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 Features
Music
for Myst III: Exile
The Evolution
of a Videogame Soundtrack
Reward
Music
The
next type of music I designed for this latest version of the Myst
series was "Reward Music". That is, music played when you've
actually accomplished something. When you solve the puzzle to make it
to a particular age, the "age theme" plays. These are linear
pieces of music with melody that serve to define each of the Ages. Unlike
Myst and Riven where the music is almost exclusively ambient,
the music has ambience as background, but it's designed to be listened
to. It's 2 to 3 minutes long and only plays once — so it's not possible
to get annoyed by it. It's meant to be a break or respite in a musical
sense at least. When you arrive at your destination, the thought is that
you would simply be in awe of your surroundings. This reward music is
the score for that emotion and for that first few minutes where the player
is experiencing the new environment.
In-Game
Once you are passed the reward music inside a new age, then the familiar
ambient Myst music takes over. Of course, the in-game music is
the largest single category of music in this game, since this is where
you are spending most of your time. The main idea here is to introduce
melody. However, how do you do this without annoying the player? Enter
the Presto audio engine.
Presto developed
an audio engine for the Journeyman Project series that endeavored to solve
this problem. The basic concept at the beginning of the production was
a looping pad or some mixture or texture of sounds, with what they called
"stingers" that randomly play on top. Working directly with
the man who programmed this engine (as well as the whole of Myst III),
Roland Gustafsson, I asked him if it would be possible to make some modifications
to the engine in order to enhance the functionality to do what I wanted
to do with the music. Roland's response surprised me. He said "yes".
It was truly amazing working with Roland, because he never said no to
anything I asked for. His enthusiasm was mind-blowing. He was a great
partner in getting the music to play properly in the game.
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The Process. My basic idea was to compose and fully produce a 2-minute
piece of linear music without any constraint whatsoever. I wanted melody,
rhythm, texture, dynamics (at times) and counterpoint to add to the
ambient music the audience was accustomed to. When I got a mix I liked,
I recorded the mix in stereo. Then I would record multiple passes of
every element of that mix — various rhythms, melodic instruments
(all real by the way — almost never electronic), textures or pads,
counterpoint instruments, etc. I would import these files into Protools
and edit them to their core elements. All of these music elements would
then be available for scripting into the Presto audio engine.
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Scripting. Once all files were edited and ready, I would write a
script that dictated specifically how each file was to be played; how
often it would play, what files would loop, which ones would play only
once and also, and very importantly, when there should be silence. Scripting
took the last 3 weeks of production and went right up to the gold master
date. It was a nail biter for me. Of course, almost everyone was feeling
the gold master pressure common at the end of every production.
Conclusion
I'm very
proud of the Myst III: Exile score, not just for the music itself,
but the process of making it. Working in tandem with Presto and Ubisoft
could not have been better. Working with the genius of the musicians that
played on it and having the opportunity to work with such great teams
of people made this a truly memorable production — and I think the
score was better for the fact that everyone involved truly cared about
it and supported the making of it.
It took
more than my talent and experience to make this score work. To me, that's
only about 50% of it. The other half comes from the audio programmer working
to implement it properly. They have to really care. The designer and the
producer making sure that the music is fulfilling their vision. They have
to really care. The publisher and executive producers who pay for the
score. They have to care. The sound department that mixes the music and
sound together. They have to care. Everyone cared.
The best part is that no one cared any more or any less about the music
than any other single part of the production (gameplay, sound effects,
cinematics, story, graphics, etc). That's what makes the best scores.
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