Originality Factor in Fallout Music

[Music] one two good morning everybody everybody's sober from last night I see some tired faces that's good so let me put you know put you a little bit to sleep listen to this relaxing music in your nightmares hi my name is Anand xuer welcome to my talk I have written here that I need to do an icebreaker so here's my Donald Trump latest implementation hmm this is a great and tremendous industry yeah it's and nobody nobody is better than me and this thing

and you guys are all fake composers but the rest of it is history so anyways a little bit about myself I was born in Israel and raised in Israel really liked music when I was 19 I recruited to the Israeli army and I told them that I am a musician I am a composer so please anywhere you've put me no loud noises and no dust and other things that could really disrupt me show the Israeli army with their famous sense of humor put me in the elite tank unit so basically since then four years later I cannot hear a pitch higher than a cello and it's really interesting because you know like these people that are playing these silver stakes it's like it's really

great mind's eye I don't know what they're playing but it's it's wonderful so I'm writing a lot of these things I don't you know but anyways it's kind of like very interesting year for me this year because I'm celebrating 20 years of writing music for computer games my first computer games I wrote on 1997 it was clinic clinic to me and I'm really managed to survive I think this harsh industry first because I'm really good-looking but other than this the competitive edge like I'm looking at each one of you and remember I always look at them it's like this guy probably this guy has to be much better than me what can he come up with that I can't and this is basically what drives me I love competition and I

always try to find something that will be interesting and different and first and foremost you've got to love what you're doing if you're not in love with what you're doing and if you're not in love with the whole notion of writing music then forget about it it'll suck because this world is full of disappointment and turndowns and criticism and a lot of harsh things and you know every once in a while you get like oh that sounds great oh this is good but fallout main theme what you hear here is version 29 so you could understand I mean this thing so let's start talking about it I'm

originality and signature factor when we're basically talking about this thing we got it really understand what is originality and I always would say to you one thing if you want to be original start with something that is the less original thing you think about it okay it has to be something that convey something that people know that they recognize and only after that insert just a little thing that is different okay after you did it and it's cool repeat it just repeat it a few times so it'll become the hook if you manage to do this your first layer will be something pretty known pretty solid and on top of

it you did something that is a little different then you got something definitely going and I'll give you a little example all right actually I'm gonna play you a cue now that nobody seriously except of myself and mark Lampard the legendary Bethesda audio director ever heard and this is the first cue ever to be written for Fallout never ended up on the game nevertheless it set up the tone for the whole more action for the game [Music]

[Applause] [Music] [Music] and anyways when I play this to mark he said what the hell is that and and and I said to him well this is me playing hitting my piano scratching my guitar hitting scratching scratching hitting taking some vase bowing it and doing all the stuff and he said why and I said because fallout is all about alternate if you know fallout if this is reality

this is another reality show basically they probably think the same but use different means to pronounce themself or to talk about or to do things because it's a different reality so instead of drums let's use piano instead of whatever I mean any other like shaker percussion let's just you know hit on guitars let's just throw in a junkyard and the way I did it is basically totally experimenting with my little zoom instrument like probably each one of you have it and if you don't please get it cuz this is amazing it's a $100 thing that it's a lifesaver because you're going about and then you could record anything and then you turn it into your own sound machine and that basically brings me to this signature

thing okay because the combination between something that you know and expect in this case rhythm and rhythmical patterns and then weird sounds that basically are not so common to hear this combination is a great start to create a signature signature touch here's another little example I love cello I told you I mean this is the highest instrument I could hear so I really love cello but fault is such a lonely game you're wandering in the wilderness okay what could be better than play a cello with a foghorn [Music]

and it's so cool because instead of using synth as my bottom pad I use this foghorn and a little secret about it Bethesda it's not gonna be happy but

anyways it's not only the foghorn I actually record myself also singing with my ugly voice with the foghorn so basically what you get you create your own pad we all know what pad is if you're a composer you put a pad okay but what about if this pad could be something that somebody could recognize as something that has nothing to do almost with music okay it's a freaking foghorn okay but you use it as a musical pad witness you play the cello there you go okay another thing is it's more musical term is actually introducing some rhythmical I I'd say things that are not really clear where is one here where the

