Mass Effect 2 Composers Interview

OverClocked ReMix provides us with an interview with Jack Wall and the Mass Effect 2 sound composing team, talking about the overall music direction of the shooter/RPG sequel.

OCR Staff: Jack, tell us about your role as the lead composer for Mass Effect 2 – what it was like leading your team to score one of the most anticipated sequels of 2010?

Jack: It was really eye-opening. First, to how much fun it would be to collaborate with the guys, but also how much freakin’ work it was! 🙂 In addition to the guys, I also have to thank Cindy Shapiro who created the database from which we could all keep it straight. In the end, we had over 750 composed assets – transitions, cinematics, endings, outros, intros, music files… crazy!! Basically, I wrote about 65 minutes solo, then there was another 100 minutes written by Sam, David and Jimmy. Brian also wrote a couple of cues somewhere in the wee hours when he was implementing everyone’s work.

I would start off by giving each composer some direction on what I thought their level of music should be about, the instrumental palette, the character traits that they might want to focus on, the general tonality. They’d try a few things until I felt they hit on something real. I’d just serve as their sounding board. It was fun to hear what they had developed and then try to guide them to finishing their thought on a particular piece. I wanted to give them as much autonomy as possible so they could really dig in and feel satisfied that it was their piece, but I also needed to be mindful of the vision for the whole. That was the fun part for me. They all wrote some great music and I’m really proud to have worked on it with them!!

OCR Staff: Tell us a little about Wall of Sound. How does leading a team compare to composing a game solo; what are the advantages?

Jack: I actually really liked the collaboration. I very much enjoy the idea of having a few people critique the work. I’d really like to have more time for that – because you know, it does take more time to go back and forth, but overall I like doing things this way. Wall of Sound has been in the back of my head for years and I’ve finally been able to do some things with it with Mass Effect 1 and 2. Those are just epic games with a lot of music. When I was just getting started on the ME2 score, Simon Pressey who was the audio director for BioWare and new to the company, suggested that the implementation on the sequel could use some improvement. I volunteered right away to get involved. Brian DiDomenico had worked with Simon and myself on the implementation for Myst IV and did an incredible job on that – he was working hand in glove with me in my studio. I’d write and produce a piece and hand it off to him and within minutes he’s put it in the game for testing. We’d tweak it and then sign off on it, then on to the next. So he and I had some experience at this. So for ME2, we had to take it to a whole new level with Wwise and using that software and middleware (inside the game engine) to make the transitions as perfect as we could. We’re all really proud of how that worked out. But going into the future, I’d like to see us handling everything from composing the music to mixing the game. Game mixing is becoming the next big thing in game audio as there is a real craft to that and it’s not a simple thing given how many different audio assets are playing at once!