Tim Larkin:
Composing Myst’s Musical World
Remote And Connected
Although he lives with his family in the tiny town of Colbert, WA, just outside the Spokane suburb of Mead, where Cyan is based, Larkin is hardly out of tune with the sounds of the world. In fact, after years of shuttling between Los Angeles and San Francisco as a recording and session musician, Larkin now does most of his work remotely — and feels better plugged-in than during his frequent flyer days.
Larkin credits his ability to work remotely to the ease of tool- and file-sharing on his Mac-based system. “The Mac is the common platform that lets me do this,” he says. “I work with people who have Mac setups almost identical to mine. They can record an entire orchestra without the trumpet part and email me the files in ProTools. I record my part and post the .aif files to an FTP site; they pull down the files and drop them in — in minutes.”
Larkin lauds the advantages of the virtual studio: “I can stay here and have access to talents anywhere in the world.” Working remotely even helps him land players he wouldn’t otherwise get. “Nobody wants to come all the way here for a couple hours of work,” he says. “For Uru I found this exotic flute player in L.A., but he couldn’t justify such a long trip for a short gig, so I sent him the part, he played it and sent it back, and I mixed it in.”
The Sound Of A Bridge Breaking
Designing the right sounds for a game is a visual and iterative process. Larkin watches rough animations from each scene on his Power Mac G4, mentally listening for the needed foreground sound effects — what he calls “the body of the sound.” Using ProTools, he composes a sound for each visual element that requires audio, then he syncs the sound to the movie and exports the file.
Once it’s mixed back in the scene, Larkin reviews the result with his team. “It always looks and sounds different in the environment,” he says. Larkin offers the example of a bridge breaking. “Maybe the creak of the wood needs to come out more, or it needs more snap when it breaks, or the rocks falling need to be louder.” The tweaking continues until Larkin hears the effect he’s seeking.
Composing A New Civilization
For Uru, Larkin did nothing less than fashion the sounds of an entirely new civilization, the D’ni (pronounced Dunney). It was a rare creative opportunity. “I had total freedom because there was nothing pre-existing I had to base it on — no one knows what the D’ni may have sounded like,” he says.
Though unconstrained by repertoire, Larkin did obey the rules of his own musical integrity. “I didn’t want to use sounds that people would associate with something they knew, like ancient Chinese or Indian civilization,” he says. “And I didn’t want to venture too far outside the realm of what would be realistic for this culture. So I used the instruments commonly available to every ancient culture with music: percussion, which starts with two sticks or two rocks; voices, of course; and things like the didgeridoo, that’s made from a piece of wood hollowed out by termites — available to anyone with a tree.”
The composer created Uru’s musical score by sampling, recording and editing sounds until they met his goal of being association-free. “For some of the sounds — like the duduk — I did mock-ups with library samples, then I had real musicians put the parts on.” He hired a local high school student to give voice to one part.
Buzzing Cicadas and Rustling Leaves
Larkin also used his own recordings of ambients (he takes his portable DAT recorder, stereo mic and preamp on family vacations to capture sounds like the rubbing sequoias), including buzzing cicadas, rustling leaves and desert winds. These he often edits into abstract tones. The result, as intended, is other-worldly. “I don’t want to literally hear the wind or the bird,” he says. “And the aboriginal and Middle Eastern percussion instruments we used aren’t distinguishable as such. I want to set up a mood, where you can’t always place the sounds you’re hearing.”
