Meet Composer Michael McCann!
[h3]Meet Composer Michael McCann![/h3]
Music is an integral part of building up the world of games, and we are beyond excited to announce that the soundtrack and music for Superfuse will be provided by none other than Michael McCann.
For those of you who don’t recognize the name, he is a BAFTA-nominated composer for a bunch of games including Borderlands 3, Deux Ex: Human Revolution & Mankind Divided, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown & Enemy Within. We sat down with him and had a quick chat about what has inspired him for Superfuse.
[h3]How did you get involved with Superfuse?[/h3]
This is an interesting story, as it informs a bit about the sound of the soundtrack. I started talking to Raw Fury right in the middle of my move over to Asia from Canada in late 2021. I had a very small mobile rig for music, as I had planned at least a year to get settled and continue work on a personal project – eventually shipping my studio gear from Canada once Covid restrictions made things a bit easier.
The gear I had with me was good enough to do some light composition / producing work, but nothing for full scale production. Essentially a small mobile rig with a tiny synth, laptop, iPad, headphone amp, small audio interface and a couple of other pieces of gear. Everything fit in a carry-on hard case and small backpack!
When Raw Fury reached out, I was very skeptical that I could pull off a score like this with the gear I had. And because I was constantly moving around from city to city, it made setting up even a temporary studio difficult. Also – there were still heavy lockdown restrictions across Asia, and Visa / entry / exit requirements were constantly changing, so I had to stay totally mobile. I fully explained my situation to Raw Fury, and we agreed that I’d do some demo tracks (which will be on the soundtrack), to see what I could produce with the resources I had - working out of hotels, Airbnb’s, airport terminals, etc.
The demo tracks went better than expected! My laptop was constantly overheating, and I had to completely eliminate most of my favorite software instruments & effects, and only use stuff that was fairly lightweight. It felt like going back to being a teenager with a few pieces of gear.
90% of the soundtrack was produced this way – without any instruments, entirely “in the box”, working out of hotels and temporary spaces, on headphones. For any gearheads, the primary gear was a set of Sony MDR-7520 headphones, a Dell XPS 9500, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (eventually a Audient ID14), a PreSonus Faderport, an iPad running Metagrid & Duet for a 2nd screen, a cheap headphone amp and a bunch of external hard drives / USB hubs. I also had a Zoom H4N portable recorder with me, which was used for some source recording.
I hear a lot of talk from composers / producers about working with less – usually they’re talking in front of a couple million dollars in gear. This is always funny to me. But working on this setup was about as minimal as I’ve ever worked – and a major challenge for some tracks. Not sure I’d ever do this again! But props to Raw Fury for taking the risk and allowing me to work this way!
[h3]Tell us about the music from Superfuse[/h3]
Superfuse is my first indie title – and that’s not an accident. I was specifically looking for indie projects after my last AAA games, since I’ve been noticing better soundtrack work being done at the indie level and was very curious why that was. Superfuse was a perfect introduction – great team, working with much less resources than I’m used to on larger productions, and I noticed immediately how much better of a creative environment this can be compared to larger productions. And as a shout out - the audio department for the last 6 months has been 1 guy – Josh Reece! This guy is a machine.
As for the music. I’ll admit I struggled with the style of music for top-down action gameplay. I have mostly scored first-person games where you are completely immersed in the character’s line of sight. XCOM: Enemy Unknown was an exception to this – but that score wasn’t dynamic, and it was turn based, so not fluid action where the music adapted in real time.
When you have this god-like view looking down, it feels much less intimate, not in a bad way, but more like a continuous tracking shot of a war scene in a movie. The player can see everything around the character, 360 degrees (with some limitations on distance), which means you are reacting to the whole world at once, and not just what’s directly in your line of sight. This is a wildly different psychology than FPS, where the limited perspective can imply all kinds of things that aren’t on screen, meaning you can also be more subtle / minimal.
