Composer Chris Geehan discusses his influences and creative process
From the Western-infused opening of Wild Arms to the vocalised battles of the Persona series, music is an essential element to any great RPG. For our upcoming PS4 and PS Vita RPG, Cosmic Star Heroine, we knew we needed an amazing soundtrack so we teamed up with Hyperduck Soundworks (Dust: An Elysian Tail, Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4, Kingdom Rush: Frontiers).
Here to tell you a bit about the composing process is Chris Geehan from Hyperduck.
“For the Cosmic Star Heroine soundtrack, we initially wanted to harness a lot of our own personal loves from 1980s and 1990s film, game & anime music; from the likes of Vangelis’ Blade Runner score and the soundtracks of any Lethal Weapon films featuring Michael Kamen, David Sanborn (Saxophone) & Eric Clapton (Guitar), to Noriyuki Iwadare’s Grandia game soundtrack, and Bleach’s anime score by Shirō Sagisu. The list just kept growing, bigger and bigger, and the influences are indeed vast.
“Having such a large scope for music styles and influences is an exciting thing, and takes a lot of care and consideration to make sure that while you may go from sci-fi jazz funk to robotic rock military marches, you still keep a cohesive value throughout, and every song that has its moment, deserves it.
“I think I’ve been preparing myself for a soundtrack like Cosmic Star Heroine for a long time, building up a collection of hardware synths (Roland D550, Roland JV2080, KORG Triton, KORG M3M and a few others), so it feels great to finally scratch that itch, in regards to writing a soundtrack with all these influences and in this fantastic future-world Robert and Bill are building.
“We’ve a preview of some of the songs below where you can get a taste of a few of the varied styles and influences, the first being the spy theme, made for, well, when that episionage knob is cranked to 11.
“All the horn sounds are from sample libraries and a lot of work went into trying to make them sound as realistic as possible. The overall result was sci-funk; a blend of short horn phrases, funky mute guitar, upbeat drums and percussion, groovin’ bass and a whole lotta synth.
“Initially we wrote the song without the synthetic layers in it, and realised that it needed something to connect it to this world that was essentially an imagining of the future from a 1980s perspective. We found it blended right into the sound palette and the visual palette of Cosmic Star Heroine.
“I’ve shared a few more themes below, and I could talk about them all day, but for now you’ll just have to enjoy them!”
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