We heard that some of you guys (and even a few reviews!) praised our game soundtrack so we decided to dedicate a bit of our time to credit and congratulate Game Audio Factory for their incredible work on Endless Space's music.
The official soundtrack, already available to everyone who purchased the game, is now available on Bandcamp, in high quality for $5 or more - it is up to you to decide! The funds will help promoting Fly By No, a young and promising artist, in his future projects.
The Game Audio Factory team kindly replied to a small interview we sent to Vincent (CEO), Arnaud (Sound Director), Benjamin (Sound Designer) and Fly By No (Composer).
What’s Game Audio Factory?
Vincent (CEO): Game Audio Factory is a French company specialised in Video Games Sound Engineering. Our particularity is that we are able to handle an entire game’s sound production, from engine consulting to final tests, without forgetting sound effects production, SFX, music, voice recording, and localization as well.
Game Audio Factory is currently developing with Solidanim a smooth way to catch facial motion available at their recording studios. They are the French representatives among the Native Prime localization group.
The Game Audio Factory team
Vincent: Game Audio Factory is now the biggest game sound dedicated team in Europe. We are 12 people with different specialties and know-how around sound engineering. The team who’s worked on the Endless Space project is made of Arnaud Roy (Sound Director), Benjamin Michenaud (Sound Designer), Fly By No (Composer), as well as several translators, voice actors and localization people.
Benjamin and Arnaud
How did the Endless Space project go? What were your influences?
Arnaud (Sound Director): I started working on Endless Space in September 2011 as a Sound Art Director. My job first was to listen to Romain and Mathieu’s requests in sound and music matters. Later on, we gathered and listened to music, movies and game excerpts in order to get to know better their tastes and expectations. The main references went from Mass Effect to Start Wars, with Star Treck to BattleStar Galactica, Civilization and Eve Online. All of these references inspired and helped us making Endless Space’s own soundtrack.
As regard to the ambience, we chose to shape up a fairy galaxy, with its beautiful and shiny touch, I really wanted to emphasise this and give the magical sound the game deserves. Endless Space’s ambience feels light, with a breeze and chiming bells. Space battles, however, were a real challenge! There were so many events happening! We tried to give each weapon its own personality, using flame or electric sounds.
Fly By No (Composer): In Endless Space, there are two main musical universes: ambience music, and more narrative and epic music for battle and cinematic scenes. For the latter, I used an Armenian oboe, a very expressive duduk, which are typically found in Bear McCreary’s work on BattleStar Galactica.
For the ambience music, I started with a first draft, inspired by Mass Effect galactic map’s music, with a small ritornello in the background. It was the “TransX” track. For these tunes, I almost only worked with analogic keyboards from the 80s, like the Prophet or the Juno60. These instruments have such an incredible sound, very rich and poetic at the same time, something that virtual keyboards often lack. I like the idea to have a sound, like in those Sci-Fi cartoons I used to watch when I was a kid, or the music by Vangelis for Blade Runner.
Afterwards, it evolved a little bit. As I’m a huge fan of electro artists like Plaid, Square Pusher or Aphex Twin, I wanted to implement electro staccato rhythm that could add a more modern touch. Then, on tracks like “Flawless Theory” for instance, I used voices and choirs, to emphasise on the epic.
Benjamin (Sound Designer): Well for me, my work on Endless Space has been done through several prototyping phases, especially for the battles. The relative similarity in the tracks that are played almost simultaneously made it kind of difficult for me. However, that kind of challenge is always motivating! Beyond the battles, the UI and ambience have been two important parts of my job: we try to create a dynamic system that reacts depending on the players’ location in the menu and the galaxy view.
The ES universe is quite varied, especially regarding the different races. We tried to use as many game elements that were available to us as possible, to make this soundtrack.
And, to sum up a little bit, working with the Amplitude team went very well. It was agreeable to work with a team this nice and open minded! By the way, the duck sounds we used for a few prototypes will probably be remembered.
Why releasing the soundtrack on Bandcamp?
Fly By No: I believe this will mainly be interesting for audiophiles, as the entire soundtrack is already available in mp3 format (192kbs) with the Admiral and Emperor Edition purchase. Players who would like to get a high quality soundtrack, just like the one that came out of our studio, will be able to download it on Bandcamp in a FLAC format, in 24 bites, 48khz et other available formats for only $5 or more if they want to.
What can we expect for this Add-On 2 “Echoes of the Endless”?
Fly By No: There will be 5 new tracks, with quite a few choirs and always those good old keyboards! These 5 new tracks are numbered from 20 to 24 in the Admiral and Emperor Edition’s soundtrack folder. However, in the Bandcamp version, they’ll be mixed to the other tunes.
Links
Bandcamp: Endless Space - Fly By No
Game Audio Factory: website