Synth music style invented around 30 years ago on technology that didn’t exist a generation ago: "This sounds old-fashioned, the developers need to evolve."
Orchestral music played on instruments that have existed for thousands of years, in a style that’s existed for hundreds: “Finally, a modern sounding ost!” 
It’s just another symptom of the games industry continuing to seek prestige and mainstream approval by aping existing artforms like film. It’s disappointing, but I guess it’s working out pretty well for them (apparently there’s no greater sign that you’ve “made it” as a work of art than getting a TV show adaption
)When’s the Disco Elysium miniseries then?
Literally being made by Amazon
Not literally; they bought the company that owns the disco ip along with a bunch of other names. No evidence of production or preproduction thank god
That’s a relief
I dread to see the results of an Amazon disco Elysian project my god
The ultimate stake in the heart of irony
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My problem with orchestral osts is they all kind of sound samey I have the same problem with listening to baroque music, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, all the same to my virgin ears. On the other hand I can easily spot Nobuo Uematsu’s signature sounds since he plays on a yamaha keyboard.
Just a nitpick, but I’m like 100% certain you’d be able to hear the difference between Bach and Beethoven lol
Bach and Mozart is like comparing ragtime and bebop
Even going further back to the 8-bit era where there were way fewer sounds to play with, the limitations of the hardware meant the composers had to be super efficient with their writing in order to wring the most out of (on GB© and NES) two pulse channels, a wave channel, and a noise channel. Of course, it’s not that every OST from this era is good, but the ones that are have lasted so long because they have strong, memorable melodies. So even if you take compositions these and make them orchestral (as in the original Pokémon anime OST), their essence still shines through. I mean hell, you look at tunes like Ronald’s Theme or the Grass & Lightning Club Themes from Pokémon TCG and they don’t feel like they’re missing anything (was really pleased to see 8-Bit Music Theory’s video on that particular soundtrack do well, more people need to hear it!)
That’s not to say that the only valid form of composition is a melodic approach, but there’s a reason why I can still whistle the melodies from Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal even only having played them once and only occasionally listened to the soundtrack in the decades since, yet even 150 hours into Elden Ring and counting I could not sing you a single bar from any piece in the score if my life depended on it (admittedly, for a game like Elden Ring, singable melodies might not fit the vibe).
The upshot is that there’s nothing stopping composers from taking this approach when writing for larger ensembles; examples include Gusty Garden Galaxy and Rosalina in the Observatory from Super Mario Galaxy or the main theme and Revali’s Theme from Breath of the Wild.
You’ll have to forgive me for only using Nintendo examples–that’s just what I’ve played a lot of, so it just ended up that way. Another excellent example of melodic writing is the Undertale OST, where Toby Fox channeled that style of writing to perfection.
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Synth music feels “video game-y” to me in a good way. Something about it just feels fitting as music in games
I’m genuinely surprised anytime I hear jazz, funk, and/or hip-hop influences in an OST. I love a good Orchestral music, but I think we all dig it because it’s our default understanding of “cinematic” (which isn’t a bad thing of course).
Also shoutout to the Blasphemous games for showing that Spanish Guitar fuckin’ kicks ass.
When I was much younger, I assumed techno music, being a technological creation, would be the primary form of music, and there would be so many weird and startlingly strange new ways to synthesize more of it that it’d be a never-ending audio odyssey.
But then Nolan movies BWAAAAAAAAAAMed those dreams away, for the most part.
A game isnt truly modern unless the soundtrack is provided by a live troubador who sings tales of your prowess in realtime
Oh my god imagine a game where the entire soundtrack is provided by a bard that follows you on your adventures
The closest example of that I can think of is Deekin chanting his “doom doom doom, doomydoomdoom” song in a Neverwinter Nights expansion.
Bardrr -
The most powerful type of viddygaem soundtrack emerged in the 1990s. Back when dev studios were first moving to fully digital CD quality audio, frequently it would end up that their One Guy was both a composer and like, a goofy guitar player. Frequently this Guy would just get a Yamaha keyboard or DAW thrown at him, and the end result was the composer absolutely shredding on guitar while a bunch of synth instrument tones played support.
Examples would be parts of Sonic Adventure’s music as well as the entire Castlevania Rondo of Blood soundtrack. Banger.
FRANK KLEPACKI GANG WHERE YOU AT?
Yes, this
id got trent reznor to make quake 1’s soundtrack. it was great.
There were a couple cases were a dev got an artist or band to do the soundtrack and that shit fucks too
Soundtracls that stand out were fallout, Halo and Diablo 1+2 each fairly unique sounding for their time
Problem with Orchestral is that there are a lot of mid compositions and a lot of the music can be forgetable. Doom 2016s soundtrack was a breath of fresh air at the time along with Warhammer 40k Mechanicus’ being a more recent standout
Not that you can’t have good Orchestral music, I miss when you would have a little more variety in what you hear and sometimes the soundtrack can be fairly unique because it does something different.
If it’s done in an imaginative way I don’t mind it at all.
It’s the “generic movie soundtrack” stuff I hate. Especially if there’s a bunch of Latin chanting for no reason.
Hans Zimmer rip offs
Latin chanting in fantasy settings is always great.
I think it’d be very out of place in the Mana series of games for the most part.
