Tonehammer Samples

A colleague of mine, Troels Folmann, is a very well-respected composer in the game industry, having scored such award-winning titles as Tomb Raider Legend and Tomb Raider Underworld. Many of us first met Troels through his fantastic annual lectures at the Game Developers Conference, in which he teaches us his tricks on how to improve the quality of our sampled orchestral mockups. It's always one of the highlights of the week for me.

He's a big proponent of custom recorded samples. In fact for years, he simply brought a Zoom field recorder around with him everywhere he went and just created his own sample library, recording off-beat objects like handrails and furniture, salvaged junk, etc. Now he's making that custom library available for purchase, and it's definitely worth checking out if you're a media composer.

Tonehammer is the company he founded with sound designer Mike Peaslee. Their catalog is rich in offbeat, unusual instruments: examples include a hangdrum, whale drum, cylindrum (essentially a PVC pipe instrument), marching band, detuned piano, etc. And if that's not enough, he has a couple sample sets called 'Anti-Drum Vol. 1 and 2', in which you can find samples of water coolers, stopwatches, Converse sneaker squeaks, soda can tabs, and a leather couch (which is actually quite an impressive, usable sound!).

I bought seven of his sample libraries, and was immediately able to use them in a project I'm working on. They're definitely worth a listen.

GameMusic4All Review of GSPO Pops Orchestra

GameMusic4All.com did a review of the Golden State Pops Orchestra concert a few weeks, in which I conducted. Quoth the reviewer, Anthony Ruybalid:

I have never played Civ IV before (and probably never will) but composer Christopher Tin really makes some phenomenal music which can even be enjoyed completely outside of the context of the game.

Thanks to Anthony (whom I got to meet at Video Games Live yesterday) for the review!

Video Games Live: Greek Theatre, Los Angeles

Another Video Games Live concert last night. The shot below is taken right before the encore. In the old days, kids waved their lighters around. In this day and age, they wave their cell phones, PSPs, Nintendo DS's, iPhones, etc.

Did the usual Meet-And-Greet afterwards as well--signing autographs (along with my fellow composers) for the gamer fans. Always great to interact with them!

OverClocked Remix Interview

A number of months ago I did an interview for the game music remix community OverClocked Remix that's finally been published. Check it out!

Interview

Live In Kalamazoo, Michigan...By Way Of My Living Room

My friends Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall are trying something new. During this Friday's Video Games Live concert in Kalamazoo, Michigan, they're going to try to do a live Skype broadcast with yours truly after the performance of the Civilization IV Medley. So in other words, I'll be sitting in front of my laptop in my living room watching the concert, and afterwards they'll be projecting my image in front of the audience while asking me questions. It should be a real hoot.

Christopher Tin on the Preliminary Grammy Ballot!

I got an interesting email last Friday, from a New Age pianist named Michael Dulin last Friday. It read like this:

"Hi Christopher,

Congratulations on making it to the first ballot of the Grammy Awards for your song, Civilization IV Medley. I wish you the best of luck. You certainly deserve a place at the big table this year!"

My response was: "Huh?"

Upon further investigation, I discovered that indeed, in one form or another, I was listed not once but TWICE on the Preliminary Grammy Ballot for the 51st Grammy Awards:

Best Song Written For Film/TV/Visual Media: Civilization IV Medley - Christopher Tin

Best Classical Crossover Album: Video Games Live: Vol. One

So what does this all mean? Let me take you though what happened, and how the Grammy process works.

- As you all probably know, Video Games Live performs a medley of my music from Civilization IV, consisting of 'Coronation' and 'Baba Yetu'. Earlier this year they struck a deal with EMI Classics to release a collection of selections from their show, including my songs; they titled this album Video Games Live: Vol. One. Right away the album was a hit, and shot up to #8 on the Billboard Classical Crossover charts.

- October rolls around: the time when all the major record labels submit all their artists, songs and albums to The Recording Academy for Grammy consideration. EMI Classics submits Video Games Live: Vol. One for consideration in a number of categories. It's the Recording Academy's job to sift through every single song, artist and album submitted, and eliminate the ones that are ineligible. In the case of the Video Games Live CD, every single submission got eliminated except for two: their submission for 'Best Classical Crossover Album', and 'Best Song Written For Film/TV/Visual Media'.

- The Recording Academy then sends out a ballot listing all the artists, songs and albums that made the cut into the Preliminary Ballot. As mentioned before, I made the cut in the Film/TV/Visual Media category, and the Video Games Live CD made the cut in the Classical category. These ballots go to every single voting member of the Academy. Each member gets to cast a single vote in each of the four big categories (Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best New Artist) and gets to cast up to nine more votes in any of the 31 fields on their ballots.

- The Recording Academy tallies up the votes, and sends a final ballot to its members, containing the five finalist 'Nominees' in each category. Again, each member can vote in the four big categories, but this time they're limited to eight votes in any of the 31 fields.

- The winners of this final round of balloting are announced at the Grammy Awards.

Because I'm sure some of you are curious, there are 110 categories grouped into 31 fields. The fields are pretty broad ranging, and roughly correspond to genres: Folk, Gospel, R&B, etc. Some fields defy explanation: there's a Polka field, with a single category in it ("Best Polka Album")--only around 20 albums get entered into consideration each year, so if you're really hungry for a Grammy, you should consider buying an accordion.

