I’ve now worked on a Top 5 App.
I recently created the sound and music for Jewels With Buddies, a fun and addictive game for iOS. Think of it as “Bejeweled” meets “Words With Friends”.
ontheDLL
music + technology + gaming
My First Spotify – “Name the Artist” trivia game
Like many, I was paying close attention last week during the run up to Spotify’s “big announcement”. When they revealed their plan to integrate apps within their ecosystem, I was intrigued. I decided to jump right in and try and build something within Spotify for a couple of reasons: 1) They are a major player in the new music industry and its interesting to see how they are approaching apps. 2) I’ve been learning HTML5/JS and I saw an opportunity to put my skills to the test. 3) I’ve been meaning to revisit the amazing Echo Nest Platform, and after seeing this blog post by Paul Lamere I was inspired to give it a shot. Now that I’ve gone through the process, I wanted to share the outcome as well as some tips and tricks I picked up along the way.
Corporate Creativity
Several months back Activision CEO Bobby Kotick caused quite a stir when, during a long interview with Forbes magazine, he implied that DJ Hero was a mistake and that it sucked focus away from the Guitar Hero games and led to the demise of the franchise as a whole. This set off quite an uproar among the gaming community (as is typical when Mr. Kotick says, well… just about anything).
Now, some disclosures and disclaimers before I carry on:
- I became an Activision employee in 2009 when my company (7 Studios) was acquired, and spent 2 years working within the “Hero” brand on new music game concepts. I was there up to and including the shuttering of the franchise and the mass layoffs that followed.
- Prior to that, I created and led the development of Scratch: The Ultimate DJ, a game that was set to compete head-to-head against DJ Hero.
But this isn’t an excuse to bad-mouth my former employer, or talk trash about the Hero games and the decisions made during their lifecycle. What’s done is done; I’ve moved on, and so has most of the gaming community. Continue reading
Thoughts on DimSong – Going beyond the “playlisting” problem
DimSong, the first product from my new company VenLabs, was released a few weeks ago. It’s been such a busy time – both finishing up the app, and then following through with launch and post-launch plans – that I have been neglecting many other aspects of life, including this blog. I’ve spent ample time promoting the app on Facebook, Twitter, etc… so rather than using this post as another excuse to hawk my wares, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a bit about the thought process behind the development of the app, and some of the long-term goals I have for it. Continue reading
Games vs. Instruments
I’ve spent the better part of the past 5 years focused on answering a deceptively complex question: What are the best ways to adapt the art of music-making into compelling gameplay? I’ve explored systems focused on performance, composition, mixing & production, so I use the term “music-making” broadly to refer to any activity associated with creating music
On the surface, it can appear to be straightforward. If you’ve played Guitar Hero once or twice, it seems like such an obvious idea that it’s easy to overlook how much thought and attention went into arriving at that particular design. Creating a game is about making choices. A designer decides what he wants a player to do, how he wants it done, and how a player should feel while it happens. There needs to be a clear definition of success and failure. Playing a guitar satisfies none of these conditions; playing Guitar Hero satisfies all of them. The difference between them is the difference between an Instrument and a Game. Continue reading
Drum Looper/Chopper w/ Real-Time Beat Tracking
I wanted to share a quick prototype I threw together. I’ve been messing around with various ways to sync to external audio in Max/MSP, and last night I came across the btrack~ external by Adam Stark. It works incredibly well… highly recommended! I’m using that external to drive the clock on a 4-channel drum looper/chopper patch that I made. Everything stays locked in tempo, and its a lot of fun to mess around with.
The iPhone control is accomplished through TouchOSC. The music in the video is “You Belong To Me” by Johnny Polygon & Amanda Diva.
On Generative Music – “In C” performed by Max/MSP
“Generative music” can be loosely defined as music created by a system and then evolved over time according to the rules or constraints of that system. This can be a mechanical system, a piece of computer software, or even a set of live human performers following a specific set of instructions. Wikipedia credits Brian Eno with coining the term (along with many other aspects of modern electronic music as we know them today). The truth is, I’ve been interested in the concept since way before I’d ever heard the term (or even heard of Brian Eno), and I’ve done a lot of tinkering and prototyping in this area. It turns out that generative music systems have the potential to play a huge role in gaming and interactive audio, topics I will certainly explore further in future posts. But for today, I’d like to present one particular experiment in the area. Continue reading
There & Back
It’s been a bit more than 6 years since I packed up my car and made the drive from Boston out to Los Angeles, and it’s been a blur. I came out here with a background in music & technology, and a desire to apply my talents towards developing video games. I had no idea what I was getting myself into… Continue reading
Welcome...
to my mash-up of personal projects, music-tech stuff, and ramblings on the state of music, gaming and technology...
-Dan Lehrich
dlehrich@gmail.com
@ontheDLL
-Dan Lehrich
dlehrich@gmail.com
@ontheDLL
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