This shift in perspective took me a long time to get used to – but I think the music integration work of Josh Reece helped a lot. The music system is split into 4 pieces: 1) Ambient exploration themes. 2) Suspense themes for when you’re nearing danger 3) Low & high combat for lighter and heavier action gameplay respectively. The music breathes and reacts dynamically, sometimes implying what’s to come, sometimes telling you what level of the threat you’re facing, sometimes just providing ambience for exploration. It’s been a long process of getting this right.
The style of music covers a few genres – since the story and environments cover a lot of territory – from heroic to horror to sci-fi, cyberpunk, industrial. This is a game built around superheroes. But there’s a very dark / sinister element that absolutely requires ultra-aggression and a dark treatment at times. So any lighter heroic themes are always balanced out…especially the in-game music - with darker / aggressive styles.
There’s also an implied epic scale to the maps, since you can see deep below the play area, and the never-ending distance of space is seen (or implied) throughout Outer Rim (the focus of the Early Access gameplay). I really tried to give the music some size to convey that cavernous space and overarching story. My laptop hated this – reverbs consume tremendous amount of CPU and there is so much reverb on this score! And I wanted a lot of guitar for aggression to contrast the wider soundscapes - unfortunately….no guitar, so had to use virtual guitars….and no decent guitar amp simulations as they killed my laptop. Fun!
The music ranges from symphonic / electronic hybrid pieces like the character selection area (“Enforcers” on OST), which is also one of the first themes you hear in the game, to lush ambient themes, to heavy dark-electronic action cues. There are hints of world music scattered throughout, which is something I usually incorporate in all my scores, but there are Aztec / Mayan influences in the game that are hinted at in the music.
If players are interested in the progression of styles during the production – Cold Cargo was the first section I scored (“Frozen” and “Avalanche” on OST) – largely based off a track I did in early tests - along with the Intro Cinematic (“Prologue” on OST). The Edge of Space section (“Edge of Space” and “Blockade” on OST) is where I perhaps hit the style more clearly, since it has a more evolved mix of dark electronic, spacey vibes, world music, and heavy action / aggression for the action themes. The “Enforcers” theme was also done a bit later, and I think it’s better at contrasting the darker in-game music with the heroic sides of the story.
And there are 2 bonus tracks on the OST (tracks 15 & 16) that are early brainstorms / tests of my mobile setup. I thought some might find it interesting to hear what the early tests sounded like.
[h3]Where do you draw your inspiration from as a composer?[/h3]
This has changed substantially over time – and travelling around a new continent the last 14-months has already shifted inspiration. Music wise and with soundtrack work specifically, I’m mostly inspired by world music, hip-hop, dark electronic and choral / opera. Somehow these all go together! But being over in Asia is already introducing me to tons of new music. There’s an explosion of creativity all across this continent that is hugely inspiring. Great pop, electronic and hip-hop out of Cambodia, South Korea, Thailand and on and on. It’s no surprise you’re seeing music, tv series and films from the East hit critical mass in the West. There’s an incredible uncynical artistic energy over here - and often a very different way of looking at things - which is what I wanted to experience.
[h3]Anything else you'd like to share about your work on Superfuse?[/h3]
All I’ll say is that I will no longer be working on a laptop after Early Access! It was a fun experiment, but the laptop studio needs to go. I can’t even express how excited I am to finally be working on a slightly better setup – kind of a middle ground between my previous setup back in Canada and the mobile setup. But I am really happy with the music on this Early Access edition. I thought I would make all kinds of excuses, but instead it made me realize that you can do fairly ambitious music production while travelling around with a carry-on-airplane studio. I say I would never do this again, but it was actually a great experience that I’ll probably miss when going back to the locked-in room studio life!
The 16-track Early Access soundtrack for Superfuse are available digitally on almost all music platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, Amazon, Tidal, etc.). Just follow Michael McCann on any of these platforms for updates, or follow Raw Fury & Superfuse on social media for more info.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1770080/Superfuse/
Music is an integral part of building up the world of games, and we are beyond excited to announce that the soundtrack and music for Superfuse will be provided by none other than Michael McCann.
