Articles: Red Alert 3 Community Summit 2008: Part 3: Sound Immersion and Music

Sound Immersion
Presentation by Evan Chen, Senior Sound Designer

In this presentation, Evan Chen, a senior sound designer, explained some of the background behind sound effects. This was more of a general presentation than a Red Alert 3 one, primarily because most of the Red Alert 3 soundwork is just beginning. Evan spoke well, though, and explained the technique of “vocoding” in which various sounds are combined to create a new one. He demoed a few sounds from C&C 3—mostly the weird Scrin ones—before demonstrating one from Red Alert 3: the Apocalypse tank. Evan explained how in creating the movement sounds for the tank, they combined sounds as diverse as actual M60 (a World War II tank) tread sounds recorded for Medal of Honor and real life sounds from the Staten Island Ferry (a loud, grumbling boat Evan used to take when he lived in New York). I have no doubt that such sound creation techniques are probably pretty standard across the industry, so I don’t think—with all due respect to Evan—that what EA is doing is markedly different, but it’s good to see that they have a team dedicated to making the game sound good. It’s also interesting to note that they were sharing sounds within the broader company. The advantage to having multiple franchises is that assets from one sometimes apply to another. I don’t know if that is worth creating a major centralized studio (as in EALA), but it’s good to see that at least some people from one team are working with people from other team to benefit the games.

Evan Chen (standing) and Nick Laviers listening to fan feedback


Music
Presentation by Nick Laviers, Music Director

This was another impressive presentation. First, Nick began by talking a bit about the musical direction they aim to take in Red Alert 3. Essentially, the team is moving away from the serious, gritty tone of Red Alert 1 and C&C 3, and towards something a bit more light-hearted. Nick explained that they want the player to feel immersed in tense moments, “but never for too long.” I am a fan of a more serious game, but I was impressed with most of the music they played for us. Nick explained that they were going to be using four composers for the game, and played us a demo done by each composer for a specific mission. The four are: Tim Wynn, James Hannigan, Mikael Sandgren (involved in Generals and Kane's Wrath), and the legendary Frank Klepacki. Each track played was good, though one Soviet track didn’t seem as good as the others. When pressed about this track, Nick pointed out that it was very much in flux and not near done—he shared some of our concerns—so let’s hope it improves. On the whole, the music played was much better than the C&C 3 and Kane’s Wrath tracks, which, while serious, weren’t very engaging.

As you now have probably seen, there’s a video of Frank Klepacki announcing that indeed, he is one of the four composers for the game. We were the first to see that video, and it was greeted by cheers from the group—rightfully so in my opinion. I pressed Nick on how much Frank will be doing, and, based on the vague answers I got, I would describe Frank’s involvement as moderate. It appears he will be doing one main theme, “Hell March 3,” and maybe one or two other themes for the game. It is important to note that Frank will be doing this from his private studio at home (not at all affiliated with his work at Petroglyph Games). I assume the reason for additional composers was that either EA or Frank felt that he could not score the entire game by himself in addition to his duties at Petroglyph—given the demands of game musicianship, I can see where they are coming from on this.

I also asked about the handling of the four composers, as that is a significant development for C&C, but Nick said that he was very happy with them. I asked for details on how the work was being divided, and, while Nick would not say who was doing which pieces, it appears that each composer will pretty much have a good deal of control over one faction, though Nick did mention that one composer (not Frank) was going to be writing some broader “theme music” for the game. All in all, I came away impressed by the music as well: the quality of what they played was generally good, and it’s apparent to me that the people involved will make this soundtrack worlds better than C&C 3’s.


One of a kind: Frank Klepacki addressing the community through a recorded video

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Adding Depth to the Game
Part 3: Sound Immersion and Music
Part 4: SAGE Audio and Medieval Times
Part 5: The Ritz Carlton (and its guests) and the C&C Website
Part 6: Worldbuilder and Modding
Part 7: Community Presentations
Part 8: Conversations with Developers and Conclusions