Yesterday, R4VI4TOR, GODJonez and I got online with Mikael Karlsson for…

Wait! I still don’t know if I should call it an interview or a chat. It’s a bit of both… “Interchat”?! How does that sound? Having “chat” in a name is hot these days, ain’t it?

Anyway… For one hour, Mikael told us how he ended up composing the music for Bad Company, about his experiments with indie game devs, where the massive Aurora in-game sound is coming from and the many other projects he’s been juggling with: besides Battlefield music, the man also does ballet.

… … … …INITIALIZING TRANSCRIPT… … … …

incolas: Mikael Karlsson is the music composer for the Battlefield: Bad Company games. A Swedish citizen, Mikael lives in New York and, besides composing, teaches music at the Aaron Copland School of Music.

We’ll start the interview in a sec. Before that, let me introduce you to GODJonez from Finland and R4VI4TOR from Germany who have questions for the man.

Mikael Karlsson: Hello to both of you!

GODJonez: Hello!

incolas: Thanks for being with us, Mikael. You are in New York right now?

Mikael Karlsson: Yup, I’m in my apartment in Harlem. Windows open, kids screaming. And thanks for having me.

incolas: That’s our pleasure. What time is it?

Mikael Karlsson: It’s 3 pm (that’s 15.00 for the metrics out there)

incolas: Hehe. GODJonez, you’re in Finland, right? But what city?

GODJonez: Joensuu

incolas: What time is it?

GODJonez: Eastern Finland and it’s snowing!

incolas: snowing!

Mikael Karlsson: Oh wow! I heard from my parents it’s cold up there now.

GODJonez: for real… and it’s 22:06.

incolas: I’m in Paris and it’s 21:06 here.

R4VI4TOR: And I thought I had a hard time with that bit of rain we have here ;)

Mikael Karlsson: It’s hot and balmy up in here tho.

incolas: R4VI4TOR, where are you sitting?

R4VI4TOR: I am in Halle and its getting dark and cold again… brrr

incolas: That’s in Germany and it’s the same time zone as Paris.

incolas: I’m really happy to have you all here! Gotta love the interwebzzzz.

incolas: GODJonez will start…

GODJonez: umm… yeah

GODJonez: So I was wondering about someone taking music composing as kind of a career how young you were when you first time started thinking about making music of your own?

Mikael Karlsson: Well, I went many other ways first. I wanted to become a vet and then a lawyer, but soon realized at around age 19 that I really wanted to be a composer. I needed to learn about music theory and all that other stuff, so I started taking lessons with a concert pianist in Stockholm. I worked in a wine store to pay for lessons.

GODJonez: Did you have any prior experience in music, though, like playing some instruments?

Mikael Karlsson: Yeah, I had played very rudimentary piano between ages 8-13. I played some tuba in a marching band too. Very very poorly I might add. Do you write music?

GODJonez: Me? No. I did play some keyboard about the same age range you did with piano, but that’s about it.

Mikael Karlsson: Okay, cool. Yeah, I think I took a leap to become a professional musician around 25, when I moved to NYC to study at the Aaron Copland School of Music. And after I graduated, I stayed. It’s simply the best city for music. Hope that answers that

GODJonez: Yeah, thanks. Currently I just mostly listen to music.

Mikael Karlsson: What do you listen to?

GODJonez: My playlist consists of all kinds of music but a lot of it is from video game soundtracks.

Mikael Karlsson: Ok. Yeah, soundtracks is what brought me to classical music, so I too love soundtracks.

incolas: GODJonez, shall R4VI4TOR pick it up with his questions?

GODJonez: Sure, I’m done :)

Mikael Karlsson: thanks GODJonez.

incolas: thanks!

R4VI4TOR: The Battlefield franchise was very small back in time when it was created with the title “Battlefield 1942″. Did you happen to play it back in the days when it started to grow more and more popular?

Mikael Karlsson: Oh I would have to confess that nope, not at all. I got involved at a much later stage, when DICE wanted to work on the music’s production level. I’ve seen the old games, and played them a little, but that was so that Stefan Strandberg at DICE could bring me up to speed about the franchise.

incolas: Who is he?

Mikael Karlsson: Stefan is the head audio designer at DICE.

incolas: Is he the one who got in touch with you in the first place?

Mikael Karlsson: He’s an old friend of mine from when I worked in the wine store. That’s exactly right. He started working at DICE after he quit the wine store gig, and he knew my music and had heard what I had been doing in NYC, so he approached me about Battlefield Bad Company 2.

incolas: Ah, that’s a good story! And how do you collaborate with DICE people? How is it writing music for an interactive environment?

