Saul's Log - June 28, 2001
Here's the log I promised discussing the eighth song
("Snakeirons"). This song was by far the most difficult song
to complete, taking me a month and a half of sweat (some of
it due to the annoyingly hot weather we've had the past
couple of weeks). Some of the work was pretty tedious and
stressful, so I'd start the day around 9am looking at a screen
like this:
And I'd finish it around 10pm looking at a screen like this:
Now, some of you may be wondering why it takes such a long time to create a single song. For your benefit (and for my own personal satisfaction), I've collected a few statistics. To begin with, the 5-minute MP3 you can download from our site is only a fraction of the 30 minutes of content in this song. That's a pretty good amount of music.
Specifically, it's over 1250 bars of music; approximately 50,000 individual notes. Because of the dynamic nature of the song, I personally verify 3000 different musical transitions to make sure each one is correct. That's a pretty good amount of transitions.
So, to summarise these figures: this is one seriously big song. (As you can imagine, one side effect of this ordeal is that I never want to hear this song again. Or at least, not for a considerable amount of time).
...now, having complained about my job enough, I'll give you the rundown of the dynamic changes occuring in this MP3. For a change, I decided to render an MP3 that focussed on the losing elements of the song. (Usually I create an MP3 focussing on the winning elements because they make people happier, and associate nice warm feelings with our game). The transitions in this MP3 are fairly distinct, so I won't do a minute-by-minute rundown like I did last time. I'll simply tell you that the MP3 starts off with the "tied" mood, then moves to "losing and time is running out", then to "really losing", and finally ends up with "winning and time is running out" - just to put a positive spin on things.
I'm fairly proud of the balance in this song - there are some great passages that I haven't included in the MP3 due to lack of time. This one should come across really well in the finished game.
And another little note - while I was working on this song I developed some new techniques that may come into play with the rest of the soundtrack. I have some good news for mod-makers out there: There are at least 4 completely distinct ways of creating a dynamic song with our music system, only one of which I've explored so far (I may be able to try the others before I'm finished).
That's a pretty good amount of flexibility.
And I'd finish it around 10pm looking at a screen like this:
Now, some of you may be wondering why it takes such a long time to create a single song. For your benefit (and for my own personal satisfaction), I've collected a few statistics. To begin with, the 5-minute MP3 you can download from our site is only a fraction of the 30 minutes of content in this song. That's a pretty good amount of music.
Specifically, it's over 1250 bars of music; approximately 50,000 individual notes. Because of the dynamic nature of the song, I personally verify 3000 different musical transitions to make sure each one is correct. That's a pretty good amount of transitions.
So, to summarise these figures: this is one seriously big song. (As you can imagine, one side effect of this ordeal is that I never want to hear this song again. Or at least, not for a considerable amount of time).
...now, having complained about my job enough, I'll give you the rundown of the dynamic changes occuring in this MP3. For a change, I decided to render an MP3 that focussed on the losing elements of the song. (Usually I create an MP3 focussing on the winning elements because they make people happier, and associate nice warm feelings with our game). The transitions in this MP3 are fairly distinct, so I won't do a minute-by-minute rundown like I did last time. I'll simply tell you that the MP3 starts off with the "tied" mood, then moves to "losing and time is running out", then to "really losing", and finally ends up with "winning and time is running out" - just to put a positive spin on things.
I'm fairly proud of the balance in this song - there are some great passages that I haven't included in the MP3 due to lack of time. This one should come across really well in the finished game.
And another little note - while I was working on this song I developed some new techniques that may come into play with the rest of the soundtrack. I have some good news for mod-makers out there: There are at least 4 completely distinct ways of creating a dynamic song with our music system, only one of which I've explored so far (I may be able to try the others before I'm finished).
That's a pretty good amount of flexibility.