music in arma

[dikkeduif 0]

Just wondering who makes the music for the Arma games.

Is it being made in house?

Personally I hope that for arma 3 bis will take a different approach to the music, since I always disliked the music of the previous arma games. Usually the music felt unrelated to the game and I thought the quality was not the best if you compare it to other games out there.

Maybe it's just me, but I always thought the music for arma felt a bit cold and uninspired. The music for OA was slighly better than the rest though :)

[metalcraze 290]

It's being made by Ondrej Matejka. I hope he will be making it for ArmA3 as well.

I'd take the melancholic OFP ost or hard ArmA2 riffs over the same-sounding bombastic hollywood orchestra shit any day.

[Minoza 11]

^^What he said.

[Landmine 10]

Amen my brothers! :P

[celery 8]

A big portion of Arma 2's soundtrack is made up of recycled tracks from OFP: Elite, Arma 1's additional missions and a sci-fi shooter called Alpha Prime. In that sense, the soundtrack doesn't have a very topical relationship with the game itself, and only rarely do the tracks fit into any kind of situation because most of them sound so busy (some of it can be attributed to the bad max-volume mastering).

The style I'd want in Arma 3 would be clearly arranged orchestral pieces for cutscenes (as in OFP) and some low-profile and ear-friendly music that can be played in the background during combat or other gameplay without disturbing the action.

[BasileyOne 10]

yeah, its nice -)

but i missing some Seventh tracks from OFP too :[

maybe BIS purchase right for their use too ?

also missed "Poets of fall" tracks from FDF mod for OFP:R, but cause they locked-down for Microsoft-related project[particulary XBox stuff], inlikely they can/able to contribute their work to A3 :[

[Tonci87 163]

It's being made by Ondrej Matejka. I hope he will be making it for ArmA3 as well.

I'd take the melancholic OFP ost or hard ArmA2 riffs over the same-sounding bombastic hollywood orchestra shit any day.

^this

You are doing a good job Ondrej!

[nodunit 397]

Music in these games isn't meant to be inspiring most of the time, in fact quite the opposite, OFP's take was that was is a terrible thing, nobody in their right mind really WANTED it but they had to do it, not even Armstrong the equipment nut was truly prepared for it.

Personally I loved the music in OFP and hope Arma3 has something more similar to it, it hit the nail on the head quite well, you didn't feel like some unstoppable hero or in an action movie but more often than not as if you were in a unwinnable scenerio, even with the victories came the deaths of innocents.

Here are some examples http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFeQVWtuLWA&feature=BFa&list=SPE17DEF2178D1E686&lf=list_related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8jgLlH4VBs&feature=BFa&list=SPE17DEF2178D1E686&lf=list_related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBYl5RqssQw&feature=BFa&list=SPE17DEF2178D1E686&lf=list_related

One of the more "chirpy" tracks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YunE-yvn-JE&feature=BFa&list=SPE17DEF2178D1E686&lf=list_related

Pretty sure many of us would be dissapointed if we heard something similar to COD in Arma3.

[Maio 293]

More doom and gloom since the end is nigh in ArmA 3 :p Maybe something to fit with the China puppet master theme of the game.

Oh and make an underground club where this plays (down with the ocupation!!!) :pistols:

gTw2YvutJRA

[metalcraze 290]

The style I'd want in Arma 3 would be clearly arranged orchestral pieces for cutscenes (as in OFP) and some low-profile and ear-friendly music that can be played in the background during combat or other gameplay without disturbing the action.

I'd say music like 'Ocean' (the theme you hear when you've just loaded OFP and it shows you destroyed vehicles on Desert Island) would fit ArmA3 a lot (especially exploration parts) since it isn't intrusive at all but adds to the atmosphere, makes it darker. I believe it would fit well all that "losing the uphill battle" idea of ArmA3

[dikkeduif 0]

I agree with celery. Orchestral pieces would be nice for the cutscenes, and maybe some ambient/mood music in game. The problem is that orchestral pieces are nice when it sounds believable. The music in arma sounds too synth-like. Hell maybe the current arma music would sound great if it had been composed with a better sound bank and would have had better mixing.

Right now it just sounds like one blob of noise coming out of my speakers, with a guitar riff cutting through it. It's not so enjoyable :) When playing the single player campaign I just turned off music because half of the time I couldnt hear what they were saying :)

Music is something that should add to the experience, even if it's bombastic like in the rainbow six games. If you play sad music over a cutscene you will feel sad, if you play bombastic music over a cutscene you will feel that something is going to happen and that you actually will be the one that is going to make it happen. Right now in arma games I feel the music is sort of unimportant, it's there, it can be nice, but it really doesn't add anything to the game.

Edited December 5, 2011 by dikkeduif

[-)rStrangelove 0]

I think a mixture of different styles would be good for ArmA3, some metal stuff for the opening video/menus and a great cinema soundtrack for different ingame situations (stealth, alert, action, victorious, sad.... etc).

And i agree, the metal stuff in ArmA2 is nice to listen to, but it sounds over-distorted like an old 64kbps mp3. :P My C64 sounded better than that, sorry.

