Category Archives: headphones/headsets

The Big Index 2023: Articles for Game Music Composers

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Video game composer Winifred Phillips was nominated for a 2023 Society of Composers & Lyricists Award for her music for the video game Jurassic World Primal Ops.

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Welcome!  I’m game music composer Winifred Phillips, and just before the holidays I was ecstatic to learn that my music for the Jurassic World Primal Ops video game was nominated for a Society of Composers & Lyricists Award!  In all the excitement following the announcement of the SCL Awards nominees, many budding game composers reached out to me for advice regarding their own career trajectories.  I found myself referring many of them to articles I’ve written in this space over the years – articles covering the widely diverse topics that interest us as game composers.

Since 2014, this series of articles has explored the evolving state of our industry and the tools and techniques that can help us make great game music.  Over time, these articles have become a fairly deep repository of information. After referring so many budding composers to articles in this lengthy series, it has occurred to me that this sizable collection has become quite difficult to navigate – partially due to the many topics that have been explored over the years.

Discussions have included many of the creative challenges that make our profession unique.  Through an examination of the structure of interactive music systems, numerous dynamic composition techniques have been investigated.  Along the way, we’ve pondered how game music composition has been accomplished in the past, and where it might be going in the future.  A profusion of resources have been collated in these articles – including the best methods to find gigs, and awesome networking opportunities that can benefit a game composer’s career.  There have also been examinations of resources that can keep us inspired and creatively energized.

Together, these articles constitute a living document about game music composition.  However, they definitely need an index at this point.  With that in mind, I’m offering this ‘big index’ of articles I’ve shared over the years, organized by subject matter.  We can navigate around this index using the following menu:

Dynamic Music in Games | Game Music Business | Game Music And Cognition | Game Music Composition and Production | Game Music Events and Interviews | Game Music in Virtual Reality

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Tips, Tools and Guidance: VR Assets for the Game Music Composer

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Video game music composer Winifred Phillips hard at work on the Audioshield Fitness VR project in her video game music production studio.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Welcome!  I’m videogame composer Winifred Phillips, and my projects lately have included music composition for a lot of great virtual reality games.  It’s been fascinating work!  Last year, when my VR work started to really pick up, I wrote an article with lots of resources to help video game music composers become more comfortable in the world of VR audio development.  Since this discipline progresses rapidly, I thought it would be best to post an update article now that adds additional resources to address new developments in the field.

VR development is continuously innovative and cutting-edge, and I’ve been fortunately to experience this first-hand.  As an example: one of my more recent virtual reality game projects was music for Audioshield Fitness, developed by the creator of the famous Audiosurf music-rhythm game. I was asked to compose the new official Audioshield Theme for release with the Audioshield Fitness game, which takes the core game mechanics of Audioshield and pumps up the challenge with obstacles that make players dodge and duck to the music.  The result is an intense workout that was named as one of the top 5 VR Fitness Games of 2018 by PerfectBodyMate.com. To maximize the power of the Audioshield procedural system, my composition had to attune itself to the system’s powerful music analysis algorithm and deliver moments of both challenge and spectacle. I composed and mixed the music with specifically-targeted EQ frequency ranges where I placed rhythmic elements and punchy crescendoes.  The Audioshield music analysis system then reacted to this audio content and changed the pacing and content of gameplay to match these variables.  It was a fun challenge!  Here’s a video showing how that worked:

 

Composing for virtual reality is its own unique discipline, requiring a specialized set of skills and tools.  In this article, let’s collect some resources that explore the techniques, tools, and technologies associated with VR audio development.  Let’s also take a look at the professional community of VR developers that are there to help each other through the rough spots.  Ready?  Let’s go!

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VR for the Game Music Composer: Audio for VR Platforms

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In this article written for video game composers, Winifred Phillips (video game composer) is here pictured working in her music production studio on the music for the Scraper: First Strike game, developed for popular VR gaming platforms (PSVR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive).

