Video game music - Knowledge

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scores for games can be presented with a full orchestra or simple 8/16-bit chiptunes. This degree of freedom has made the creative possibilities of video game music limitless to developers. As sales of video game music diverged from the game itself in the West (compared to Japan where game music CDs had been selling for years), business elements also wield a new level of influence. Music from outside the game developer's immediate employment, such as music composers and pop artists, have been contracted to produce game music just as they would for a theatrical movie. Many other factors have growing influence, such as editing for content, politics on some level of the development, and executive input.

779: 3947:(EA) that has a team of music supervisors. A music supervisor is needed to not only help select music that will suit the game, but to also ensure the music is fully licensed in order to avoid lawsuits or conflicts. Music supervisors may also help negotiate payment, which for artists and songwriters is often a one-time buy-out fee, because games do not generate music royalties when they are sold. A growing trend is to contract artists to write original songs for games, to add to their value and exclusivity, and once again supervisors can be a part of that process. 2272:). Even though the game systems were capable of "CD quality" sound, these compressed audio tracks were not true "CD quality." Many of them had lower sampling rates, but not so significant that most consumers would notice. Using a compressed stream allowed game designers to play back streamed music and still be able to access other data on the disc without interruption of the music, at the cost of CPU power used to render the audio stream. Manipulating the stream any further would require a far more significant level of CPU power available in the 5th generation. 3098:

marketing agency Electric Artists conducted a study that revealed a number of interesting statistics surrounding "hard-core gamers" and their music habits: 40% of hard-core gamers bought the CD after hearing a song they liked in a video game, 73% of gamers said soundtracks within games help sell more CDs, and 40% of respondents said a game introduced them to a new band or song, then 27% of them went out and bought what they heard. Some game soundtracks have become so popular they have reached platinum status, such as NBA Live 2003.

3341:, an orchestra dedicated to video game and anime music, performed the first part of their annual tour, the "A Night in Fantasia" concert series in Australia. Whilst Eminence had performed video game music as part of their concerts since their inception, the 2007 concert marked the first time ever that the entire setlist was pieces from video games. Up to seven of the world's most famous game composers were also in attendance as special guests. Music performed included Red Alert 3 Theme: Soviet March by James Hannigan and 2662: 731: 2121:, which used the same Yamaha FM chip in the AdLib, for compatibility, but also added 8-bit 22.05 kHz (later 44.1 kHz) digital audio recording and playback of a single stereo channel. As an affordable end-user product, the Sound Blaster constituted the core sound technology of the early 1990s; a combination of a simple FM engine that supported MIDI, and a DAC engine of one or more streams. Only a minority of developers ever used Amiga-style tracker formats in commercial PC games, ( 1876: 3822: 3592: 2602: 145: 50: 91: 4459: 900: 224: 2154:

compatible with lesser featured equipment so long as it had a MIDI controller to run the sequence. However, different products used different sounds attached to their MIDI controllers. Some tied into the Yamaha FM chip to simulate instruments, some daughterboards of samples had very different sound qualities; meaning that no single sequence performance would be accurate to every other General MIDI device.

2069: 4473: 2053:, still using a solid-state cartridge, actually supported an integrated and scalable sound system that was potentially capable of 100 channels of PCM, and an improved sample rate of 48 kHz. Games for the N64, because of the cost of the solid-state memory, typically had samples of lesser quality than the other two, however, and music tended to be simpler in construct. 3804:

practitioners and researchers from across the globe in order to develop the field's understanding of sound and video game music and audio. Its focus is the use of its website as a "hub" for communication and resource centralisation, including a video game music research bibliography (a project initially begun by the Ludomusicology Research Group).

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somewhat less of an issue more recently as domestic publishers of anime and video games have been producing western equivalent versions of the OSTs for sale in UK and US, though these are often for more popular titles. Video game music companies like Materia Collective have pursued and produced published book editions of video game music.