For those of you who don’t recognize the name, he is a BAFTA-nominated composer for a bunch of games including Borderlands 3, Deux Ex: Human Revolution & Mankind Divided, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown & Enemy Within. We sat down with him and had a quick chat about what has inspired him for Superfuse.
[h3]How did you get involved with Superfuse?[/h3]
This is an interesting story, as it informs a bit about the sound of the soundtrack. I started talking to Raw Fury right in the middle of my move over to Asia from Canada in late 2021. I had a very small mobile rig for music, as I had planned at least a year to get settled and continue work on a personal project – eventually shipping my studio gear from Canada once Covid restrictions made things a bit easier.
The gear I had with me was good enough to do some light composition / producing work, but nothing for full scale production. Essentially a small mobile rig with a tiny synth, laptop, iPad, headphone amp, small audio interface and a couple of other pieces of gear. Everything fit in a carry-on hard case and small backpack!
When Raw Fury reached out, I was very skeptical that I could pull off a score like this with the gear I had. And because I was constantly moving around from city to city, it made setting up even a temporary studio difficult. Also – there were still heavy lockdown restrictions across Asia, and Visa / entry / exit requirements were constantly changing, so I had to stay totally mobile. I fully explained my situation to Raw Fury, and we agreed that I’d do some demo tracks (which will be on the soundtrack), to see what I could produce with the resources I had - working out of hotels, Airbnb’s, airport terminals, etc.
The demo tracks went better than expected! My laptop was constantly overheating, and I had to completely eliminate most of my favorite software instruments & effects, and only use stuff that was fairly lightweight. It felt like going back to being a teenager with a few pieces of gear.
90% of the soundtrack was produced this way – without any instruments, entirely “in the box”, working out of hotels and temporary spaces, on headphones. For any gearheads, the primary gear was a set of Sony MDR-7520 headphones, a Dell XPS 9500, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (eventually a Audient ID14), a PreSonus Faderport, an iPad running Metagrid & Duet for a 2nd screen, a cheap headphone amp and a bunch of external hard drives / USB hubs. I also had a Zoom H4N portable recorder with me, which was used for some source recording.
I hear a lot of talk from composers / producers about working with less – usually they’re talking in front of a couple million dollars in gear. This is always funny to me. But working on this setup was about as minimal as I’ve ever worked – and a major challenge for some tracks. Not sure I’d ever do this again! But props to Raw Fury for taking the risk and allowing me to work this way!
[h3]Tell us about the music from Superfuse[/h3]
Superfuse is my first indie title – and that’s not an accident. I was specifically looking for indie projects after my last AAA games, since I’ve been noticing better soundtrack work being done at the indie level and was very curious why that was. Superfuse was a perfect introduction – great team, working with much less resources than I’m used to on larger productions, and I noticed immediately how much better of a creative environment this can be compared to larger productions. And as a shout out - the audio department for the last 6 months has been 1 guy – Josh Reece! This guy is a machine.
As for the music. I’ll admit I struggled with the style of music for top-down action gameplay. I have mostly scored first-person games where you are completely immersed in the character’s line of sight. XCOM: Enemy Unknown was an exception to this – but that score wasn’t dynamic, and it was turn based, so not fluid action where the music adapted in real time.
When you have this god-like view looking down, it feels much less intimate, not in a bad way, but more like a continuous tracking shot of a war scene in a movie. The player can see everything around the character, 360 degrees (with some limitations on distance), which means you are reacting to the whole world at once, and not just what’s directly in your line of sight. This is a wildly different psychology than FPS, where the limited perspective can imply all kinds of things that aren’t on screen, meaning you can also be more subtle / minimal.
