Guild Wars 2

I’m a big fan of video game music, and I follow the different composers and see who’s up to what.

EDIT
Kain made a good point that it is good to get new names out there for composing. And I actually agree on this, and think that it might be a good thing to have Soule out and new faces in. But it still stands that their sampling needs to be higher quality (it’ll cost Anet a few thousand dollars, but big deal) and I think it would be beneficial for them to up their game in orchestration, instead of relying on film scoring tricks and clichés to create atmosphere. (Example: four repeating, dramatic chords over and over again, with strings playing a repeating, cyclical pattern on top for half a minute. Soule did this as well, but usually with decent taste. Not all the time, but most of the time.)

One of my favorite composers is Jeremy Soule. He has a huge résumé, with games such the Knights of the Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls, and Guild Wars under his belt. His music characterized by rich musical texture, high quality sampling and mixing, lush melodies, and simple, but effective, harmony.

The original Guild Wars had him on as the composer for the entire ride of three campaigns and an expansion. He also composed the original release soundtrack for Guild Wars 2. Although his music can be seen as somewhat samey after a while – he’s kind of a one trick pony as far as aesthetic – but the aesthetic he puts out is at least high in quality and is highly atmospheric. And nobody else sounds like him, so while he may have only one sound, that sound is his sound.

Why I bring this up is because the new music since the initial release – so the music that has been composed and mixed for the living world – is obviously not by Jeremy Soule. The only distinctive melodies are the ones taken from the tracks he already composed, the sampling is of horribly noticeable lower quality, and the aesthetic is derivative from game soundtracks and film soundtracks everywhere. There are a few gems here and there, but for the most part the soundtrack I find to be bland and lacking when compared to the sound of the soundtracks by Soule. I don’t know who the composer is, but he needs, first of all, to buy better woodwind samples at the very least (or just don’t use them) and then write better melodies.

Compare this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7dHRaBIE-Y

To this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqAhc2yVcbs&list=PL9u7rbRjJmqD_qh-WXX7zSftvxOL5nUhI

I mean, can you hear it? I know some people like the new tracks, but it is indisputable that the quality has severely suffered. The first example sounded trite, like a cheap track composed for some children’s show. The second one, by Soule, has a richness and a nobility to it that gave the world of Tyria a life that the new tracks can’t compare with. Their vapid quality leaves a hole in their world that I’m sorry to see go. I know I compared apples and oranges between the two tracks, but go listen to the entire Jeremy Soule playlist, and then go listen to any of the new music to hear what I’m talking about. When the new soundtracks try to sound epic (like some of the Scarlet release tracks) it usually relies on cliché Hans Zimmer-esque tools-of-the-trade technique to achieve it’s result.

I don’t know if Soul was cut from it for budget constraints or if he just stepped down from the position, but I’m sorry to see him go. And if there is any way to bring him back, then that needs to happen.

That is all.

Last I heard, Jeremy Soule is exclusively with EQNext now.

Jeremy Soule

No, I won’t be returning to Guild Wars. EverQuest has an exclusive with me for the future projects that involve MMOs. [Guild Wars] was a good experience over many years. As with all good things, it had to come to an end

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/03/07/composer-jeremy-soule-reveals-everquest-next-exclusivity/

I’m sure Leif and Maclaine will be sorry to hear you are disappointed. I think they are quite talented, and enjoy their work.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I’m sure Leif and Maclaine will be sorry to hear you are disappointed. I think they are quite talented, and enjoy their work.

I know it is a bit of a knock against them, but it is true. While they are composing part time (from what I can tell) Jeremy Soule is a full time composer with a decade of experience, many huge titles under his belt, and a master’s degree equivalent in composition. While Leif has a bachelor’s degree, he lacks the experience – and my guess is, the equipment – that Soule has.

Personally, I think the new composers are even better than Jeremy Soule!

It’s not just a matter of opinion. They have something Soule did not: Atmosphere.

Take Lost Shores for example. Its theme conveys something dangerous and forbidden, as if it were an abandoned, lost cause. It’s unsettling, and the foes are appropriately powerful.

Another example is the Tower of Nightmares theme. It also conveys the feeling of something dangerous and unsettling, but it also felt toxic and venomous.

Of course, who could forget the Scarlet Holo boss fight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC1xopc4TXs

Soule might have a big name associated with him, but I say give the new composers a chance. They know how to create atmosphere, and it really brings out the character of Guild Wars 2.

Soule has done some awesome work, but on the whole I was actually largely disappointed with his work on the GW2 soundtrack. There were only a couple of tracks that really resonated with me; most of the “epic music” I find myself enjoying actually came from GW1.