hell is one [Music] [Music]

because a player and I'm sure most of you are playing games and you listen to the music to me if you start doing this when you play game it's not a good thing at all because then you will start recognize when did the queue start to loop and after the third time you'll shut it down okay but if you could just create something that is there it's creating the tension but you don't really do this or you don't know where's what you made something because it will keep you engaged it will keep you interested in what you're doing okay alright just forget about everything I said so far you don't really need all the I'm sorry I cannot swear all

this thing just look at Hollywood I think 80% or 70% off of the music that is being written in Hollywood today just bound because of many consideration to be what we called mainstream and mainstream is something that we'll expect and it will be there it will do the job but if you listen to it it's not what we called original because we heard it in some kind of versions before but in games and I must tell you and I'm really pride on our industry now jokes aside people in games will always look for something different they have more courage and I am encouraging you and to encourage the audio director to go places all right just venture a little

bit it will really make you know the whole thing stand out and we are pioneering today in many ways a lot in the music industry at large I'm serious about it we are really doing a lot of pioneering and discovering sometimes more than movies because they have so many consideration and we could just open our wings and fly but first we need to understand that if we will do something more than 20 percent original forget it nobody will listen to it because it will be just plain weird if we are able to get 80 percent something like let's take whatever the the cues that I played before think about it about 70 to 80 percent of the elements there we're not original it had rhythm

it had harmony it had melody but it had a foghorn it had a scratching chair it had something that was a little different just this little thing is what important and if you could find this thing and insert it inside something that will be communicative then you got it by the way it's a smaller room and I really love conversation so if you really feel compelled to ask any question during it I'm not waiting for you know the questions session just raise your hand and ask it's really important for me because I'm here to to share thing with you guys okay so let's go to work I am I got the gig I need to write the music for a fall out I need to learn and most importantly what

do we want to say in the game what is the game all about forget about originality forget about all these music forget about everything what is the actual game once from me what do I want to tell the player that's the most important thing the rest of it okay I will deal with this but now I need really to learn and for that I encourage each one of you when you get a gig you go to the studio you really sit with the artist you sit with the game designer and you learn this thing I have few people that I worked here before I'm Andru for example for from Amazon's you know how many times I went down there and we work together and other people here it's just so important to learn

about the game and only then you start okay now fall out fall it is a different animal altogether it's not that it's a post-apocalyptic world this is not what's important what's really important for me as a composer that it is a parallel reality it's a reality that basically got conjured somehow in the 50s but right now we are in 2000 and 150 so it had whatever 200 years to evolve so it's a parallel thing so everything I'm doing will be a little twisted a little out there it's going parallel to our reality but in a different way and it's all about choices the musical choice that you make should

be based on this premise that this is a parallel reality okay so let's hear some you know example here at brightness calling [Music] this is my phase in my living room and I'm basically playing it and mowing it and record it and then layer some other stuff with [Music] and basically here harmony [Music] and you hear other elements but you really can't tell it's it is that organic is that organic sense what the

hell is it this is sort of like the secret of the fallout score you create something that you definitely could connect with because it talks to you but the way it's being created it's the little porky just a little different the elements are different I'm not using [Music] sets libraries I'm usually trying to create my own libraries there are some companies like umlaut for example that helps you out manage you're recording so this is really helpful now

in this one for example using the orchestra i got french words literally and you begged on chairs [Music] so I did use traditional instruments a little less traditional way because when you play the horn into it it's kind of like [Music] today everybody is doing crazy things

but the choices you're making of how to use these things is basically what's between the special signature [Music] or you could use untraditional instruments in a traditional way and this is solo piano what you hear right now is only one instrument everything I could out of the piano basically that is not playing the actual piano and doesn't matter how creative you get or how quite I don't care if you go to a cave in the Alps and play on a goat it you know it