1193:). The music on home consoles often had to share the available channels with other sound effects. For example, if a laser beam was fired by a spaceship, and the laser used a 1400 Hz square wave, then the square wave channel that was in use by music would stop playing music and start playing the sound effect. 3771:

international conference held in the UK or Europe (at the time of writing, the most recent was the Ludo2017 conference held at Bath Spa University). The group was founded by Kamp, Summers and Sweeney in August 2011, who have also edited a collection of essays based around the study of game sound entitled

2429:, a recent video game series, if a snowboarder takes to the air after jumping from a ramp, the music softens or muffles a bit, and the ambient noise of wind and air blowing becomes louder to emphasize being airborne. When the snowboarder lands, the music resumes regular playback until its next "cue". The 3938:

The growth of casual, mobile and social games has greatly increased opportunities for game music composers, with job growth in the US market increasing more than 150% over five years. Independently developed games are a frequent place where beginning game composers gain experience composing for video

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Taking entirely pre-recorded music had many advantages over sequencing for sound quality. Music could be produced freely with any kind and number of instruments, allowing developers to simply record one track to be played back during the game. Quality was only limited by the effort put into mastering

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broadcast equipment, many titles released were never redesigned to play appropriately and ran much slower than had been intended, or were never released. This showed a divergence in popular video game music between PAL and NTSC countries that still shows to this day. This divergence would be lessened

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instead of the NES's five channels in mono, one for PCM. As before, it was often used for percussion samples. The Genesis did not support 16-bit sampled sounds. Despite the additional tone channels, writing music still posed a challenge to traditional composers and it forced much more imaginative use

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have stated that it is designed to "simultaneously stimulate your senses and blend into the background of your brain, because that's the point of the soundtrack. It has to engage you, the player, in a task without distracting from it. In fact, the best music would actually direct the listener to the

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This overall freedom offered to music composers gave video game music the equal footing with other popular music it had lacked. A musician could now, with no need to learn about programming or the game architecture itself, independently produce the music to their satisfaction. This flexibility would

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Unlike the standards of Amiga or Atari, a PC using x86 even then could be using a broad mix of hardware. Developers increasingly used MIDI sequences: instead of writing soundtrack data for each type of soundcard, they generally wrote a fully featured data set for the Roland application that would be

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During the arcade and early console era (1983 to the mid-1990s), most game music was composed by full-time employees of the particular game company producing the game. This was largely due to the very specialized nature of video game music, where each system had its own technology and tool sets. It

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The sale of video game soundtracks has created a growing symbiotic relationship between the music industry and the games industry. Commonly, games are being used to promote and sell licensed music, rather than just original score, and recording artists are being used to market and sell games. Music

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Pieces designed to repeat indefinitely, rather than having an arranged ending or fading out (they however create an atmosphere, especially in important scenes of the game. They introduce a philosophical dimension in the game, as they may introduce questioning in the mind of players, in relationship

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is generally complicated due to various copyright laws, typically with at least two separate copyrights to consider: the songwriters' and the performers' contributions. Most large video game developers and publishers who use licensed music typically have staff proficient in licensing to clear songs

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Using licensed music for video games became more popular as the medium used to distribute games grew large enough to accommodate songs alongside a game's other assets. Additionally, with the large growth of the video game market in the 2000s, song licensing became a lucrative route for music rights

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software, sampling and playback rate of 16-bit @ 48 kHz (internal; with 24-bit hardware D/A converters), hardware codec streaming, and potential of 256 audio simultaneous channels. While powerful and flexible, none of these features represent any major change in how game music is made from the

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The Ludomusicology Society of Australia was launched by Barnabas Smith in April 2017, during the Ludo2017 conference in Bath, UK; it aims to "offer a centralised and local professional body nurturing game music studies for academics, people in industry and game music fans alike in the Australasian

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soundtracks, these soundtracks and even sheet music books were usually marketed exclusively in Japan. Therefore, interested gamers outside Japan had to import the soundtracks and/or sheet music books through on or offline firms specifically dedicated to video game soundtrack imports. This has been

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use popular and underground songs in their soundtrack to give their menus atmosphere. The phrase "FIFA song" has become popular in recent years, it describes a song (often not American) that is upbeat and has lots of rhythm. The inclusion on the FIFA soundtrack has given many artists exposure that

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desktop MIDI module. The comparative quality of the samples spurred similar offerings from Soundblaster, but costs for both products were still high. Both companies offered 'daughterboards' with sample-based synthesizers that could be later added to a less expensive soundcard (which only had a DAC

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As technological limitations gradually lifted, composers were given more freedom and, with the advent of CD-ROM, pre-recorded soundtracks came to dominate, resulting in a noticeable shift in composition and voicing style. Popular early CD-ROM titles were released with high-resolution graphics and

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sequencing using advanced LA synthesizers. This made it the first choice for game developers to produce upon, but its higher cost as an end-user solution made it prohibitive. The AdLib used a low-cost FM synthesis chip from Yamaha, and many boards could operate compatibly using the MIDI standard.

