Popular underground electronic musician Amon Tobin (Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory) and renowned composers Jim Dooley (Pushing Daisies), Mel Wesson (Batman Begins, Pirates of the Caribbean) and electric cellist Martin Tillman (Black Hawk Down, Ali) have come together to create the imaginative score heard in one of this year’s biggest games launching on the PlayStation 3, inFAMOUS. Sony’s Music Manager Jonathan Mayer (God of War 2, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune) led the group creatively and technically. Throwing out all conventional standards of traditional music production, the team instead turned to real-life objects and materials found in urban environments to develop an innovative score that is equal parts Stomp™ and experimental sampling.

In order to play into the gritty and disjointed nature of inFAMOUS’ environment the score was created from the innate sounds that one might find in a dilapidated city.  A mix of traditional percussion and non-percussion instruments and objects were utilized, often played or ‘prepared’ in nontraditional ways - bungie cords were stretched across a concert bass drum and strummed, wire brushes were beat on a suspended tuba, shakers were constructed of broken glass, etc.  Collaborating and sharing with all artists intensively, these sounds were recorded and produced by Sony’s internal music team to create the intense, combat oriented music for the game as well as the ambient musical effect of the city's anguish. M4G was recently given the opportunity to discuss the game’s soundtrack with the soundtrack producers and music supervisor team at Sony Computer Entertainment America.

inFAMOUS Music Team at Sony Computer Entertainment America
Top: Joel Yarger, Michael Bricker, Matt Levine, Ernest Johnson, Marc Senasac
Bottom: Clint Bajakian, Jonathan Mayer, Chuck Doud, Scott Hanau.  

M4G: When did you get involved in the soundtrack production for inFAMOUS?
Clint Bajakian: I was involved from the beginning of the project with Jonathan Mayer, music manager, to establish a creative and technical direction for the musical score. When we met with Nate Fox, the creative director, at Sucker Punch, Nate expressed how much he and the team liked the way some music was working that they had temped in. It was primal drum grooves on toms and taikos and the like.  This led us away from a more conventional orchestral score, or electronic score. We all wanted something both sophisticated and primal with an electronic, at times, urban, edge.

For the more beat-oriented material, some of the style guide samples Jonathan had compiled were pieces by remix artist Amon Tobin. Nate and the team loved the samples. I happened to be visiting Canadian Music Week in Toronto the following week by coincidence where I met with Amon’s representative, Julie Blake and discussed our interest in Amon. Within a day, we were on a conference call with Amon and he loved the concept. We actually began creative discussions right there and then. 

For the more orchestral, story-driven material we made a reasonably speedy decision to recommend composer, Jim Dooley, to the team. We had a good history working with Jim on past projects including SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs and had enjoyed watching Jim’s career grow in success, including his recent Emmy for his music for Pushing Daisies. Jim brought an additional composer collaborator Mel Wesson into the mix with spectacular results. Also contributing was Martin Tillman, electric cellist of world renown.  Jonathan Mayer acted as a creative tip of the spear, leading and coordinating all artists to a unified, highly original score.

M4G: What was the music brief for the game? Were you involved in defining the sound or were the musical parameters dictated by Sucker Punch?
Jonathan Mayer: We were very involved in developing and defining the sound and style for the score to infamous.   In our initial meetings with the developers two things became immediately clear:  the team loved the vibe of big, tribal percussion in the game and they really wanted their score to echo the anguish and disarray of Empire City.  We agreed that the big percussion loops that they had temped into the game worked well with the pacing and vibe of the game but the sound was very ‘stock-Hollywood’ percussion with big ethnic drums and hand percussion and the like.  After looking at the concept art and seeing the devastation that players were going to be roaming around in, Clint and I started to bat around the idea of replicating their big tribal percussion style with everything BUT drums using found objects and old broken instruments as percussion.  At the same time we were looking at the graphic-novel art-style of the cinematics and we all agreed that these movies were going to require a more surreal and emotive approach to their music.

