Diablo
II
[12/21/98]
Matt Uelmen provided us with two clips of music he has composed for the Diablo II sound track. Click below to listen to them.
uelmen1.wav (526k)
uelmen2.wav (509k)
GameSpot: Matt, what was your role in Diablo I and what is your current role on Diablo II?
Matt Uelmen: I had been an employee at Condor (now Blizzard North) for roughly a year when Diablo was formally announced as our new project. I handled all of the music and sound effects for Diablo, with some very important help from Glenn Stafford, who is director of audio at Blizzard Irvine and a very gifted composer. Glenn recorded all of the voice acting in Diablo, did the audio for the opening and closing cinematics, the footstep sounds as well as roughly half of the monster sound effects, including such classics as the fallen, the scavenger demons, and the Black Knights.
I am currently the sole provider of audio content for Diablo II, with some help from the talented Scott Petersen for a few monster and ambient effects, as well as a session where his abilities as a drummer came into play.
I've also done a few sessions with classical instrumentalists. Glenn Stafford and his team, including Jason Hayes, who wrote some great stuff for StarCraft and SWAT II, are working on music and sound effects for the Diablo II cinematics.
GameSpot: Describe the music creation process for us.
Matt: It's obviously much easier to create stuff when the original game ideas are inspiring. With Diablo, I tried to capture a certain pastoral sound with the acoustic guitar, ocarina, and flute, which reflected the "vibe" of Tristram. While the way that Erich Schaefer's tile sets became increasingly atmospheric as you descended into the dungeon gave me the impetus to make the music increasingly "heavy" as you got closer to the big guy downstairs. In terms of the mechanics of actually getting music in the game, the process was described well by Phil Collins in an interview - "You throw a lot of stuff at the wall and see what sticks." My original attempts at Diablo's dungeon music involved trying to do the stereotypical RPG "fake orchestra" thing before realizing that I could produce much more atmospheric and exciting stuff by using the techniques from my own techno and rock background.
GameSpot: Are you doing anything differently this time around when creating music as opposed to how you did things for Diablo I?
Matt: Absolutely. I'm trying for a more naturalistic sound in terms of the orchestral samples I use and my own recordings of percussion, guitar, and flute tracks. I've learned a great deal about recording techniques in the past couple years, while taking significant time to study the scores of such composers as Debussy, Orff and Penderecki. Instead of just taking a beat and wrapping a few distinctive sounds around it, this soundtrack will consist more of live performances, which are processed afterwards. A big choral session is planned for this coming spring, as well.
GameSpot: How much more music is in Diablo II than in Diablo I?
Matt: I'm hoping to have around an hour of music in Diablo II, whereas Diablo had roughly 20 minutes of music.
Next: Uelmen's inspiration and music style
Diablo
II
