQ in Logic with the built in spectrum analyser as you can actually really see the different drums as they are hit. I find it easier when working with a audio clip with a beat to EQ this way if I want to use EQ as an effect like this. For instance in this case I really liked the cow bell sounds that sit around 850hz. So left the EQ just dipped a tiny bit there and really cut out the rest of the high end. I wanted the kick drum to have that really under water floaty sounding so I dipped the fundamental bass frequency around 80hz then messed around where I wanted to add a little boost.

Here is an example of both the EQ and un EQ'd version.

I then worked on some textures that I liked I found some interesting pad sounds to build my chords. I really like the classic organ sound that beach house use a lot but found it a little too harsh. I went with a CIM synth replicator and set the attack to slow and the decay to slow. This allowed the sound to evolve as it is played and to merge and become one constant sound over time as the chords mesh into one another.

Here is the final version of the main pad sound:

I found a texture that I found was really fitting to the aesthetic's of the game. A simple drop sound like a rain drop. The original sound was really resonate and had a lot of high end. There was no reverb and no dynamic to the sound. I placed the sound through the first part of the sound. I cut out the high frequencies and sent the drop sound to a reverb bus. This allowed the drop to sound softer and almost hollow. This is the sampler that I used to process the drop sound. I found the sound was a stock in Logic X and used this drum synth to mess around a little. I wanted the back end of the drop to have a wobbling effect. Take not of ENV2. I changed the oscillator rate to short and fast sine waves to create this effect. You will hear this as a main feature in the score.

Another element that is a main feature of this song is the lead synth part. This was a stock sound I found as a preset in the CIM simulator. I was looking for something airy and beautiful and I found it in this preset which was great the only thing I did was sent it to a reverb bus to add some more flow to the lead sound. The attack of the sound was already short and the decay was long and there was no frequencies on the tone that I did't find were relaxing. I think that is is something I could have created myself using a modular synth but as time was of the constraints I was stoked I found something dreamy like this.

Here is what the synth looks like: They are pretty complicated and to be honest this one in particular I sometimes find hard to use as there are so many fine tuning elements. Essentially thought it is just a sampling synth. It uses a sample, then you are able to modify it in the synth to completely change the effect. It can also use different types of synthesis in to effect the synth that is what the bottom bars are for. If you add one of these you are then able to create a different sample or synth sound from scratch and blend it in to your original sound. I have not used this to create a synth sound from scratch yet but it is something hope to do soon!

Another element that I worked on to add texture was adding a sample I took on my phone of my own breath. I literally just used my phone mic to capture this. I wanted something that was like a breath in there but was bit more weird. I thought that is was going sound more relaxing than it did but after playing with some effects I found a balance between weird and relaxing I think.

So firstly I stretched the breath sound until it was distorted. I just used my ears to adjust how far was too far and how far wasn'y long enough. I then used EQ to get rid of some of the distortion which is what was making is more smooth and less weird sounding to fit the vibe of the rest of the song. I then used a large chamber reverb and a stereo delay to make the delay pan left and right as the breath was let out. Here is the delay I used. It was timed as simple 8th notes and bounces between left and right with the panning and 95%.

I also added a fade in on the breath so that it made the initial sound more rounded and smooth. I also found that changing the algorithm to monophonic instead of polyphonic cleaned up the sound and made it less glitchy.

An element that I added to this was one of my favourite one shot drum samples. This was a weird sample I got from a friend a while ago when I was making a lot of beats. The sound is a weird airy snare rim shot. I really thought that id be able to use this as a texture rather than as a drum sound. Firstly I needed to make it something I could work with easy rather than an audio file. I put it into a sampler synth in Logic X called ES24. This is what it looks like:

I honestly only used this to make the velocity higher and the sustain of the sound longer. I then was able to use this sound as midi which made it a lot easier to put into the rest of the score. I made the sound had a delay on it also the panned left to right. I used the same delay bus as I did for the breath sound. The feeling of it jumping for left to right in headphones I thought sounded really cool and really added a feature layer with this texture.

After collecting all the sounds I wanted I realised that my mix was lacking something to really pull out the low tones. I found some bass tones I liked but after changing them around I figured that if I EQ'd two or three bass lines differently then I'd have more texture and tone as well as three different sounds. I ended up using two bass sounds.

One was a squelchy springy sound almost. I duplicated this and then used opposite EQ's on these duplicated tracks. I then added a bass sound that was more like a tone it had little characteristics but was smooth sounding so I put this under neath and left the EQ just boosted around 80hz. Using these there sounds I was able to really make the bass a feature in the song it was repudiative but interesting enough to play the whole time.

Here is an example of the over all sound of the three bass's.

I used a lot more presents from the synths I like I mostly used the CIM and Prophet simulators as they are known for their airy tones and really dramatic sounds. Here is a link to the final version of the sound track and the game!

HERE for Game link

Thanks for reading stay tuned for some updates on current projects