This shift in perspective took me a long time to get used to – but I think the music integration work of Josh Reece helped a lot. The music system is split into 4 pieces: 1) Ambient exploration themes. 2) Suspense themes for when you’re nearing danger 3) Low & high combat for lighter and heavier action gameplay respectively. The music breathes and reacts dynamically, sometimes implying what’s to come, sometimes telling you what level of the threat you’re facing, sometimes just providing ambience for exploration. It’s been a long process of getting this right.
The style of music covers a few genres – since the story and environments cover a lot of territory – from heroic to horror to sci-fi, cyberpunk, industrial. This is a game built around superheroes. But there’s a very dark / sinister element that absolutely requires ultra-aggression and a dark treatment at times. So any lighter heroic themes are always balanced out…especially the in-game music - with darker / aggressive styles.
There’s also an implied epic scale to the maps, since you can see deep below the play area, and the never-ending distance of space is seen (or implied) throughout Outer Rim (the focus of the Early Access gameplay). I really tried to give the music some size to convey that cavernous space and overarching story. My laptop hated this – reverbs consume tremendous amount of CPU and there is so much reverb on this score! And I wanted a lot of guitar for aggression to contrast the wider soundscapes - unfortunately….no guitar, so had to use virtual guitars….and no decent guitar amp simulations as they killed my laptop. Fun!
The music ranges from symphonic / electronic hybrid pieces like the character selection area (“Enforcers” on OST), which is also one of the first themes you hear in the game, to lush ambient themes, to heavy dark-electronic action cues. There are hints of world music scattered throughout, which is something I usually incorporate in all my scores, but there are Aztec / Mayan influences in the game that are hinted at in the music.
If players are interested in the progression of styles during the production – Cold Cargo was the first section I scored (“Frozen” and “Avalanche” on OST) – largely based off a track I did in early tests - along with the Intro Cinematic (“Prologue” on OST). The Edge of Space section (“Edge of Space” and “Blockade” on OST) is where I perhaps hit the style more clearly, since it has a more evolved mix of dark electronic, spacey vibes, world music, and heavy action / aggression for the action themes. The “Enforcers” theme was also done a bit later, and I think it’s better at contrasting the darker in-game music with the heroic sides of the story.
And there are 2 bonus tracks on the OST (tracks 15 & 16) that are early brainstorms / tests of my mobile setup. I thought some might find it interesting to hear what the early tests sounded like.
[h3]Where do you draw your inspiration from as a composer?[/h3]
This has changed substantially over time – and travelling around a new continent the last 14-months has already shifted inspiration. Music wise and with soundtrack work specifically, I’m mostly inspired by world music, hip-hop, dark electronic and choral / opera. Somehow these all go together! But being over in Asia is already introducing me to tons of new music. There’s an explosion of creativity all across this continent that is hugely inspiring. Great pop, electronic and hip-hop out of Cambodia, South Korea, Thailand and on and on. It’s no surprise you’re seeing music, tv series and films from the East hit critical mass in the West. There’s an incredible uncynical artistic energy over here - and often a very different way of looking at things - which is what I wanted to experience.
[h3]Anything else you'd like to share about your work on Superfuse?[/h3]
All I’ll say is that I will no longer be working on a laptop after Early Access! It was a fun experiment, but the laptop studio needs to go. I can’t even express how excited I am to finally be working on a slightly better setup – kind of a middle ground between my previous setup back in Canada and the mobile setup. But I am really happy with the music on this Early Access edition. I thought I would make all kinds of excuses, but instead it made me realize that you can do fairly ambitious music production while travelling around with a carry-on-airplane studio. I say I would never do this again, but it was actually a great experience that I’ll probably miss when going back to the locked-in room studio life!
The 16-track Early Access soundtrack for Superfuse are available digitally on almost all music platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, Amazon, Tidal, etc.). Just follow Michael McCann on any of these platforms for updates, or follow Raw Fury & Superfuse on social media for more info.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1770080/Superfuse/