The Evolution Of The Video Game Soundtrack: From Analog Music ThroughMovie Styled Video Game Soundtracks

A program used by Mac computers to create computer generated music.

Most people recognize that video game soundtracks in the modern day are becoming more and more like Movie or TV soundtracks... But before this really began to take shape, at the beginning of the world of video games... well as it turns out, most video games had computer generated music, and before that, Cassette or LP generated music.

Some of the music that has been computer generated... Well in the early days was pretty horrible, and well, if you really dig in to it, there are some truly fun scores (such as: Super Mario Bros. (Believe it or not, it is a fun soundtrack) and even Final Fantasy 7!)

To really understand this progression, lets really start with the progression of computer generated music (I mean after all, computer generated music is where video game music got it's start.)

In this case, the first computer to generate music was a computer called the, 'CSIRAC', (which stands for: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer.) Now I can give you all the technical jargon if you want (but that is probably not much use for what we are working toward in this blog.)

The earliest known computer to play music.

To say the least, this computer (which is one of the oldest first generation electronic computers ever built,) was built in Australia in the late 40s by Trevor Pearcy & Maston Beard and which in the early 50s would be programmed by a mathematician by the name of Geoff Hill to generate music.

Since then, there has been many advancements in the programming for computer generated music, leading up to, and for our purposes, the first video game to ever play computer generated music...

Now before I continue on I should also mention the direct predecessor to computer generated music for video games...

Like movies, in the case of video games, early video game music was played on independent systems separate from the video game itself.

You see, in the 1970s, when arcades were really having their Golden Age, video game music would be played in analogue form (on cassette tapes, or on LPs.) Well to say the least this proved to be unworkable, and the age of computer generated music was born!

You see, it turns out that a more workable solution for this was to insert a computer chip that would create music from electric impulses created from the games code in to analog music.

Well to say the least, starting with Gun Fight (1975)... A game which proved to be one of the earliest examples of computer generated music for games, we find video games getting better and better computer generated music... Leading to (what I would say), would be some great early computer generated music from such awesome NES games as (well besides what I mentioned above,) such stuff as: Contra (1987), Mega Man (1987) & even Castlevania (1987), to name a few!

Castlevania... A fun game, with a fun computer generated soundtrack! 

And you know what? This music just kept getting better and better, with the passage from, '8 Bit' games to, '16 Bit' games, as well as the advent of the first Playstation, etc... I am going to go so far as to say that the height of singularly computer created music format for video games was with the advent of the first, 'Playstation.'

Don't get me wrong, there has been a ton of fun video game soundtracks to come out before this, but some of the video game soundtracks that came out with the first playstation were truly... Amazing! A great example again is, Final Fantasy 7! I mean the music for this video game was truly prolific , to the point where one could have been said to be a, 'Computer Generated Opera!'

Now I don't exactly know when the change first started occurring (I unfortunately had a bit of an absence from the world of video games,) but I did notice that as time has gone on, and leading (at the very least up until the XBox 360,) that video game soundtracks have become less computer generated, and more like movie soundtracks!

Crackdown for the: XBox 360 is a great example of a video game that has an almost, 'movie' like sound track to it!

I reckon that as long as video games keep getting better and better and the lines between movies and video games get more and more blurred, that in the end, the soundtracks will as well!

For more information, please check out these examples: