EB Music Preview Strikes Back!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Greetings Europa Barbarorum fans. Today we have our second music preview, showcasing more of the work of our two composers:

As shown in our first music preview, EB v0.8 will feature new music for our different culture groups. We have replaced *all* the music from the vanilla version of the mod at this point with new music from our composers. We are now releasing two more culture sets to give a better idea of where the music for EB is going (or maybe "has gone") and to free up more songs that our composers can include on their own personal websites (Morgan Casey and Nick Wylie).

As a reminder of how the process worked, here is a quote from the last preview on this:

Morgan and Nick worked with our historical advisors each step of the way - trying to come up with a soundtrack for each culture group (as well as a few general pieces that would have to serve for all culture groups) that would reflect different aspects of that culture while still remaining enjoyable for modern ears and audiences. If anyone has heard reconstructions of ancient Greek music, they probably understand that a 100% authentic reproduction (even *if* it was able to be achieved, and it probably wouldn't) would simply not work in the context that we needed: that of an accompanying set of themes for a computer game in today's world. As Morgan and Nick primarily work with soundtracks (take a look at their lists of influences on their myspace.com pages and you will notice many modern movie score composers), they used our advisors' suggestions of everything from instruments, to rhythms, to vocal accompaniement to create compositions that work well within the parameters of the game, but still reflect as much as we can different aspects of that culture in the music.

We would like to thank Morgan and Nick yet again for their work and we can't wait to release all of the pieces with the 0.8 build. We are also very happy to suggest that folks out there take a closer look at their other work on their websites and their myspace.com pages too.

And now for the part you've been waiting on, here are the previewed songs (click on each "button" individually to hear them - if you are going to listen to them multiple times, we would advise saving bandwith by just right clicking and choosing "Save as..." to save the songs to your desktop):

Hellene Music Set (Morgan Casey):





Eastern Music Set (Nick Wylie):

Teleklos: Hi Morgan, first of all thanks for taking some time to answer a few questions pertaining to your work on the soundtrack of EB. I would like to start off by asking how you started working with EB, but since I was the one who contacted you initially, that might be a little odd. So instead, I'll ask you why you decided to help EB with its soundtrack.

Morgan: It's a pleasure to talk about some of the music for the upcoming EB soundtrack. What initially interested me about EB was how well thought out and intricate it is. Also, I hadn't worked with a mod that deals with this time period before, so I was thrilled to try something new, and see how it would work out.

Teleklos: You've worked a lot scoring other modifications (e.g., Napoleonic Total War, The Rhovanion Alliance for the Battle for Middle Earth, the upcoming PC game Outerspace!, etc.). Is this something you always wanted to do in and of itself or is it more a good way to break into the proverbial "big leagues"?

Morgan: Writing music for the upcoming modifications I've been fortunate enough to work with has been a wonderful learning experience as well as a lot of fun! Seeing how everything comes together at the end is really cool. Down the road, I definitely won't rule out writing music for another mod.

Teleklos: Do you play any computer games?

Morgan: I love playing video games. When I'm not writing music, I enjoy games like "Gran Turismo" and "Need for Speed". I'm a big fan of racing games, but my all time favorite is "Final Fantasy VI."

Teleklos: Moving on to the EB soundtrack itself, you created the Roman and Greek themes, in addition to working with Nick on the Nomadic theme. Was it chance or do you feel your work better matches those cultures?

Morgan: Originally, Nick and I discussed which themes we felt our strong suits were in (writing wise), but outside of that that I had a huge interest in working on the theme for the Roman Faction, because it was something I hadn't really ventured into yet, stylistically.

Teleklos: There's a big difference in the Nomadic theme though. What was the collaboration like there?

Morgan: The collaboration on the Nomadic theme was great. The piece started out with me working on the guitar track and after Nick listened to it, he had a lot of cool percussion ideas that he wanted to add. From there on, we went through the process step by step together.