M4G: Since there are several composers creating the score how did you decide who wrote what?
Jonathan Mayer: The short answer to that is that we made decisions early on based on our decisions about style.  Over the course of the project things evolved quite a bit, though.  We brought Amon Tobin and Jim Dooley on to the project very early with the intention of Amon defining the sound of the groove-oriented gameplay music and Jim driving the style for the cinematics.  We had already decided that I was going to be performing the majority of the percussion parts in our studio here in Foster City and sending them out to the guys to manipulate, mutilate, etc.  In his work on the cinematics Jim introduced us to Mel Wesson and they blew us away with their collaboration on the first cinematic so we hired Mel immediately.  As the project unfolded this delineation between gameplay and cinematic music quickly eroded and we made a point of bouncing ideas off each other all around.  Stems were shared among everyone on the project and in that way, everyone kind of had a say in who wrote what.  With the exception of the obvious choices like time-locked cinematics and specific in-game set pieces, we kind of kept it loose and just tried to provide everyone with inspiration and then we did a lot of our deciding about where to use what piece of music as the music came in and the game came together.

M4G: So, how exactly did the composers work together? How much collaboration and interaction was there between the composers? Was each composer able to add their own identity to the music?
Jonathan Mayer: We directed the majority of the collaboration from within the SCEA music department with the specific intention of having each composer add their identity to the music.  One of my my favorite examples is in the suite of music created for the Reapers (the gang that controls the Neon District in Empire City).  We started with me recording some found-percussion ensemble compositions in our studio.  Then I sent stems of several different compositions to Jim with some inspiration and direction about the Reapers (concept art, gameplay capture) and we asked Jim to create thematic material for the gang.  Once we all fell in love with Jim’s Reaper’s Theme, the stems for THAT (which still had bits and pieces of the original percussion parts in there) were passed on to Amon with ideas about specific places in the game where we might need suspense or combat music for the Reapers.  That’s just one example, however, and every variation of that scenario existed throughout the project.

M4G: How much direction and supervision did the developer Sucker Punch provide? How much creative freedom and experimentation did you permit the composers and to what degree were your efforts successful in creating unique sounds? 
Jonathan Mayer: The team at Sucker Punch provided us with excellent direction and supervision throughout the project.  Experimentation wasn’t allowed on the project….it was demanded!  Right from the start we were tasked with doing something these guys had never heard before.  I think a lot of people say things like that but in this case the team not only meant it, they provided all the logistical and creative support required to accomplish something like that.   Just the fact that our producers approved the expenses we incurred for things like trash cans, buckets, scrap metal,  and a used Zheng (Chinese zither) proves that we had a lot of support all around.  I think everyone did a great job of coming up with some really unusual and unique sounds.  Both Amon and Mel are just masters of manipulating live recorded sounds and creating something both totally unique and completely musical.  Plus, when you add Martin’s cello performances into that you never really know what the heck it is that you’re actually hearing.  It definitely took a while and there was a lot of trial and error.  Our in-house engineers (Marc Senasac and Joel Yarger) spent many hours recording me just banging on stuff until we were really happy with the sounds we were getting out of all the junk we collected.  Recorded totally literally…a trashcan just sounds like a trashcan so it took some time to dial in our sounds and techniques.  I think we all felt that we were just hitting our stride toward the end of the project so, who knows how far we could push the envelope given enough time?

M4G: How does the score reflect/represent the protagonist ‘Cole’ and his super powers? Did you take a thematic approach at all? Is there an emotional context and quality to the soundtrack?
Jonathan Mayer: We actually didn’t have a traditional, thematic approach to the overall score.  There are some themes....each of the major gangs has a theme and the city has a motif that rears its head occasionally.  Our approach was much more rooted in the visceral experience of Empire City and what things were like for Cole.  In this way, our approach was very emotional.  We wanted the music to feel tough and dangerous.  The story of a superhero is, by definition, very fantastic and we were encouraged early on to create music that rooted the player in the city…we really wanted to feel like we were hearing the city creaking and groaning and roaring throughout the game.  In that sense, I’d say the city was the main character we were concerned with capturing.

