Behold, Angry Birds Soundtrack (Original HQ versions) by Ari Pulkkinen

Which Angry Birds version is the best of my work? Arguing starts now!

This whole package is available now on here on aritunes.com only 9,95 EUR and soon on iTunes and Amazon digital shops (I will update this information later). If you already own Trine 2 soundtrack and want the extra two exclusive tracks, you can buy just them for a low price of 2,95 EUR! I’ve also added Trine 1 & Trine 2 SE OST Soundtrack Bundle in the shop page – if you haven’t already gotten Trine 1 OST, now is the perfect opportunity to get the full Trine World Soundtrack experience (over 2 hours of best medieval fantasy music in the world) for just 15,95 EUR!

A big thanks to my fans for supporting me and hope you enjoy this delightful soundtrack. As an indie composer, every penny goes directly to my expences and its a big help for me to make even better music, as I can update my studio and instruments, have more resources and get talented musicians to perform in my songs. Your support is very important for me and my work, and I thank you from my heart!

“Over the past 15 years, the neuroscience of music has taken a huge leap forward. This new research is just beginning to tell us why music adds such a strong emotional component to movies, advertising, theater, and of course, new media of all types, including casual computer games. Employing the power of audio stimuli including structured music often adds a critical level of engagement for users of all forms of technology. Angry Birds’ audio effects and music seem simple but are, in fact, very complex. The use of audio effects and carefully varied melodic music lines works to enhance the game play engagement level. Many games do this but few do it expertly.

The audio in Angry Birds serves to enhance the user’s experience by mapping tightly to the user’s simple mental model of conflict between the angry birds and the loathsome pigs. This concept, known in film production as “action syncing”, provides enhanced levels of the feedback for users at just the right time. For example, in Angry Birds, we hear the birds chatter angry encouragement to their colleagues as each prepares for launch. We hear avian dialogue as the birds arc toward their targets and hear the pained response from their victims when they strike their targets. The pigs are by no means silent. When the avian interlopers fail, they are often egged on to try just one more time by the snickering, grinning pigs. These consistently applied audio elements reinforce the player’s interactions and deepen engagement by emphasizing the anthropomorphic qualities of the main characters of the game and providing clever enhanced feedback during critical on-screen behaviors. What about the actual melodic music shifting from the foreground to the background without apparent reason? This musical thread running through the game play experience is mysteriously familiar and easily understood in the context of the overall theme of the game. Where have I heard that melody before? This combination of audio feedback is varied just enough that parents sitting in the next room are rarely prone to demanding an end to game play based on distracting musical repetition. Perhaps this explains the high number of hours spent playing the game!”

How to make successful audio branding – explained!

SoundWorks Collection: The Sound and Music of Angry Birds from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

It’s the first time my song has been played by a live, professional orchestra, and this is a very special honor and day for me. But I am sure that this will certainly not be the last time a full orchestra plays my songs, this is certain!

But, as much I would like to be in the concert today, I cannot – official affirmation came too late for me and I was unable to arrange my travel to London. Not that I could “arrange it”, but I have other things I have to do, like finalizing Trine 2 soundtrack. I am quite sad about this, but life is sometimes like this.

I have a wish – If anyone you goes to see the concert, I would like to know how did the audience react and what was the overall feeling in the concert hall when Angry Birds theme was played.

edit: I got my cousin and her husband to the concert, nice! I feel a lot better

Anyway, Angry Birds isn’t the only soundtrack I have made. No Sir. I have made memorable work, according to players and reviews, in many much bigger console games. Even now, in Sony’s playstation network “welcome back” program, they’re offering games like Dead Nation and Super Stardust HD, which already had hundred thousands of players. Also Trine and Outland -games have been very successful ones and had great reviews. Also Shadowgrounds games had also a decent fan base years ago. I have calculated that over two million have heard my music in other than Angry Birds merchandise… So the amount of listeners of my music should go over 300 million soon. Wow!

But I am not famous. My music is loved by many around the world but my name is still totally unknown to mainstream media and most of the listeners. Propably because my name is not mentioned much. Well at least my name is in the credits (that nobody ever reads) and few companies manage to mention my name for the press even! Sometimes it feels that I’m just a resource, an outsourcer that just makes music and sounds. Not surprisingly, I’ve only got ONLY ONE press interview in two years, and that was a small finnish YleX program. Come on.

Should I care too much? Should my name come more up? Should ‘game’ composers have more press coverage? The good side is that now I have some peace to make even more greater music, without too much hassle and press coverage. But still it would be nice to have some recognition. It always manages to anger me a little when I see Angry Birds theme somewhere without my name being mentioned – unofficial remix or whatnot. Even some of my friends or distant family have been unaware that I did Angry Birds. It’s feels a bit silly.

Currently I’m composing Trine 2 Soundtrack, and it will be a really great one. After that there’s already much work ahead, but do I just continue to work as music outsourcer or should I be making my own commercial music? Future will tell. For now I enjoy making game music, I’ve always have. It’s still a place and format not ruined by money and mainstream crap – there’s a still place for real music and soul.

Now I feel a little bit more relieved. Sorry about the small rant.

Making of Dead Nation Original Soundtrack

Dead Nation original soundtrack reflects the tensions and the horrors of the post-apocalyptic world. It features industrial ambient, rock music and orchestral elements, and it basically keeps you on the edge while you are playing the game, all the time. I wanted the players to feel how twisted the place is, and how the main characters have lost all their hope, but still kick ass against all odds. The biggest achievement of DN soundtrack was that it changes dynamically in-game from different tension levels and locations – it features six different tension phases from non-life threatening situational ambient to the most intensive heart pulsing ‘you’re gonna die now -action music. It also has different music in more boss-music like scenarios and some other unique places like a circus and zombie disco.