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The mid-to-late 1980s software releases for these platforms had music developed by more people with greater musical experience than before. Quality of composition improved noticeably, and evidence of the popularity of the music of this time period remains even today. Composers who made a name for

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and other early game consoles feature a similar style of musical composition that is sometimes described as the "video game genre." Some aspects of this style continue to influence certain music today, though gamers do not associate many modern game soundtracks with the older style. The genre's

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The game developer of today has many choices on how to develop music. More likely, changes in video game music creation will have very little to do with technology and more to do with other factors of game development as a business whole. Video game music has diversified much to the point where

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Being able to play one's own music during a game in the past usually meant turning down the game audio and using an alternative music player. Some early exceptions were possible on PC/Windows gaming in which it was possible to independently adjust game audio while playing music with a separate

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With technological advances, video game music has grown to include a wider range of sounds. Players can hear music in video games over a game's title screen, menus, and gameplay. Game soundtracks can also change depending on a player's actions or situation, such as indicating missed actions in

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games. Game composers, particularly for smaller games, are likely to provide other services such as sound design (76% of game composers also do some sound design), integration (47% of game composers also integrate their music into audio middleware), or even computer coding or scripting (15%).

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In late 2016 the Society for the Study of Sound and Music in Games (SSSMG) was launched by the Ludomusicology Research Group in conjunction with the organisers of the North American Conference on Video Game Music and the Audio Mostly conference. The SSSMG has the aim of bringing together both

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Academic research on video game music began in the late 1990s, and developed through the mid-2000s. Early research on the topic often involved historical studies of game music, or comparative studies of video game music and film music (see, for instance, Zach Whalen's article "Play Along – An

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recorded music. Since the audio was not reliant on a sound-card's synthesis, CD-ROM technology ensured that composers and sound designers could know what audio would sound like on most consumer configurations and could also record sound effects, live instruments, vocals, and in-game dialogue.

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Although the tones featured in NES music can be thought of as emulating a traditional four-piece rock band (triangle wave used as a bass, two pulse waves analogous to two guitars, and a white noise channel used for drums), composers would often go out of their way to compose complex and rapid

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With the rising use of licensed popular music in video games, job opportunities in game music have also come to include the role of a music supervisor. Music supervisors work on behalf of a game developer or game publisher to source pre-existing music from artists and music publishers. These

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in 1985 would not see any significant development in multimedia abilities for a few more years, and sampling would not become popular in other video game systems for several years. Though sampling had the potential to produce much more realistic sounds, each sample required much more data in

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The Ludomusicology Research Group is an inter-university research organisation focusing on the study of music in games, music games and music in video game culture, composed of four researchers: Michiel Kamp, Tim Summers, Melanie Fritsch, and Mark Sweeney. Together they organise an annual

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the data. A minor drawback was that use of compressed audio meant it had to be decompressed which put load on the CPU of a system. As computing power increased, this load became minimal, and in some cases, dedicated chips in a computer (such as a sound card) would actually handle all the

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system. These actions apply equally to videos of people playing video games, flagging the video from the licensed music in the game. To avoid this, games using licensed music may offer a "stream-safe" music option, either disabling the music playback or replacing the licensed music with

3275:, on May 10, 2004. All seats at the concert were sold out in a single day. "Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy" followed and was performed at various cities across the United States. Nobuo Uematsu has also performed a variety of Final Fantasy compositions live with his rock band, 8234: 2250:

in house, for each application in some cases, to stream compressed audio. This would cut back on memory used for music on the CD, allowed for much lower latency and seek time when finding and starting to play music, and also allowed for much smoother looping due to being able to

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keep games up-to-date automatically. Music licenses for games sold through digital distribution may include limited terms, requiring the publisher to re-negotiate rights with the music's owner, or otherwise the music must be removed from the game through these updates. Notably,

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Music and sound effects can become memorable, enabling people to instantly recognize music or sound effects as well as hum or mimic the tune or sound effect. Polygon has stated that despite the popularity of video game music, people may not always know the name of the composer.