M4G: Since the soundtrack is heavily percussion-based and employs a lot of sampled industrial effects and urbanscape sounds, how do you avoid sounding repetitive? Are there layers to the soundtrack that evolve as the story progresses and your character gains new abilities/levels? Is there a melodic component?
Jonathan Mayer:  I think that the variety of sounds we had in our palate for the percussion in the game helps a lot to keep things fresh.  A lot of the objects and instruments we used as percussion were not only performed but we also meticulously sampled them and created some sampler instruments with multiple velocity layers that were shared around on the project.  Many of the non-percussion instruments we used as percussion helped us a lot too because we were always getting strange new sounds out of them every time we recorded.  As far as I know, there’s no conventional technique for playing a cello with chopsticks or an old euphonium with drumsticks or wire brushes….so, every time I played one of these things I learned a little more about HOW to play them.  That inconsistency was actually beneficial in the final product.  There are melodic components to the score in Jim’s themes with the orchestra and with Martin’s performances on the electric cello.  Amon also creates some incredible melodies out of the various instruments-as-percussion we recorded.  Over the course of the project our technique kind of became using objects and junk to make musical sounds and musical instruments to make odd noises and ‘un-musical’ sounds.

M4G: What were the main challenges of writing and producing the score?
Jonathan Mayer:  Getting the entire team into a good groove was challenging but a lot of fun.  Keeping some of the stylistically disparate elements cohesive was a bit challenging but over the course of the project this became easier and easier as everyone was always striving to raise the bar while looking for common ground in the collaboration.  I’d say the biggest challenge was just keeping ourselves from getting into any ruts or routines.  We felt like we had to keep looking for the edges of the sonic world we were exploring.

M4G: Did you record with a live orchestra or other live musicians/vocalists for any sections of the score? If so, with whom and where do their contributions feature in the score?
Jonathan Mayer: Aside from the massive amounts of percussion recording we did (roughly two or three days a week for about 5 months) we did some bass guitar which Chuck Doud played and some electric guitar which Clint Bajakian played.  We were very fortunate to have Martin Tillman play electric cello all over the score and we felt that with all of the heavy percussion that Martin added an emotive edge to everything that really gave depth and dimension to the score.  The great thing about all of our live recording was having Amon around to poke and prod us all to do things outside of our comfort zone.  In the studio he’s the most amazing instigator for innovation and he’s always pushing us to try new things.

M4G: How much music is featured in the game and how long did the process take, including writing to mixing and implementation?
Jonathan Mayer: Amon and Jim each created over an hour of music for the project and I contributed about another 30 minutes of finished material (not counting all the percussion source stuff).  Clint and I also created a lot of ambient ‘moods’ that were much more sound design than any music I’ve ever created.  Mel and Martin both touched a lot of everything so I’d say we ended up with about three hours of finished, composed material.  With all the editing and remixing we did to get stuff right for implementation we probably ended up shipping over 6 hours of material in the game.  We started recording and experimenting in the studio and out in the world (we did a lot of filed recording at junkyards and we recorded car crushing and a lot of industrial sounds) well over a year ago.  I’d say we started delivering finished music about 9 months ago and one of our music editors, Scott Hanau, began implementation right away.  The entire process is extremely iterative with games so Scott probably rigged music into the game nine or ten times before we finished and….it’s a big game so that represented a huge chunk of time where Scott was just working with the developers to refine the music system and get us primed for the final crunch where we do our final pass for music in the game.

M4G: How involved were the composers in the implementation?
Jonathan Mayer: The composers were not too heavily involved in the implementation although they were very much aware of what our needs were in terms of composing with varying layers of intensity and things like that.  We pride ourselves on encouraging our composers to write music first and worry about the feel, the vibe and the style being right rather than altering their approach to accommodate some game-engine technology.  We have a highly specialized team of editors and engineers who are all huge gamers and can always get the composition to work in the context of the game.  I’m sure all composers worry about what will happen to their music once it’s delivered on a project like this.  We pride ourselves on being able to retain the intention and identity of the artist in every edit we do so the composers who do work with us are typically very happy when they hear how we’ve worked things into the game.  When you work with guys this experienced and this talented everyone just knows that we’re all driving at the same goal, which is making the game sound great and feel great and every editorial and implementation decision we make is done with that goal in mind.