Making the original soundtrack was hard at first – I didn’t actually have any straight reference for the music. I really liked the 28 Months Later, Dawn of The Dead Remake and Resident Evil: Afterlife Original soundtracks but they didn’t had much reference to Dead Nation dynamical phases of 4-6 for the high action parts. Then I just decided to just go for it and add as much action-horror, high pulsing themes and all the industrial sh*t I could find to the action parts that I could – it worked out great in the end and turned out to be a really gritty and frightening soundtrack. I’m trying to make it an official soundtrack after summer, but the dynamic format must be changed back to work in a single-track style.

Making of Dead Nation Sound Design

Lets start about thinking of Dead Nation audio assets – over 8,500 unique audio assets, you get the picture when you realize the total length of the sounds are over x hours. And I’m not talking about some basic sounds taken from some sound libraries, no sir. These are custom made sounds for Dead Nation, each one designed to work in-game, mix-matrix and audio design. We got so far in audio design, that we have even had physics sounds for events like “hobo zombie dropping hobo-sack”, “zombie critical hit throat gurgle and blood sounds”, “physics sounds for every physics object in-game” and even “funny clown-like additional sounds for clown zombie dying” (these are actually super hilarious, producer and CEO of Housemarque almost choked of laughing). I’m sure you’ll get the picture.

OK, so there’s a lots of custom made sound effects, so what? Well let me tell you. The biggest achievement that I’m the most proud of all the zombie vocals – custom made in five sound recording sessions, with ‘amateur’ sound actors that “found their true meaning of life” when performing perfect zombie vocals for the game. (note: it is extremely exhausting and HARD to record good zombie vocals, really) These actors included the lead designer and coder of Dead Nation, couple women who had never even played games (who were really great!), game producer, Art Director, and lead singer of rock band called RockMasters and of course me, the voice over director/actor of these sessions. I was the first to record the vocals and show how it was done, and it was really sweaty session – so wet in fact, that after the act everyone wondered what the hell I was doing in the studio. (yes yes, acted like a lunatic like usual) Well… voice actor after another came out of the studio, having the same symptoms as me. Everybody said that acting zombie was probably one of the hardest things they have ever done, except running coopers test in the Finnish army. Anyone wondering why it is so hard – try to yell as loud you can for five minutes and act like you are a hungry, angry and mad zombie running after tasty human flesh. I’m really sorry that I didn’t take any video of the sessions, but maybe I’ll post some audio clips later on…

Music for your own personal spirit journey

As for Outland original soundtrack, it combines strong melodies, diverse orchestral and ethnic styles and tense atmospheres. If you look at Outland and listen to the audio, you might even have a really deep psychedelic experience! At first (when the game was at design phase) we had one really long track for each (six) chapter, but in the middle of the development there grew a clear need for much more different tracks, including ambient styles. Also, there are moments of silence in-game, keeping to the minimalistic approach from time to time, obeying the phrase “less is more”.  However, at the end of this insanely busy project, I ended up making two tracks per day, basically with just one try (no iterations) and kept telling myself that I’m doing the right choices.

Some inspiration for Outland soundtrack was taken from original Fallout games, Passion of the Christ (the movie) and Apocalypto (the movie). Original Fallout games (1&2) by Mark Morgan were an enlightment for me back in the days – the ambient work Morgan did for Fallouts totally hooked and immersed me into the world. This idea was also the bottom line for Outland soundtrack.

Spirit energy, Gaia and the complex world of dreams

I’ll let you know that I have never done anything so abstract art-shit than Outland sound design (except Alan Wake light game-play and shadow-shield sounds). Outland sound design is deeply tied to the spiritual, dream-like atmosphere (or what I like to call spirit energy stuff), making the world an alluring and unique place to visit and hear. Lots of different sounds were made to enhance the characters, energy bullets and action – the corner stones of the audio design. There are also many interesting details in Outland: Hero’s sword reflects Star Wars light-saber sound design, enemies do not sound anything organic or “real”, spirit energy variates thematically from small energy bullets to huge streams – and what I call a huge accomplishment, this same spirit energy is linked almost to any sound in the game. Yes, really. This “little” detail is the main cause of Outland being so damn hypnotic. The same detail is linked even to the boss fights, where instead of basic epic Hollywood style roaring and screaming there is only spirit boogeyman stuff going on, making the bosses also part of the twisted world that I cannot even now understand.

Also, the original sound asset list for Outland (about 100 sounds and variations) grew over four times bigger in the end. I was crunching (aka. working my ass off on a tight schedule) so hard in the end of the project that many of the sounds I hear in the game now, seem to be unfamiliar to me. I was in an audio monkey-robot mode. (edit: also, I want to thank Outland lead designer Aki Raula for his uncredited contribution for audio design! He apparently ninja’ed a few sounds in-game without telling me;))

Outland is available on Xbox360 live arcade and (hopefully soon) on PlayStation 3 network. It has been a huge success and gotten very good reviews around the world; on metacritic, it is currently rated 85/100 , which is one of the best scores this year for a downloadable game.

ps. Outland Original Soundtrack is not yet available. I will inform you on the availability as soon as I know it myself.