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An Interview with Will Davis
Will Davis headed blindly into computer gaming only because he didn't want to be left out. In 1985, a group of school chums were writing a game and needed someone to do music and sound effects, and even though he had never composed a song or had a clue about sound effects, Will jumped at the chance. At fifteen years old, he was paid to write the very first song of his life. With 140 games to his credit and more than half of his existence devoted to audio, he has created truly astounding music and sound effects for titles such as Driver, Aliens vs. Predator, Nightmare Creatures 2 and Battlemorph.
At the helm of Will Davis Audio Development, his 20-hour work days consist of caffeine and pure adrenaline, composing or scheming non-stop for his next big project. Another business venture, Audioarts, which he shares with fellow audio guru Allister Brimble and programmer extraordinaire Michael Delaney, drives him further into the gaming industry as a permanent fixture. I've been corresponding with Will via email for months attempting to pin him down long enough for this interview. Several attempts later, after lost questions, a stolen laptop and a dozen game projects between us both, we have finally stumbled upon the world according to Will Davis, professor of chaos theory. So Will, what projects are you currently at work on? Several CGB (Color Game Boy) projects, which are always great fun as I get to use all the traditional skills of a games composer. Good old-fashioned chip tunes. I love 'em! I've also got a strangely high number of effects projects for race games, for some odd reason either developers are making a disproportional number of race games or I'm getting a reputation as the guy to go to for race effects, I'm not sure which though. What have been your favorite projects so far? Hmmm tricky, it's easier to remember the bad ones, but all the Rebellion projects have been fun, as they are a great company to work for. Nightmare Creatures 2 was interesting, a nightmare project to try and work on, but I had a good time trying and the people at Kalisto are great. I have a soft spot for Gameboy and any cute Nintendo-esque games, even though they don't crop up very often at the moment. What platforms do you generally develop for? Simple, all of them! I have enough talented people working with me that if anything new comes along, as in recently with mobile phone games, it's not new for very long. Dare I ask? Is there a typical workday for you? Hmmm, I get up when I wake up, which is much better than trying to get up before I'm awake, which I've tried on occasion but I then spend several hours blindly fumbling around the kitchen desperately trying to make coffee. If I'm doing a CGB project I'll just grab the laptop and find somewhere nice to sit and work. Which in the summer is normally the beach. If it's a full blown CD score then it's into the studio and work away until I run out of coffee. When do you find you are most creative? Any time except early in the morning, I'm a night person at heart. Which is fine as it fits in with the American companies' office hours anyway.
I'm not going to give a list of gear, to be honest it's rather pointless. I use whatever I need for a project. Though I do have particular pieces of gear that get more use than others, my trusty old Trinity gets bashed around quite a bit, as does an old Quadrasynth which is still one of my favorite keyboards. Loads of samplers of course, but the main instruments are computers, I have four PC's which are just used as instruments, whether running soft-synths or samplers, they are the heart of the digital set-up. What's your musical background? Well, I guess my background is fifteen years of creating music and sound effects for computer games, from the Commodore 64 through the Nintendo 64 and beyond! I'm not a film composer or a failed musician from another field, I create music and sound effects for games.
The primary goal is to simply create audio the client wants, the trick is to work within the parameters of the project and create audio that has the desired effect on the player and also fits in with the vision of the designers. At the end of the day, the audio is just part of a greater whole, it has to 'feel' right. Everything I create for a game is easily changeable which allows the audio to adapt to modifications to the project with a minimum of fuss. There is little point in wasting time or money.
Not really it's pretty simple really, music is just a note, a bit of a gap, another note and so on until it's finished. Coming up with ideas and themes is the easy bit, it's the tidying up and getting the production to sound and feel right that takes the time. What do you normally charge for music? I work within the budget the client has. I do have standard rates, which is the normal $1000 a minute type thing but I much prefer the client to be honest and openly discuss the amount they wish to spend. It's always far easier to get all the audio planned out at an early stage, especially now the projects have grown in size. I provide all aspects of audio, including an in-house service, which is becoming quite popular.
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