My Gaming Audio History: RC Pro Am (1988)

I'm so happy to be home and able to continue My Gaming Audio History series!  Ironically, this next game doesn't have a ton of music with it, but I played it so much that its audio is definitely ingrained in my ears.  Much of the game is just sound effects, connected with the speed of your vehicle and in that way, the game is very similar Nintendo's earlier Excitebike.

Who created the audio?  David Wise.  A composer whose work I know well.  I've already blogged about Wizards and Warriors, his first game music that I knew well.  Interestingly in just a few months since I've written that blog, I've come to appreciate how awesome this ocremix interview with him is.  He talks about the composition process and the tools he uses to create game music very frankly.  I think that in-house composers are less common these days than independent contracts (David worked for Rare early in his career).  That can give you a sense of how long he's been working as a game music composer!

Here's a link to the soundtrack.  Overall, there's just under a minute and a half of music for RC Pro Am!  Considering that I could play the game for an hour, and longplays of it on the internet through the 24 courses seem to take around half an hour, that's kind of crazy to consider.  Game music to gameplay ratios is definitely an idea I want to explore more as I get further in my research, but a 1:30 or 1:60 ratio of music to gameplay seems pretty small.

Here're my notes on the music by track:

Opening theme G minor.  33 sec.  i-iv-VII progression.  

Gameplay music centers around E: (status screen before starting next race, Octave E's mark the "ready, set, go" of the next level, and the race ends fanfare)
Race Begins: 4 sec.
Race Ends: 3 sec.
Trophy Room: 2 sec.  

Game over: C minor.  5 sec-- sounds very different from any other music in the game.

Name registration: C major.  29 sec.  First major music in the game.