Frank Klepacki: From Dune II to Dune 2000

[Sonic 295]

While not directly Command & Conquer news, Frank Klepacki has posted an interesting update on his Facebook page that looks back at the history of creating the Dune II and Dune 2000. Here's a sample.

 

Dune 2 was one of my first PC projects that I worked on in my career. When approaching writing music for it, I was already working with limitations. I had to write each score with a maximum of 6 mono midi channels, to work with the fm synthesis sound cards of the time period such as the adlib card, and the first sound blaster cards. For an added bonus we also supported midi playback on the Roland Mt32 and Sound Canvas which would provide the best quality music playback for computer games, for any game audio enthusiasts.

 

I was influenced by the soundtrack in the first non-rts Dune game created by Cryo, which I thought was brilliantly composed by Stéphane Picq, and I also took a great deal of influence from the original film soundtrack by Toto. What I heard in my head that I wanted to do could not be done with the technology I had to work with, so I had to be creative in my approach, and pushed the technical limitations I had to work with, to the maximum. I programmed constant instrument changes every few bars in each song to keep it as full and interesting as possible for each part. While those played back, I had also programmed dynamic tempo changes and time signature changes throughout as well.

To read more, click here.

[ORCaLoVeR 0]

If only the dune's where freeware

[TheRoadToDawn 0]

Emperor Battle For Dune is one of his greatest masterpieces. I still listen to Tribute to Evil. hahahaha

[G0NE2W4R 0]

Dune 2000 got me hooked with RTS Brings back youthful memories...

[Gben 20]

nice read. good find. thanks.

[sith_wampa 6]

I beat the snot out of Dune 2000 a couple weeks ago, but I am rip**** that I can't find my copy of Emporer... :'(

[TheRoadToDawn 0]

I beat the snot out of Dune 2000 a couple weeks ago, but I am rip**** that I can't find my copy of Emporer... :'(

 

Id lend you mine, but i cant find the install disk.. hahahhaha

[recover 2]

I have to get a Dune fix sometime, I hardly know this music. :/