Medieval game BGM and Foley post-mortem

Project recap

Week 1

In the first week after forming our team we decided together as a team to work on a scratch track immediately for the pitch.

Our project focused on delivering a background track for a simulated Eastern Europe Medieval town theme as well as associated Foley sounds that would simulated a live market scene.

Our team was successful in the beginning to present a pitch that included a source image of the town we wanted to create as well as a few music phrases that exhibited some of the music that we wanted to make for the final deliverable

Our reference material included games like Skyrim, Oblivion.

After getting green lighted for the project we decided that first we will need to record some Foley sounds that would capture a market feel this included livestock noises like goats, chickens, anvil strikes with hammer and some horses and background chatter.

Week 2

In the second week we needed to find a reference song and spent around 5 hours of listening to music under the title of Medieval role-playing game music and also listening the sound track for the Skyrim. After searching the internet, we picked a track and then performed a track teardown of it to identify what made sound the way it did to create that medieval feel.

The track tempo, key signature and song structure was critically analysed to identify the instruments and frequency content. It was identified that many acoustic instruments that existed in the medieval Europe was used in the musical production. Also the piece carefully followed a strict 8 bar progression in each passage that alternated and added a minor climax in the beginning and then surfaced again in the final passage to a simple fade out.

From the technically extracted information we decided to use the same song structure and tempo but change to a different key signature and create our own melody based on the reference track.

Instrument selection process

Fundamentally we need to create a scene that fit the East European medieval land scape and of that era. We researched the instruments of the 1200-1500 ad and found a selection of instruments that reflected that era such as the flute, lute, recorder, trumpets, piano, dulcimer, leather skinned hand drum, bagpipes, violins and choirs in churches. The reference material also had the same musical instruments used in their track and thus was used in the final composition.

Week 3

Our composition was first created as a MIDI mock-up to test the musicality of the track and that the BPM fitted along with the rest of the song. Since a team member on the project was already adept as playing the recorder we decided to use him to play a simple melody in the first section to add an organic feel to the composition. A studio session was arranged to include an external musician who played the violin was invited to follow along with the MIDI mock-up and to adlib sections in the song also to add an organic feel to the music.

Week 4

During this week there were some hiccups due to personal reasons since I had to move apartments, therefore any work that was supposed to be completed were pushed into the following week.

Week 5

The VST instruments were finalized after they had been edited and then bounced out into WAV files into normalized individual stems. The files were then added to a single ProTools session for final editing and mixing and balancing.

The farm animal Foley and other sounds that were captured during the first two weeks were then placed and panned appropriately in the mix to create a sonic representation of a player walking through a market place in the medieval town.

Week 6

The final deliverable was completed and submitted for review successfully before the due date.

Project progression with regards to timeline

Timeline showing progress up to the 15th March

Progress updates - We completed the final project with the required deliverables but were not able to get the reflective blogs finished on time as per the GANNT Chart.

Project Pitch - The pitch was prepared adequately therefore allowing our team to be ready to present during the pitching process.

Project Plan - Our team was able to create a viable plan to execute after the 15 February and have completed the key deliverables on time.

Track teardown - The track teardown was not fully completed in terms of having a formal written up report on the song structure. Nevertheless there were enough done in terms of identifying the critical elements such as the BPM, time signature, key and identified sections which allowed us to compose upon the skeleton structure of the BGM track.

What was the final outcome?

Even with the slight setback during the middle phase of the project we were able to deliver the fully finished musical piece on time and also the fully finished

What made the project successful?

At a glance the project was successful since all the criteria was met towards the project scope and then we decided to make the

What where the challenges faced?

Life events like my needing to move from my original apartment to my parents’ house since my partner has lost her job and we were financially unable to live in the unit anymore.

What were the lessons learned?

From this experience I learned that it is important to have good fall back plan if anyone of the team was unable to perform their part. We may have needed to select a team members with more overlapping skill sets so that if there is any issue with composing then

What could be done differently in future?

The reporting for the project was not consistent throughout the creation of the BGM track and thus there were lapses in certain weeks. In future the lapses could be mitigated if we stuck to a rigid weekly debrief and action plan for the following week.