- Stinger: A triggered short musical phrase that plays over the top of the continuous music.
- Looping: Music often needs to play continuously in some scenes and this is when loops are generally used. These loops should seamlessly play into each other.
- Adaptive Audio: As more games no longer follow a linear structure, audio elements in games need to be dynamic to game events and adapt to the games surroundings.
- Tempo Alteration: Increasing and/or decreasing tempo throughout gameplay to create a different atmosphere for the player.
- Digital Signal Processing (DSP): These are used to enact effects to audio in realtime while in the game.
- Horizontal Re-sequencing: The ability to switch between musical cues based on a game event
- Cues: Changes in music that highlight a game event/new location. Length of these cues varies.
- Themes: A recurring musical motif that is the “core” sound for the game. Often used in the opening credits of a game/game menu.
- Transitions: Music fading from one scene to another or from one game even to another. These short adaptive seamless musical transitions are important to stop the game audio from being jarring.
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Our library picks for Horror game scoring
Inspiration: Horror Game Scores
Our library picks for Sci-Fi game scoring
Inspiration: Sci-Fi Game Scores
- The theme song of the video game Civilization IV(2005) was the first video game music composition to win a Grammy Award(2011).
- Pong was the first game to incorporate digital audio.
- Storage space was a big issue for games in the beginning - it has to be stored physically - but the intro of 8-bit and then 16-bit audio microchips in the 80s led to more musical pieces.
- Software used in embedding audio into video games needs to allow for interactive and adaptive elements, such as the changing of reverb between rooms and adaptive mixing and sound design.
- Koichi Sugiyama(Dragon Quest) was the first video game composer to put on public orchestral performances of his video game scores in 1987.
- Chiptune is a genre of electronic synthesiser music born from using the programmable sound generator (PSG) sound chips or synthesisers in vintage arcade machines, computers and video game consoles.
- There’s an even split between freelance video game composers and in-house employed sound teams.
Our library picks for Fantasy game scoring
Inspiration: Fantasy Game Scores
Our library picks for Action game scoring
Inspiration: Action Game Scores
