Level Up.pdf

394 LEVEL 15 Some Notes on Music
Music and sound in gaming has come a long way in a short time. Back in
the 1970s and 1980s, arcade and console programmers had only electronic
beeps and boops to play with. Even with the limitations, game creators were
able to create some simple but memorable musical themes (or even just
jingles) for games like Pac - Man, Donkey Kong, and The Legend of Zelda.
Sound advances happened with almost every system; voice synthesizing
and MIDI format audio meant that music became more lush. However,
game creators were limited because sound and music files took up a good
amount of memory on cartridges.
The big jump in game music came with CD media games. Starting with Red
Book audio (Red Book being the set of standards for CD audio), music and
audio in games was not only able to sound just like any other recorded
music, but it was possible to store more of it on the CD. As games moved
onto DVD media, the biggest problem with sound and music, storage
space, was no longer an insurmountable issue. Nowadays streaming sound
(compressed into MP3s, Ogg Vorbis, or console - specific formats and
decompressed as needed by the sound chip) is used on modern PC and
console games. Emphasis shifted from the programmatic issues with music
and sound to what to do with it creatively.
The first question you need to ask yourself when thinking about music
design is, “ what kind of music do I want? ” There are really two answers to
this question: licensed or original.
Licensed music is previously recorded music that can be “ licensed ” for
use in a game for a fee. While music publishers own the rights to the
recorded music, there are also companies that work on behalf of the
publishers to negotiate licensing deals including ASCAP (the American
Society of Composers, Artists and Publishers) and Third Element. Obtaining