Leif and Maclaime don’t have the breadth of experience Soule has, but I think they’ve done admirably. Sunny Glade and the Marionette Battle Music are two of my all-time favourite tracks in GW2, and both were not Soule’s work.

I’m pretty happy Soule is gone.

He makes some beautiful music to be sure but the man uses the same style of medley and rhythm with every single song. I can’t tell you how similar his GW2 music sounds to Skyrim and Oblivion.

Compare that to the music Lief and Maclaine have given us, and I’m pretty happy with the direction they’ve gone. The Wintersday music was great, I absolutely loved the Sanctum Sprint theme, and we would never have gotten anything like Battle of the Breachmaker with Soule still at the helm.

He did a good job but, honestly, his music has gotten stale over the years and all of it just kind of blends in after a while.

Kain Francois.4328:

Personally, I think the new composers are even better than Jeremy Soule!

It’s not just a matter of opinion. They have something Soule did not: Atmosphere.

Take Lost Shores for example. Its theme conveys something dangerous and forbidden, as if it were an abandoned, lost cause. It’s unsettling, and the foes are appropriately powerful.

Another example is the Tower of Nightmares theme. It also conveys the feeling of something dangerous and unsettling, but it also felt toxic and venomous.

Of course, who could forget the Scarlet Holo boss fight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC1xopc4TXs

Soule might have a big name associated with him, but I say give the new composers a chance. They know how to create atmosphere, and it really brings out the character of Guild Wars 2.

You do make a good point; and I guess I didn’t think about that last part. It is a good thing to get new names on the playing field.

But on my end, I’m more of a classical musician, and I enjoyed the orchestration of Soule’s music, while the new music feels just like soundtrack composing.

For pieces like the one you posted, it suffers a bit from low quality string samples. String samples can get SUPER expensive, but it’s really important I think. In Soule’s music you can hear low quality sampling poke through every now and then, but he covers it up with mixing techniques, or at least that’s what it sounds like.

I listened to the Lost Shores track, and I wasn’t really a fan. It might just be a preference thing, but I really prefer the richer orchestration of Soule, personally.

At the very least Anet should by them better equipment. String samples that sound like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUWe_nJ7sQ0&list=PL9u7rbRjJmqD_qh-WXX7zSftvxOL5nUhI

I don’t know about you but I got sick of hearing Soule’s work and it’s a little repetitive now that I’ve played music since GW1 Prophecies (GW Factions theme, however, makes me tear up because it’s so great and nostalgic)

I love Battle on the Breachmaker especially the last part where the music is very hectic.

Marionette (Origins of Madness) was excellent. Top notch in my opinion!

Also, if you haven’t heard, Soule is under controversy. Be it the comparison of the Holocaust and DirectSong “scam”

LumAnth.5124:

I don’t know about you but I got sick of hearing Soule’s work and it’s a little repetitive now that I’ve played music since GW1 Prophecies (GW Factions theme, however, makes me tear up because it’s so great and nostalgic)

I love Battle on the Breachmaker especially the last part where the music is very hectic.

Marionette (Origins of Madness) was excellent. Top notch in my opinion!

Also, if you haven’t heard, Soule is under controversy. Be it the comparison of the Holocaust and DirectSong “scam”

I guess that’s what I was trying to address, was that while his music is repetitious (one-trick-pony composer) he at least outputs higher quality. The Four Winds music was low quality. It got better from there, but for that release I had to mute the music. It was bad.

Once again, I find that the piece is comprised of clichés. It’s nothing we haven’t heard in soundtracks before, and the main melodic content uses the GW2 theme that Soule composed.

…And what is the controversy? And where can I read up on this? I found him to be a difficult composer to follow: website was nonexistent and found few to no interviews. Jack Wall and Austin Wintory are much more open, it would seem.

Tai Kratos.3247:

LumAnth.5124:

I don’t know about you but I got sick of hearing Soule’s work and it’s a little repetitive now that I’ve played music since GW1 Prophecies (GW Factions theme, however, makes me tear up because it’s so great and nostalgic)

I love Battle on the Breachmaker especially the last part where the music is very hectic.

Marionette (Origins of Madness) was excellent. Top notch in my opinion!

Also, if you haven’t heard, Soule is under controversy. Be it the comparison of the Holocaust and DirectSong “scam”

I guess that’s what I was trying to address, was that while his music is repetitious (one-trick-pony composer) he at least outputs higher quality. The Four Winds music was low quality. It got better from there, but for that release I had to mute the music. It was bad.

