Assignment 1 - Understanding the use of music within games and the methodology of recording and production

Task 1

Compare and contrast the following Console game music (The Last of Us - Home and Halo 2 main theme).

The Last of Us - Home:

This is a song that i picked from the The Last of Us soundtrack, called Home. I chose this song because of its beauty - literally one of the most beautiful things i've ever heard, ever. It comes up right before the ending of the game, when Joel and Ellie are going back to Joel's home. I think the song is perfect for the scene because it sets the correct mood and gives the right emotions and feelings that you should be getting in that situation and that the devs wanted you to get. The song gives mainly a nostalgic feeling - of the town that Joel used to live in but had to leave - as well as quite a sad feeling really - because of the reasons why Joel had to leave the town. It also gives the impression of pain - that Joel has for what happened in that town - missing and last but not least, change.

Sound theory and Psychology:  Starting with the theory of sound, waveform, this song is smaller in terms of wavelength and amplitude and has less waves in terms of wave frequency. The song also has a low pitch compared to Halo's song. This results in the song being much more slow paced and much more quiet.

Just like any other game, sound is crucial in Last of Us. It's what gives you all the feelings and emotions throughout the game. Without the soundtrack / if the soundtrack wasn't this good, the game wouldn't have been even close the success it had. In this case, as i said, it gives us all the emotions and feelings and sets the mood for the scene - nostalgia. The nostalgic feeling is also what makes this song symbolic/iconic. The levels of sound or loudness, are pretty low which is perfect in my opinion since it's such a "delicate" song that's trying to also set a sort of more calm mood.

Audio Environment: Here's a video of the scene, from 15:27 till the end of the video:

As we can see they are in like a forest, entering the town. The song doesn't have much to do with the forest environment - it's more to do with "Joel's" town, so the song fits the atmosphere perfectly, as i said before, because we should be getting the feeling of nostalgia and sadness, whilst we see them going back Home - that's what they (the producers) wants us to experience.

Sources, game music and legal issues: For this song, there's nothing really to talk about the sources. The composer is from Argentina, but there's nothing in this song that tries to tell you that - even though some of the other songs in the soundtrack do. They also originally developed all the songs in this game - specifically for the game, so they didn't have to worry about legal issues, eg copyright issues or any contracts (the team that made the game, or even Sony are the ones that kept the rights for the soundtrack). Game music: as i've talked about before, this song's purpose in the scene is to create a mood and to make the player adapt to it as well as the plot. Also, in the game, the song has an intro sequence, mid and end sequence in a loop, going through sequences as you advance in the scene (although the song i linked doesn't show it, it's in the game).

Halo 2 - main theme:

This is the Halo 2 main theme song. It's like a remix of the original main menu song for the game. It's a very different song compared to Home from The Last of Us, both in terms of genre and purpose, and other minor factors that i'm going to talk about. In my opinion, it's a good song, but doesn't fit the game style/genre - this is because of the guitar part. Now don't get me wrong, it's a good song, but it just does not feel appropriate for the game in my opinion. With that said, the purpose of the song is to mainly give us the feeling of action.

Sound theory and Psychology: This song is bigger in terms of wavelength and amplitude and has more waves in terms of wave frequency, making the song louder, faster paced, with more beats and melodies. This makes it very, very different from the previous song we've looked at, since it has pretty much all the opposite characteristics from it. About psychology: this song doesn't really create any major emotions - although, it creates the mood of epicness and action. The song is kind of loud too, which helps with the mood.

Audio Environment: The song doesn't really have anything to do with the environment, since it's a menu song. Its "audio environment purpose" would be to get the player more into the game i suppose. What the producer wants us to experience is: the mood - epicness and action. This is one of the main differences between both songs, since this one doesn't really apply to any environment, just the main menu, when the first song does apply to an environment.

Sources, game music and legal issues: Again, not much to talk about the sources. The song was originally developed by them - they most likely own the copyrights to the whole soundtrack too. The purpose of the song, as I've said before is to set the action mood in the intro sequence - main menu - so that the players kinda get a feel of what to expect from the game. The first song is a bit more complex in this subject, but they're both similar.

Task 2

Using the clips above discuss the methods which could have been used to record and produce the music and why.

Song 1:

- Sound design methodology: The song was fully, originally developed in a studio, with mainly real instruments (and minor tweeks with a computer).

-Sound Tile formats: Uncompressed, so that the quality is better (since it's a song). The file format would most likely be WAV, since it's one of the most used for music because of the quality of sound and because of also being an uncompressed file format. If it's compressed (which is unlikely but possible), the file format could be mp3.

-Audio limitations of game platforms: The game was made for multiple platforms, and it was also remastered onto newer, more advanced consoles. This makes file size, as well as sound quality, formatting and other settings vastly inaccurate to talk about.

-Audio recording systems: Digital. There were most likely more than one recording system used to record the song, as well as edit it.

-Audio sampling: This song has higher resolution, so therefore higher bit depth, which makes the song larger in size. The sample rate is also surround sound, which is top quality, affecting the size of the file.

Song 2:  

- Sound design methodology: The song was fully, originally developed in a studio, with both real instruments and tweeks with a computer.

-Sound Tile formats: Either compressed or uncompressed (didn't find info on this). If uncompressed, WAV for the same reasons above, if compressed mp3, again for the same reasons.

-Audio limitations of game platforms: Depends on the file format (which i don't know).

-Audio recording systems: Analogue. (Again, wasn't able to find enough information for this.)

-Audio sampling: This song however, doesn't have much of a high resolution, which means less bit depth. The sample rate is stereo sound.