Forza 3 OST Review

The Forza 3 Soundtrack got a good review from G4TV's Rick Damigella. Check it out here

Forza 3 Soundtrack Official Announcement

SUMTHING ELSE MUSIC WORKS ANNOUNCES RELEASE OF FORZA MOTORSPORT® 3 ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

Ambient Electronica Score Composed and Produced by
Lance Hayes aka DJ Drunken Master

New York - December 7th, 2009 - Sumthing Else Music Works, through its licensing relationship with Microsoft Game Studios, proudly presents Forza Motorsport® 3 Original Soundtrack featuring the original music from the critically acclaimed racing game developed exclusively for Xbox 360. Created by the veteran team at Turn 10 Studios of Microsoft Game Studios, Forza Motorsport 3 unites the racing game genre, making it possible for everyone to experience the thrill of the world's most exotic and exquisite cars. Forza Motorsport 3 Original Soundtrack will release on Dec. 8 to retail outlets through Sumthing Else Music Works www.sumthing.com, and will be available for digital download on Sumthing Digital www.sumthingdigital.com and iTunes®.

Forza Motorsport 3 Original Soundtrack includes 90 minutes of ambient electronica music created by award-winning composer and producer Lance Hayes aka DJ Drunken Master. The soundtrack features a broad range of music styles and overall chill demeanor encompassing primarily electronica, ambient and downtempo with forays into ambient breaks, illbient and acid jazz.

Composer Lance Hayes said, "This was truly a rare and amazing project to work on. I knew it had to be perfect because this was Forza but we also agreed that it had to be music that could stand on its own. We were looking for the right balance of listen-ability and edge."

With breathtaking high-definition graphics and the most advanced vehicle performance modeling in a video game, Forza Motorsport 3 includes a host of driving assists and adjustable skill levels to make the game a gripping pick-up-and-play experience for audiences of all ages and skill levels. For more information on Forza Motorsport 3, please visit www.forzamotorsport.net.

For more information on Sumthing Else Music Works and its complete catalog of video game soundtracks, please visit www.sumthing.com and www.sumthingdigital.com.

Forza Motorsports 3 Soundtrack Available for Preorder

The powerful and engrossing soundtrack CD created by composer Lance Hayes for Forza 3 is now available for preorder from Amazon.com and Best Buy.com. The release date for the Sumthing Distribution released soundtrack is December 8th (12/08/09, just in time for the holidays). It will be in select stores as a CD release as well as from all of the usual download sites (Sumthing Digital, ITunes, Zune etc.).

Featuring cuts from the primarily ambient electronica score the FM3 OST is a collection of music for the fans that want to take the feel and experience of Forza out of the gamespace or for the listener that enjoys electronic music.

The FM3 OST track listings from the Sumthing Digital site:

1 Riding The Rail
2 Visual Installation
3 Japanese Four Star
4 Base Telemetry
5 Additional Controller
6 Superleggera
7 Dialed In
8 Elapsed Time
9 Van Air
10 Road Side
11 This Final Lap
12 X Track

Forza 3 OST Track Listing

The track listings for the upcoming Forza Motorsport 3 Soundtrack album are now available on the Sumthing Digital site. The album is due out on Tuesday December 8th (next week!).

From the Sumthing Digital site:

1 Riding The Rail (Lance Hayes)

2 Visual Installation (Lance Hayes)

3 Japanese Four Star (Lance Hayes)

4 Base Telemetry (Lance Hayes)

5 Additional Controller (Lance Hayes)

6 Superleggera (Lance Hayes)

7 Dialed In (Lance Hayes)

8 Elapsed Time (Lance Hayes)

9 Van Air (Lance Hayes)

10 Road Side (Lance Hayes)

11 This Final Lap (Lance Hayes)

12 X Track (Lance Hayes)

Cheers!

Forza 3 Sells 1 Milllion

Looks like FM3 sales are sticking to the track. As of the 14th Forza had sold over a million copies. It's a good day for racing.

Spike TV Video Game Awards - Forza 3 Noms

I'm excited about the Forza 3 nominations in two categories for Spike TV Video Game Awards. The nominations are for Best Driving Game and Best Xbox 360 Title for 2009 and the show airs on December 12th.

If you'd like to vote you can do so here:
Best Xbox 360 Game
Best Driving Game

Check your listings for airtime on the 12th of December and wish Forza 3 luck!

Pole Position

I'm very proud to have written the soundtrack to Forza 3. The game was a fantastic title to work on and the team was beyond amazing to work with.

