Ireland’s Mick
Kiely and Seattle game designer, Chanel
Summers visited Nashville this week with an exciting new interactive
platform to generate music for videogames, television and film. Score
Music Interactive is a revolutionary new software that allows users, i.e.,
game designers, music supervisors, producers, to build unique musical content
for their projects.
Conceived to meet the needs of game designers, the platform
opens new creative solutions for video game soundtracks, and more. “Indie games use unconventional instruments
and pair unexpected styles, creating new genres, such as acoustic frontier
hip-hop,” says Summers. "This
breakthrough in game music platforms allows designers to customize the music,
giving them the power and control to get exactly what they want at an affordable
rate.”
“Every composition is unique,” Kiely continues. “The same
piece of music will never be licensed again as a different arrangement is
generated every time.”
Many game designers and indie film producers have been using
stock music from production houses and music libraries, but since this music is
not designed for games and may not be just right for many movie projects,
producers and designers need another option, when hiring a composer might be
cost prohibitive.
“Designers
want to brand their games with unique music,” Kiely asserts. “With stock music
websites, there’s nothing stopping another developer from using the same track,
something that will never happen with Score Music Interactive.”
The
platform uses music created by live players as the foundation for instrumental
blueprints that users can build upon. “This is not artificially generated music,” says Kiely. “These
are real performances recorded live by composers and session musicians from
around the world. We are working with
flamenco guitarists from Spain, steel guitarists from Nashville, blues players
from New Orleans, etc. The music is authentic and compelling.” The user then becomes
part of the process, choosing the specific tracks that he wants to use -
essentially producing his own musical cues. A major breakthrough for licensed
music.
Not
only is the manner in which the music is created innovative, so is the payment
model. Every track (or stem as they’re
called by the SMI team) is an individual performance, and when that stem is
integrated into a licensed piece of music, that performer receives a percentage
of the licensing fee. Session players will be listed on cue sheets and be
credited for their contributions to the finished song. “This is a positive
direction for musicians, as well as composers,” says Kiely.
SMI
is actively auditioning musicians and composers for the platform. For more
information, send an e-mail to composer@scoremusicinteractive.com.
About Kiely and Summers
Mick Kiely is one of Ireland's most accomplished video game
composers, best known for his work with the highly successful titles, Codemasters
and Bodycount. He recently established Games
Music Ireland, a non-profit organization connecting Irish composers with
the global digital gaming industry.
Chanel Summers is an award winning game and audio designer who
has worked with Mindscape and Velocity, Mattel Media, and Microsoft where she
was part of the original Xbox development team.
Chanel co-founded Syndicate
17, an audio production house based in Seattle and Los Angeles
that specializes in original music, and sound effects for films, television
shows and video games.