doesn't matter what matters is that for the specific place involved this piano craziness things really worked because the place there was some sort of like dilapidated village with lots of metallic things so this is what I just didn't have it so I created it and this is the thing never just said I don't have the sound you don't have this sound created work sake okay so and here's another example here for example I did the other way around [Music] this actually are tons of things if

before we had only one instrument this is about 20 instruments all play together and try to do the same thing again in a non-traditional way so we have a guitar we have a piano we have a cello we have an oil jack we have a soundboard and other thing but they all try to basically mimic each other and really basically give you the same element but each one in a different way and this is what you get why that because it's really clever no because I thought that is in this specific place in the game it was really needed if I

thought that the solo flute that I can't hear Wolf is good thing there then I would write a soul food again it's about what the game wants to do all right so basically when we're choosing the the the palette and this is actually a really interesting thing we want to go and not listen to music at all and that's actually a really interesting thing that I found really beneficial I sat with the audio director and told him what do you hear as far as the ambient play me the wind you hear it'll be a little different than a regular wind play me the thunders play me the animal calls play me everything

play me the people how do you envision them all right only then oops I think I crushed I'm good only then we could get going after that I start to try to mimic what he played me and this is the first cue ever that actually found itself inside fallout [Music] [Applause] I tried to mimic a animal calls that he played me with some wind and thunders [Music]

and this is only me tried to imitate a sound pure sound design and sound effect audio director gave me I didn't really try to create music I was thinking if we would kill all the sound effect and we'll play only that that could serve as some kind of your sound effect element and this is another way and it's very easy for fault [Music]

by the way this thing that he played that was basically some of the wolf's that he played me is a string quartet that I recorded in my studio slowed it down about half tempo and lower them in one octave and this is how it sounds it sounds a little bit like a wolf to me and it was really really really inspirational for me let's talk harmony a little bit here I decided okay let's

take piano [Music] even when I'm using piano here in its own sound I made sure that all the instruments behind the piano artitude everything except of the piano and that would created this kind of a thing that you you hear that everything is deceived so when the piano plays its own regular harmony and everything is DQ'd then you get this effect [Music]

and here's another example of using only blowing instruments didgeridoo and voice do you see how many thing you actually basically and how many tools but they're so simple you don't need to work hours and hours and hours of thinking but this is the singer Minnie Paige

singing along with myself blowing into a weird didjeridoo it doesn't really matter this is technical but this music gives a certain feel that is so so so iconic to fall out because this combination between these instruments is what creates what we called the fallout signature [Music] by the way for these kind of weirdness I really recommend for Halle you know

great plugin gives you this huge reverb and I'm using it a lot when it comes to these kind of things so just a little technical thing if you've noticed I didn't get too much into technical descriptions I'm more into the content but even more I'm all more into the concept each one of you has his or her own voice and the way you're gonna get it I'm sure that there is a way but remember as long as you're not being captured and be pressured by oh I need to be clever I need to find some kind of a thing that nobody ever found no it's not about that it's about what you hear as far as what works best for the game and then tried to bring it to life these

things works great for fallout so I did it if I had to do a live orchestra for it I would do live orchestra it's not about how sophisticated we are is about how committed we are to create what we believe can be the ultimate signature sound for the game now let's get funny a little bit and I'll give you some secrets real secrets but it's so primitive really is okay I give you the fallout ensemble yeah no joking and not only that I

prepared for you a little treat again nobody ever I was not allowed up until today to play it because Bethesda and rightfully so are very very protective on what we're allowed to say and what we're not allowed to say so this is just the tip of the iceberg of things all right raw material here is me playing both guitar [Music] if you didn't go to the dentist yesterday then maybe tomorrow [Music] here's another one [Music] even I could hear that but here is this

in a queue it is this is the Bogota here's the other one [Music] it's ugly it's wrong but it's freaking fitting to what I want to say the rawness the stupidness the primitiveness of it is exactly what I wanted to say as fallout

and I didn't want to take a professional player if I wanted I would take okay but it's not what I wanted to say here's another example yes this is me sinking into a ditch [Music] these sounds never heard before for live evidence but the morning in a queue remember what I told you element like harp everybody knows yet we

