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Music
for Myst III: Exile Preparation The first
thing I did to prepare myself for this score, was immerse myself in everything
Myst. I re-played both games, read all three novels, and gave Robyn
Miller a jingle. Once he gave me permission to do my own thing, I must
say that a heavy burden suddenly disappeared! I was hired
in January of 2000 but I really wouldn't have much work to do until April,
just prior to E3, where I scored a trailer to show the game. Therefore,
for the first three months, I read the three novels and the Presto design
document, listened to the soundtracks and played the games in my spare
time. This was time well spent. It gave me a chance to steep myself in
the series and put myself in the right frame of mind. This is a real testament
to the idea of hiring a composer very early in the process. But also,
I was partly motivated by fear at this point; fear of turning out a lousy
score! I had lots of time to put ideas on my dictaphone and begin to develop
some thematic material — again, over a long period. I realized
early on that I'd want to compose a wholly original score to reflect the
fact that this was an entirely new game with six new ages. However, I
also wanted to make sure that there were some invisible lines of connection
with Robyn's scores so that it was clear we were working on a sequel in
concert with Cyan's groundbreaking games. I listened intently to the Myst
and Riven soundtracks and found that, story-wise, the only character
that had a true melody associated with it was Atrus'. That would be the
thematic thread I used to connect Myst III with the rest of the
series. The novels were an inspiration. The level of detail in the back-story is just awesome. Cyan has totally created these parallel worlds down to the most intricate detail. I wanted the score to reflect this effort.
Lastly, in the preparation, I wanted to make sure I had a unique instrumental palette with real people playing these instruments. There have been many fine electronic scores done for video games and movies for that matter. But when you bring warm bodies into the recording studio and you hand them their parts and they begin to play, it always sounds better than the electronic demo of the same music. It has that "X" factor. It feels real; it feels fresh and alive. The players bring something new and multidimensional to the music that one person simply cannot originate on his or her own. The composer is the visionary, but the players become the conduit to the sublime. Once you watch the players in the studio, and then hear the final mix, it's hard to justify making music any other way. Not that electronic instruments are bad, I just think it's important to use the best of both the electronic world and the real-musician-playing world to get the finest results. Production Orchestral
Music The process
was that I would score the scene with rudimentary notes from Phil and
Greg. I would mock up the orchestra with samples and synths and do a rough
mix of it. I'd then convert it to an MP3 and FTP it to Presto. Within
24 hours, Phil and Greg would do a review and then we'd have a conference
call. Always there were back-story points that needed clarification and
I would need to adjust the tone here and there to really marry the score
to the story. Later that same day, I'd send a revision and we would then
go through the same process until all three of us were satisfied that
the music was truly helping the storyline come across. As each
musical cue was completed with Presto, I would spend a few hours honing
the orchestration of it. Then I sent a midi file of that basic orchestration
to my Orchestrater, Steve Zuckerman. Steve and I would then go back and
forth with a conductor score. Steve's incredible gift as an Orchestrater
is making 51 players sound like 75 and making difficult passages easily
playable. After all, I had 4 hours to get 23 ½ minutes of finished
music recorded - including rehearsal time. They need to be able to play
each piece perfectly the second or third time through — no small
task, but a always a wonder to observe! My talent
in the orchestration process was arguing with Steve about the way he was
changing, say, my cello part in order to make it so they could play it
that second or third time. "But I want it this way Steve — you
know, the way I wrote it!" Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. Steve
was fair and extremely knowledgeable. However, if I won, it's because
he let me win. I can tell you this: The end result speaks for itself —
we got our 23 ½ minutes of music done in 4 hours, and it sounds
pretty damn good, if I do say so! For every
single cue, I had pre-laid tracks of electronic instruments and recorded
percussion that I had to prepare for the session on DA88. I conferred
with my recording engineer in Seattle, Steve Smith about putting down
the proper click and SMPTE time code for the session. Next to the click,
I also recorded a vocal measure count so it would be impossible to get
lost while conducting.
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