“I'm hoping people will notice that it sounds a bit different” We talk to Grant Kirkhope about creating Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning's audio

Made2Game recently had the honour of throwing some questions at veteran video game composer and sound designer Grant Kirkhope in regards to his work on EA and Big Huge Game's upcoming incredible open world RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. He had a lot to say, unsurprisingly.

Part one of our two part interview focuses on what it's like to be a composer and sound designer on one of 2012's biggest games, the difficulties an open world RPG presents -particularly in comparison to Grant's previous work - and just how much fun being a sound guy actually is.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is an RPG being developed by a super team of talent. Ken 'Morrowind and Oblivion' Rolston is heading up game design. Todd 'Spawn' McFarlane is handling the art direction. And fantasy writer extrordinaire R.A. Salvatore has put pen to paper to craft the fate driven world our fate-less hero will inhabit.

But there is one other, often overlooked genius working on the project - ex-Rare sound designer and composer Grant Kirkhope.

Mr. Kirkhope's previous accolades stretch back to the N64 and include the suave, Monty Norman infused tunes of Goldeneye, the electronica-powered futuro-tension of Perfect Dark, the cuddly and comical bounce of Banjo-Kazooie, Tooie and Nuts and Bolts and the very British serenity that accompanied Viva Pinata's charming, calming gardens. He's even penned some Heavy Metal music, most recently for British band Tribe, and has toured with Eddie Van Halen.

Yet Grant Kirkhope is more than a 'meagre' composer. As Audio Director he is in charge of a game's sound effects as well. Among many things, his job has seen him collecting over-the-top bullet ricochet sounds for FPS games and creating the garbled language you hear everything speak in Banjo-Kazooie.

Grand Designs
But Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning is no cute and cuddly platformer, nor is it a linear FPS. It's a huge open world game and easily Grant's most daunting project to date, as he describes in his own words:

“I've never written something of this kind of grandeur before. I've written comedic stuff and I did Goldeneye and Perfect Dark so they were kind of more darker games. And Viva Pinata was more of a kind of a soft classical kind of thing so I think Amalur's got the complete, huge variety from the smallest ensemble to the biggest ensemble possible.

"So it's great to be able to write pieces for such a huge ensemble and then go right down to the tiniest few players for the quieter moments or things you want to be more creepy or things like that. It's been a huge opportunity writing such a vast variety of music.”

Music is a vital part of a game's tapestry as careful application of specific styles, themes or instruments can help create a stronger sense of place to accompany the player's actions. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning contains everything from forests to deserts, swamps to castles and features freaky creatures both great and small, so a varied and diverse soundtrack is obviously something Grant has tried to produce.

“I've tried to make a big-sounding, wealthy score that sounds... well, it's a place, so every area has its own kind of feel to it.

"For instance on a great, huge grassy plains area I chose to use just the strings - big fat ambient strings that would play only major chords – which is a bit strange. It sounds very modal. It sounds a bit like Vaughn Williams - but I think it suits the area fantastically.

"Likewise for a swampy area, that would be sort of dark woodwinds, low woodwinds, so I've tried to use sections from the orchestra to represent some of the areas that we're in.

“There are some character-based themes and there are a lot of region- and area-based themes [but] when it comes to something like this you have to make sure that things don't get boring quickly, so we haven't opted for writing wall-to-wall music that occurs all the time in Reckoning, it comes and goes to give you a sort of feel for the area.”

Variety shouldn't be a problem as Grant revealed that Kingdoms of Amalur contains around “145 pieces [of music], something like that. [Reckoning features] well over two hours of music.”

Crash, Bang, Wallop
But while Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning may require more compositions than any game Grant has written for before, music is still largely music and its complexity and diversity is there primarily through the composer's desire to make it so:

“I think the boss pieces are immense," enthuses Kirkhope. "I don't think I've ever written anything so big in my career so far!”

Sound effects, however, provide a significantly larger challenge simply because a game of this size demands it. Just think about it. Is there a character grunting in pain? Sound design sorted that. Crickets in the undergrowth? Sound design. Building crashing to the ground? Sound is needed there. Your character's individual footsteps along a gravel path? Painstakingly created by the sound design guys.

Sound Design requires a keen eye for detail, alongside a few fancy tricks, as Grant reveals.

“I think it's important that for a game like ours, which is so big, you have a good set of ambient sounds. So we have a very varied kind of way we do the ambiences in the big areas. For instance in Dalentarth, which is a very foresty, magical area right at the start of the game, we have a very basic sort of hiss noise - such as grass in the wind and birdsong - that plays on a random timer, at a random pitch, at a random volume and randomly in the 3D space, so when you play it in surround sound all these bird 'buckets' (as we call them) will just play randomly all around you and it creates a very organic, realistic feel.