get like the synth bad we all know about it [Music] and here's our fret [Music] we're it it's just sitting there and you don't know what exactly it is cause it's stupid but works sorry [Music]

here's my famous Zenith thing I call her Ooka in queue again you use 80% [Music] [Music]

and again the reason is this ocarina was what I thought about when he played me the howling wind it's not because I had a new career well actually yeah also because this is what I have but also it was holy enough for me so what the hell let's stick it in there and I just worked [Music] Harmony's so simple nothing nope doesn't get any clever remember always keep the 80% premise of known and acceptable and

touchable concept that you can relate to and then give it to them about percussions somebody pissed me off but [Music] [Music] thank you [Music]

again nothing sophisticated about the actual rhythmical matter nothing sophistical about the tempo nothing sophisticated at all still you using different elements for that and why not because we really want to outsmart somebody this is not the purpose the purpose is well that a parallel reality these guys probably didn't have drums didn't have any like these things they had junkyard so probably that's what they're whatever ensemble sounded like here's another

little secret the low I'm we don't have I think maybe we have a sub over here okay so really really cool from time to time to have like a really low sub bass thing okay and I tried to create it out of things that I have in my studio rather than really go and made like a synthetic sound or using whatever 808 drum machine think okay the first thing is actually interesting I don't think even if you could hear it but this is knocking with your finger on a bass trap if you do it and then you amplify it this has so many loads you cannot even imagine it's crazy some of it you just feel in your stomach and you don't really need to hit it hard

just do this after sampling it and putting it as you're like boom bass drum believe me it's really effective but it's different found oil jug but really amazing has so many things in it listen to this that's a half-full oil jack plastic that you hit with your finger [Music] and it has so so many lows really I mean and again in your soundscape sometimes especially in the battles and stuff you really want to find something to support the whole thing same thing if we're talking alternate reality we want to find an alternative instruments and and basically that's that's that's the whole

thing you know so here's basically to sum it up a little bit because I want to give as much time as they can for questions I'm sure that there are a few um the most important thing to remember and I know I'm repeating myself here but it's so important and I feel that this is why I'm here to tell you and I believe also that this is what really helped me also survive these 20 years is understand that you are a part of a team you're not a composer you're a team player okay and I know that you have a lot of aspiration I know that you have a lot of great musical ideas forget about it come to the project as a blank page

soak in the project and let it basically inspire you before you try to inspire the project with your ideas only then you could actually sort of like get the most immersive sound design and music into a project if you don't force yourself into the project if you don't really feel committed to say what the project wants to say you know then just forget it you could create a masterpiece musical but it really will never be as immersive as it could be music and games doesn't really needed to be heard you don't hear a music in-game you feel the music in the game you don't need to notice the music in the game you need to

live the music in the game the music is basically something that drives you without you really know what drives you it's there but it's in your imagination and if you remember that then it's really going to help you to create successful scores I remember I just created a soundtrack my first vr game for Eagle flight for Ubisoft and I was talking to Marty O'Donnell you probably know who Marty is it's like the famous hello composer and and I asked him like so Marty what do you think you're really into VR what do you think how the music should sound and if you are because like it's everything it's all around and then he told me something that and I was like yeah baby this is it that's like all

right the sound effects the Foley the dialogue yes everything is around it but music actually doesn't really exist music is the emotional layer so it's right here in your bald ugly head in between those ears that can't hear anything because of the amount of shells that they saw and heard so it's here so you mix your VR score in stereo so simple okay and I and we did it so all the sound effects is in 5.1 7.1 11 12 20 don't care music was mixed in hard stereo and it worked like a charm because once everything else moved

around and crazy and you're flying and everything music was just there and it stood out but it was not in your way you heard it extremely well but it didn't really interfere with the action and this is almost summing up what I was telling you about today finding the way you call it original you call it signature but more than anything it's really thinking what could be the one special thing that can give your project what it needs to be you know what it really calls for from an emotional point of view all right great let's hear you guys

