Blog post #6 – More Music
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Hi! this is the last post about the game Mermaid river. It has been an exciting journey with allot of laughs, headaches and late night crunches. Some posts back I did write about the making of the main theme song for Mermaid River and today I will write about the making of the title screen music. At the Beta presentation we got allot of feedback concerning the dark ambience of the game, the audience wanted to see more of it so this is what I aimed for. Listen to the main theme song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eH6dkQ_thk The Music should be dark, scary and compatible with the main music of Mermaid River. As last time I used Magix Music Maker and build the music in MIDI-format. I started off by implementing the main instruments that I have used before, the sonar bass and the accordion. To build up expectations about the game I wanted the beat to build up during the song, like in Jaws. The first sketches more or less became Jaws so I removed the acceleration of the BPM (Beats per minute) and instead build up with volume and more instruments/effects. I added volume and an enhanced chorus effect to the sonar bass through the stages of the song, this gave each pulse a wobbling sound that I think fits very well in the underwater context. It introduces a feeling of being hunted or that something is about to happen. Also concerning the buildup, I faded in the start, this affected the ending of the song because it was meant to loop. I made the song fade out in the ending as well making it compatible for looping. I then implemented some short fragments of a melody and placed them along the time line. I made them in the accordion synthesizer on the lowest of tunes, creating a less friendly sound with some darkness to it. I also implemented another accordion with a lower volume but with more reverb and sustain to it, providing a thicker and more underwater like ambient sound. Listen to the result here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmB8DcRCqyc I think that the title screen music turned out well, it is a bit short but the loop makes it work and hopefully the listener won’t stay around too long deciding between the options: Play, high score and quit. The only thing that I see might be a miss (regardless of my inexperience with music making) is that it might be too scary for this game.  |
