Frog vs. Fly OST
"The creation of this soundtrack was in response to the first of many musical challenges presented to me by redbeard_prime. In this particular instance, the art and game play had been created prior to the music or sound effects. That left the situation for me to produce music to match what he had created visually. As this was our first game endevor together as a team, I had mainly been producing dance music at the time. His vision for the game, however, held more of a classic-style form of game music like that of Super Mario Bros. or the Legend of Zelda. He wanted that characteristic style of music for the game that could only be recognized as game music.
This was quite a challenge since I had never produced in this manner before nor had I produced in this style before. I thought for about a day on how to even start the whole mess. In doing so, I played the game several times and tried to hear the music playing to the game. This helped me create the sound for the game, but the actual songs still escaped me.
As I watched the frogs pop up and down on the screen, I realized just what this game was really about. It was about the characters. Don't get me wrong. The game has many dimensions to it including the fun game play and the different challenges on each level, but without the creative and loveable characters that the prime created, it would have just been another Whac-a-mole-style game. The focus on the characters would eventually become our mantra for all of our games, but at these early stages of our artistic exchange we were just realizing who we were as a team. For me the focus on the characters immediately opened up the musical approach to this game. I knew I wanted it to be thematic so that when you heard these sounds you would know it was Frog vs. Fly and that in this round your alter ego was our good friend, buzz, the fly. I also knew that I wanted it to match the action on the screen. With these concepts in mind, I headed to the studio to track some ideas.
As I often do to start a track, I started flipping through my XP-30's sound banks for some inspirational sounds. Since I knew I wanted to stray away from my usual dance music production themes, I resisted my temptation to dive into just the synthesizer banks and opted for some of the others that I was less familiar with. When I came across a synthetic-sounding steel guitar sound with hard pluck at the low end and a squirrely ring at the high end, I knew that I had found just the right sound for the fly. It was especially noticeable at the high end as I played short stabbing rhythms in an almost off-key style that I started hearing the main melody of the first track, which would eventually be appropriately dubbed by the bearded one as 'Froggin' Frenzy.' While it took me a while to actually arrive at the final version of that melody, the bassline of the track came right out as I pictured the gamer frantically jumping from one frog to another on the game screen. The bouncy 8th note rhythm helped propell the fly along as the subtle note variation of the bassline gave it that classic-style game feel. I'm trying to not describe it as 'cute' but must admit that this word does kind of sum it up. Rats.
The crux of the second track, called 'Swamp Thomp' by the bearded one himself, was really to give a completely different feeling to the gamer than the first. Since I knew these tracks were going to play on alternate levels, I didn't want to keep the same keyed-up/on-edge sound that 'Froggin' Frenzy' drives home throughout the entire game. For this reason, I opted for a more relaxed percussion rhythm with slower notes for 'Swamp Thomp' as compared to the constant barage of beat and snare that helps define the frenzy. The bazzline followed this pattern in turn and makes slower transitions between notes. In keeping with the thematic style of the music, I created the squelchy 303 sound that starts the song out with the internal BazzlineXT synth of OrionPro. Add a touch of distortion to that 303 and some broken chords played by a buzzing synth patch off the XP-30, and you get a couple nice lead sounds that still keeps the fly on your mind. The chord progression was created to drive that light-hearted feeling home. Ah.
One aspect common to both songs, though comes with about 15 seconds left in each. Since each level in the game had a time limit, the prime had the idea to have some kind of sonic signal letting the gamer know when they had x amount of time left. My take on this was to actually present this as part of the songs with a distinct breakdown of the melody, and then a build up with a constantly increasing tempo. We liked the effect it had on the gamer as they knew they only had a little time left before the stage was over. If you're going to time someone playing a game, might as well put a little pressure on them for fun, right?
Getting the in-game tracks right took time, but eventually we had two tunes that we were really happy with. That left the sound effects. As my first experience creating game fx, I must say that it not only went really well but was possibly one of the most fun things I've been able to do in music to date. Creating the blips and the buzzes and the "Time Up" sonic triggers for the game play had a certain freedom to them that's difficult to describe but impossible to miss. Think about it. You have a bunch of activities like pushing the button on a menu screen that has no specific sound in real life like the wind or like an automobile. That means that you can let your auditory imagination run wild and create anything that you like! And I did! One sound I did have to recreate was the frog ribbit that plays when you wack them with your weapon of choice. Despite that this was a 'common' sound that gamers have stored in their memory banks, the creative freedom was still there insofar as the technique used to produce it. I experimented with several vocal phrases and notes, but my experience growling and squelching into a microphone yielded less than positive results. It wasn't until I was in the kitchen thinking about the fundamental frequencies in a ribbit that the muse struck. Grabbing a glass bowl tightly fitted with a piece of saran wrap, I ran a wetted finger (gross!) across the tense surface. Sure enough a gutteral 'rrrrrriiiiiitttt' came off the surface! I put it into my OrionPro sampler and tweaked it with effects to create the froggy sound you hear when you successfully smack a frog.
With the in-game tracks and effects in place, just one task remained: the end game track. Having been brought into the music world with an end game track, I did not take this objective lightly. In fact, I felt a lot of pressure to really get this one right being that it was our first game and likely the first gamer's would come upon and try in the Toobix world. Thank goodness for the sonic inspiration of that buzz sound from the XP-30 that I used in 'Swamp Thomp' because upon hearing that sound, the sonic idea started to form for the last track of the game. It took only a few licks on the keyboard with that sound loaded up to come up with the pulsating rhythm that begins the 'flynale,' and from there the natural progression to an uplifting, success-driven melody proceeded. I really wanted the gamers to feel their accomplishment of beating the game, so I kept adding new uplifting melodies played at different rhythmic paces to build that positive tension up. To release the tension, I used a fast-paced 16th rhythm with the 303 sound created for 'Swamp Thomp' that was slowly let out of the gate with an increasing cut-off frequency. This melody was my attempt to musically bring to mind the character of the fly and also to allow a transition to the breakdown where the broken chords are sounded out to that buzzing synth. When the whole orchestra of sounds come in, you hear all of the sounds from both 'Froggin' Frenzy' and 'Swamp Thomp' playing various uplifting melodies, but you notice that the steel guitar sound is playing a new melody in a style reminicent of the one it played in the frenzy. While I knew this track had a different purpose and, therefore, wanted it to sound different than the in-game tracks, I wanted a certain connection to all of the songs as a whole. With the characteristic instrumentation and the familiar rhythms, the 'flynale' really wrapped this concept up as a whole and has really become one of our absolute favorite songs at Toobix.
I can't even begin to express how much fun it was to create these songs. To this day I still am anxious to hear the bouncing rhythm of the synthetic steel guitar start out Level 1, to feel the relaxation the layed back 303 synth brings on Level 2, and the big smile that hearing the 'flynale' brings to the end game credits. I have to admit I was very nervous at redbeard_prime's challenge to make some classic-style game music for this game, but now I am so glad that I just didn't by default go with my typical electronic music routine. Since finishing this soundtrack, of course, I have created several songs in the same thematic, identifiable style that I did for Frog vs. Fly. All of these new songs have also been outside of my dance music background simply because we're making such a huge variety of games at Toobix. While the technical process of producing these songs becomes easier and easier each time, but I have yet to experience that feeling of being reborn as an artist that I did when creating this one. Thanks for throwing the gauntlet bearded one. I owe ya for that."
e-effect, 01-17-08
