Unit 73 sound for computer games

BTEC Level 3 in Games Design

Unit 73 – Sound for computer games

Task 1a

Gustavo Santaolalla - Main Theme (The Last of Us Soundtrack)

In my opinion the song starts off a little eerie with the slow pace and long chords, but not soon after the song turns more into a spaghetti western. The song gives a sense of a lonely journey that has worse to come. The song was most likely recorded in a studio individually, and pieced together using a multi-tracking recording device or software. This song was originally made in 1993 and has been re-vamped for this game.

Little Big Planet 3 Soundtrack - Dead Heat

In my opinion when I listen to this song I get a Ratchet & Clank vibe. The start of the track creates an eerie suspense sort of feel and it has long trumpet notes and long breaks adding the suspense, but when the song kicks in it becomes more pumped up. It gives you more confidence to run around because if you are playing a game with eerie music you are more wary about what’s going to happen, but if you have a song that pumps you up, you are less cautious about what is going to happen and more interested in getting through the level. In my opinion I think this song has been made on a music creating software such as garage band on Apple Macs.

Task 1b

Gustavo Santaolalla - Main Theme (The Last of Us Soundtrack)

The song is most likely uncompressed, with a large bit depth, possibly a 32 bit depth. For the computers that they use to be able to create music that high of a quality, they would need a lot of RAM, most likely 32 GB or 64 GB.

The audio output is most likely to be surround sound due to the high quality of sound in the game.

“He used various instruments to compose the score, including some that he was unfamiliar with, giving a sense of danger and innocence.^”

-         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Us#cite_note-Grounded-25

Gustavo was contacted in early development for the game to create the main theme music and other pieces. In the quote above it says that he used instruments that he was unfamiliar with, so therefore it was most likely recording using a musical instrument digital interface.