Once again, I find that the piece is comprised of clichés. It’s nothing we haven’t heard in soundtracks before, and the main melodic content uses the GW2 theme that Soule composed.

…And what is the controversy? And where can I read up on this? I found him to be a difficult composer to follow: website was nonexistent and found few to no interviews. Jack Wall and Austin Wintory are much more open, it would seem.

He compared pirating music to the Holocaust of the Jews.

For the DirectSong controversy…

Since Soule is very against piracy, his music discs are… Hard to get.

DirectSong is one of the only places to get Soule’s work legally. However, there are NUMEROUS stories of discs never ever arriving, even when the customer has already paid. In fact, I recall IGN had to intervene for 1 customer to get a hold of the disk.

If the disc is received, it is usually 6 months to a year+ late. And damaged to the point where some songs are inaudible.

Huh.

Kind of a schmuck thing to do, isn’kitten Found the quote. Kind of funny how he justifies it by saying he’s Jewish.

Well, I have to say that is a bit disappointing.

"...

DirectSong is one of the only places to get Soule’s work legally. However, there are NUMEROUS stories of discs never ever arriving, even when the customer has already paid. In fact, I recall IGN had to intervene for *1* customer to get a hold of the disk.

If the disc is received, it is usually 6 months to a year+ late. And damaged to the point where some songs are inaudible. "

Last time it took me 2+ months, but it is worthy.

Both composers are good in my opinions, even "Labyrinthine Cliffs/Bazaar of the Four Winds" has some surprisingly good moment

Soule’s work for GW1 was great.

It didn’t really mesh as well with GW2. A lot of it was in fact recycled from GW1. I’ve liked what Leif and Maclaine have done so far, and each time out it gets better.

If the Crystal Desert gets put into gw2 at any point, they better use Jeremy Soule’s theme from gw1.

I used to just stand around listening to that track that played in the Crystal Desert. Mesmerizing.

Was just about to post that the crystal desert song is probably the best track in the whole series and needs to come back but Krassix beat me to it.

Also wanted to say the song that plays in the destroyed lion’s arch has a terribly low budget synth and sounds like a 16 bit era Square soft track.

I liked Battle on the Breachmarker way more than everything Jeremy Soule has composed so far (and by everything I mean everything, not only GW2).

He’s either too "samey" or too random, always stuck between something that makes no sense or The Elder Scrolls Theme 2374642389.0

I for one do not miss Jeremy Soule at all and this is coming from a long time GW1 player. His music is too background-ish for my taste… not very engaging. The new tracks on the other hand seem to catch your attention much more.

LumAnth.5124:

DirectSong is one of the only places to get Soule’s work legally. However, there are NUMEROUS stories of discs never ever arriving, even when the customer has already paid. In fact, I recall IGN had to intervene for 1 customer to get a hold of the disk.

DirectSong is Jeremy Soule and they’re probably a small business that is very understaffed compared to the amount of orders GW2 generated. I always imagined them as the typical “do it yourself” shop where they basically have 1 guy that places an order with a 3rd party print shop, and then mails them all by hand. Since they have to place orders in bulk, they probably always wait until they have the minimum amount of orders ready, rather than taking on the cost themselves.

Maybe people aren’t fans of Soule. And I get that: I keep saying this, but I do acknowledge that he is a one trick pony.

But… just listen to the sampling in this. Especially the lead woodwinds. It’s really terrible. And there is little to no orchestration: it’s just bass notes with variations on themes by Soule. Oh, and a bass drum on downbeats. In the last third you get a little orchestration, but while Soule did compose music that was samey, it was well orchestrated, and he understood how to compensate for the shortcomings of sampling.

A lot of it is samey, yes, but I will always like Jeremy Soule’s music. My personal experience when I ordered the GW2 soundtrack from DirectSong was not that bad at all actually… I’d say it arrived quite fast considering. I got it within a week if I remember right. No damaged discs or anything. Though I do remember hearing about the horror stories and worrying I’d be just another one. Glad that didn’t happen. :/

I think a lot of what makes his work so nice to listen to isn’t just his composition but the fact he does have a great sound sample there to work with. Not many games seem to. I don’t know a lot about music but I do know that I like Jeremy’s sort of style. I grew up listening to a lot of Beethoven and Mozart etc so that tends to be what I really like to hear I guess. Classical and orchestral always sounds best to me for games. Far as the newer tracks go for the living story, I noticed they were different and maybe not as good in quality of sound, but the tracks weren’t bad. I could listen to them and not be bothered by it. Maybe a lot of it had to do with the fact they didn’t have an immediate melody all the time… it was easy to drown it out. Which may be good or bad.

