The Wayward Realms | Music AMA, with Eric Heberling

Music Composer, Eric Heberling, joins Creative Director, Ted Peterson, to answer some community questions regarding The Wayward Realms' musical soundtrack, as well as preview a few tracks that will be releasing later on.

0:00 Intro

0:10 Eric’s introduction and career summary

10:10 What are your musical influences?

10:54 What are some "guilty pleasure" bands or artists that you like?

11:57 What is your favorite instrument?

13:03 What is your favorite track that you have made?

14:52 What do you think of the soundtracks for the later games?

16:27 Outside of The Elder Scrolls, what is your favorite video game soundtrack?

17:47 Can you give us a rundown on your setup?

22:03 Could you describe what you have in mind for Wayward Realms from a composer's point of view?

27:15 Will the tracks be MIDI files?

29:04 What technological limitations did you face while composing for Daggerfall, and how did they affect your approach to composition?

32:40 "Oversnow'' is one of my favorite video game songs ever and I hear it in my head everytime it snows. Will we have some similar tracks for Wayward Realms?

33:40 Will there be any music composed that will sound familiar or even the same as Arena and Daggerfall, like how Morrowind and Skyrim have similar orchestral compositions?

35:10 What aspect of your music for Wayward Realms are you able to portray with a greater level of depth that you feel was missing from your composition in Daggerfall?

36:00 In your opinion, what is the biggest change in sound design and philosophy from Daggerfall to Wayward Realms?

39:04 Do you have a set workflow, and how has your process changed over time, from your work on Daggerfall to current projects?

44:26 How has your experience working on Wayward Realms been different from other projects?

47:00 What is your approach in deciding the music for in-game environments? Also, how do you keep those tracks from feeling repetitive to the player?

49:43 How is the process different from composing a piece for a much smaller, specific area?

51:30 What do you think of including environmental sounds in your tracks, for example a battle song containing the rattling of mail and clashing of weapons, or a cave dungeon soundtrack including the splashing of water drops, as if these were actual instruments?

53:24 Have you ever considered having instrument playing be a skill in game, implementing procedurally generated music as more than background music?

55:15 What are some of the finer details of composing music that composers do, minor things that aren't very noticeable in the track, but are important to you as a composer?

58:50 The instruments and how they're used can tell the listener a lot about the local culture. So, what instruments are you using the most and how are you using them to communicate information to the player?

1:00:06 Will there be any Dwarf inspired tracks?

1:00:45 What are the best things a game development team can give you to help with your inspiration? Would it be worldbuilding documents, art, themes, major plot points or something else?

1:02:03 What are your thoughts on reuniting with old colleagues and creating another epic fantasy game?

1:03:25 “Desert” track preview

1:04:08 Discussion on the music tracks for WR

1:10:04 “Fanfare of the Realms” discussion and preview

1:12:55 “Winter” discussion and preview

1:15:45 Outro

CONNECT WITH US

[OnceLostGames]

We want to give a huge thanks to everyone who submitted a question, we had plenty of great ones to choose from. We will preview other tracks in the future, so stay tuned for those. Hope you all enjoy this look into Eric's career, creative process, and contributions to The Wayward Realms.

[Nich]

I am ACTUALLY SO HYPED FOR THIS! I played Daggerfall a lot, since i played the elder scrolls series for some years, and got curious about the older games. It's a blast, really. I can't wait to see more about The Wayward Realms as the spiritual successor i see it as.

[spacersam]

Pumped for Daggerfall spiritual sequel

[mojowarrior]

I'm so stoked for this game. Great to know that Eric will be doing the score. 👍

[Ian-nlyd]

The music is the thing I remember most fondly about Daggerfall. I was distantly interested in this game, but now I know I've got to play it.

[pcrizz]

Winter's bassline was so good, it felt intense. When talking about adaptive music, I wondered if that meant a lighter slower pace version of Winter might play with a hushed baseline, but during combat the pace might pick up and that feeling of intensity might come from something like the bassline and return to the previous pace after combat.

[UN-Seki]

Very nice interview/AMA, I finally got some time to watch the whole thing. I really enjoy the classic RPG kind of feel that the previews gave me, or just general classic orchestration that we see in iconic music! I also appreciate that Eric likes to keep things simple by going from basic melodies, rythm and structure and gradually adding more spice and variety into it. Been listening to the daggerfall soundtrack over the last few days and I can definitely see how his style is gonna fit in an epic world such as Wayward Realm's. Good fortune for you all on the development team!

[dustinblakley]

Has Ted written any books? The books of TES was always my favorite part. (My brother hated it, because I'd read every book or note ingame.)

[FlipJF]

Man, these previews are AWESOME. Can't wait to play this...

[xXEliminatorXx]

You guys play such a huge role in making these great soundtracks.

composers & producers don't get the recognition they deserve, but we appreciate the work done for making a game come alive with its soundtrack

[fergalquinn]

Really looking forward to this game, thank you all for doing what you’re doing.

[josh]

God i am hyped for this game! I picked up daggerfall unity and loved it so much. It really left me craving another game like daggerfall and this looks just what I want!

[AndrewRayGorman]

I was hopeful for the sound canvas for the music composition, but understand that is partly due to my nostalgia for the game you all made in the past.

[vasishtapulijala]

I've never played Daggerfall, but I'm extremely excited for what you're doing, I hope this game comes to consoles though.

[miyalys]

MIDI's great for making modern versions of a song, but I guess another alternative could be to release the Cakewalk project files.
Anyway I understand if he wouldn't. I personally made a modern version of Eric's excellent Town Square / Shop Theme from Daggerfall based off the MIDI that is on my channel - and maybe in another 25 years, sampled instruments will have advanced much further again in terms of realism, that the same could be done to soundtracks of today to yet again make them sound fresh. Not that Love the originals too, though! They often have a special feel to them.

[gm]

Once lost games brothers:

Ted: Jullian we got to get the band back together.

Jullian: I got my laptop, a full tank of gas, we haven't worked for Bethesda for 20 years, its dark and were wearing sunglasses. Hit it.

[miyalys]

Speaking of soundtracks I'm now really curious to hear what his tracks sounded like to him on the Roland sound canvas rather than on a Soundblaster!
I wonder if those Sound Canvas versions are up anywhere?

[ziongite]

48:00
Wait what? No Ted, the compositions of Koji Kondo are far more famous and iconic than any music made by anyone working at Bethesda.
Even the USA included Koji's composition within the American national recording registry, which was the first piece of music from a video game to ever achieve this, this is a preservation registry for culturally significant recordings.
He also composed all the music for the Zelda games as well. The fact that you think of him as some amateur or something, really shows that you really don't have a clue about music.

[charlessmith]

30:20 if people wonder about ambient sounds compared to [music with a melody], you could think of it like the sounds you'd hear if you sit quietly in a cave: maybe there's a few periodic water drips from different stalagtites, and the noises echo based on the shapes of the rocks, so they might each sound a bit distinct and maybe there's almost a coincidental harmony to them, but not a tonal melody as such. tl;dr: _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:_ not ambient. The crackles, shifting kindling, and other noise a bon fire makes as it burns: ambient.

[bigguy]

I have fond memories of Eric Heberling's music in The Elder Scrolls Arena. It was a long time ago, but I think the name of my favorite song in that game was A winter on Yeomsley Farmstead. It sounded amazing with a soundblaster 16 paired with a Roland Sound Canvas daughterboard SCD-15. The quality of the music blew me away at the time.