Not every game developer has the means to book studio time with a full orchestra to capture their custom score, but that doesn’t mean the impactful, organic sound of a live recording session must be sacrificed altogether.
Using modern techniques, composers for games of all shapes and sizes can convincingly recreate the full studio feel of AAA game scores by blending sampled instruments with a strategic selection of live recorded solo performances captured by musicians recording from the comfort of their home recording studios.
Not only does this composite approach help bring a realistic edge to otherwise stiff and synthetic scores, it also enables technical sound engineers to further the scope of how music comes to life throughout a game through adaptive audio implementation. When instruments are tracked individually instead of recorded as a group, composers can get creative with the mix to meet a wider variety of gameplay needs with the same base composition.
But, as with any remote collaboration, success rides first on the responsibilities of the studio and composer to deliver precisely what remote musicians need to execute a pitch-perfect performance — something that our own experience as recording artists tells us that performers are often are asked to make do without.
Here are some of our key learnings to help close the distance and make efficient work of working with home recording artists to turn synth multitracks into a symphony of success.
Cover All Remote Recording Bases
As recording musicians ourselves, we’ve each encountered our share of haphazard recording assignments where the only guidance we’ve received is the sheet music for our isolated part or just a MIDI track. These minimal resources leave too much unknown for performers to record effectively in isolation. Without the benefit of playing live alongside the ensemble, extra care and preparation must be taken to ensure that ensemble recordings mesh well when combined.
For efficient collaboration, it’s incumbent on producers and composers to minimize the uncertainties for musicians without overloading them with irrelevant information. We find that there are four essentials to help kickstart a musician’s recording session, and a few ways to enhance these essentials in meaningful ways.
A strong musician will be able to execute a composer’s vision with four key resources:
1. Audio Mock-up – Allowing musicians to hear what the full ensemble should sound like with their part included helps to remove the upfront guesswork and readies them to hit “record” a lot quicker. Some musicians may benefit from an isolated stem of their individual part performance, and soloists may even request a mock-up of the full accompaniment with only their part removed.
2. MIDI file – Because MIDI is importable directly into a recording artist’s digital audio workspace (DAW), these are essential to help map out key performance aspects like tempo and time signatures on screen.
3. Sheet Music – While some musicians can play primarily by ear using their isolated audio stem or with the MIDI track displayed in their DAW, for many, supplied sheet music can be invaluable for those who prefer to read their music for total performance accuracy.
4. Click Track – Click tracks provide complete audio cues for tempo throughout the duration of a recording. While an audio mock-up and MIDI can provide a reference for rhythm on their own, the addition of an isolated click track provides a foolproof backup or checksum by which musicians can preemptively validate that their references align in their DAW and that their recordings will mesh perfectly with parts performed by others when combined on the composer’s end.
With these items checked off, your musicians should be good to go, but we can enhance these items with foresight to make our job of mixing multiple parts a whole lot easier once received.
For example, we recommend sheet music be run through a professional copyist first before providing it to musicians, as a copyist’s perspective can help improve notation and deliver greater consistency more swiftly across many individual parts. Furthermore, when creating recording resources, we find a lot of value in introducing two empty measures for count-off before cueing music on measure three. By consistently adding these preparatory measures, composers and producers can ensure ample buffer for cleaner recordings that import more readily into the final mix.
The difference between providing musicians with the above baseline essentials or less can amount to several hours of extra work on the musician’s end, charged at their hourly rate.
1. Audio Mock-up – Allowing musicians to hear what the full ensemble should sound like with their part included helps to remove the upfront guesswork and readies them to hit “record” a lot quicker. Some musicians may benefit from an isolated stem of their individual part performance, and soloists may even request a mock-up of the full accompaniment with only their part removed.
2. MIDI file – Because MIDI is importable directly into a recording artist’s digital audio workspace (DAW), these are essential to help map out key performance aspects like tempo and time signatures on screen.
3. Sheet Music – While some musicians can play primarily by ear using their isolated audio stem or with the MIDI track displayed in their DAW, for many, supplied sheet music can be invaluable for those who prefer to read their music for total performance accuracy.
4. Click Track – Click tracks provide complete audio cues for tempo throughout the duration of a recording. While an audio mock-up and MIDI can provide a reference for rhythm on their own, the addition of an isolated click track provides a foolproof backup or checksum by which musicians can preemptively validate that their references align in their DAW and that their recordings will mesh perfectly with parts performed by others when combined on the composer’s end.
With these items checked off, your musicians should be good to go, but we can enhance these items with foresight to make our job of mixing multiple parts a whole lot easier once received.
For example, we recommend sheet music be run through a professional copyist first before providing it to musicians, as a copyist’s perspective can help improve notation and deliver greater consistency more swiftly across many individual parts. Furthermore, when creating recording resources, we find a lot of value in introducing two empty measures for count-off before cueing music on measure three. By consistently adding these preparatory measures, composers and producers can ensure ample buffer for cleaner recordings that import more readily into the final mix.
The difference between providing musicians with the above baseline essentials or less can amount to several hours of extra work on the musician’s end, charged at their hourly rate.
Set Explicit Expectations
With remote recording, everything is possible. Producers and composers can tap into a broad range of performers to meet faster timelines at a fraction of the cost of a studio booking with full orchestra. But keeping those turnarounds tight depends on musicians being provided a clear set of expectations from the start.
The aforementioned consistency in notations, including count-off measures in each resource file, will help carry some of the weight of expected output. Still, other details like file types, sample rates, and quantities of cues/takes should be addressed upfront.
For traditional scores that rely on performance of arrangements as written, the minimum requirement is one good take that can be tweaked as necessary with pitch and time correction tools like Melodyne. Non-traditional scores may allow musicians more room for interpretation and improvisation, which may involve a bit more upfront discussion and a request for additional takes.
Along with the number of takes expected, it’s important for studios to clarify the need for any other requests beyond standard expectations. In most cases, a stereo .wav file with a sample rate of 48k, a bit depth of 24-bits is baseline standard, so if a higher sample rate would be ideal for any specific parts, we make sure to make that request clear upfront.
As long as the details of each deliverable are clarified during musician onboarding, studios can expect much fewer headaches on the back end as the tracks coalesce in the composer’s own DAW.
For even more best practices that will make collaborations between game composers, producers, studios, and remote musicians more efficient, join us at GameSoundCon on Tuesday, October 28 for our panel discussion with award-winning woodwind performer and arranger Kristin Naigus.