I am a great fan of Jeremy Soule’s music, but not so much a fan of the person.

He’s gone, and although I feel he did a great job in Guild Wars, I wasn’t so impressed with his offerings in Guild Wars 2.

Maybe he is past his prime, or lost his passion for this franchise. No idea. I do believe our in-house composers do possess that passion, and if it’s just a matter of equipment, then maybe time will alleviate the problem you feel the current soundtracks possess.

You could always compose some music you feel better represents Guild Wars 2, and send it in to ArenaNet. Maybe they would use it in-game! =)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I am a great fan of Jeremy Soule’s music, but not so much a fan of the person.

He’s gone, and although I feel he did a great job in Guild Wars, I wasn’t so impressed with his offerings in Guild Wars 2.

Maybe he is past his prime, or lost his passion for this franchise. No idea. I do believe our in-house composers do possess that passion, and if it’s just a matter of equipment, then maybe time will alleviate the problem you feel the current soundtracks possess.

You could always compose some music you feel better represents Guild Wars 2, and send it in to ArenaNet. Maybe they would use it in-game! =)

I actually am studying composition at a university right now, and while this may seem hypocritical, I don’t presume to be a good enough composer yet to put myself out there like that.

That said, I still think that the music of GW2 currently deserves critique – harsh critique even. Because it seems to me that currently, they are right now being arrangers rather than composers, and there is a very big difference. Their best themes were already written for them, and as far as orchestration and development, they seem to be trapped in this imitative style. It’s an easy trap to get into while composing to write music that works, but isn’t necessarily what is best. It is easy to go I-IV-V-I, and it works. And we all know what that sounds like and it makes sense. But as a composer, you have to question if that is really the best music you could have written for what you want to accomplish.

Because pieces like battle with Scarlet music get the job done. It’s intense and conveys a slight tinge of madness. Great. But how they accomplish that is done with cliché film motives for the strings and cliché film motives for the percussion. And if he truly does have a degree in composition, then I guarantee he knows better, and he should make use of what he knows.

But it’s not impossible for a game to have good soundtracks, and this is something I fight with my professors and colleagues over all the time at school. But that requires moving beyond clichés (I keep using that word) and creating real artful music.

Music for games is kind of a passion of mine, so I get a little fired up sometimes.

(I appear to have done another wall-o’-text. I have a bad habit of that. This post now presented in two movements!)

Mvmt I: Comparisons

I think the two pieces you chose to compare are rather unfair to match: the Labyrinthine Cliffs background music is, well, background music, and the Overture is, well, an overture. You’re comparing how fast a cheetah runs to how fast a fish runs, and how well the cheetah breathes water to how well the fish breathes water.

Compare, for example, the music for Snaff’s Lab with the Labyrinthine Cliffs music linked above. You’ll find more similar levels of sparseness, and they are both BGMs, which makes them better for comparison. I think Soule’s music fits in slightly more with the Western classical tradition (aside from the 1900s, but nobody ever seems to count those) because his pieces are more melodic and more likely to be able to stand on their own to hold the listener’s attention, like a piece played in a concert hall would have to. The Zephyr Sanctum music has some lovely melodies, but they are less likely to immediately catch the ear because they’re not designed to do that so much as they’re designed to create atmosphere; and it spends much more time on the atmospheric spaces in between the melodies.

Of course, in the case of the Zephyr Sanctum, the sparseness and melodic ephemerality of the music might well be intentional, meant to convey an exotic mood by mimicking the style of traditional East Asian music, which is often sparse in sound and atmospheric over melodic. (I base this mostly on some knowledge of traditional Japanese music, which I have studied a bit more of than other East Asian music, though I’ve heard some Chinese music as well that fits the same description.) The slightly odd-sounding wind sounds might also be intended to contribute to this effect, as they sound slightly foreign at first, but hard to place with any given ethnicity (probably because they’re just lower-quality sounds played out of the range where they sound nice, but the effect is still there).

For another example, let’s compare boss battle musics: Soule’s music for Zhaitan and the Scarlet Holo music quoted above:

Of course, who could forget the Scarlet Holo boss fight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC1xopc4TXs

Soule’s music uses all the sounds available to a full symphony, and a massed choir, in a style that strikes me as John Williams-ish; it modulates in key, developing in the organic but structured way that so much classical music does. In fact, much of his music seems to be in the Williams vein— technically background music but highly melodic, tonically structured like a classical piece, and perfectly playable in concert (I’ve actually played “Through the Meteor Field” or whatever the name is of the music for the, well, flying through the meteor field sequence in Star Wars as part of a concert). While this is great for a lot of things, there’s actually a reason that Lucas and Williams chose not to use ANY music during the lightsaber fights in the original Star Wars movies: dramatic music is great but can distract from the action and sound if there’s too much of it. (Also they wanted to show off the fancy sci-fi lightsaber sounds— but still, the point stands.)