Mikael Karlsson: It changed between the two Bad Company games. For the first one, they needed strong themes that would set the tone for the game. There wasn’t much in-game music. The music was played in cut scenes and for loading screens, intros and so on. There was a radio from which one could choose old jazz tunes and so on. We reasoned that the music was in the way during the actual game.

incolas: So you did the tunes for the radio for example?

Mikael Karlsson: Nope, that was all licensed.

With BFBC2 things changed. There’s a LOT of in game score music now, so we constructed loops that fit in layers, still using live players for the most part. The sound of the weapon in the game is actually all made from the bass trombone sound of NYC cult musician David Taylor!

incolas: Huh. Could you elaborate on that? They sampled the trombone sound and distorded it??

Mikael Karlsson: His sound is monstrous, so the audio team at DICE took his sound and fucked with it, ran it through some severe compression and distortion and ended up with what’s in the game when you hear the ancient weapon(he means Aurora!). They used the same rip that is in the Snowy Mountains track.

incolas: Ah, the one you showed me when I visited your school! I remember that now. I need to find this sound somewhere online. (here it is)

Mikael Karlsson: Yeah, I probably did.

R4VI4TOR: They surely did a good job! It really sounds dangerous…

Mikael Karlsson: I know, right? I couldn’t believe it when I heard it. I love that they used no other audio for that. It’s all Dave.

incolas: When did you start thinking you might write music for games one day?

Mikael Karlsson: That would be when Stefan approached me. I had very little knowledge about the whole industry. I was all in films and classical concert music. I quickly realized what a new and exciting field it was, and now I’m trying to figure out how to make game soundtracks a little more sophisticated than loops and action bubbles. It’s a problem, and I’m doing experiments with a new type of music engine. Game soundtracks haven’t really figured out what they’re supposed to BE yet. They can’t be film soundtracks, since films are linear, and they can’t allow for ANYTHING to happen since that would require endless hours of music to be written.

incolas: Sounds promising. So talking about experimenting and taking games a bit further: Battlefield is an hardcore fps franchise, but are you aware of the indie games scene? These guys run experiments on game design all the time.

Mikael Karlsson: Yup, I’m working with some game developers that are very indie, and I’m working with them to make the software much more intelligent on a music theory level.

incolas: Now that sounds even more promising!

* GODJonez agrees

Mikael Karlsson: There is so much focus being put on how to loop and extend music, when maybe the music needs to be involved in the game, and the game AI needs to understand what’s going on musically. That way one can construct a game that understands where the music CAN go at any given time, and then makes smart choices accordingly. Mikael Karlsson: It’s a challenge, as you can imagine.

incolas: For sure. It’s not easy to create new systems. :)

Mikael Karlsson: It would bring the music up to speed with the player, and that’s not possible with the loop strategy. You can get CLOSE, but you’re always behind.

R4VI4TOR: Speaking of challenge, in fixed projects, like the Bad Company franchise, there is always a tight schedule and a deadline. But as a creative person, you know, the ideas come and go. How do you keep yourself motivated, and what do you do in those times when nothing will come up to your mind?

Mikael Karlsson: Yes, you’re right, there generally is very little time. We had a fair amount of time with both those games though. That said… I would like to semi-quote the famous American composer Elliott Carter. He said something to the effect that “people always ask me about where I get my inspiration from… if I relied on inspiration I would have written about 10 percent of what I’ve written”. That’s very loosely quoted. I do love his point though. Music is very hard to tame, and sometimes all you come up with is really awful. That’s when you pull from your bag of tricks, just as a writer would, and just as a carpenter would. It’s a craft, and you have to trust your own ability and rest assured that after all that crap, something workable will come. It just WILL. You just have to keep working, and if you’re running out of time, you pick from your collection of good ideas that you haven’t been able to use for anything yet, and use one of those.

incolas: Do your students think you’re awesome because you’ve worked on video games?

Mikael Karlsson: Haha, I don’t know. I think some of them play the games, and find it fun that I wrote the music.

incolas: I would have been totally psyched if one of my teachers had been working on video games!

Mikael Karlsson: Most of them are classical music geeks like me, so they may not even know, but many of them might.

incolas: Yes, I’m more of the gaming type. heh.

Mikael Karlsson: I’ve had students who are gamers and they seem to appreciate the fact that the guy who is asking them about proper voice leading and counterpoint in class also wrote the tracks to which they kill off enemies after school. There’s probably some psychological release in there somewhere.

incolas: Besides teaching and composing the music for Bad Company you have other projects. What are they?

