Eno to generate Spore soundtrack

Can you say former glam rocker/member of ROXY MUSIC.

Former wild man who recorded "Warm Jets" and "Taking Tiger Mountain". Look them up. You won't regret it.

But its' been downhill since then.

FINALLY!!! is all I have to say. As im sure many have seen, I am an advocate of procedural synthesis and its many uses. Not just limited to geometery. To be honest I did not expect it to be used to produce musical scores this early in the PC/console gaming cycle. Essentially this will allow developers to mix sounds realtime for instance. Instead of producing the sound of a sword clanging and the sound of glass shattering simutaneously. It would mix realtime the sound to produce a unique sound which would be completely different from the sound of a sword hitting wood. To be honest I thought the scenario I just gave was still at least 2 years away but Will Wright has proven that he certainly has vision and and extensive one at that. My one regret is that many will not look and see how procedural synthesis can be applied across the board in EVERY single type of game from fighting to sports to racers, to GTA style games. Any getting back to the musical score. I see this a VERY difficult piece of programming to write and will ultimately result in over simplified music if completely procedural as described. Procedural synthesis should be used as an additive to arts and music, not a replacement. It should give it life and breath. And make art assets dynamic and interactive, not mechanized and souless. If done right Will Wrights Spore will change how games experiences have evolved and be the true birth of gaming as a medium and an art form.

I thought that motherfucker was dead by now.

Good for him then. Good for us too, if anyone should have the job, it's him. In before weaboos bitching.

The sleeper must awaken..

I think it's great to see professional musicians writing soundtracks. I have been a fan of Brian Eno for over 10 years.

Rats. I was hoping to have "Ziggy Stardust" be the score to Spore.

(Hey, that rhymes!)

Brian Eno is awesome. Ikekuburo is the greatest song ever created by mankind.

GREAT!

It's about time that someone leveraged Eno's work for the video game industry. He's a brilliant mind, and his accomplishments are staggering. For example:

1) His early '70s tape-looping experiments launched an entire category of music, New Age.
2) Long-time producer for a little band called U2.
3) Authored the single most-heard piece of music in the history of mankind, the Windows startup song.

Anyone interested in a great read regarding music theory should check out his diary, "Year (With Swollen Appendices)". His wikipedia entry does an excellent job of outlining his career.

And here I thought I could't be any more excited for Spore... Brian Eno is amazing (download and listen to "Music for Airports" if you don't believe me)... It's about time that videogame music was actually taken seriously instead of tacked on as an afterthought...

>> bandit: I doubt they're using procedural synthesis for the sound engine per se, just the musical score - making musical bits develop, change, and not repeat. That's one of Eno's things; something he really got into, then gave up on, and apparently got back into.

The music will probably be pretty cool and fitting but Eno isn't the greatest ever, and "New Age" music = death.

Well I love New Age music. Obviously, everyones musical interests will be very different. Ever since CD's have been the media for video games, Techno, Neo-classical and New Age have been the top genres in ALL video games (top genres meaning appear in the most games).

Most people dont really know what New Age even is. They think it's just Enya and Yanni. Many Techno/Electronica musicians started out doing New age (Moby being the most famous case of that).

If you dont like New Age then you must be muting most of your video games.

i have never heard of him until now, but i just listened to his stuff on itunes, and it sounds like it'll be perfect.

i imagined spore would have aquarium/planetarium like music, and it seems like his stuff is exactly what i was thinking of.

http://millivanilliskip.ytmnd.com/

Well then, I'm sold on the idea.

Denny Crane.

Brian Eno rules. He was once impressed with a mod I did on a Speak & Read.

Rock on.

Wow. As if I wasn't looking forward to Spore enough, this had to happen. Eno has been making procedural music off and on for over 30 years now, although he used a different name back then (he coined the term generative music in the 70's). It seems like he's the only one who "gets it," and the only one who could do this score justice.

For those unfamiliar with Eno's generative stuff, I recommend czeching out Discreet Music, Ambient 1: Music for Airports, Thursday Afternoon, Neroli, or his Bell Studies album. Then buy Spore. Buy it hard.

Thanks for the heads up Ludwig. My lust for Spore has doubled.

Here's a quote from Eno about generative music:

“Ordinary music is like engineering, where everything’s built according to a plan, and it’s the same every time you play it. Generative music is more like gardening; you plant a seed, and it grows different every time you plant.”

It's funny that you should mention "Enemy Zero", because about the only way I could be more excited is if the composer for that game (Michael Nyman) were doing another game soundtrack. Brian Eno is really an inspired choice for this game though, given his interest in procedural methods in general. For example, his "Oblique Strategies" approach for problem solving.

One of Brian Eno's tracks was featured on the very first PS3 comercial several months ago. The track called An Ending (Ascent)

Whoa! That's awesome, really, really awesome.

Only on a site like Joystiq would there be a need to explain who Brian Eno is.

Who? Is he related to Emo music?

So when will we see, if ever, Robert Fripp providing music for a video game ;)

Eno production > Eno music

I cant WAIT but for now time, check this out.

http://mbcpoetry.wordpress.com

Awesome.

For the uninitiated, find this track:

Artist: Brian Eno
Album: Ambient 4 (On Land)
Track: Dunwich Beach, Autumn 1960

Now imagine beginning the first level of Spore set to this music and go from there.

Eno's rock music and ambient music is all top notch (except maybe post-Wrong Way Up as far as rock goes).

Check out No Pussyfooting and his other '70s collabs with Robert Fripp. The Heavenly Music Corportation is still unrivalled ...