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Hello there!  I’m video game music composer Winifred Phillips.  Lately, I’ve been very busy in my production studio composing music for a lot of awesome virtual reality games, including the upcoming Scraper: First Strike first person VR shooter (pictured above) that’s coming out next Wednesday (November 21st) for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality Devices, and will be released on December 18th for the Playstation VR.  My work on this project has definitely stoked my interest in everything VR!  Since the game will be released very soon, here’s a trailer video released by the developers Labrodex Studios, featuring some of the music I composed for the game:

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Video Game Music Composers: New VR Headphone Tech (2018)

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By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

In this article for and about the craft of video game composers, Winifred Phillips is pictured in this photo from her lecture on Virtual Reality given at the popular Game Developers Conference in 2018.Hey, everyone!  I’m videogame composer Winifred Phillips, and my work has included the musical scores for top games on all sorts of popular gaming platforms, from handhelds and mobile, all the way up to the latest consoles and PCs.  Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of video game music composition for virtual reality.  I had the pleasure of presenting a lecture on Music in Virtual Reality (pictured left) at the most recent Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

My experience as a composer for VR includes many VR games, including the Scraper: First Strike shooter (set to be released for the PSVR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive in December 2018), and the recently released VR experience The Haunted Graveyard, which is now available on Steam and in VR Arcades around the world.  Since we’re in the Halloween season, and this VR experience is designed specifically for your Halloween pleasure, here’s a trailer that features my music from The Haunted Graveyard:

By virtue of all the experiences I’ve had recently creating music for VR, I’ve become keenly aware of the importance of sound fidelity in VR.  If the experience doesn’t sound real, it loses the chance to actually feel like a fully-convincing, thoroughly awesome virtual reality experience.  With that in mind, I’ve been writing periodic articles about new technologies in connection with headphones for VR.

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VR Headphones Update 2018: Video Game Music Composers

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In this article written for video game composers, Winifred Phillips (composer of music for God of War) is here pictured working in her music production studio.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Glad you’re here!  I’m videogame composer Winifred Phillips.  My work as a game music composer has included music for projects released on nearly all of the gaming platforms, from one of my most recent projects (a Homefront game released on all the latest consoles and PCs) to one of my earliest projects (a God of War game released on PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita, pictured above).  An image of the September 2018 cover of Music Connection Magazine featuring the article "Video Game Composers Speak!" - features interviews of famous game music composers, including popular game music composer Winifred Phillips.You can read about my work as a video game composer in an interview I gave to Music Connection Magazine for this month’s issue (pictured right).

Lately, I’ve also been creating lots of video game music for awesome virtual reality games developed for the Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, PlayStation VR, and lots of other top VR platforms.  One of the things I’ve noticed while working in VR is the immense importance of the audio delivery mechanism.

When audio is painstakingly spatialized, it becomes crucial to convey that carefully-crafted spatialization to the player with as little fidelity loss as possible.  With the importance of this issue in mind, for the past few years I’ve been periodically writing about headphones in relation to their use in virtual reality.

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Video Game Composers: The Tech of Music in Virtual Reality (GDC 2018)

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Video game composer Winifred Phillips, pictured in her music production studio.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

The Game Developers Conference is almost here! I’m looking forward to giving my presentation soon on “Music in Virtual Reality” (Thursday, March 22nd at 3pm in room 3002 West Hall, Moscone Center, San Francisco).  Over the course of the last two years, I’ve composed a lot of music for virtual reality projects, some of which have already hit retail, and some of which will be getting released very soon!  As a result, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what role music should play in a virtual reality game. During my GDC talk in March, I’ll be taking my audience through my experiences composing music for four very different VR games –the Bebylon: Battle Royale game from Kite & Lightning, the Dragon Front strategy game from High Voltage Software, the Fail Factory comedy game from Armature Studio, and the Scraper: First Strike RPG-Shooter hybrid from Labrodex Inc.  In preparing my GDC presentation, I made sure my talk addressed some of the most important creative and technical hurdles facing video game composers working in VR.  However, time constraints ensured that some interesting info ended up ‘on the cutting room floor,’ so to speak.  So, I’ve written two articles that explore some of the best topics that didn’t make it into my GDC presentation.