Teleklos: I envision these themes as falling somewhere in a triangular scheme - with slavishly replicating ancient music (something that can be very jarring to modern listeners) on one corner, evoking the ideas of the ancient culture on another, and creating something that sounds pleasant and appropriate for the players on the other point, and the different themes then falling in different places within the scheme. My question is this: when you are creating the theme, is there a battle between these different ideas or is it more of a natural process? Where do you start and how do you get the final product?

Morgan: For me, the most important aspect is knowing which direction the team wants to take things as well as my own limitations of what I'm able to do. For this soundtrack, I lightly worked with certain scales (Western Greek theme), while making sure the overall sound was modern.

Teleklos: I've heard some of your other work (even vocals!) that doesn't fit into the same genre. How did you go from one to the other? Do you prefer the score work or the dance/pop work?

Morgan: I first started out as an unsigned dance/pop artist a few years ago, but after awhile was no longer interested in continuing in that direction. Writing music is what I love doing the most and thus decided to switch and solely focus on writing songs, and vocal work for other producers. In 2003, I had the wonderful opportunity to write some pieces for a CG animated demo and ever since then I've had a huge interest in composing. For me, scoring is truly enjoyable work; every time I sit down and write, I learn something new.

Teleklos: What about your next projects? What have you moved on to now?

Morgan: Right now I'm currently working on the score for an upcoming Independent feature film (live action). I'm having a lot of fun working on it and hopefully things will turn out great.

Teleklos: Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions here Morgan! We appreciate your work and I hope that we can get Nick (who is currently on vacation) by here to talk with us at some point in the future.

Morgan: No problem! I had a wonderful time working with the EB team, and I hope that when the new version is released, people will enjoy the music.

Additionally, we will be including loading screens to provide more information on the different cultures' music (possibly as an extra packet, in order to speed download times of the mod itself). These are very much a work in progress, but here is a sample of one of the two culture groups we are showing here:

We hope you have enjoyed this preview.

As always, if you have questions or comments, the best place to post them is here, where the EB team is most active:

Europa Barbarorum ORG forum

Europa Barbarorum TWC forum

We give special thanks to Imageshack that provides us with a simple, foolproof, and free way to show you all these pictures each week.

Have a great day!


Sincerely,

The Europa Barbarorum team. (P.S. - Hope to get you back here presenting these previews soon Krusader! )

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I would like to also note that the EB membership is very happy (to say the least) with the music Morgan and Nick have composed for the mod. We are happy to hear your opinions of the music, but complaints with regard to your personal tastes are better left to yourself. The music is finished, and as I said we are thrilled with it. It will not be changed. We have 26 pieces (I believe) and all of the music was composed gratis for us under our direction and with our suggestions. These are not units where individual weapons or unit names can be argued over. There is no right or wrong music here as we in no way expected authentic reproductions of the ancient music.

Anyone who thinks they could have done better probably should have contacted us at some point between the mod's initial stages before the release of the game itself and the start of the summer.

[Sarkiss]

[Shigawire]

Yay! Morgan and Nic knows how to write good music.

Nice interview btw.

[invictus]

I like it alot, as always EB you dont fail to amaze me. My only slight problem, is that they sound too similar, but im sure there will be more music so it doesnt seem to repetive Keep up the good work guys. -Leon

[Sarkiss]

the tracks are amazing! especially main themes for both Hellenic and Eastern! equally perfect!
can see myself spending countless sleepless nights listening to this absolutely outstanding themes whilst marching across the map!
very well done!

[Fondor_Yards]

You somehow topped the last set, which I didn't think you could do. Just wonderful.

[The White Knight]

A child can see these previews are here to keep the eager masses calm, but they do a great job of doing so. Nice interview too!

[Teleklos Archelaou]

With the music previews (and we may show more), one of the chief goals is to get the music out in the open, since our composers (who do not work on other aspects of the mod) should not be "penalized" by having their work remain locked up while we still work on 0.8.

We aren't exactly locked in the castle watching a pitchfork wielding mob outside our gates.

Further, some enterprising fans might find a way to plug them into their own builds. We thought about releasing a descr_sounds_music.txt file too, but ours is pretty different (as it is for 0.8 and a culture swap has taken place) and that's too much work to prep one for 074 too (distracts us from continuing to work on 0.8) that we decided against it. If anyone wants to make a minimod for the current EB version (074) with this music they would get no flak from us over it.

