This update is written by Damian Sanchez, our composer.
Today, we’re talking about Temtem’s music!
This is not going to be an update talking about divine inspirations, musical notes, scales or chords. Instead, we will focus on the process of making music as part of a really busy development schedule.
I hope this text will bring some light on what’s the production process behind any of the music tracks.
Don’t start a long trip without proper baggage preparation.
So far Temtem has around 55 minutes of in-game music. And that is not counting alternate melodies (we’ll come back to that later) and night versions, which could easily add double the length. And remember we are still in Omninesia (which is the second island of the six planned). The final soundtrack, considering only main tracks, will probably end up having over 2 hours of music, so I had to create a fluid workflow and prepare the tools to meet the deadlines without compromising quality.
Even before the first note was written, I ensured to create a solid template project that could produce final results from day one. I spent several weeks picking the proper instrument libraries and doing sound and mix tests to make sure once I’m done writing a track, it could be directly exported to the audio engine and create the soundtrack file version without major adjustments needed.
Hands on the music.
In general terms, the music in Temtem is divided between:
- Cities. A song per city.
- Routes. A ‘main route’ per isle plus some extra music for parts that visually differ a lot from the main path. (like the Sillaro River in Deniz)
- Landmarks. A song per place.
- Special buildings (Home, Temporium, Dojo). A song per type.
- Combats. A song per type of enemy.
The average time to produce a track from scratch to fully working in-game is 2 weeks. Going into details:
- Cities are usually 2 minutes length - an average of 5 workdays.
- Route and Landmarks are 2 to 4 minutes length - an average of 10 workdays.
- Combats are 3 to 4 minutes length - an average of 15 workdays.
The first day is the most critical one. I start trying to come up with that cool melody which gives the perfect mood for the situation. At that time, I honestly spend more time discarding bad ideas than creating good ones, but when I'm happy, I export the first concept mockup ready for Crema's Wise Lord Evaluation Committee (aka Guillermo, Dani, Alex, Enrique, and Adri).
'Briçal de Mar' - First Concept Mockup - https://soundcloud.com/damiansanchezmusic/brical-de-mar-first-concept-mockup/s-XvJZb
In several cases I've spent up to 3 days to be 100% happy with something before being evaluated by the team, literally deleting every single note I've written. In a few other cases, the guys weren't happy with the proposal and I started the whole process again.
Team rejection is not so common (thankfully), but we take this evaluation very seriously and even if just one of the members is not happy with the proposal, it is tinkered and reviewed again until we are all comfortable with it.
Once the track reaches this point, I keep improving it and building the desired length with several additional evaluations until we come up with a complete structure, and then the fun comes!
That’s a picture of all the instruments I've performed and recorded live at my studio to add details that bring life to each track. In addition to that, I did some external recordings with professional musicians to give an extra punch to the song quality. Then a little bit of final mix and mastering and there it goes!
https://youtu.be/DKsjrvUwQ1s
At this point, we could sell CD's but we aren’t ready to hear the music in-game
There are some extra materials I must create for each track before it can be implemented in FMOD (the audio middleware we are using to program the audio behaviors).
The intro: There is a special intro section in each track that serves as a presentation of the area and its music. This will be played only the first time you visit a new zone (yes pay attention because it’s sounding just once) and encourages the player’s sense of discovery, but won't play again each time to avoid annoyance.
Random intro points: Once you have already visited a place, the music entry point will randomly change each further time you visit it. We designed a system of several intro points with their respective 'mini-intros’ that will hopefully help you avoid the repetition feeling happening when you hear a track starting once and again at the same point.
https://youtu.be/1RPH0XbP5rI
Alternate melodies: Probably the part of the integration I'm most proud. Almost every track has, at least, one part in which its main melody has several variations that will play randomly each time you reach that point.
This adds richness and keeps the freshness of the song longer without the need to increase the whole duration.
https://youtu.be/QgXg5gmIO1c
Alternate versions: There are some tracks that need alternate versions for places you visit under different situations in the story (think about a Belsoto invaded building and going back after you defeat them), aaaand… we are doing a night version for all cities and routes!
You’re going to experience a really cool mood change in the music when the night will fall on Temtem.
Deniz - Arissola - Night Version - https://soundcloud.com/damiansanchezmusic/deniz-arissola-night-version/s-AQQrg
So…
Creating a music track for Temtem includes:
- Having a good idea.
- Getting approval from the team.
- Producing the whole track.
- Recording the live performed instruments.
- Choosing the start points and creating their respective intros.
- Composing the alternate melodies.
- Make the alternate and/or night version.
- Exporting all the materials for the audio engine.
- Program the behaviors in FMOD.
- Ask Dani to make his coding magic to call the music in-game correctly at its place.
- Playing that game area over and over to ensure everything works as intended.
Crazy uh?!... haha
As you may imagine, there is no time to get bored in Temtem development!
Thankfully, we found some of that time we don’t have to write some updates which I hope will ease your wait until Alpha 2 arrives.
See you at the Discord server!
Damian Sanchez.