My previous article focused on some abstract, creative concerns facing video game music composers and audio folks working in VR.  In this article, we’ll be turning our attention to more concrete technical issues.  Ready?  Let’s go.

New Binaural Developments

Illustration of popular binaural developments in VR audio, from the article by composer Winifred Phillips for video game composers.VR games currently focus on binaural audio to immerse players in the awesome soundscapes of their virtual worlds.  As we know, binaural recording techniques use two microphones, often embedded in the artificial ears of a dummy head (pictured right).  By virtual of the popular binaural recording technique and/or binaural encoding technologies, game audio teams can plunge VR players into convincing aural worlds where sounds are spatially localized in a way that conforms with real world expectations.  The technology of binaural sound continually improves, and recently the expert developers of the Oculus Rift VR headset have refined the quality of their VR sound with two significant upgrades.

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VR Headphones Update: Video Game Music Composers

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Video game composer Winifred Phillips, pictured in her music production studio working on the music of the Dragon Front virtual reality game for Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

Last year while working on the music of the Dragon Front virtual reality game for Oculus Rift (as pictured above), I gave a lot of consideration to the listening environment in which VR gamers would be hearing my video game music.  Since then I’ve served as the video game composer for several more virtual reality games (which will be released in the next few months).  I’ve also written a number of articles on this subject in order to share what I’ve learned with other game composers.  Last September I devoted two articles to a discussion of audio headphones designed specifically for the demands of virtual reality applications.  You can read those here:

In addition, two years ago I wrote an article that focused on some of the top difficulties associated with choosing the right headphones for VR.  You can read that article here:

Music Composers and Sound Designers in VR: The Headphones Problem

Now, I’d like to revisit the ideas discussed in those articles, so that we can see how the art of VR audio for headphones has progressed.

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Video Game Music Composers: New VR Headphones

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Video game composer Winifred Phillips, pictured in her music production studio.

By Winifred Phillips | Contact | Follow

As a video game composer, I’ve been working in my studio composing music for quite a few virtual reality projects lately (as pictured above), so I’ve been thinking a lot about issues related to audio in the VR environment.  Those issues include how gamers experience the audio content through various headphone models.  In this article, I thought we’d take a look at three newly-announced headphone models that are targeting the VR marketplace, and see what new technologies are being proposed to facilitate the best and most awesome VR audio experiences.  So, let’s get started!

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Video Game Music Composer: Music and Sound in VR Headphones (Part Two)

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Photo of game composer Winifred Phillips in her music production studio, from the article "Video Game Music Composer: Music and Sound in VR Headphones (Part Two)"My work as a video game composer has lately included some projects for virtual reality games (more info on that in the coming months), and as a result I’ve been thinking a lot about the awesome potential of VR, and have also been writing lots of articles on the subject.  Earlier this month I began a two-part article that focuses on the experience of the end user, and the gear with which they’ll be enjoying our video game music and audio content (you can read part one here). So, let’s now continue our discussion about the new generation of headphones designed specifically for VR!

In this article, we’ll be discussing two headphone models:

  • Entrim 4D
  • Plantronics RIG 4VR

So let’s get underway!

Entrim 4D headphones

Photo of the Entrim 4D, from the VR headphones article by Winifred Phillips (award-winning game music composer)This March at the famous SXSW convention in Austin, Samsung showed off a piece of experimental technology promising to bring a new dimension of immersion to virtual reality.  It’s designed specifically to complement their popular Samsung Gear VR device, and it works by virtue of electrodes that send electrical signals right into the wearer’s head!  As if virtual reality itself weren’t futuristic enough, now we’re talking about a device that zaps us to make the VR feel more real!  It’s called Entrim 4D (pictured right).  We’re talking about it here because (among other things) Entrim 4D is a pair of audio headphones built specifically for VR.

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