Mikael Karlsson: I write a lot of concert music. I am currently writing two wind quintets and some other stuff. I just had a ballet premiere in Baden Baden in Germany, at the Festspielhaus.

R4VI4TOR: !

Mikael Karlsson: I wrote the music. I didn’t choreograph it. I am also working on some new pop music collaborations. I wrote a track with Lykke Li and Kleerup a few years back, and that was fun, so I’m revisiting that terrain. I hate resting.

R4VI4TOR: Now that I am a passionate Bad Company 2 Player – as you said you wrote a ballet music – some funny pics came up my mind !

Incolas: Like what??

Mikael Karlsson: Aaahahaha. Yeah, combine!!! See ballet isn’t all tulle and swan lakes anymore, but I see the contrast there!

incolas: Guys, I’m running out of questions… Time is nearly up. Would you like to ask anything else?…

GODJonez: not really a question, just the talk about doing music for games made me think of Left 4 Dead.

R4VI4TOR: Yes

incolas: What do you mean GODJonez?

GODJonez: The game music adapts to the current situation… You know it’s about zombie apocalypse, so when you suddenly get attacked by a horde of infected the music changes dramatically until you have killed “all sons of bitches”.

Mikael Karlsson: That’s very good. I haven’t played it. Maybe I should be more specific about what I meant about the loopiness usually used. Composers usually work with action schematics, and transition cues that lead to different levels of “intensity”.

incolas: I think that’s what they do in L4D.

GODJonez: Something like that, the developers talk about it in the commentary track (btw, more games should have commentary game mode like Valve does for their games, those are really interesting).

Mikael Karlsson: That way, if you’re attacked, you can either transition to a more active music, OR you can add a more active layer on top of what you have. That’s all fine, and sometimes it works well. It’s generally harder to get BACK DOWN from a higher intensity level in a way that doesn’t sound completely artificial. The problem with that is that it requires that the music allows for a lot of “in points”, meaning that it usually has to be harmonically very stable or ambiguous, OR that the beat is fast. In many games you’ll feel the music “waiting” for the next strong beat in the music so that it can transition without just cutting the flow.

GODJonez: I have noticed that.

Mikael Karlsson: That’s kind of a problem. Also, it only allows for a few kinds of music. Beat-oriented music, or pad-sounding music.

GODJonez: Yep.

incolas: You should let us know when something comes out of your work with indie game developers.

Mikael Karlsson: Yeah, I’ll keep you updated on what happens with the experiments. :)

GODJonez: I must say they did a good job regarding this in L4D games, it really is like the music is living with you.

Mikael Karlsson: That’s great. I’ll check it out.

incolas: R4VI4TOR, one question before we wrap it up?

GODJonez: It’s even more interesting if you play it with a friend that lives in the same place you are in and he gets to a different situation, so you can overhear the different music style from his speakers than yours.

R4VI4TOR: When you were finished at your work at the project “Bad Company2″, did they say, “Don’t get too far away !” ? ;) If you know what I mean…

Mikael Karlsson: Hm, around spring/summer of 2009 I think it was… Not sure I know what you mean. Please explain. Sorry. As in “don’t go crazy with the music” or?

R4VI4TOR: The Battlefield Franchise surely won’t end after Bad Company 2: did the people at DICE inform you about the chance of working on upcoming titles, as you left after successfully finishing your work on Bad Company 2?

Mikael Karlsson: Oh hah. I can’t really talk about that. I’m in talks with them but there’s nothing decided about that yet.

R4VI4TOR: Ah ok.

Mikael Karlsson: :)

incolas: It’s on this note about an uncertain future that we’ll call it an end. :)

Mikael Karlsson: Works for me! Thanks for taking the time! It was nice talking to you guys.

GODJonez: Thanks for this little interview/chat, it was very nice and interesting evening for me at least

incolas: Thanks Mikael for taking the time amidst your crazy schedule, and thank you guys for being here!

R4VI4TOR: It’s been a pleasure!

incolas: A pleasure too here.

Mikael Karlsson: See you laters!! I’m off to grab a pizza!

incolas: ok the transcript will end here.

incolas: enjoy~

GODJonez: well, I’ll make some burgers then!

… … … …END OF TRANSCRIPT… … … …

 

Mikael Karlsson‘s site

on Thursday, May 6th, 2010 at 12:22 AM - filed under Video Games. Both comments and pings are currently closed.