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versions, and was adopted to a limited degree on console platforms. On a PC, inserting custom music into the stations is done by placing music files into a designated folder. For the Xbox version, a CD must be installed into the console's hard drive. For the iPhone version of

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Both using new music streams made specifically for the game, and using previously released/recorded music streams are common approaches for developing sound tracks to this day. It is common for X-games sports-based video games to come with some popular artists recent releases

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However, there were several disadvantages of regular CD-audio. Optical drive technology was still limited in spindle speed, so playing an audio track from the game CD meant that the system could not access data again until it stopped the track from playing.

1621:(PSG). Compared to the in-house designed Amiga sound engine, the PSG could only handle 1 channel of sampled sound, and needed the computer's CPU to process the data for it. This made it impractical for game development use until 1989 with the release of the 2558:, custom soundtracks are the main aspect of the game. Users have to pick a music file to be analyzed. The game will generate a race track based on tempo, pitch and complexity of the sound. The user will then race on this track, synchronized with the music. 3894:

Once the CD-era hit and studio recorded music became more ubiquitous in games, it became increasingly common for game music to be composed by independent contractors, hired by the game developer on a per-project basis. Most bigger budget games such as

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and eventually the undocumented ability to play 4-bit samples on a pseudo fourth sound channel. Its comparatively low cost made it a popular alternative to other home computers, as well as its ability to use a TV for an affordable display monitor.

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music, the use of both sampled and sequenced music continues in game consoles even today. The huge data storage benefit of optical media would be coupled with progressively more powerful audio generation hardware and higher quality samples in the

2453:. Action games such as these will change dynamically to match the amount of danger. Stealth-based games will sometimes rely on such music, either by handling streams differently, or dynamically changing the composition of a sequenced soundtrack. 2543:, released in 2008, has a My MLB sound track feature that allows the user to play music tracks of their choice saved on the hard drive of their PS3, rather than the preprogrammed tracks incorporated into the game by the developer. An update to 2474:. The 2001 game included an in-game interface for Winamp that enabled the players to play audio tracks from their own playlists. In addition, this would sometimes trigger various reactions from the player's Creature, like dancing or laughing. 3106:

Many original composers have publicly exhibited their music through symphonic concert performances. Once again, Koichi Sugiyama was the first to execute this practice in 1987 with his "Family Classic Concert" featuring live performances of

8226: 2468:, play music from the CD while retrieving game data exclusively from the hard disk, thereby allowing the game CD to be swapped for any music CD. The first PC game to introduce in-game support for custom soundtracks was Lionhead Studio's 3036:

generations of home video game consoles, and sometimes newer generations. This appreciation has been shown outside the context of a video game, in the form of CDs, sheet music, public performances, art installations, and popular music.

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Creating and producing video game music requires strong teams and coordination among the different divisions of game development. As the market has expanded, so have the types of jobs in game music. The process often starts with the

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In the same timeframe of the late 1980s to mid-1990s, the IBM PC clones using the x86 architecture became more ubiquitous, yet had a very different path in sound design than other PCs and consoles. Early PC gaming was limited to the

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samples, and a sampled sound allowed for a complexity and authenticity of a real instrument that an FM simulation could not offer. For its role in being one of the first and affordable, the Amiga would remain a staple tool of early

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have all introduced game music into their music programs. These programs offer immersive education in music composition, orchestration, editing and production. Other post-secondary schools have more games-focused programs, such as

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The North American Conference on Video Game Music (NACVGM) is an international conference on video game music held annually in North America since 2014. It is organised by Neil Lerner, Steven Beverburg Reale and William Gibbons.

