Recording a game score: from the first brief to the final stems

The brief: writing for a game that does not exist yet

A film composer usually works from an edited picture. A game composer often starts while the game is still being built, with concept art, early prototypes, a design document and a list of areas, characters and situations that need music. Levels may change, and whole sections may be cut, after music has been written.

The first stage is usually a conversation about tone, references and function. What should the main theme say about the world? Which moments need specific cues? Will the music need to adapt to combat, stealth or exploration? The answers produce a music list, sometimes called an asset list, which sets out every piece needed, its approximate length, whether it loops, and how it will change during play.

The music list matters because it becomes the plan for everything that follows, including how much recording time is needed and what the game's audio team will need to implement.

Mock-ups: an orchestra in a laptop

Before any live musicians are booked, composers produce mock-ups: detailed demo versions of each piece made with sample libraries, which are large collections of recorded notes from real instruments. A good mock-up can sound convincing, and it lets the development team hear the music in the game and give feedback before money is spent on recording.

Many game scores are in fact delivered entirely with sampled and synthesised instruments, either because the budget does not allow live recording or because the style suits it. For electronic and hybrid scores, the production work done at this stage may be the final music.

Mock-ups also help with planning. Once a piece has been approved in demo form, it becomes clear which parts genuinely benefit from live players and which can stay virtual, which helps keep recording sessions focused.

Orchestration, parts and preparing the session

If live players are involved, the mock-up has to be turned into written music. An orchestrator, who may be the composer or a specialist, assigns each line to specific instruments and checks that everything is playable. A music preparation team then produces individual parts for each player and a full score for the conductor.

Timing is planned carefully. Recording studio time and musicians' time are expensive, so sessions are organised to record as much music as possible in each hour, and clicks (metronome tracks) are prepared so that everything lines up with the game's tempo.

Recording in sections so the game can pull the music apart

A film score is mainly mixed for one fixed version. A game score often has to be separable. If a piece will use vertical layering, as explained on our adaptive music page, the strings, brass, percussion and choir may need to be recorded separately, or captured in a way that lets them be mixed independently, so the game can fade parts in and out.

This is sometimes called recording for stems. It can mean recording sections of the orchestra on their own rather than all together, which changes how the session is run. Loops must also start and end cleanly, so players are often asked to play to an exact point and let notes ring out in a controlled way.

Soloists are frequently recorded separately. In Journey (2012), for example, the cello played by Tina Guo has a central role representing the player's character, as described on our Austin Wintory page.

Editing and mixing for a game engine rather than a cinema

After recording, the music is edited, tuned where necessary and mixed. Mixing for a game has particular requirements. Music will play under dialogue and sound effects that change from moment to moment, so it often needs a slightly narrower dynamic range and clear space in the frequencies where voices sit.

Each piece is then exported as the files the game needs: full mixes, stems, loop points, intros and endings. These are delivered with notes explaining how they fit together. For the relationship between music and the rest of a game's sound, see our explainer on sound design versus music.

Implementation: making the recordings behave in play

Delivering the files is not the end. Someone has to set them up in the game so that they play at the right time and change in the right way. This is called implementation and is usually done in audio middleware such as FMOD or Wwise, by a technical sound designer, an audio programmer or, increasingly, the composer.

Implementation is where problems with the original plan become obvious. A loop that sounded fine in isolation might feel too repetitive after twenty minutes of play, or a transition might arrive too slowly. Revisions at this stage are common, which is one reason composers often keep working on a game until close to release.

Choirs, soloists and recording outside the studio

Not every game score is recorded with a full orchestra in one room. Choirs, solo instruments and unusual sounds are often recorded separately, sometimes in different countries, and combined later. Remote recording, where a composer directs a session over a live audio link, has become a normal part of the process.

Some composers also record their own instruments or found sounds to give a score a distinctive texture. Gareth Coker, for example, spent three years in Japan studying traditional and ethnic instruments, and instruments from outside the standard orchestra appear across his work, as described on his profile.

Choral music brings its own considerations, including the language of any lyrics and whether words should be clear or treated as pure sound. Martin O'Donnell's Halo themes, which open with chant-like voices, are a well-known example of choir used as a texture rather than to tell a story in words.

Soundtrack albums: a second edit of the same music

The music in a game and the music on a soundtrack album are often not the same thing. An album needs pieces with a beginning, middle and end, while in-game music may be a set of loops and layers. Composers often create separate album versions, combining sections into a fixed arrangement and sometimes extending or re-orchestrating them.

Soundtrack albums have become a significant way for game music to reach new listeners. Jessica Curry's score for Everybody's Gone to the Rapture was released in the UK by Sony Classical, as noted on her profile, and the Halo 2 soundtrack was the first game soundtrack to enter the US Billboard 200. Concert arrangements, covered on our concert hall page, are a further adaptation again.