[purepassion 22]

Regarding Orchestral pieces:

The cost of hiring the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra for a Film or TV project is extremely competitive and you can expect to pay a fraction of the cost of US or UK orchestras.

Maybe the team can make use of it? :)

I would highly appreciate some soundtracks recorded from an orchestra (uncomparable soul and quality) however I would see no point in doing this if the costs are too high. The current way of making soundtracks works quite good, so it should only be an option if the price is right and the ressources are available.

[igneous01 19]

Berlin Philharmonic, with Karajan or Bernstein conducting.

I would honestly prefer more art music in the game, the bombastic epic orchestra is really stale and tiring, metal is very plain as well.

who knows, maybe throw in some excerpts from Mahlers symphonies or Holst planets suite or whatever.

It must be hard writing music for a simulator - theres no compliment to it I think.

[Daniel 0]

Throw in some OFP-esque scores played by a real orchestra for ambient music and travelling, that'd make me happy. Make sure any music dies away when the action kicks off. That's always a nice break from the norm.

[dmarkwick 261]

Music in ArmA? Nuubs. I don't hear music IRL when I'm in a war, therefore it breaks immersion for me when I do in ArmA. Plus, I think it might be a cheat exploit.

[dikkeduif 0]

obviously you've never been in a war

:)

[onlyrazor 11]

I believe the main theme should sound somewhat like

.

Just because it would allow me to own noobs in a way your mortal minds could not possibly comprehend.

[antoineflemming 14]

It's being made by Ondrej Matejka. I hope he will be making it for ArmA3 as well.

I'd take the melancholic OFP ost or hard ArmA2 riffs over the same-sounding bombastic hollywood orchestra shit any day.

How is music "hollywood"? Just because it happens to accompany something that is "hollywood"? And what music are you talking about that is the same-sounding? From my experience in listening to several well-known, very successful composers, their music does not sound the same. But, style of music aside, Matejka's music would sound a lot better if he had a different sound system. And orchestra would sound better than a synthesizer.

[metalcraze 290]

Hollywood music is that samey generic bombastic sample-based orchestra you can hear in so many blockbuster movies and now in more and more mainstream games (or "games" when it comes to CoD, Crysis 2 and recent NFS). All those Zimmer, Balfe, Sillescu, Tyler, Jablonsky and so on, so forth.

Matejka's mixing may not be of a high quality, but his music is distinctive in comparison to all that generic bombastic "short violin stabs + brass + war drums" that now get even into slow-paced strategies like Anno even though hearing a hollywoodish war march makes next to no sense there.

[pvt_ryan 10]

inb4someonesuggestsdubstep

OT, I agree regarding the trend of increasingly generic, over-produced orchestral music being used in the media, and I think this is also evident in the video game world- I think many people would cite Skyrim's soundtrack as an example.

[metalcraze 290]

Skyrim OST is not memorable but it has certain redeeming things about it (apart from the combat and main themes): It uses simplistic but melancholic ambient to add to the atmosphere in a non-intrusive way when exploring and this is what will be good for ArmA3 I believe.

When music is non-intrusive and adds to the atmosphere I think it's the best way. Like in Thief games for example where music is also in a large part responsible for making games scarier and adding to the suspense.

Then you have Stalker which also uses desolated areas as a setting (which is the case in ArmA3 too). Music isn't listenable separate from the game, but you have to agree - it works in the game.

That's for exploration. If combat themes are needed I think hard rock is a good choice. Or industrial rock Klepacki-style but I still would prefer ambient as it doesn't stop you from hearing shots (unlike with hard rock and - mind you - orchestra too)

Edited December 6, 2011 by metalcraze

[dikkeduif 0]

The skyrim soundtrack is good, especially when you are exploring, it gives you a sense of freedom and hints at how big the world is. It's all about feeling. I wouldn't say it's over produced or generic. It's nothing ground breaking sure, but at least it works in the game.

Splinter cell conviction also has some very good ambient music for example, although some of you will probably classify this under "hollywood bombastic" :)

But it creates tension and drama where it's needed.

The total war series also have pretty good music for example. The music fits the style of the games, a lot of it is with percussion which fit the marching of the troops.

For combat themes I would not even consider hard rock because it's just too much. Let the music just get a bit more tense, doesn't need a screaming guitar in the middle.

[-)rStrangelove 0]

I don't hear music IRL when I'm in a war, therefore it breaks immersion for me when I do in ArmA. Plus, I think it might be a cheat exploit.

I say its the wrong kind of music then. Soundtracks are done best, when you dont even realize they're there in the background. Just as an atmosphere booster.

Also, its not really a cheat when the music sets in after the situation started, like sad / dramatic music when you just got wounded. It could even simulate some sort of 6th sense [tm by sickboy] when you're out in the open and suddenly the soundtrack changes to dramatic lol.

[dmarkwick 261]

obviously you've never been in a war

:)

I tried to imagine which link you might have chosen before clicking on it, the only other one I could think would be as suitable is this one :)