The Holo Fight music initially seems to use the same instrumentation, with a symphony and choir; but they’re not necessarily used in a symphonic way. Appropriately for a fight involving heavy use of technology, the sound is more mechanical, with a very prominent and steady drumbeat throughout. Contrast the percussion in the Zhaitan fight music, which has a steady percussive beat but which does not emphasize it nearly so much; it has a low pitch, being I believe tympani and bass drum, that naturally hides somewhat under the orchestra and voices, while in the Scarlet holo fight, the cracking sound of… are those supposed to be cymbals? mechanical noises? (the point being that they sound machine-like and artificial, appropriate for a battle involving a lot of technology) are high and highly emphasized. The key does not change, and there is little prominent melody, so it does not have any moments of grabbing your ear; instead, the music is designed to sit in the background while you’re concentrating and communicating with the others fighting alongside you. It does seem to be a more appropriate soundtrack for a fight like that against Scarlet, which is highly structured, in a symmetrical, mechanical environment, and that is required not to divert your attention so you can organize with the others on your platform and keep up with quickly-fading attunements.

Soule is excellent and what we have with GW2 now are amateurs. Do I miss him? Well, if he’s with EQNext perhaps not.

Mvmt II: Judgments

Is one approach better than the other? No; I think they are both useful for different things. Highly melodic music dominated the video game world in the era of RPGs with simple graphics, such as the early Final Fantasies and Legend of Zeldas, with Nobuo Uematus and Koji Kondo applying highly classical styles— and indeed, you have to be very melodically interesting if you’ve only got four channels of sound to work with due to technology limitations. In the modern era of gaming dominated by action games and FPSes, soundtracks often resemble movie soundtracks because they are required to be unobtrusive to allow the focus to be on the action, the special effects, the voice acting (something that never got in the way of Kondo and Uematsu in their early careers!), and whatever other gazillion things are already vying for your attention.

GW2, while an MMORPG, is also largely action/adventure-like; the “adventure” side of the genre calls for melodic, overtly emotional music to help with inspiring wonder in the act of adventuring (think of the Hyrule Field music of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or the musical themes of any of the wider areas— Gerudo Valley, Kokiri Forest, Kakariko village, etc.), while the “action” (and dungeon-delving, which is not necessarily all fighting, but is all action in the sense of doing something with a purpose: puzzles, etc.) side requires more atmospheric, less attention-grabbing music (think of the not-terribly-melodic, highly atmospheric dungeon music from the same game). The thing is, we haven’t really gotten any new “adventure” portions in the form of new, wide-open maps lately; the Zephyr Sanctum is really the only one I can think of, and that was likely highly atmospheric for the reasons listed above. But we have gotten new dungeons and boss battles, so that is where the new musical assets tend as well: against Williams-style, and towards… every-other-movie-composer-style. (edit: well, also not Philip Glass-style, or rather Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philip Philphil Philphil Philphil Philphil Philphil Philphil Philipglass Philipglass Philipglass Philipglass Philipglass Philipglass Philipglass… oh Minimalism)

It will be interesting to see, if we get any new large explorable zones, what the music will be like for those.

…That said, I agree that the newer music could use perhaps better sounds or just better mixing of them; the abrupt “cutting off” of those cymbal sounds in the Scarlet Holo Fight music felt weird, like they should have lasted a bit longer or had a tad more reverb (of course, it again could have been very intentional, to make them stand out more), and while I’m no sound engineer, the sounds within the Soule music did feel more inherently balanced and integrated with one another.

@Twyll

I’ve actually studied Chinese classical music and theory before, and there is a big problem with that track if it is trying to imitate Asian music. Because that music is all about tone color and manipulation of tone color, and the sampled flute (sounded like a flute run through some filters or something) lacked any of those subtleties.

The fight with scarlet is basically four chords over and over again, with choir and brass walking stepwise between chord tones. The ending part with the piano is kind of cool, but still it’s just fast arpeggiation. So there isn’t much intellectually going on there. Maybe emotionally there is enough – and that’s usually enough for people – but I find that the emotional content is that much richer if there is a strong intellectual support underneath it.

And there is nothing complicated, intellectual or detailed about four chord songs. The piano part was cool, but the chords left much wanting.

EDIT
Hahaha, Phillip Glass…. never really understood the hype over him and his music. Or minimalism in general… kind of seems like an easy out for composing hours of music, right?