"Equally, we put things in like weird gusts and things that play kind of randomly all the time so that's constantly changing. But then we add the spot effects, so if you wander close to the water or a waterwheel or something like that, that makes its own specific noise that plays all the time. That's the way we build it up.

"As I say, we try to keep it simple but there's a lot of attention to detail, so we take very small steps and that's how you create a big soundscape."

It's important stuff, as sound and music are absolutely critical to sculpting a genuinely immersive, interactive experience. Grant explains:

“I just think that you can overlook music an awful lot and I always say to people, watch [your favourite film] with the sound turned down and it's not very good. Our cinematics guy always says that 'I can do the cinematics and make it look great and all that but the music is the thing that tells the story, that's the bit that asks whether you're happy? Are you sad? Is it exciting? Is it going to be ominous? That's the bit that triggers in everyone's head what's going to happen next.”

Not that it's all hard work. Sometimes you get to indulge in a little light stress relief, as Grant alludes to while explaining the creation of one of his favourite sound effects:

“I wouldn't like to say that there's one particular noise that sounds better than anything else but we had quite a lot of fun smashing up melons and stuff for bloody flesh noises and things like that”

Other famous sound effect creating methods include clapping coconut halves together to replicate horse hooves and rustling paper over a microphone to imitate phone static, a good one to use there if you ever need to break off a telephone conversation that's turning sour. We'd hazard a guess that while there is a bit of head scratching, sound effect creation is probably jolly good fun at times.

Team Player
Another reason why creating Amalur must be so much fun lies in working with its enthusiastic team, and the eccentric Ken Rolston in particular.

“[Ken] is definitely a mad professor," jokes Kirkhope, "there's no doubt about that. I like to call him Lord Kenneth of Rolston. Ken's one of those people that's eternally high on life, he's eternally full of beans so he'll have all these weird and wacky ideas and we all have to go off and implement them. So yeah, he's great!”

Elsewhere, partner in noise Mark Cromer, previously sound engineer at Civilization creators Firaxis, provides creative inspiration through his nimble guitar work:

“[Mark Cromer] is a very brilliant, classically trained guitar player so he has played all these bizarre string instruments in all the taverns you go into. There are quite a few actually. I'm not sure how many [different songs] there are but Mark has played and composed all of those himself.

"There are things throughout the game called Lorestones, which kind of tell you a story, and that's Mark playing again while somebody talks over the music. It's part of a story that you can read so it kind of fills you in with the lore of the game.”

But for all the gruelling hours of recording twigs snapping and water rippling, alongside fussing over whether a melody is better suited to violin or viola, even sound designers find time to mix fun into their work. Grant reveals that Amalur almost contained its very own rap:

“We were thinking about doing some kind of Reckoning Rap at the end, in the credits, but we never quite got that far. A couple of verses got written but we never quite did it... Who knows, it may turn up at some point in the future!”

Although, as Grant reminds us, his previous attempts at sculpting a spot of contemporary R&B did result in the infamous Donkey Kong 64 Rap. This tale of walnuts, peanuts and pineapple smells is now a somewhat unusual mark on Grant's otherwise spotless track record with no-one, himself included, being absolutely sure what to make of it.

“I'm sure on my gravestone it's gonna say 'Here lies Grant Kirkhope. He created the DK Rap. The Bastard.'

"I think there was a period where people hated it but people seem to quite like it again now. I think it's come back into fashion! At the time it wasn't meant to be a serious attempt at rap music, it was supposed to be a bit of a joke. Well, you know, it's got monkeys in it playing Trombones and stuff, and I don't think Ice T has got too much of that in his repertoire! But it was just one of those things that I thought was funny at the time but no one else did apart from me.” Poor Grant.

But while it's all a big pile of fun (“it's a fantastic job to have and I'm very grateful for it,” Grant assured us during the interview), Monsieur Kirkhope remains modest and respectful of his work, but clearly excited and proud of what the team at Big Huge Games have created.

“I always think about people like John Williams, who have the knack of writing these great soaring tunes that people will forever remember, but at the same time have the ability to write exciting music that isn't particularly memorable but is exactly right to the point and part of the game or film you happen to be in at the time. And I've really tried hard to capture that in the score for Reckoning. So I'm hoping people will notice that it sounds a bit different. I mean they may not, but I'm hoping that they do.”

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning looks set to surprise everyone next month with its mix of massive open world design, flair-heavy combat and amazing visual and audio design from a veritable super group of creative talent. Make sure you don't miss it...

Join us next week for the second part of this interview, which contains a more in-depth look at the musical diversity of Amalur as Grant reveals his inspirations, approaches and methods, as well as giving us a sneak peak at some of the incredible musical diversity we'll be hearing in the full game.

Words by James Bowden (Twitter: @Dalagonash)

Please register or login to post comments