14 days ago•

Draft a soundtrack brief for a composer with emotional beat mapping

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Prompt

You are an audio director. Write a soundtrack brief to hand to a freelance composer that clearly communicates the emotional landscape of your game.

Game concept: [game_concept]
Preferred sonic palette: [sonic_palette]
Delivery scope: [delivery_scope]

Produce these sections:
1. Sonic north star — two reference scores and why
2. Instrumentation palette — core, flavor, and forbidden instruments
3. Emotional beat map — 8 beats with intended emotion, tempo, key modality, and intensity
4. Adaptive music rules — how tracks must layer and transition for dynamic gameplay
5. Technical delivery — stems, loops, file formats, metadata
6. Avoid list — tropes, clichés, or sonic shortcuts the composer should not use
7. First milestone — what you need in the first two weeks to greenlight

Write it to be read by a composer, not an executive.

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You are an audio director. Write a soundtrack brief to hand to a freelance composer that clearly communicates the emotional landscape of your game. Game concept: [game_concept] Preferred sonic palette: [sonic_palette] Delivery scope: [delivery_scope] Produce these sections: 1. Sonic north star — two reference scores and why 2. Instrumentation palette — core, flavor, and forbidden instruments 3. Emotional beat map — 8 beats with intended emotion, tempo, key modality, and intensity 4. Adaptive music rules — how tracks must layer and transition for dynamic gameplay 5. Technical delivery — stems, loops, file formats, metadata 6. Avoid list — tropes, clichés, or sonic shortcuts the composer should not use 7. First milestone — what you need in the first two weeks to greenlight Write it to be read by a composer, not an executive.

Example output

# Soundtrack Brief — "Echoes of the Forgotten" ## Composer: TBD | Delivery: 45 minutes across 20 adaptive cues ## 1. Sonic North Star Imagine the melodic restraint of **Jessica Curry's Everybody's Gone to the Rapture** crossed with the tactile sound design of **Joel Corelitz's The Unfinished Swan**. Both scores trust silence and let a single instrument carry weight. We want that discipline — not bombast. ## 2. Instrumentation Palette **Core:** solo cello, prepared piano, breath-driven analog synth pads, processed vocal textures (no lyrics — think Lisa Gerrard syllables). **Flavor, sparingly:** glass harmonica, Ondes Martenot, field-recorded environmental samples (wind through hollow metal, rain on slate). **Forbidden:** no orchestral brass, no drum kits, no explicitly tonal choir pads, no synth arpeggios. Any "epic" instrument will break the world. ## 3. Emotional Beat Map 1. **Awakening.** Disoriented awe. 50 BPM. C Dorian. Intensity 2/10. Single cello holding one note for 20 seconds before moving. 2. **First Light.** Curious wonder. 62 BPM. G Mixolydian. 3/10. Prepared piano enters, hesitant. 3. **The Ruined City.** Melancholy vastness. 48 BPM. A minor. 4/10. Breath pads, cello countermelody, one distant vocal syllable every 30 seconds. 4. **First Combat.** Controlled dread. 82 BPM. D minor. 7/10. Pulsing sub-bass, dissonant cello harmonics, no resolved cadence. 5. **Companion Theme — Arin.** Quiet hope. 68 BPM. F major. 5/10. Prepared piano leads, vocal texture supports. 6. **Arin's Death.** Acceptance, not tragedy. 45 BPM. F minor → modulating to D♭ major. 8/10. Full palette at low volume. Avoid swelling strings. 7. **The Rift Boss.** Controlled chaos. 96 BPM. Atonal. 10/10. Processed screams treated as instruments. No melody. 8. **The Horizon.** Earned stillness. 52 BPM. G major. 3/10. Callback to beat 1's single cello note, now resolved. ## 4. Adaptive Rules Every combat cue must ship as a 3-layer stem set: **foundation** (always playing), **tension** (fades in when enemies aggro), **apex** (fades in when player HP < 30% or boss phase 2). Transitions between layers must be seamless at any bar boundary. Exploration cues must loop cleanly at 2, 4, and 8-minute lengths so we can extend them indefinitely in long traversal sections. Stinger library: 12 short stingers (1.5-4 seconds) for discoveries, deaths, level-ups. ## 5. Technical Delivery - All music at 48kHz / 24-bit WAV - Stems separated by section (strings, piano, pads, textures, vocal) as well as the adaptive layers - Loopable cues must have zero-crossing loop points and ship with a companion "one-shot tail" version for gameplay cuts - Metadata: include BPM, key, and intended game state in the ID3 comments — our middleware reads these - Delivery via a shared Wwise project or FMOD session; the audio team will import raw stems regardless ## 6. Avoid List No orchestral hit swells on reveals, no "ethnic instrument as exotic shorthand," no rising minor-third horror sting, no 4-on-the-floor during combat, no library percussion that sounds like every trailer from 2019. If a cue could fit in a generic fantasy game without modification, it is wrong. ## 7. First Milestone (Two Weeks) Deliver beats 1, 3, and 6 as 90-second sketches — any form, any quality. We need to hear your interpretation of the palette before scaling production. If those three feel right, we greenlight the full scope.

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