Mason B. Fisher Interview

PART II: COMPOSITION & PRODUCTION

HeavenGames: When you work on a game's musical score, how do you prepare yourself? What do you do for inspiration?

Mason B. Fisher: When I work on a score, I try to read fiction in the same genre. I also try to surround myself with elements that remind me of the particular style of music that I am trying to create (when I work on AoW, my dog sure gets tired of wearing that dragon costume!).

HeavenGames: What takes the most time, writing the music or coming up with ideas?

Mason B. Fisher: Usually, the music writing and ideas come fairly easily and quickly. The time consuming part is getting my gear to play and express what I want to hear.

HeavenGames: What equipment did you use to compose the music for your first game, Eye of the Beholder 3, and were you happy with the results?

Mason B. Fisher: I composed for FM synthesis and MT-32. Well, let's just say the MT-32 was okay, but when I re-orchestrated for the FM synthesis, I ended up calling my boss in a panic because it sounded so lame! He just laughed at me and said that everyone's music sounded that way when played with FM synthesis.

HeavenGames: What equipment, instruments and kinds of computers do you use to create your music today? What software programs?

Mason B. Fisher: I use several samplers. (You can never have enough of them it seems!) Kurzweil samplers are my favorite. I also use a Tascam digital mixing board. I use Neuman and Blue mics with separate mic pre-amps. I use Lexicon effects. For my software, I use Digital Performer ver. 3.1 on a G4 Mac.

A sampler is a keyboard or a rack mounted piece of equipment that generally does not contain any internal sounds. Sounds (or instruments) are purchased usually on a CD-ROM and then loaded into the sampler's memory. The advantage of using a sampler is that the actual sounds it plays are of much higher quality than keyboards that have internal sounds. For example, my Kurzweil sampler has 128megs of ram. Just one of my string sounds can be up
to 12 or 16 megs. A typical keyboard with internal sounds would have around 8 to 16 megs of ram for ALL of it's internal sounds.

HeavenGames: How do you go about creating your "orchestra?"

Mason B. Fisher: I have several "templates" of orchestral sounds that I load into my samplers depending on the complexity of the composition. Because I like to keep my signals as direct as possible, I tend to keep sections of the orchestra going through the same channel strips on my mixer (rather than using sub mixers and/or patch bays). I then call up the patches in DP!

HeavenGames: Let's say you receive a project from a game company. Walk us through the general process you take from obtaining the contract to creating the final soundtrack composition for a game.

Mason B. Fisher: When I get past the initial process and am awarded the contract, I then panic for a couple days!!! (What, …me? Create 60 minutes of music, …YIKES!! How am I going to do that!) After I calm down and get creative direction from the developer, I then start to get into the work. Projects usually go smoothly from there.

On to Part III: Composing AoW2 >>>