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in Leipzig, Germany at the Gewandhaus concert hall. This event was held as the official opening ceremony of Europe's biggest trading fair for video games, the GC Games Convention and repeated in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

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Sequencing samples continue to be used in modern gaming where fully recorded audio is not viable. Until the mid-2000s, many larger games on home consoles used sequenced audio to save space. Additionally, most games on the

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in 2017. In September 2016, Tim Summers' book 'Understanding Video Game Music' was published by Cambridge University Press. Fritsch officially joined the group in 2016. She had edited the 2nd issue of the online journal

2873:, first released in 2010, had to be pulled from digital sale in 2017 due to expiring music rights. However, with Microsoft's help, Remedy was able to re-secure these rights a year later and returned the game for sale. 3045:

Selling video game soundtracks separately as CDs has become increasingly popular in the industry. Interpretive albums, remixes, and live performance albums were also common variations to original soundtracks (OSTs).

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Fifth generation home console systems also developed specialised streaming formats and containers for compressed audio playback. Games would take full advantage of this ability, sometimes with highly praised results

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last generation of console systems. PCs continue to rely on third-party devices for in-game sound reproduction, and SoundBlaster is largely the only major player in the entertainment audio expansion card business.

2416:(music composed by Bill Brown) have utilised sophisticated systems governing the flow of incidental music by stringing together short phrases based on the action on screen and the player's most recent choices (see 6332: 2089:

3-voice chip. While sampled sound could be achieved on the PC speaker using pulse width modulation, doing so required a significant proportion of the available processor power, rendering its use in games rare.

1987:(the Mega CD outside North America) hardware upgrade to the Mega Drive (Genesis in the US) offered multiple PCM channels, but they were often passed over instead to use its capabilities with the CD-ROM itself. 7049: 3111:

music and had continued these concert performances almost annually. In 1991, he also formed a series called Orchestral Game Music Concerts, notable for featuring music of other talented game composers such as

2898:(DMCA), most popular video sharing and streaming sites implement automatic forms of detecting copyrighted music from most music labels, and flag or block user videos that employ that music, such as YouTube's 2127:) typically preferring to use the MT-32 or AdLib/SB-compatible devices. As general purpose PCs using x86 became more ubiquitous than the other PC platforms, developers drew their focus towards that platform. 706:, they were used. A more affordable method of having music in a video game was to use digital means, where a specific computer chip would change electrical impulses from computer code into analog sound waves 3333:

before an audience of 17,000, holding the current record of attendance for a game music concert. Säfström has since continued to produce game music concerts around Europe under the names Joystick and Score.

2243:, the most common form of game music, was also a problem as when the laser reached the end of a track, it had to move itself back to the beginning to start reading again causing an audible gap in playback. 6960: 2717: 2966:

Limited polyphony. Only three notes can be played simultaneously on the Nintendo Entertainment System. A great deal of effort was put into composition to create the illusion of more notes playing at once.

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is also stated to have a strong impact on the gaming experience when done properly. Properly done, this can help create realism within virtuality and alert players to important scenes and information.

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chip for both the sound generation and for special hardware DSP. It was capable of eight channels of sampled sounds at up to 16-bit resolution, had a wide selection of DSP effects, including a type of

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would have perpetual right for the music since there was no practical way to update the game following release at retail to deal with curtailed rights. However, digital distribution platforms, like

6529: 3883:, who will have a specific musical theme or genre in mind for the game. Their options include contracting original composers or licensing existing music, both of which require other music experts. 7858: 3159:, a live performance by string musicians with strong Celtic influence recorded in Ireland. The Love Theme from the same game has been used as an instructional piece of music in Japanese schools. 6302: 5659: 4371:

In addition to recognizing the composers of original score, the Guild of Music Supervisors offer a GMS Award to the music supervisors that select and coordinate licensed music for video games.

4320: 2683: 1770:, 1986). By this time, computer and game music had already begun to form its own identity, and thus many music makers intentionally tried to produce music that sounded like that heard on the 3919:

hire composers in this fashion. Approximately 50% of game composers are freelance, the remaining being employees of a game company. Original score and soundtrack may require the hiring of a

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With the increase of x86 PCs in the market, there was a vacuum in sound performance in home computing that expansion cards attempted to fill. The first two recognizable standards were the

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usually seen in high-end synthesizers of the time, and full stereo sound. This allowed experimentation with applied acoustics in video games, such as musical acoustics (early games like

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repeating in a loop, though it was dynamic and interacted with the player, increasing pace as the enemies descended on the player. The first video game to feature continuous, melodic

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Arcade systems pushed game music forward in 1984 with the introduction of FM (Frequency Modulation) synthesis, providing more organic sounds than previous PSGs. The first such game,

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The popularity of video game music has created education and job opportunities, generated awards, and led video game soundtracks to be commercially sold and performed in concerts.

