Crafting Musical Identity: Designing Custom Instruments for Games

Most game music today is created using commercially available sample libraries, presets from virtual synthesizers, or even hardware synths. The primary reason for this is the accessibility of these tools and their ability to meet tight deadlines and budgets. These tools also enable composers to present their musical ideas to decision-makers without incurring the costs of actual recordings, which is great for the business. However, this trend has led us to a point where much of the music sounds the same and lacks originality.
But what if we could create our own virtual instruments, samples, and presets, designed specifically for our new game? The good news is, we can—and the perfect time to do this is at the beginning of game production. While the rest of the team focuses on level design, asset creation, or story writing, composers often find themselves with relatively little to do beyond creating early demos. This downtime is an ideal opportunity to experiment and develop a unique instrument palette for the game.
The aim of this talk is to share techniques with composers, sound designers, and anyone interested in the game music production process for creating new, original sounds that no one else has. The presentation will emphasize musical sound design, starting with recordings of musical instruments and non-musical found objects to build a custom library of sound sources. It will then cover various audio processing techniques to transform these samples into intriguing textures and single sounds, which can ultimately form the basis of custom virtual instruments.
The technical discussion will be complemented by examples of scores I composed for various games using original sounds specifically designed for those projects. The goal of this talk is not only to remind everyone that there’s so much more beyond presets but also to inspire—especially younger creators—to find their own voice and unique sound. And finally prove that it all adds a creative and artistic value to the games we create.