Now I'm able to say that not only was it an amazing project to work on but it's on its way to becoming one of the top selling video games this year. Sales have been phenomenal. Number one in the US, number one in Xbox titles sold and number two for all games and platforms in the world for the week ending October 31st 2009.

The success lies with the game itself of course but it's a pleasure knowing that your work is both well received and adds distinction to, in it's way, a top notch project on it's way up the charts.

I have Succumb - Facebook Fan Page and Time In LA

So if you want to keep up with news and updates about me and my music you can do so on my brand new Facebook Fan Page. I will keep it updated with current and upcoming project info as well as the usual ego maniacal rants that will keep you guessing about my general sanity and overall demeanor. Well, mostly it will have updates about my work.

Also I just got back from LA and had a fine time at the Billboard Hollywood Reporter conference for music in Film, TV and Video Games. The game section was a little lite but the overall conference wasn't too bad.

I had a great time visiting with friends and doing a little business. If you're interested in up to the minute updates you can check out my Twitter Page.

FM3 Reviews

The Forza 3 reviews have been very favorable so far averaging 94 out of 100 on Metacritic the first day. Not a bad start.

What caught me off guard was getting a review from Motor Trend? So sweet. They seemed to like it.

The game release date is the 27th of this month and if you haven't pre-ordered you might want to consider it. The Gamestop deluxe version is quite nice with dongles, bobbles and bonus content galore.

In other news I'm deep into my latest project (more on that soon) and looking forward to hitting LA later this month for the Billboard Hollywood Reporter Film, TV and Game Music conference.

Cheers!

The Game Developer's Conference

I'm GDC bound

I'll be there this year for the first time since 2006. I look forward to seeing all of the people that I chat with regularly via email in person. Good times!

I'm currently working on setting up my demos on USB flash drives. It seems like it still retains a little bit of that "novel idea" sheen as they are still not that common. I just hope it doesn't backfire. Nothing worse than having someone say that they can't play your demo because of some incompatibility.



I'm also a little frustrated. It looks like Microsoft pushed back it's announcement of the title I'm working on till later in the year. Man is it hard to say : "what am I working on? I’m working on an 11 month contract scoring an Xbox title for Microsoft. It’s a 90 min soundtrack for their next big racing title. It's being created by Turn 10 studios who, if you have a 360, you may know created Forza 1 and 2."

I can say that in my sleep now.

In my spare time I've been doing software updates.

Sonar 8.3.1, PLAY Software Update v1.2.0, Komplete 5 updates, V Collection updates and even more

than that.

The only one that was problematic was the Sonar update. In it's original incarnation (V8.3.0) it offered some great new features including much faster saving with the Quantum Leap Play VST which was of particular interest to me.

Turns out that the update had a little problem. It was a little thing in theory but it was a mess in actual application.

I'll let them describe it.

"WARNING Please Read: Cakewalk has recently discovered that an error was introduced in the SONAR 8.3 update that affected the "Move To" snap mode in the Clips View. Under some circumstances this can move clips into a position with a small error of several ticks. We have addressed the issue internally and are working hard to deliver a hotfix for this issue very quickly.

In the meantime, use caution when dragging clips with Move To snapping enabled. Fortunatley the error tends to be small or non-existant when zoomed in for editing. It may be wise to double check the position of dragged clips with the Clips Properties window. To see this, right-click on the clip and choose "Clip Properties..."

We apologize for the inconvenience and we'll be posting an update in the near future."

Problem was that it was not a small amount as indicated in their warning. It was a noticeable amount and was very problematic in application. If you have ever tried to copy parts between instruments or affect changes to an arrangement in total you can guess this was a pretty messy issue. I was unable to work with Sonar for any elaborate arranging about a week. And if you're familiar with my work you would know that I do pretty intricate work in my sequencers.

Imagine trying to parallel park your car but the breaks don't work so

every time you move you bump the cars around you. In the end you would not try to park or drive. It was a little like that.

Thankfully with the new update this issue was addressed and remedied. I have to hand it to Cakewalk they kept their cools despite the calls for their collective deaths from some less stable members of their user pool on their own forum. They even offered up some new features with the update. Not a bad save Cakewalk, I salute you.

And finally; M-Audio has recently released their Delta 64 bit drivers for Vista. So now I can move forward with my long planned studio upgrade to 64 bit Windows. I have all the hardware RAM and software for this process and have simply been waiting for these drivers so I can avoid buying new sound cards.

Basically this means that this whole process can all start all over again. Wish me luck.

Most soon...

Cheers!

- L