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Some PlayStation games supported this by swapping the game CD with a music CD, although when the game needed data, players had to swap the CDs again. One of the earliest games,

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Moseley, Roger (2013). "Playing games with music (and vice versa): ludomusicological perspectives on Guitar Hero and Rock Band". In Cook, Nicholas; Pettengill, Richard (eds.).

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that do not allow for expressive dynamics. For the same reason, many early compositions also feature a distinct jazz influence. These would overlap with later influences from

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allowed music to be copied from a CD onto its internal hard drive, to be used as a "Custom Soundtrack", if enabled by the game developer. The feature carried over into the

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to simulate instruments for melodies, and use of a "noise channel" for simulating percussive noises. Early use of PCM samples in this era was limited to short sound bites (

5860: 3308:. It also incorporated real-time video feeds that were in sync with the music, as well as laser and light special effects. Media outside the video game industry, such as 4386:

Fans also make their own song remixes and compilations, like insaneintherainmusic, and have built online remixing communities through the ease of internet distribution.

2716: 1496:, allowed the tones to be manipulated to have different sound characteristics, where before the tone generated by the chip was limited to the design of the chip itself. 6324: 5963: 11193: 8410: 7041: 5587: 8008: 6362: 3648:

Video game music has become part of the curriculum at the degree, undergraduate, and graduate levels in many traditional colleges and universities. According to the

1004:. The decision to include any music into a video game meant that at some point it would have to be transcribed into computer code. Some music was original, some was 8205: 6482: 5621: 3923:, who will help create the game music as well as help book the resources needed for performing and recording the music. Some music directors may work with a game's 1760:

in some form. It took some years before Amiga game designers learned to wholly use digitized sound effects in music (an early exception case was the title music of

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for output on a speaker. Sound effects for the games were also generated in this fashion. An early example of such an approach to video game music was the opening

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are seen to enhance the tension felt by players, something that GameSpot stated was also used in cinema. Speeding up the sound effects and music in games such as

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supported 24 channels of 16-bit samples of up to 44.1 kHz sample rate, samples equal to CD audio in quality. It also sported a few hardware DSP effects like

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as the fifth generation of home consoles launched globally, and as Commodore began to take a back seat to general-purpose PCs and Macs for developing and gaming.

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As processing power increased dramatically in the 6th generation of home consoles, it became possible to apply special effects in realtime to streamed audio. In

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Games with licensed music can have problems well past release if perpetual rights for the music are not secured for the game. Early games before the onset of

2266:). Games ported from arcade machines, which continued to use FM synthesis, often saw superior pre-recorded music streams on their home console counterparts ( 2172:

the track itself. Memory space costs that was previously a concern was somewhat addressed with optical media becoming the dominant media for software games.

6594: 3681:, who all offer programs in Music and Sound Design. These programs include courses in sound effect creation, interactive sound design, and scripting music. 1652:. Sequenced soundchip-generated music, on the other hand, was generated with a few lines of comparatively simple code and took up far less precious memory. 5524: 4256: 4114:

Best Music for Visual Media, Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, and Best Song Written for Visual Media.

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game in 1986, a live performance CD of his compositions was released and performed by the Tokyo Strings Ensemble (then later by other groups including the

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Extracurricular organizations devoted to the performance of video game music have also been implemented in tandem with these new curriculum programs. The

8467: 6991: 6195: 3002:, used similar techniques but was more heavily influenced by the electronic music scene as it developed, and resulted in another very distinct subgenre. 8227:"New York Videogame Critics Circle Announces Nominees for 9 th Annual New York Game Awards and Honors Industry Great Reggie Fils-Aimé with Legend Award" 7850: 6659: 6310: 5649: 4511: 3445: 3408:

industry, video game music and sounds have appeared in songs by various popular artists. Arcade game sounds had a particularly strong influence on the

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Collins, K. (2008). Game sound: An introduction to the history, theory, and practice of video game music and sound design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

