At 7/15/17 01:42 PM, FGK2015 wrote:
Well, first things first: who is going to make what songs? I know that is a stupid question to ask, but we need to know who is making what. We already discussed one collab planned (@JordanKyser and I), and we may have many, many more. All of us may be wondering, how do we know what exactly to make? Most of us may look at the drafts from the scriptwriters and that may give us some ideas, but this is, in fact, just a draft. The first and second drafts may give us some ideas, but most of them may not fit into the final script on the way down the road. Some of us have already agreed to share our old songs and use those, but what if we can make more? Like @Troisnyx said, the more stuff we can get done, the better the final project will be. I, myself, wouldn't settle for just one song. In fact, I might do other songs and probably still won't settle. In the end of my part of the process, as this would be for some other musicians, we may choose some old or new songs out and put other songs in. I would like to hear from what other people have to say about this and what their plans for the NGAP15 Audio Drama will be.
HOLD YOUR HORSES.
Breathe. In and out. Okay? Calm down.
Now, unless anyone suggests otherwise, this is how I imagine the process would go:
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1) Unless specified in the draft or the script, EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE NEW ORIGINAL.
About this: Someone suggested a remake of a ParagonX9 track pre-draft, pre-anything to be fair. Then Whirlguy or SourJovis, I don't recall whom, but he suggested that if you want classic Audio Portal, go for FDA. Whether or not we will see a remake of an already existing track is up in the air right about now. It may not happen. My suggestion is, go by the script.
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2) You don't want to make too many because as I told @SourJovis in the scriptwriting thread, you don't want the voice actors to have a mere walk-on part. A balancing act here is key. If anything, we should be talking about approximate durations of songs or dialogues or even mere background music.
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3) If my knowledge of this is correct -- please correct me if I'm wrong, @Whirlguy -- back in the 20th Anniversary Collab people submitted the raw audio files, and sent it to the mixing team, or just one person to mix, to give it a good mixdown and master. The same will be done for voice-acting; the production guys will be last. Our primary function is to worry about what sounds we're putting into our music, and why. Our primary focus is the feel.
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4) No one is going to be an island on this one, until and unless we decide so. The draft may drop hints as to which genres correspond to which sections, and then it's up to us to pitch in ideas, combine them, and see how well they work.
If you want to do this real-time, we have the Discord chat for that.
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5) It'll also help if, according to what feel is indicated on the script, people can suggest stuff they've heard that sounds like it in their minds. If we work hard enough we can make stuff that does not sound.... quite like it. For instance, I always tend to go back to Weebl, Queen, Meat Loaf for awesome choral vocals, Nobuo Uematsu and team (Junya Nakano being one of said team) for ambience, etc. People are going to suggest different things so I may recommend this not be carried out in the thread, but on the Discord. If @Kalviter wants, he can set up an #influences channel for us to talk about it all there, so as not to be detracted from the actual composing work.
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6) So everyone's gonna decide on ideas based on feel. We all talk about it, vote on the Discord, and then decide who collaborates with whom on which track(s). Considering there are many musicians and we have about an LP's worth of content to fill, our roles will either be:
a) MASSIVE group collaboration, or:
b) Say for instance people decide to drop a metal track with elements of EDM in it. I know, weird combination. So you wind up collaborating with some of the most unlikely people; it could be you, JordanKyser and someone else, I don't know, MetalRenard. If that's the case, then you three will be working on the track together and aim to reach a set duration for it.
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7) What is definite right now is that a few tracks can be thought about or discussed. These are:
- your intro; bear in mind that there will most likely be narration on it
- Pico's, Nene's and Darnell's themes. Leitmotifs, little melodies that are recognisable, are key to making a good, cohesive audio anything.
- an amazing song somewhere in the middle which has Flash Gordon-esque choral vocals,
- your ending; also bear in mind that this'll likely be voiced over or narrated.
The rest is all up in the air. I'm sure we can start talking about all these things -- and by all means, WE SHOULD -- because we give life to what the script imagines. However, it's too early to even start on anything. We've only had you, me and TheDukeOfJuke reply to this thread.
