ABOUT THIS SOUNDTRACK

More people bought new computers to play Wing Commander in 1991 than for any other reason. 

For a while. At least that’s what I heard. I also heard that it was the hit of the trade show at which it was released, and folks crowded around and stayed crowded around to watch the demo play—and to hear it. It was one of just a few games to use the Roland MT-32 soundcard—that alone gave a huge sonic advantage over almost every other game. Because, before that, game music kind of went dow-dow-dow-dow-dow-boo-boo-boo-boo-boop, instead of consisting of orchestral music noises. 

The MT-32 was a huge breakthrough in synthesizers. It wasn’t so much for the excellent tone, as much for the number of voice you could get. You could run eight different instruments at the same time and a drum kit. You could theoretically get 32 different notes at the same time (which you really couldn’t). But that in an affordable package was just crazy good. Because a synthesizer used to cost thousands of dollars. A synthesizer that could do two voices was unheard of. And here’s this little box that could do all these things. So, I was using that to make arrangements for people, and it eventually led me to getting the Wing Commander gig. 

Wing Commander was also the first time that a game was heralded for a soundtrack that reacted to battle situations. (Although in the version people were raving about on the trade show floor, the music wasn’t really reacting to any situation—that hadn’t been implemented yet. The music was just playing through linearly in sync to a recorded clip of dogfighting action. But people thought it was reacting, and eventually that was implemented into the game.) And, it seems bizarre to say, Wing Commander was the first game to imitate a John Williams-style orchestral sound. All those decisions were made brilliantly by the game’s always forward-thinking and ambitious producer, Chris Roberts, who asked us to do a cross between the theme music for Star Wars and Star Trek the movie--both films that relied on the sound of a big orchestra. 

Now add to all that: the amazing compositional ear of David Govett, and you’ve got maybe the biggest upward leap in quality that game music ever experienced on a single platform. Of course it’s debatable, and I’ve got no perspective on it, but check around and see what you find out. 

It was Chris’ idea to have a tune for you chasing a missile. Have a tune for the missile chasing you. Have a tune for when your wingman’s been hit. He had no idea what the best situation would be or the musicality of it, but fortunately, David wrote the interactive battle music, as well as the main theme for Wing Commander. He kind of already had battle music going in his head. And so he arranged that for an MT-32. I brought it in. Chris liked it, and that was significant, too, because nobody had tried to implement orchestrated music like this before for a game. Now everybody does it. But for us, it was a great challenge. I’ve got to say, Govett nailed it. Even though the quality of the tones available for vidogame music are better today, the composition really is no better than what Dave did for that game. 

I can tell you this from experience: Years after the release of Wing Commander, the most common request for music composition would become “something like John Williams or Danny Elfman.” But for a while, game composers were instead inundated with producers’ requests to imitate the music of Dave Govett and Wing Commander. I’ll confess that I had the idea that being this early and influential in the game audio game would lead to Govett’s scoring games with full orchestras someday. That hasn't happened for us—YET. But every once in a while I'll run across somebody else’s arrangement of his music being played with a live orchestra and it reminds me of not just how far ahead of things Dave was, but how well those compositions of his hold up in the field of orchestral movie music. 

Because of Dave’s melodies and intent and heart, most people enjoyed the Yamaha FM translations of those compositions. That success was also hugely due to the wizards at Origin; Herman Miller, whom I believe came over and jammed on flute and sax at our studio a few times, and consummate Game Audio Guy Marc Schaefgen (also my blues-playing pal and bandmate in our nerd band The Captains of the Chess Team). Dave and I just provided the tunes in MIDI format--Herman and Marc had the grueling task of implementing the music into the code, sometimes by hand, and sometimes by building their own tools to do it. 

While the Yamaha FM sound cards were new, and people felt happy to hear the music through that hardware, very few people got to play the soundtrack on the far superior, expensive and exotic MT-32 soundcard to hear it in its full glory, the way Dave and I heard it when we composed it. Until now. To make it even better, Andrew Harrington has meticulously vetted and rendered these versions, sometimes splitting the MIDI files and using double passes and other fancy techniques, all to avoid dropouts and distortion that could sometimes creep in during gameplay. 

So in a way, Dave Govett and I are hearing this music at its best for the first time. 

Your turn!

--George

ABOUT THIS RELEASE

This "archival" release is the result of my finally yielding to many years of Andrew Harrington's relentless hounding. It was entirely his vision to put out a thorough and complete "once-and-for-all" release of every single MIDI file from the game, with as much documentation as could be mustered. And my hat is off to him and I am grateful, for he has brought us all, me kicking and screaming, to a very pleasant, very listenable, and very final-feeling version of the music for Wing Commander. Thank you, Andrew, this is your baby.

Similarly, I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the massively talented artist CaesarZX in Shanghai, who insisted on mocking up album covers for all my the games I composed for, even before he knew I was releasing music.

Come to think of it, my early journey with Dave Govett was much the same. An enthusiastic guy, calling me to ask if he could come over to see what kind of gear I was using. I had him write a couple of tunes for me, and he was the first member of Team Fat (besides me) before I even knew he liked orchestral movie music. When I handed him the assignment to do the demo for Wing Commander, I was met with the surprise of a lifetime.

Hey, World, take this hard-won advice down: Collaborate. And here's how. When you find somebody enthusiastic, who makes you feel good about who you are when you're around them, find out if they have talent and skill. If they do, turn them loose and get out of the way. It's like riding a wild horse--you don't know exactly where you'll end up, but it will be one wild ride.