6165: 6020: 5252: 5994: 4506: 3652:, there are over 400 schools offering courses and degrees in video game design in the United States, many of which include sound and music design. 2218: 453: 7323: 6728: 5387: 5287: 1159:

in 1982 capable of four channels. However, more notable was the Japanese release of the Famicom in 1983 which was later released in the US as the

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Approach to Videogame Music" which includes both). The study of video game music is also known by some as "ludomusicology" – a portmanteau of "

3721:, video game music is now being taught at elementary and secondary school levels to aid in the understanding of music composition. Students at 2990:

In an unrelated but parallel course in the European and North American developer scene, similar limitations were driving the musical style of

7163:"BSc (Hons) Music Composition and Technology for Film and Games with Optional Sandwich Placement/ Study Abroad | University of Hertfordshire" 928: 448: 7112: 6281: 2975:

period, when composers, particularly when creating solo pieces, focused on musical embellishments to compensate for instruments such as the

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has the ability to utilize custom soundtracks in games using music saved on the hard drive, however few game developers used this function.

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home system was capable of the same powerful sample processing as its arcade counterpart but was several times the cost of a Super NES. The

1678:), but largely held the same approach to sound design. Ten channels in total for tone generation with one for PCM samples were available in 8293: 8180: 6255: 6111: 4357: 4080: 3767:(MIT Press 2008) is considered a seminal work in the field, and was influential in the subsequent development of video game music studies. 6442: 2400:

used sequenced music due to storage limitations. Sometimes a cross between sequencing samples, and streaming music is used. Games such as

7828: 7717: 7580: 2483:, was loaded entirely into RAM, letting the player insert a music CD to provide a soundtrack throughout the entirety of the gameplay. In 2157:

All of these considerations in the products reflected the high cost of memory storage which rapidly declined with the optical CD format.

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had built-in FM sound. The sound FM synth boards produced are described as "warm and pleasant sound". Musicians such as Yuzo Koshiro and

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This article is about a general overview of video game music. For the style of electronic music associated with older video games, see

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which used DMA techniques to play back PCM samples at up to 50 kHz. The ST, however, remained relevant as it was equipped with a

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introduced a dynamic approach to video game music, using at least eleven different gameplay tracks, in addition to level-starting and

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music would have such long-lasting impact that there were more albums released of Ys music than of almost all other game-type music.

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were selling 50,000 to 100,000 game soundtrack CDs annually. Yuzo Koshiro, another early figure, released a live performance of the

1979:. Other consoles of the generation could boast similar abilities yet did not have the same circulation levels as the Super NES. The 10664: 8122: 7020: 6806: 3718: 1697: 7888: 7503: 7082: 2489:, this became a gameplay feature, with the game generating levels based entirely on the music on whatever CD the player inserted. 1401:). By the late 1980s, video game music was being sold as cassette tape soundtracks in Japan, inspiring American companies such as 9736: 5725: 2565:

series have supported custom soundtracks, using them as a separate in-game radio station. The feature was primarily exclusive to

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audio allowed for music and voice that had the potential to be truly indistinguishable from any other source or genre of music.

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soon followed, including "Disco Space Invaders" (1979) by Funny Stuff, "Space Invaders" (1980) by Playback, and the hit songs "

550: 17: 6867: 5130: 4333:, but had been used in the game six years prior. In 2022, video game music made another appearance at the Grammy Awards, with 8807: 7558: 6846: 5955: 5926: 5459: 5166: 5048: 4970: 4936: 4810: 4750: 4712: 3722: 3060: 1896: 1807: 1802: 1687:

to create an enjoyable listening experience. The composer Yuzo Koshiro utilized the Genesis hardware effectively to produce "

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Video game fans have created their own fan sites "dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music", such as

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be exercised as popular mainstream musicians would be using their talents for video games specifically. An early example is

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A similar approach to sound and music developments had become common in the arcades by this time and had been used in many

8632: 8000: 8847: 8201: 7228: 6472: 5613: 2518: 1880: 7741: 6650:"Back to the future: Yellow Magic Orchestra helped usher in electronica – and they may just have invented hip-hop, too" 5781: 4067: 3649: 3260: 3202:, public performance began to gain international popularity. On August 20, 2003, music written for video games such as 2262: 1688: 1034:

allowed for several more tones or "channels" of sound, sometimes eight or more. The earliest known example of this was