Tai Kratos.3247:

@Twyll

I’ve actually studied Chinese classical music and theory before, and there is a big problem with that track if it is trying to imitate Asian music. Because that music is all about tone color and manipulation of tone color, and the sampled flute (sounded like a flute run through some filters or something) lacked any of those subtleties.

The fight with scarlet is basically four chords over and over again, with choir and brass walking stepwise between chord tones. The ending part with the piano is kind of cool, but still it’s just fast arpeggiation. So there isn’t much intellectually going on there. Maybe emotionally there is enough – and that’s usually enough for people – but I find that the emotional content is that much richer if there is a strong intellectual support underneath it.

And there is nothing complicated, intellectual or detailed about four chord songs. The piano part was cool, but the chords left much wanting.

EDIT
Hahaha, Phillip Glass…. never really understood the hype over him and his music. Or minimalism in general… kind of seems like an easy out for composing hours of music, right?

Right. There is actually something ‘complicated’ and compelling about three chord songs. Books have been written about it. Knowledge sometimes fails us it seems. Or, perhaps it’s just modern education.

Tai Kratos.3247:

@Twyll

I’ve actually studied Chinese classical music and theory before, and there is a big problem with that track if it is trying to imitate Asian music. Because that music is all about tone color and manipulation of tone color, and the sampled flute (sounded like a flute run through some filters or something) lacked any of those subtleties.

The fight with scarlet is basically four chords over and over again, with choir and brass walking stepwise between chord tones. The ending part with the piano is kind of cool, but still it’s just fast arpeggiation. So there isn’t much intellectually going on there. Maybe emotionally there is enough – and that’s usually enough for people – but I find that the emotional content is that much richer if there is a strong intellectual support underneath it.

And there is nothing complicated, intellectual or detailed about four chord songs. The piano part was cool, but the chords left much wanting.

EDIT
Hahaha, Phillip Glass…. never really understood the hype over him and his music. Or minimalism in general… kind of seems like an easy out for composing hours of music, right?

Oh, I agree that imitations of Eastern music for effect are rarely terribly good, but then again few people really understand the nuances enough to notice— they just hear “hmm, this sounds different,” and make some sort of unconscious connection.

Yeah, the whole point of my wall-o-text that I kinda failed to summarize properly I guess is that in some situations, music that grabs you intellectually is not necessarily ideal— a simple, single-chord background being sufficient. Of course, there’s always a way to do both, to create background music that doesn’t distract overly much from intense, relatively complex fights but is also complex itself and intellectually stimulating upon close listening— but man, that’s hard. There’s a reason the greats of video game composing are considered great— they can do that, where other composers can’t.

I really like some of Glass’s music, and really don’t care for some of it. Then again, I have OCD and often find the repetitive nature of Minimalism really calming. The whole point is a sort of Western version of the Eastern sparseness aesthetic— except instead of the interplay of empty space with sound, we fill the empty space with repetition, which is in its own way empty; then gradual changes cause a shift in color over time, creating the illusion of not necessarily emptiness, but thinness— clouds driving through each other. Because silence is really uncomfortable for most Western musicians. (I played John Cage’s 4’33" for a music history class in high school where we were tasked to play “any piece written after the year 1750.” Probably the longest and strangest 5 minutes— have to allow some time for the breaks between the movements, of course— of my life.)

To gain an appreciation of Minimalism, I think, what you really need to do is play “In C” by Terry Riley, especially if you learn best by doing rather than listening, like me. All you need is a willing (read: crazy) group of musicians, who play any instrument, or even singers if they can hold a pitch really well against tonal craziness. (Ideally tonal craziness does not happen, but, well, Skritt happens when you play semi-aleatoric music, Minimalist or not.) You get a new sort of appreciation for the nature of how it all moves, is the best way I can think to put it.

To be honest, I think JS music in GW2 is pure fail.
In GW1 i’ve heard a lot of beautiful melodies, which I’m listening to this day. And the first song from GW2 which I saved – Battle on the Breachmaker

Exosferatu.2961:

I like Leif and Maclaine more than Soule!

Battle on the Breachmaker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faySfB1Kt6M

The Clocktower
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9lMQvO8_I8

Couldn’t agree less. A simple iteration over a simple theme. It’s not composition.

Shirogatsu.3150:

To be honest, I think JS music in GW2 is pure fail.
In GW1 i’ve heard a lot of beautiful melodies, which I’m listening to this day. And the first song from GW2 which I saved – Battle on the Breachmaker

As has been oft said, there is no accounting for taste.

