Let me start off by saying, hello
and thank you for visiting my blog. The Purpose of this post is to talk about a
recent project I had to do for my Advanced Interactive Audio class; it involved
creating music loops for a racing game. I created a total of 8 loops; 2 that
alternate for lap 1, 2 that alternate for lap 2, 2 that alternate for lap 3, a
boost loop, and a loop that is layered on top of the lap loops when your in
first place. My musical intent was to make the laps seem like they were
progressing in urgency by building up the instrumentation. I composed the loops
in the key of E harmonic minor with an added A#, because to me it sounded dark
and still had a sense of movement, and energy. For my first place loop I used a
cymbal hit that retriggered itself every quarter note. Now it doesn’t sound
like a cymbal because I side chained a kick drum (not heard in the mix) to a
limiter on the cymbal’s insert path. My boost loop is just a bass line and
drums, but the bass line changes notes more frequently then in any of the other
loops giving a sense of speeding up. Then I processed the finished boost loop
track with a flanger and some soft distortion.
I really didn’t do as much
processing to the loops as I usually do, but I did do a few things. The same
bass was used throughout all the loops but in the first loop I used a low pass
filter and some eq’ed reverb to make the bass seem really big and full but not
in your face big. During the last 2 laps and the boost I added some hard
distortion to the bass and got rid of the filter and the reverb. For the most
part the drums are dry with the exception of the handclaps, which I drenched in
reverb. The lead synths all have reverb on them, and during lap 3 one of the
synths has a modulated gate on it. As for the changes between the two
alternating loops that play per lap, they only have slight differences in
notation and drum patterns.
Now for everything to sound smooth
and continuous all the loops had to be exactly 2 bars in length at 140 bpm with
no delay or tail. These loops were then imported into the UDK content browser,
and then saved. But to implement these loops in the game I had to create five
SoundCues. The SoundCues for laps 1-3 all have 2 loops that alternate. In order
for this to happen I placed a random node in the signal path between the sound
node and speaker. The boost and first place loops were easier because no
deviation or alternate version were necessary, so no random nodes were used in
the SoundCues. The SoundCues were brought into the Kismet Window. Laps 1-3
Sound Cues were controlled by play sounds and used a trigger at the finish line
to change between laps. The first place play sound is only switched on when the
racer is in first place, and plays along with the laps loops. Now the boost
play sound overrides all loops and is played once before the lap play sounds
start up again. In hindsight I wish the first place play sound would play along
with the boost instead of being bypassed.
I really enjoyed making the loops
for the music racer demo, because it was the first time I’ve had to make music
with non-linear fashion in mind. It was challenging at first but once I had the
concept down it made sense to me. If I could add one thing, it would be
transition loops when going from lap 1 to 2 and from lap 2 to 3 to smooth them
out. The only way i could get them to sound smooth was by hitting a boost before crossing the line.
Here's a link to the gameplay for the music racer demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01q-EueRMik&feature=youtu.be
