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Couple questions to composers

dEAdbUs·12/4/2015, 2:27:42 PM·5 votes·1,977 views

First of all I have to say that now Dragon Trainer music is one my favourite tunes. Thx for nice music!

I have couple questions, and will be very happy if you'll answer! ^_^

  • I wonder do you guys mix/master yourself (I mean composers) or you have sound engeener in Riot Games? Or someone outside doing it?

  • I found that ALL of your music mastered in same neutral style - without extremal aggressive frequencies, even Project Yi theme, while it sounds pretty brutal. I understand that you decided to master music in this style because even if your music will be in various genres, then songs won't stand out against the rest. And same time neutral style makes your music accessible for most players. But how did you find right tune? Did you have any doubts when you decided that?

  • Whether there are situations when you want to add some more experimental stuff in your music, but this won't fit champion or may be this will be way too experimental?

  • What kind of music are you creating out of work?

  • What do you guys think about remixing music themes of each other?

  • Is it possible that once you'll change in-game background music on something electronic? Maybe for another game mode?

  • Can you tell about "Sonic Awakening"?

P.S. My fav themes: Sion (sooo evil, sooo brutal, in my opinion it's pure genius), Quinn and Valor (original non-cd version with this quite melody), Project Yi (nuff said).

3 Comments

RiotChemicalseb12/4/2015, 7:53:49 PM7 votes

Hi dEAdbUs,

Thanks for all your great questions! I'll go through them in order :)

1) I wonder do you guys mix/master yourself (I mean composers) or you have sound engeener in Riot Games? Or someone outside doing it?

We mix and master the music ourselves.

2) I found that ALL of your music mastered in same neutral style - without extremal aggressive frequencies, even Project Yi theme, while it sounds pretty brutal. I understand that you decided to master music in this style because even if your music will be in various genres, then songs won't stand out against the rest. And same time neutral style makes your music accessible for most players. But how did you find right tune? Did you have any doubts when you decided that?

First off, it's really awesome that you noticed our mastering sound. We spend a lot of time trying to get a good one. There are a few aspects that we look at when we mix/master. The first being that we don't want the music to hurt our ears or players' ears, even if the sound is aggressive like you pointed out in the Project Yi theme. We also listen to and analyze a lot of other songs out there and try to see what works and doesn't work for us from a mix/mastering standpoint. From a broader perspective we try to keep things cohesive when we can. Our current sound wasn't necessarily a decision that we made at one particular time. It's an evolving process that comes organically as we write more songs. We're a very tight team and are always working together to improve the musical experience of League of Legends as much as possible.

3) Whether there are situations when you want to add some more experimental stuff in your music, but this won't fit champion or may be this will be way too experimental?

Whatever we compose will always have the goal of fitting a champion, map, etc. If something is not fitting the champion then we do not include it.

4) What kind of music are you creating out of work?

It depends. There is so much great content to write music for in League that composing at work is very satisfying and a fantastic creative outlet.

5) What do you guys think about remixing music themes of each other?

There have been times where we used each other's themes, especially when collaborating on projects. I think it could be a cool idea if this was to be for a standalone release, although finding the time to do that would be a bit tricky :P

6) Is it possible that once you'll change in-game background music on something electronic? Maybe for another game mode?

If a game mode feels like it would need something electronic, then sure! It has to make sense for the game mode and the League universe though.

7) Can you tell about "Sonic Awakening"?

I believe Praeco wrote that one. Hopefully he'll be able to answer that soon :)

-Sebastien