The Influence of Ambient Music on Video Game Music

- music as background / mood
- "futuristic" sounding
- not a huge budget for orchestras / studio time etc, so probably using synths and DAWs

-- DougD (noooo...), November 15th, 2006.

- yes
- not all games are in the future
- lots of games have money for orchestra, I think most of them don't use orchestra - band - whatever because of convention. Gamers, if you've ever experienced them, are a fickle breed.

(actually DougD already did and you agreed with him) (but just sayin like)

Actually, big budget titles regularly use live orchestras - was just talking to a guy in San Francisco who went to Los Angeles to record an orchestra in Eastern Europe. They had a videocam set up so he could communicate with them during rehearsals and recording.

In light of this I think its obvious how more contemporary video game music (at least those games that use atmosphere over bombast) has been inspired.

Russell Shaw, who composed the music for Black & White, said he was inspired by ambient composers like Boards of Canada.

My biggest regret with Will Wright's Spore is that although he's talked with Brian Eno, and they did a lecture together in San Francisco this summer (you can check out the podcast), he didn't wind up with Eno as the composer. I'd love to hear generative music attached to all the customizable options in the game - your creature could have gotten a generative lietmotif, and the background music could change with the landscape - awesome stuff.

All game composers should read David Toop's Haunted Weather. It's practically an encyclopedia of great ideas for ambient game music.

was it an American title? I find that most Japanese games, even big budget ones like Final Fantasy, use synths unless its for a cutscene. Although Katamari Damacy's OST is recorded by a band, but Katamari is...different.

it's becoming more common, but hardly the norm.

the big problem here is that there's barely anything that could be pegged as "video game music" anymore...it could mean anything from trad. synth japanese scores to licensed stuff like what tony hawk does, to any number of styles.

sonic will always love 80s rock guitar solos though.

Mark Morgan, a composer that wrote some of the music for various games I've worked on, was a big fan of the Aphex Twin. You can hear some of that in the soundtracks for the Fallout series and Planescape:Torment.

I actually find that Star Control 2's soundtrack is very Detroit Techno-esque - I love going back and playing that game just for the music. :)

As for overall influence, it really just depends on what is appropriate for the game, and the general taste of the composer. It's safe to say that the influence of Ambient music in general is pervasive.

What would be more interesting to discuss is to what extent game music (particularly old C-64 tunes by the likes of Rob Hubbard and Ben Daglish) has influenced more recent electronic music. I hear a lot of C-64 music in some of Orbital's work, for instance.

But, I was listening to YMO's Rydeen the other day and realized what a huge influence they were on videogame music, specifically 80's videogame music.

Has any major electronic musician done a cover of a videogame track?

B-b-b-but... "Computer Games" is highly influenced by videogame music.... :)

Major ones, no. Not from what I know. But a lot of minor ones for sure.

Orbital's use of arpeggio synths on "Out There Somewhere" still sounds a lot like game music, as does also the intro to "Wayout".

Amon Tobin did an entire Splinter Cell soundtrack. That sort of one ups *wink, wink* doing a cover, I think.