My initial idea was to create a new piece of music in which I would be the composer, instrumentalist, and sound engineer. This is quite an enormous task, but I believe I am up to the challenge – I am unsure what genre I would be striving for, but I know I would like to display my skill on drums and what I am capable of with the DAW of choice. I am confident in using Ableton Live 12 after mixing and mastering Project 2: Live Jazz Gig, and if I can show what I’ve learnt from that project and previous ones (such as my Level 3 work, recording instruments into programs + setting up microphones), then my work over the last 18 months will be acutely shown come the end of the project.
One piece of work I still hold close to me is my mock-up piece for the retro RTS, Command & Conquer, in which I made a three-minute track that sampled voice lines from the original game. While I still think this holds up rather well for a final project piece, considering the time, effort and result ratio, I still am not pleased with the mixing. The bass is hardly audible, and the most prominent synths overpower the other sounds. If I could write an essay about fixing that song for my final project, I would. I am rather fond of working in and around the game music industry, specifically, creating sounds and pieces that would appear in platformers, shooters, or even top-down RTS rather than music made by artists and bands of modern society.
This makes me wonder, “What can I do now?” I have created some initial ideas and hope to eliminate the unwanted choices by weighing the pros and cons.
Further analysis of Frank Klepaki’s Music and Create Two to Three New Tracks based on Command & Conquer – While I believe many would consider this the ‘safe’ option, with the limited time we have, I don’t think it to be all that possible to learn a multitude of new things and also do something with that knowledge. I believe gathering more research to build upon topics I am already comfortable with is an excellent idea, and if I can implement that new knowledge (especially from my essay on AI use in creative music), a couple of extra tools to help and discuss can go a long way. If I took this idea up, I could record the drums using my skills and put them in a track on Ableton, but for the idea below, I would need to be significantly better at my craft if I wanted to use my playing as the beat.
Analysis of Hideki Naganuma’s Music and Create Two to Three New Tracks based on the Jet Set Radio/Bomb Rush Cyberfunk series – Another ‘analyse/adapt/create’ idea, this one is for another loved artist of mine, Hideki Naganuma. What sets the two ideas apart is that Hideki Naganuma works in the primary key, creating bouncy tracks that use breakbeats and funky basslines to get the message across, rather than the Klepaki, as mentioned above, who is prone to using heavier, morale-inspiring tracks that you would hear during the war. Using heavy guitars against bouncy synths creates a lovely style shift between the two artists, and both could take me in excellent directions.
Music for Action, Adventure, Puzzle Game Genres. The pace of the music, varied instruments, and melodies in adventure, Action, and puzzle-solving game genres are very different. In adventure games, the sounds are based on background music and discovery. In action games, the sound is based on short key music to emphasise moments in time or a character. In puzzle-solving games, it’s based on simple tunes that shift when you progress.