hello hi hi I was curious for a game as big as fallout you know hundreds of hours of gameplay do you end up writing more music than you need or is there do you feel was there any restriction on the amount of material that you're putting out is there something that ends up being cut was there anything that you that you created that you wish was in the game that didn't make it or is everything included okay so here's my answer yes yes to everything you said yes do we need more music definitely did you create a lot of music and some of it is not ending up in the game totally alright I mean did you do stuff that you

think you need to do and you didn't do always you know I mean and and basically you nailed it this is the secret that specifically for these kind of expansive games like fallout the amount of material that can be put in is immense but then also the choices and that's what I'm telling you all the time choices it's all about the choice you make your artistic choice and what you really want to do this is the most important thing so as I said yes thank you in addition to Valhalla reverb are there any software tools that you particularly like for processing the household sounds you've recorded a great question so I found that sound boys actually really works for me if you guys are familiar it has a lot of things of course power

plugins and everything but the real secret to me at least is never use one plug-in a B never use the same plug-in again and again in the same q actually layering the plugins and it almost doesn't matter everybody's doing great job waves doing great job I mean I mean I mean everybody's doing great job but actually creating a layer it's like layers of instruments I never use the same like string patch I always layer at least three string patches on top of each other and I'm playing each one of them separately so it'll have different dynamics okay only then this is kind of graded so I'm not a like a big on one instrument I'm really big on the enhancements of layering of elements and

this is usually what creates what I'm looking for awesome thanks mmm hey second time I hear you speak last time was that makes always inspiring as usual thanks a lot thank you the type of music that you're creating is seems to me like it's very well-suited for semi generative applications like live reassembling of textures and music using middleware is this something you're doing or you always prefer to have hard bounced loops that are already assembled oh no no no no let me stop you right here and especially for a fault every note is played and if not in a real time it was played recorded and then only then recorded and looped I am very very much hands-on when I'm composing I never use

sort of like prepared loops or prepared that's not what I mean I mean for example recording a bunch of piano cues and then recording a bunch of bowed guitar cues right but having all of those randomly reassembled in a wise for example software oh yeah yeah no no of course I mean oh yeah yeah yes yeah everything actually it's a good question and I hope I'm answering it correctly one thing that I'm not really great at the technical but one of the thing is do being a successful composer is really work with the right people and I have to happen to have the right person that is creating a lot of my contact instruments first I use as I said umlaut to help me create like oh great loops but also my assistant Kruger is basically notoriously taking everything I'm recording and playing and make it into a contact library on my own and it is so

freaking great all right hang on really big fan I just wanted to ask you kind of about your approach to coming up with these cues do you kind of get the inspiration from the interesting sounds that you're creating and then create the composition around those sounds or do you have like a bed first or so what brace basically what's your process great question and basically it's a great question and it's so hard to to tell because the way I'm working is so intuitive I could sit and before even play one note I want to hear something it all starting from me one thing to hear something and then I'll start to experiment and this something could be

melody this something could be it doesn't have like a rules of oak I'll lay out the chords I love the melody allows this and then no no it doesn't work this way at least for me I will try to listen to this thing before even starting and then if I got like an idea of okay so it should be this kind of sound I'll play the sound or I'll look for this sound once I found the sound usually it will have inside of it already some kind of a melodic gesture and with all the unarmed onyx and stuff many many cases it's also starting to create the harmonic texture so you first listen to something you know before playing and then you start sort of like the creative process so it no I mean

it's not like Oh melody oh no reason oh no harmony no no it's not like this yeah so it's more organic than that exactly exactly on that note if you aren't finding good inspiration from that do you have a process that you like to go through that that will you can derive something from well yes and again I recommend each one of you to listen to other people I got a lot of inspiration for other composers I hate them because they're so good but nevertheless I mean hate your competition but respect them also so listen to them listen to what they do and I will listen okay if I really want to hear stuff that is interesting me you know like in games and stuff plenty of great guys Austin

Jason graves Tom solid I mean lots of people okay if I want to listen in movies I probably listen to young young son that really creates interesting texture and for me I get a lot of inspiration of this or Thomas Newman okay so yes do recommend listen to other stuff okay thank you very much of course any more questions if no well then thank you very much it's time thank you you