Intermedia: Amon Tobin & The Video Game Soundtrack

Amon Tobin and The Music of Infamous
youtube.com/watch?v=yqWvheuVf6w

With technology moving extremely fast, video games have ditched the computerized 1980's sounding synthesizers for (at times) real songs that musicians/bands have written for the menu screen or during gameplay. When researching more about my favorite video games, I came across the work of Amon Tobin (DJ/musician) from England and his work in the game "Infamous". This was an interview conducted by Wired Magazine. Amon and the creators/sound designers of the game used futuristic sounds based on the futuristic aspect of planet Earth that is found in the game. Instead of using pre-recorded songs or typical FM radio sounds, they used a lot of Foley effects that were specifically made for the world in the video game. Rare and unusual objects (such as lamp posts and jelly beans) were used to create the music and sounds. Afterwards in production, medium and low intensity and frequencies were used to manipulate the volume of the sounds when applying them and layering them out for the game. Being a video game fan, it is interesting to see what Amon creates. It is also interesting that not only does this course now familiarize me with how sounds are used in video games but gives me another perspective on how ambient and specific sounds are made and how they are properly applied.