Raine.1394:

Shirogatsu.3150:

To be honest, I think JS music in GW2 is pure fail.
In GW1 i’ve heard a lot of beautiful melodies, which I’m listening to this day. And the first song from GW2 which I saved – Battle on the Breachmaker

As has been oft said, there is no accounting for taste.

The problem with JS music for GW2 nothing really changed to supremely differentiate it from GW1 when i hear his GW2 tracks its like i am listening to old gw again i want more upbeat music with a newer feel if we’re 250 in the future. When i heard battle on breachmaker it stuck in my head it was more upbeat and matched the feel of what was happening at the time. when i am in a heavy fight i don’t wanna hear slow stuff that barely changes i want some music with drops and a faster beat let the music evolve during a fight.

Raine.1394:

Right. There is actually something ‘complicated’ and compelling about three chord songs. Books have been written about it. Knowledge sometimes fails us it seems. Or, perhaps it’s just modern education.

Indeed! That reminded me of a story I heard from a flautist who was, at the time, playing for the musical of The Lion King and did a master class. When I say “flautist” I mean “if any given culture has developed the flute, she probably plays that variation of the flute or something very close to it.” She told us about how she traveled to Japan to learn how to play the shakuhachi (Japanese vertical bamboo flute, also apparently very useful as an improvised weapon if what I’ve read is true) from one of the most respected shakuhachi teachers alive. Well, first of all she had to learn to make any noise out of the thing at all— a difficult enough task in itself, as anyone who has ever tried to play a shakuhachi will tell you. It’s easy to make a noise out of bagpipes but hard to make a nice noise out of them; it’s crazy difficult even to make a noise at all with a shakuhachi. (I tried once, managed to get a tiny blowing-over-the-top-of-a-bottle sound after a lot of effort and considered that a victory.) But the next bit is what your post reminded me of.

In order for the teacher to take her on as a student, he had one test: play a single note for five minutes, and make it music. Just rhythm and dynamic, the subtle percussive elements of the mouth and fingers, knowledge of emptiness and sound. So she started doing everything she could think of with that one note.

He stopped her after a while and said “You’ve been going for an hour. That’s plenty.” And she got her shakuhachi lessons.

Granted, when you’re working with electronic sounds, it’s really hard to make that one note interesting because there’s so much less flexibility (in some ways, at least, although more flexibility in others I suppose— but flexibility that is harder to attain with such a limit, I think). I think that might be Tai Kratos’ issue with it; when the variety you’re able to inject through performance is so hampered by the nature of doing things by computer, and when the dynamics have to stay in roughly the same range because people expect a certain amount of EQ in the music coming out of their computers… in order to excite the mind, “orchestration” and tonal development are really your only recourse. (I think this was why Glenn Gould was so optimistic about music produced by computers— he played Bach, which is already so very tonally complex, and which benefits from extreme precision in tiny variations in timing such as could be produced accurately by a computer; although I think he underestimated the difficulty of teaching a computer to “interpret” in order to produce those tiny variations in a way that enhances the piece.)

With Soule out, GW2 officially lost the last fragment of soul it had left.

I think the bazaar music is pretty good and fits fairly well for the theme of that area.

Nevertheless, my favorite guild wars track by far is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxa7n1mXVMs
I also really love the divinity’s reach theme which I think is the best track in Guild Wars 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxwQIShHpLY

Raine.1394:

Couldn’t agree less. A simple iteration over a simple theme. It’s not composition.

Everything Jeremy Soule makes sounds like it’s from Skyrim.

Very few things he did with GW2 were original, he just iterated on what he composed years ago in GW1. Because of his lack of variety, I have no musical association with any of the GW2 dungeons. At least the music for the Breachmaker was memorable because it was unique.

The thing I associate with Soule for GW2 was the old login screen music from the beta weekend events.

I think the reason why everyone like the breach maker battle music is cause its actually in line with music gw2 player and age base would actually listen too and that it wasn’t boring

Couldn’t care any less. I play with GW2 muted anyway.
Jeremy Soule’s Faction and Nightfall themes were great though.

The Soule example in your original post sounds highly sampled/edited.

The Leif/Mclain example sounds like basically organic orchestra sound with far less editing. If by, “buy better woodwind samples” you mean get a better woodwind player, then yeah, I agree. He/she was very out of tune on the melody in that piece.

Kain Francois.4328:

Of course, who could forget the Scarlet Holo boss fight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC1xopc4TXs

One my most favourite ones so far. That was actually the first soundtrack that made me turn music on for the entire LS and not just a couple of first days. The atmosphere was perfect and it matched the different stages so good that it gave me the shivers every fight.

