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: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.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.
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):
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! )
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