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scene is notable for producing albums of arranged videogame music which derived from popular retro franchises such as

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sequences of notes, in part due to the restrictions mentioned above. This is similar to music composition during the

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was also pulled from sale in 2019 due to expiring music license rights, though there are no known plans if publisher

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Sound effects within game play are also believed to impact game performance. Ambient sounds such as those present in

2645: 2314: 1756:, the evolution of video game music on the Amiga, and some years later game music development in general, shifted to 921: 223: 206: 188: 126: 77: 63: 7798: 5229: 3847: 3759:

A prominent figure in early video game music and audio research is Karen Collins, who is associate professor at the

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controller and external ports. It became the choice of by many professional musicians as a MIDI programming device.

170: 10045: 7768: 7013:"U.S. Colleges and Universities Offering Video Game Courses & Degrees – The Entertainment Software Association" 4323:, making it the first video game music to be nominated for (or to win) a Grammy. The song won for its placement on 3425: 2931: 2895: 2572: 2049:

also with a CD drive supported 32 channels of PCM at the same resolution as the original PlayStation. In 1996, the

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themes, which change according to the player's actions. This was further improved upon by Namco's 1982 arcade game

436: 101: 8757: 8432: 7473: 7345: 1462:(DAC) to produce sampled tones instead of a tone generator. That same year, the first known video game to feature 696:. Such components were expensive and prone to breakage under heavy use, making them less than ideal for use in an 8842: 6584: 3670: 3364: 1797:" after Obarski's Soundtracker. This MOD/tracker tradition continued with PC computers in the 1990s. Examples of 1015:

As advances were made in silicon technology and costs fell, a definitively new generation of arcade machines and

463: 9837: 8314: 8038: 5516: 8459: 8433:"Ludwig Göransson, Brian Tyler & More Win Multiple Awards at the 2024 BMI Film, TV and Visual Media Awards" 8092: 6649: 4425: 3832: 3602: 3437: 3003: 2941: 2612: 2443: 2412: 2166: 1684: 1556: 1481: 1477: 1180: 480: 155: 10565: 8607: 6983: 6187: 11008: 10922: 10850: 10515: 5312: 4020: 3714:

is a semiprofessional outgrowth of students from the Berklee College of Music and other Boston-area schools.

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arcade, was to take pre-existing music not written exclusively for the game and use it in the game. The game

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Grannell, Craig (August 2008). "The Making of Marble Madness". Retro Gamer (Imagine Publishing) (53): 82–87.

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and Canada Research Chair in Interactive Audio at the University of Waterloo Games Institute. Her monograph

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Approach to game music development in this time period usually involved using simple tone generation and/or

10860: 10843: 8515: 6838: 6513: 4501: 4054: 3531: 3215: 1618: 1579: 1449: 1272: 1028: 914: 628: 8763: 8348: 7912: 5409: 5260: 3756:" (the study and analysis of music) – a term coined independently by Guillaume Laroche and Roger Moseley. 6157: 6016: 3891:

or Konami to have a room full of composers, each at their own workstation with headphones writing music.

3726: 3689: 3688:(Faculty of Art, Media and Technology) has offered a Game Sound and Music Design program since 2003. The 3338: 3256: 3163: 2922:

compositional elements largely developed due to technological restraints, while also being influenced by

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for the Atari 2600 and several late Famicom titles. These chips add to the existing sound capabilities.

11383: 7315: 6736: 5813: 5379: 5283: 4884: 4633: 4006: 3685: 3367:'s "The Art of Video Games" exhibit opened featuring a chipmusic soundtrack at the entrance by artists 2247: 1931: 1837: 788: 647:, informing the player they are in a dangerous situation, or rewarding them for specific achievements. 424: 6758: 4994: 4769: 3696:

offers Sound and Music for Interactive Games, and dBs Music Bristol teaches Sound for Games and Apps.

3440:". In turn, the band would have a major influence on much of the video game music produced during the 3028:

Appreciation for video game music is strong among fans and composers, particularly for music from the

2944:". In turn, the band would have a major influence on much of the video game music produced during the 533: 429: 11378: 10872: 10833: 9653: 9648: 9419: 8800: 8775: 7920: 7078: 6045:

Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design

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Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design

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