[k_raso]

We aren't exactly locked in the castle watching a pitchfork wielding mob outside our gates.

Oh really?

You are closer than you think to that...



(kidding btw)

About the music minimod, it`s actually easy. You just have to enter the descr_sounds_music.txt file and change the path of the vainilla music with the path to your music. That way, the game will play your music instead of vainilla. There is a problem though, with a long silence (1 min estimate) that occurs after every song... may be because of the difference between the duration of the original songs with the duiration of the user`s songs.

Try it! I did it with Marcus Camilius music pack for RTR, and added some music of Cantus Congregatio and some tracks of Conan, and some others. Worked pretty well BTW.

Bye.

[Ecthelion]

First let me say that I am always quite impressed by the level of professionalism exhibited in the staff of this mod. It is at the point where I actually feel as if I should be paying for this mod!

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed all six themes and I do agree with the decision to keep a modern perspective rather than sticking strictly with contrived period music.

The one criticism that I have is with the Greek Main Theme. As a stand-alone piece of music it is great, however, since the music loops in the game, it is not a good idea to have significant crescendos. I say this because major crescendos and descendos are never a good idea in music that is to be looped. Generally the aim with looped music is to not make any particular segment more memorable or more noticible than others. This way the user will not consciously recognize that the music is looping.

[Eird-Way]

i - iv - i - V, III - iv - V - i

It's very interesting what we come to associate with a particular culture. Morgan loves a good V - i cadence, as much as she loves her cymbal rolls. It's very effective, and quite charming.

What impresses me most about their music is how well-produced it is. It doesn't sound like they have a ridiculous amount of money in loops and samples (a good thing in my opinion), but that doesn't stop all their tracks from sounding absolutely professional. That's something that really sets their stuff apart. Nothing can ruin a good gameplay moment, and in turn the whole feeling of the product, like a crappy final-fantasy clarinet noise ringing in your ear. (Nothing against FF, but if you've played them you know what I mean).

Very polished, very professional, will massively increase the EB mystique.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Appreciate the comments guys. We will probably release two other themes by Nick in a few weeks, by the way. We won't release the main theme, or the victory, defeat, or tension themes till 0.8 is out, but the music is produced and just waiting on the mod to catch up, so we don't have a lot of reasons to hold back on it except for the main theme itself (just to make that first load up experience much better ).

[dplogic]

The songs written for the EB soundtrack have no loops of anykind. Every song has been written 100% original and built from the ground up.

[Eird-Way]

Well, no shame in using "Ethnic Percussion Loop #72" for something like this. Generally speaking, a beat is a beat, especially for background music.

But, in that case, I'll add that they did a good job with the hand drums. I just naturally assumed that they were canned commercial loops. I'll listen again and check for subtleties.

See? I told you they fooled me.

[Artaserse]

strange, cant get to hear any of the tracks, connection failed... uff!
anyway very nice loading screen (the one with the music explications), but i hope it is just a campaign loading screen (not a "battle" loading screen) cause reading of EB technical matters (how EB has managed to work on the music) while loading a battle turn away a bit of the atmosphere, it should go better some other unit screen like that of cotrte reformata, agemata and casse (3 are too few), or even further coins screen too...

nada de nada... trying from about half an hour...
just tryied at the .org and still nada de nada...

[Teleklos Archelaou]

We would love to be able to specify where load screens are chosen from (between battle or campaign, or better yet between cultures and factions) but we just can't do it. No mod can.

[Artaserse]

ok, i sayd it cause it is like reading a sort of "advertising" during your game (while the historical part, the one on the left side of the screen, is ok for me), the "ideal think" (for me) should be if the right-side part could be implemented in the EB site in the features page, and expand the historical part to the whole screen in some manner, but if it is not possible never mind.

[Leão magno]

Nice of you to allow a preview... as much music as possible is a good thing, especially since the game is so immersive and enjoyable that makes you keep listening the same music for hours, keep it up… would you please ask for a group of musics especially for Carthage???? Please!!!!!