M4G: What makes this score standout from your other works?
Chuck Doud: The creative vision of the score was deeply influenced by the aesthetics of the world.  Because the specifics of the storyline and environment, we were immediately pointed in a direction that we hadn’t had the opportunity to explore before.  As our vision coalesced, it also became bigger and better.  Everything from the production techniques employed, to the team we built, to the implementation contributes to the distinctive sound and feel of this score.

M4G: Which tracks are your favorites and why?
Jonathan Mayer: Well, it’s kind of a cop-out answer but I love all of this music so much that it’s really hard to say.  I will say that there are two moments in the game where the music gets me the most fired up:  one is the track called ‘Meet The Reapers’ that plays in your first encounter with the Reapers.  It’s the first time that you’re directed to use your ‘Thunder Drop’ power as you plummet off the giant sculpture you’ve just climbed to smash the Reapers trying to steal the food that’s just been dropped into the quarantine zone….it’s one of Amon’s pieces that I just can’t get enough of…the music captures the vibe perfectly;  my other favorite music moment is the game’s final cinematic (‘The Truth’ on the soundtrack) in which huge plot points unfold.  The story is so great and I’m such a geek that Jim and Mel’s score just pushes me right over the edge there and Martin Tillman’s cello performance is the icing on the cake.

M4G: Assigning multiple composers to write a game’s soundtrack is a growing trend in videogame scoring. Do you enjoy this ‘music team’ approach or would you ideally prefer to hand the full game to a single composer so they can stamp a cohesive ‘voice’ throughout? 
Chuck Doud: We enjoy all approaches very much.  It’s great to have the opportunity to dedicate the entire project to one composer, but at the same time it’s also very rewarding to successfully build a team of composers and players to execute a score.  We allow the creative vision of the score to guide our decisions, and sometimes the plan comes together while we’re already partially into the production. Depending on what we’re envisioning, perhaps one composer is a perfect fit, as is often the case.  Or, maybe pairing two complimentary composers is the right thing to do. And sometimes, to get exactly what the game needs, you need to build a team (inFAMOUS, God of War).  We always start by looking at the needs of each project rather than techniques or strategies we have at our disposal.   Regarding maintaining one “voice” or cohesive sound, that is more of a product of having and evangelizing a clear vision of what the score should be rather than the number of composers on the project. We provide a very tight target to hit, then we bring in sharpshooter talent to work with our team and hit that target.  If you have the right team, they can give you a consistent sound. The inFAMOUS score, like God of War, has a very powerful and unique signature sound that is about as cohesive as you can get while also providing enough depth and breadth to keep the player, and listener captivated.

M4G: What have you learned from this experience that might be applied on other scoring assignments?
Jonathan Mayer: Be flexible!!  It’s not a new concept for us but this project really pushed us to expand how we think about scoring a game.  On the technical side we had to really push ourselves to come up with an implementation system that we were happy with in an open-world yet story-driven game.  Creatively, all the experimentation and collaboration just pushed us all to listen to each other and really be as open-minded as possible.   Like every project we’ve done here at SCEA there are always huge curveballs that come your way throughout a project and the more open to change you are when they come in….the easier it is to hit them out.

M4G: What other soundtracks are you producing that you can mention?
Clint Bajakian: Currently we’re working hard on God of War III for the PlayStation 3. The score will be every bit as large in scope as the past scores, perhaps if anything more deeply influenced by the intense storyline. Also, we’re working on Uncharted 2 with Naughty Dog, again with composer, Greg Edmonson. There are new, dramatic environments and story point that are reflected in the score. And of course, there are all the other projects, large and small and everything in between too soon to mention here!

www.us.playstation.com/PS3/Games/inFAMOUS