September 3rd 2003 - Interview with Morten Sørlie - Funcom - Anarchy Online Music Director

AO Stratics: The music parts in AO and the Shadowlands expansion are short WAV files. Can you explain how one could listen to a complete track without playing the game, other than buying the official Soundtrack?

Morten: About the new Shadowlands battle-music:
The battle-music did get a really positive reception, so this inspired me to make a DJ-mix of it. This has become an almost 7 minute linear music track based upon the original SL-battlemusic. Even the Yuttos make a guest appearance in this track. This track is given to Stratics as an exclusive, and I hope all the AO fans who visit your site will like it.

About the rest of the Shadowlands music:
I'm afraid that's difficult, as it requires our own SIM-player which won't be distributed. One possible way to solve this is by connecting the different samples in an audio-editor, and then save the complete file as a linear piece of music. We have no plans of making free downloadable linear tracks of this, but it’s something we will take into consideration. We'll keep you posted.

AO Stratics: In a recent interview, you also mentioned that the original AO sounds will get an overhaul. Can you give some examples what we can expect to hear on "good old" Rubi-Ka other than what the game has to offer now? Will some monsters get new sounds or will the music be altered?

Morten: The sound and music of Rubi-Ka has already been undergoing a lot of tweaking. Most of the work is centered around balancing the sound-environment. Because the sounds in AO (and the rest of the game for that matter) has been tweaked and refined so many times, and still is renewing themselves, we need to re-establish the dynamics in the game, sound-wise that is. In any recorded sound-media, one is faced with a limited dynamic area to work within, maximum volume on one side (often referred to as 0 db) and the noise-floor (technically -96 db in a 16bit-system, but practically -40 to -60 db in most games) Within this limited dynamic space, we want to let the biggest monsters, notum cannons etc. touch maximum volume, and then scale the sounds down to i.e. -50db, which may be the rustling of leaves and distant, calm outdoor-environments. The problem occurs when a bigger monster, or a cannon even more powerful is introduced into the game. We want to reflect that by adding even more powerful sounds to it. We can't make it louder, as it would clip, so the most effective option is to lower the other sounds. This is just one example of what kind of tweaking we're working on. AO + SL consist of close to 4000 sound effects, not counting the music-clips, and tweaking such a vast amount of files is a never-ending story.

AO Stratics: Especially the music in the clubs like Reet's Retreat and Baboons is rather repetitive when playing for a few minutes, so the club feeling is somewhat lost after a while. Are there plans to add more variety to the "Party mix" so people can listen to ingame music when Gridstream is not on-air?

Morten: Yes, I know it gets repetitive. I wish I had more time doing music for our clubs, but that is unfortunately something that's has not been a priority with Shadowlands. We have quite a few ideas in regards to the clubs, but at the moment they are just that, ideas.

Besides, I think Gridstream is doing a wonderful job!

AO Stratics: How did you come to make music for computer games, especially the soundtrack for Anarchy Online?

Morten: I've always been into music, started playing piano at the age of 6. As computers and synthesizers came along, I wanted to connect them and write music. My first setup was a Roland S-10 sampler with 4 sec. sample memory in mono (we've come a long way since then), and a text-based sequencer where I had to toggle between MIDI-in and MIDI-out.

My first connection with FUNCOM, was back in 94, a friend of mine got a programming-job, and he wanted me to apply as a musician. However, in Funcom’s early days, back in 94-95, making music for our games was limited by the technology of the consoles we were making games for, and it was often more of a programming-job than a musical-job to make sound-fx and write music. As I knew much more about music than I knew about computers at that time, my era within this industry (I think it was in 96) started as the soundtracks could be produced much in the same way as conventional music, in studios, with "real" samplers, synthesizers and live recordings. My first soundtrack was for a military strategy-game, where the music was linear tracks of orchestral music on Redbook-DC.

AO Stratics: What does one have to do to become a "Music/Sound Designer" for a Computer game?

Morten: Being a sound-designer or composer for games shares many similarities with similar jobs for different Medias. What sets sound and music for games apart, is the fact that it will be interactive in its final form, unlike films, Redbook-CDs etc. This means that especially sound-design for games can be quite a technical job. After the sfx are recorded and edited in our studio, it is quite a long and technical road before it appears in the game. I would dare to say that sound-design for games are by far the most technically challenging. The way I see it, a good sound-designer for games is one who has decent knowledge about sound, a creative way of working with sound and one who isn't afraid of working with the integration of the sounds into the game, everything from interactivity, dynamic mulitch. Sound, software and hardware limitations (and possibilities) and so on. To be honest, I sometimes feel quite that keeping up with the technological evolution can be overwhelming, but I'm hanging' in there. :-)

AO Stratics: Did you make the music/sounds of other Funcom games, prior to Anarchy Online?

Morten: Yes, I've been involved in the music for The Longest Journey, although most of the music for that title is written by Bjørn Arve Lagim. I've also done sound-design and music for "Rocket Racer", "Deadly Skies", and a
complete orchestral soundtrack to a strategic war-game which never reached the public, unfortunately.

AO Stratics: Will we hear music/sounds from you in future Funcom games, other than Anarchy Online?

Morten: Yes, everything points to that :)

AO Stratics: Thank you Morten for answering these questions!

For all Stratics Plus members, we have an excluvise remix of the Shadowlands battle music available for download. Thanks to Funcom for providing this excellent masterpiece of music. To go to the Plus member page for this download, please click here!