Other fields, understandably, are massive. The biggest categories (like Song Of The Year) get over 700 entries, and it's somehow the responsibility of the voting membership to narrow that down to 5 nominees. (This is when things like marketing come into play.)

As for the categories/fields that I'm listed under, the Best Song Written For Film/TV/Visual Media is pretty stacked, with some heavy hitters such as Alan Menken and Diane Warren, Jack White, Regina Spektor and Peter Gabriel, as well as a gaggle of songs from Camp Rock. So it, uh, doesn't look particularly good, especially since, as far as I can tell, I'm the only one on the list for a song from a video game.

The odds are looking better in the Best Classical Crossover Album category, however. A subset of the 'Classical' field, there are a little over 40 entries on the ballot; and Video Games Live: Vol. One already has some chart cred. There are certainly some big names, such as André Rieu and Libera--but the numbers aren't as overwhelming as the other categories.

So there you have it! Let's hope that I have some good news, and have another reason to blog about this sometime soon.

Baba Yetu....The Role Playing Game?

One of the great joys of having written something that people connect with, is that you get to see all the creative works that your own work has inspired. Over the two years since the release of Civilization IV, I've been sent all sorts of writing, music, and videos from fans who found something in my music that sparked their creativity....and I love seeing that! But perhaps the most unique derivative work that I've seen thus far is the Baba Yetu Role Playing Game.

Apparently it's about lions. You create a lion character, then you wander around the prides, hunting, challenging other lions for territory, and occasionally mating (I'm really curious how they plan to make that work). Unfortunately, I think the game's creators have given up on trying to develop it....I think they may have gotten a dose of reality, and realized that creating and maintaining an online world is not the easiest thing to do. But still, I have to give them credit for trying.

Game Developer's Conference 2008 Collected Notes

I spent all of last week at the Game Developer's Conference, the annual meeting of the minds for the video game industry. It's a fun (but exhausting) week, and this was my third year attending. At last year's conference, I was nominated for a GANG Award for "Baba Yetu" (ultimately wound up winning two awards, actually) and I spent the entire conference trying to generate some sort of interest in my music because of that. This year, already being a somewhat familiar face, and being repped for video games by Soundelux DMG, I had a number of meetings set up for me even before I attended the conference, with companies like Sony, Disney and Atari.

Since we're now onto my third year of being a part of the video game community, I have to admit that I'm starting to feel really at home amongst the other composers there. A big part of that is because of Video Games Live. As usual, VGL did a concert at the end of the conference (at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, with the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra and Choir--presumably a pickup band), and as usual, all the composers spent two hours afterwards signing autographs and meeting with fans. It's through all these Meet-And-Greets, lectures at GDC, and other events, though, that I'm really starting to get chummy with a lot of the other game composers. They're all really nice, genuine guys--low on ego, high on creativity...a genuine pleasure to know! I'm proud to call myself one of them.

As usual I bumped into Gerard Marino, of God Of War fame. He won the Rookie Of The Year award the year before I did. Laurie Robinson (Advent Rising) and I hung out again....she and her husband Emmanuel Fratianni are familiar faces from all the VGL concerts. Mike Reagan (God Of War, Conan) and his wife Savina Ciamarella were everywhere; Savina in particular has been a saving grace to the video game community because of her work in getting the American Federation of Musicians to have a contract for video game scores.

I got a chance to talk with Marty O'Donnell a bit--you probably know him from his beautiful Halo music, based on Gregorian chants. And then there were the Blizzard guys...Russell Brower and Jason Hayes. Jason and I have been trying to get lunch for ages now; he's working on an album as well, and I want to know more about it. I pointed out to him once that, because of his World of Warcraft music, day in and day out, he's probably the most heard single composer in the history of the world. Truly.

Last week's VGL concert featured a few new segments. Richard Jacques (Headhunter) came out and played a jazz piano arrangement of the music to Outrun that sizzled. And of course, my buddy Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist (pictured here) played medleys from Final Fantasy, Chrono Cross and Super Mario Brothers. John Debney, primarily a film composer (Passion Of The Christ, Sin City), came out and conducted his music from Lair. It was great meeting him after the concert, as I think he does great work.

I was also hanging out with Will Littlejohn and Kyle Johnsons of the Guitar Hero camp afterwards....my game designer friend Soren Johnson (Civilization IV, Spore) sat next to them at the Meet-And-Greet. Kyle turned to us and said "You know what's funny is that during our lunch hour, we all put Guitar Hero away and play Civ IV!" To which Soren replied, "That's funny because during our lunch breaks we used to put Civ IV away and play Guitar Hero!" That little exchange made my day.

Most importantly, however, I have to give kudos to Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall for everything they've done for game composers. Really, I can't stress this enough: those guys are two personal heroes of mine. Not only did they found GANG and work tirelessly to build this wonderfully friendly community, but they also created the Video Games Live concerts and have been instrumental in bringing game composers out from behind the scenes....myself included. All the happy memories I have of last week's conference were due to the work of these two. I'll say it again: those two are my heroes.