Even if it wasn’t, it’d be boring from sheer saturation.
The Mechanicus soundtrack is one of my favorites of all time honestly. Gothic chanting pipe organ EDM wasn’t something I knew I needed before I played that game
Same, love the gothic feel of it with pipe organs. Sounds killer on a 2.1 setup with a sub lol
One of these days I’m going to buy a red robe and some incense before sitting down to fix an IT problem, and it’s entirely because of this
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Halo had some great tunes, too bad the composer’s a chud.
Many such cases
As an Elder Scrolls enjoyer, Jeremy Soule being a misogynistic sex pest of a chud really hurts.
HEARTBREAKING: g*mer composer is a g*mer
Can’t be any worse than Dragon Quest’s composer. That soundtrack lives in my head. Too bad the creator wanted people like me merk’d.
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I’ve known about the soundtrack since the 90s (I also know of and listened to the inspirations)
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I just got a free Yamaha PSR-36 for helping my friend’s grandma with her garage sale. I’m like 90% sure I’m gonna make some sick dungeoncore soundtrack with it.
If I can actually motivate myself to record between work I’ll share it with yall, because holy shit it sounds sick.
Hell yeah let’s goooo
I’m just tired of how bland and forgettable the compositions tend to be in big budget modern games. I’ve been thinking about the RE2 remake recently and how bland its new score is. It’s not as much of a question of orchestrated vs synths as while the scores old RE games did use synthesised intruments, they were still going for a semi-orchestrated action movie score feel, with RE2 having some downright operatic flourishes with the Birkin boss themes.
The remakes forgo the originals’ use of everpresent background music to focus more on dynamic background audio, which is fine, but even when the music’s supposed to be kicking off, it just… isn’t
Compare this boss theme from Resident Evil 2 (2019) to it’s 1998 equivalent and tell me which is going to stick in your mind for 25 years
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classical/orchestral has a prestige that codes as timeless. if you’ve ever played an orchestral version (like professionally arranged, played) of something like pop music, metal or video game music for someone who is unfamiliar with it, they have a hard time describing it. even if they have been exposed to the themes and find it familiar, they have a hard time placing it.
but yeah, synth has only been around for about 40 years, so people place it as being something newly arrived at a specific moment in time, while orchestra goes back before any of my known ancestors. before anything anyone alive’s great grandparents exoerienced., making it seem culturally eternal.
has a prestige that codes as timeless
Is it timeless if it feels redundant instead of timeless?
Maybe it’s partially how the instruments are being used, perhaps. The redundancy of “canned epic” is what’s bothering me.
I’m not saying an individual piece can’t be repetitive or stale or just plain crap. that’s a composer critique. I was making a response to the genre.
also, when done effective, full orchestras can be crazy evocative, which might be why the lazy/uncreative default to it when they think “big”. they have a memory of “big feelings music” and it probably was an orchestra. sort of like someone not knowing what to paint or what they are trying to communicate, but sourcing only the most expensive pigments and putting effort into having the widest possible palette without considering that a narrower range can work even better.
in theory you can use an orchestra in any setting or time, but connecting to a place or moment requires some cultural literacy that probably a lot of game designers didn’t go to school for or recognize the value of.
that’s why I imagine they jump to the do it all, one size fits all epic orchestra composer, instead of hiring like Daniel Lanois or whatever.
I think I mostly agree with you there.
I suppose I just miss when mainstream entertainment had more variety and less pursuit of BWAAAAAAAAAM-adjacent dopamine button pressing.
I haven’t played many recent games, with the exception of FFXIV’s latest expansion, so it saddens me that “DAE LE EPIC ORCHESTRA” is still that common.
I call it “canned epic” and I find it boring. Boring as the BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMs fad that overstayed its welcome and the way modern movie trailers are so. fucking. predictable.
Make Final Fantasy prog rock again
FFXIV does have a habit of mixing up the styles quite a bit; the game has a vast array of genres that it dabbles in, so for the most part I love the music.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about (CW: massive spoilers for the main story):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG3ZnqeTylc
spoiler
It also personally delighted me that by sheer coincidence Queen Eternal looks a lot like one of the Tulpas from my book trilogy, too.
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The same recording fidelity could be used to hire a rock band to do your soundtrack, but very few games do this, except maybe for an ending or a handful of cutscenes.
Meanwhile games that use synths usually emulate older video game hardware with a sharply limited number of tracks. Very rarely do you see someone (Disasterpeace) throw a dozen synths at a time at something.
Dirt_Owl discovering trends
How many decades does a trend get to stick around before it stops being called a trend?
I mean twenty years ago, the synth music they’re talking about was modern. Look at the Matrix, or games like Deus Ex. Their soundtracks are full of that shit.
Look at the Matrix, or games like Deus Ex. Their soundtracks are full of that shit.
It was good and I wish it continued to develop and expand more in contemporary culture.
Especially Deus Ex. Had banger after banger.
Banjo Kazooie already reached peak video game music, everyone else has to use gimmicks like “orchestral soundtracks” just to be relevant
in between the release of Red Alert 1 and Tiberian Sun, frank klepacki took video games music to its height and it has been downhill since.
Hellmarch and Pharaotek are basically the high water mark, and they are turning 30 soon. Sad.
