Music and Technology Collide

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.