Today was an interesting day, as I didn’t focus as much on production work, however I was still working in Logic.

I decided to finally start working on an assignment for the film scoring class I am taking at Humber with Erica Proncier. This is a unique assignment, as it explores the world of video game composition!

The first few assignments of the course were composing for short videos in different genres (children’s comedy, thriller), however, this assignment required a bit of a different approach. For this assignment, we had to compose interactive music, as well as complete some sound design.

Interactive music is used in video games and is different than regular composition in that the music changes and reacts based on the players response in the game. Sound design involves inserting sound effects or voice overs. Examples of this are when characters interact with an object or another character.

I decided to start today with the sound designing. The game I am composing for is in the style of Mario Bros, and the goal is to complete various levels. I decided to find some sound effects online that I could use such as coins, jump, run, and level complete.

Once I found these sounds, I imported the video game play through video file in Logic, and designed a sampler. This was Logic’s default sampler, which allowed me to load these sound effects I downloaded into them. I then mapped each sound effect to a note on my MIDI keyboard, that way I could watch the game play and trigger these sound effects. I broke it down into chunks, starting with the menu selection, then level 1, level 2, 3, and 4.

Once I was finished recording, I watched to make sure the timing of the sound effects lined up with the video file. If it wasn’t., i used Logic’s MIDI editor to change the timing.

I am ready to start composing the main music for the game now that the sound effects are in!