Bring on E.S. Posthumus <3

Well I miss anyone else more than Jeremy Soule – I don’t like the style of his musics, way too candy as well as the game. However, the Skyrim OST he made is GREAT, guess he wasn’t asked to draw little smurfs harvesting mushrooms in a Pandora forest with his noises… Most of his GW1+2 tracks here just annoys me, using custom soundtracks from Month#2 to prevent headaches.

Would like to hear Alexandre Desplat, he composes both epic and “atmosphearistic” soundtracks.
Another interesting one is Nicholas Hooper, he is able to summon nice friendly sounds too in case Desplat seems way dramatic.

I don’t like how composers can cross over like that, not cool…. ; /

Personally I like Skyrim>GW1>GW2.

The Skyrim soundtrack is very atmospheric and had some amazing new melodies as well as remixes of old one.
GW1 soundtrack is kinda less sophisticated, but still great.
GW2 soundtrack felt like it had no focus, there’s still a few good ones but on average it’s not great.
As for the “new” GW2 soundtracks I don’t like any of them. Sounds cheap/modern. Which I guess fits the current GW2 perfectly. But to each his own.

For some great Asian “imitations”, check out Neal Acree’s works for Mists of Pandaria. As an Asian myself I must say I like them very much.
For example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEM7zyE3ZJY

I don’t miss him, tbh, his music is great but everything sounds so similar, that new style we get now is a nice change.

I miss Jeremy too and while all the new music that has been added to the game since he left isn’t bad by any means, it fails to create that magical feel that Soule’s music did for me. I’m sad to hear he has signed an exclusive deal with EQ.

I like Soul’s work, but I like Leif and Maclain’s tracks better to be honest. Soul’s music, though good, lacks variety.

Soule’s music for GW and its sequel didn’t quite resonate with me with a couple of exceptions. I considered whether his way of using the sampled instruments has something to do with it as the samples tend to rub me the wrong way. Perhaps they would benefit from being performed by an actual live orchestra as synthetic strings hardly ever sound “good” to my ears as they lack the organic feel.

The samples used by Leif and Maclaine can be a hit or miss but I tolerate such use. They’ve provided music which serves it purpose in the game, at times offering us some sweet tracks melody-wise and other times establishing atmosphere, which is important for a game so heavy on atmosphere such as GW2. And yes, it is possible to compose music which is straightforward and not too complex and yet can resonate with you and be aesthetically pleasing even if it isn’t “complex”. Just listen to Zoltan Kodaly’s vocal music, for instance, as an example of how this approach is done right (not that he doesn’t have complex musical tapestry in his repertoire too!). There’s room for different kinds of music out there, for both Hans Zimmer and Jerry Goldsmith, and I’m willing to give our duo a chance considering they’re not solely composers but also work in other aspects of the game too.

As for “A simple iteration over a simple theme. It’s not composition.”, I’d like to point out that several recognized bigshots in music (Sibelius, Mozart, Schubert, Prokofiev etc.) have in fact done such iterations during their careers, and the results have often been beautiful works of art. I’d definitely count that as composition, as I would John Cage’s stuff.

The same can be said about “cliched” chord progressions; you can write good and complex music using those; to paraphrase TVTropes, tropes are not bad, and you can use cliches to your advantage as long as you do it well. The end result (how it works in context) is what matters. Just look at James Horner and John Williams and how they pay homage to classical music, sometimes even outright “stealing” material from the old greats, yet they give that music their own stamp. Not that they’re anywhere near Erich Wolfgang Korngold or Miklos Rozsa levels of music mastery, IMHO, but that’s still a commendable effort.

The “Battle on the Breachmaker” track worked for me on many levels. It may have stereotypic chord progressions but its orchestration works for the scenes it plays in, giving us a memorable tune and changing movements. The Yoko Shimomura-like use of piano is a very nice touch, IMHO, and I like how the tune itself has several variations of Scarlet’s theme while turning that somewhat silly theme into a melancholic and chaotic dirge which serves the narrative function of lamenting a lost soul to the entity that ultimately corrupted her and made her commit all those atrocities in the story. Thanks in part to the music in the final battles, I finally felt an emotional connection with Scarlet and could feel sorry for her due to the inherent tragedy of her storyline; the use of the somber piano variation of her theme during the final instance when you finish her off was a very nice touch, giving her a somber sendoff. So in that regard the tune is a success as far as I’m concerned. It may not be Howard Shore or Elliot Goldenthal level of complexity, but it doesn’t have to be as it does what it’s meant to do: evoke emotions, punctuate the final battle and tell a story through music and thematic continuity.