Does anyone actively listen to music anymore?

[Charlie Smithy!]

I have been into music pretty much all my life (writing, listening, recording), but sometimes it's been off and on.

Until I recently picked up some decent headphones and this guy:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XPTM5YS/re ... UTF8&psc=1

And all I can say is "wow." I feel like I'm *feeling* my music as much as I'm hearing it. Even as a kid, who mostly played video games growing up, I can look back and see that that particular hobby was intertwined with music. Particularly when the OG PlayStation came out and CD quality sound became a thing in games; the soundtrack of Chrono Cross in particular was life changing in this way.

At this point, music may have superceded both TV and video games for me (I gravitate more to the latter anyway, as I prefer the more active engagement of the medium).

But yeah, do any of you guys take (or want to take) the time to actively listen to music? Or maybe a particular album? Food for thought

[Superbone]

I actively listen to music all the time. In fact, I can’t have music on when I’m trying to get something done because my brain can’t not listen to it. However, I mostly listen to jazz. I love intricate chord structures and voicings. I’ve recently started getting into recording. I bought a top of the line ribbon microphone and preamp. I want to learn how to do those multi-part videos where I’m playing all the parts in five different windows for example.

I’ve also always loved video game music through the years. The first great VG music I remember was on the Sega Genesis. Loved some of those synthesized tracks. Turns out now I do videogame sound for a living. In fact, exclusively that for the last 18 years. All those years of gaming paid off.

[Nodack]

Your dream job!

I know another horn player that did a video of himself playing all the parts. Pretty cool.

[Superbone]

Yeah, that’s not a horn player. That’s a trombonist that can also play guitar, bass, and tap dance really well. Rare combination! That just happens to be one of my all-time favorite tunes. Here’s my favorite master trombonist playing the same tune:

[Superbone]

Actually, I stand corrected. I don’t know Greg personally but I know him as a trumpet player that played with my cousin, who is a trombonist, in the Disneyland band, The Side Street Strutters, back in the day. He is quite the multi-instrumentalist. I didn’t know he could play trombone like that. Very impressive.

[Nodack]

I have done a few gigs with him. He’s a great guy and obviously very talented.

[Indy]

So speaking of video game music, I love this song and this version of it. 8-bit video game design was so clever.

[Kryptonic]

I actively listen to music all the time. In fact, I can’t have music on when I’m trying to get something done because my brain can’t not listen to it. However, I mostly listen to jazz. I love intricate chord structures and voicings. I’ve recently started getting into recording. I bought a top of the line ribbon microphone and preamp. I want to learn how to do those multi-part videos where I’m playing all the parts in five different windows for example.

I’ve also always loved video game music through the years. The first great VG music I remember was on the Sega Genesis. Loved some of those synthesized tracks. Turns out now I do videogame sound for a living. In fact, exclusively that for the last 18 years. All those years of gaming paid off.

That’s pretty awesome! Any games out there that you’ve worked on we might know? I’m an avid gamer as well. Been playing since the NES
days and have owned almost every system since then, including PC.

I love music as well…. Listen to various stuff. I dig a lot of movie soundtracks…. Matrix 1-2, Tron legacy, along with all of the John wick soundtracks. I dig some of the newer 80s synth music that’s come out the last couple of years while gaming or working out.

[Superbone]

I actively listen to music all the time. In fact, I can’t have music on when I’m trying to get something done because my brain can’t not listen to it. However, I mostly listen to jazz. I love intricate chord structures and voicings. I’ve recently started getting into recording. I bought a top of the line ribbon microphone and preamp. I want to learn how to do those multi-part videos where I’m playing all the parts in five different windows for example.

I’ve also always loved video game music through the years. The first great VG music I remember was on the Sega Genesis. Loved some of those synthesized tracks. Turns out now I do videogame sound for a living. In fact, exclusively that for the last 18 years. All those years of gaming paid off.

That’s pretty awesome! Any games out there that you’ve worked on we might know? I’m an avid gamer as well. Been playing since the NES
days and have owned almost every system since then, including PC.

I love music as well…. Listen to various stuff. I dig a lot of movie soundtracks…. Matrix 1-2, Tron legacy, along with all of the John wick soundtracks. I dig some of the newer 80s synth music that’s come out the last couple of years while gaming or working out.

I've worked on baseball exclusively for the last 20 years! MLB The Show for Sony. The Show 23 releases March 28th. My first game at Sony was The Mark of Kri. Before that worked at Sierra Online on their graphic adventure games, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Freddy Pharkas, Gabriel Knight to name a few.

[Kryptonic]

Very cool! Great game! My oldest boy plays the crap out of it... Leisure suit Larry games are classics!

Well props to you for such a cool career choice

[Nodack]

Leisure suit Larry

That’s some serious old school.

Do you ever listen to Dave Weckl Super? That’s my favorite jazz group. He’s a drummer that played with Chic Corea forever.

[Superbone]

Yep, I'm familiar with Weckl's work. Say that five times fast.

[Mori Chu]

I've worked on baseball exclusively for the last 20 years! MLB The Show for Sony. The Show 23 releases March 28th. My first game at Sony was The Mark of Kri. Before that worked at Sierra Online on their graphic adventure games, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Freddy Pharkas, Gabriel Knight to name a few.

Oh wow, really?! I don't think I knew that. I played the heck out of Sierra's classic adventure games. I played all the ones you listed other than Freddy Pharkas, plus Police Quest, Quest for Glory, King's Quest, the whole lot. Basically when a new Sierra game was coming out, it was a must-purchase, until around the time that they started going with full-motion video and live captured actors rather than drawn art sometime in the late 1990s.

Can you share more about that work? Did you, like, compose songs for the games? Sequence them? Did you do SFX? What exactly did you do? Any specific games or stories you can share? I'm quite fascinated by this; I spent hours and hours of my life playing those games. It makes me really happy to know that you helped create them.

[Superbone]

I've worked on baseball exclusively for the last 20 years! MLB The Show for Sony. The Show 23 releases March 28th. My first game at Sony was The Mark of Kri. Before that worked at Sierra Online on their graphic adventure games, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Freddy Pharkas, Gabriel Knight to name a few.

Oh wow, really?! I don't think I knew that. I played the heck out of Sierra's classic adventure games. I played all the ones you listed other than Freddy Pharkas, plus Police Quest, Quest for Glory, King's Quest, the whole lot. Basically when a new Sierra game was coming out, it was a must-purchase, until around the time that they started going with full-motion video and live captured actors rather than drawn art sometime in the late 1990s.

Can you share more about that work? Did you, like, compose songs for the games? Sequence them? Did you do SFX? What exactly did you do? Any specific games or stories you can share? I'm quite fascinated by this; I spent hours and hours of my life playing those games. It makes me really happy to know that you helped create them.

I'm a programmer. I didn't become an audio specific programmer until The Show. I was a gameplay programmer at Sierra and I did enemy AI programming for The Mark of Kri at Sony. I was at Sierra for 9 years starting in 1991. It was my first gaming job. I worked my way up to lead programmer on Freddy Pharkas (an Al Lowe game) and SQ6. We used an interpreted language called SCI that had a Lisp-like syntax. Got to work with the great Scott Murphy of Space Quest fame (one of the two guys from Andromeda) and Al Lowe of LSL fame who I'm still in touch with on occasion. When I started, the book Hackers came out which dedicated a third to the early days of Sierra. I got to meet a lot of those people including Ken and Roberta Williams. I also worked at least a bit on every series you mentioned above.