Mar 31, 2009 6:45 PM, By Matt Gallagher

Composer and music producer Tom Salta (pictured), whose previous credits include the original score for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW, which was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award) and the acclaimed sequel Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2, has written and recorded the original music score for Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X, the first air-combat game set in Clancy’s videogame universe. H.A.W.X was released earlier this month for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows-based PC formats.

Developed by Ubisoft Entertainment’s studio in Bucharest, Romania, Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X offers an intense and authentic aerial combat experience by fully leveraging the benefits of the current-generation platforms. To emphasize the game's cutting-edge technology, devastating firepower, and intense dogfights, Salta composed an adrenalized and emotionally charged hybrid score that blends his electronic music with a live orchestra. Salta first composed the entire game working mostly “in the box” in his project studio in West Norwalk, Conn., Persist Music. With his score complete, Salta went to New York City for two sessions at Legacy Recording Studios with orchestral ensembles that were comprised of musicians from the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Salta then merged and edited all of the tracks and completed the final mixes in Persist Music.

Emil Gheorghe, producer of H.A.W.X, comments, “In Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X we had to explore five emotional dimensions: the patriot, the life of a mercenary, betrayal, hopelessness and open war on U.S. soil. Tom Salta managed not only to tie all these elements together in an astoundingly rich and memorable score, but he also crafted an acoustical identity for our game to stand up in the midst of the Tom Clancy’s titles. Using orchestral arrangements, high-tech sounds and a mix of traditional instruments, he built an incredibly diverse soundtrack ranging from flavorful traditional themes to military tracks.”

To further explore Salta’s approach to scoring Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X, I spoke with Salta by phone the day before he traveled to San Francisco to attend the 2009 Game Developers Conference.

How did this gig come about for you? Was it due to your relationship with Ubisoft?
Even though I had never worked with them [Ubisoft’s H.A.W.X development team in Bucharest, Romania] before, they knew of my name based on my work on the other Tom Clancy titles. They really wanted to preserve the established Tom Clancy sound from the previous games, so they enlisted people from the teams on those various games, and I happened just to be one of those people. When it comes to the Tom Clancy brand, of course, there’s a particular sound, look and feel to it, and so they really wanted to get the best [people from] all the previous games and create a new team for H.A.W.X based on that.

It makes sense to go for continuity in this series, since you already worked on those other Tom Clancy titles.
Absolutely. It was really great because the story line of H.A.W.X literally begins exactly where the story line of GRAW 2 ends; when I read that in the documentation, I immediately asked the [H.A.W.X] team if they would be open to the idea of referencing the style and the feel from the GRAW 2 theme on that first [H.A.W.X] mission, and they were very open to it. If you actually listen closely to the [first H.A.W.X] mission, you might hear the reference to the original GRAW theme, and then it evolves into the H.A.W.X theme. It literally connects the two universes together.

How do you approach an aerial combat game? Did this game plot make this game unique for you versus other projects you’ve worked on?
The flying aspect was the most different thing about H.A.W.X than the GRAW games, and really none of the music in GRAW—that particular style—would ever work with H.A.W.X, yet there had to be some kind of familiar feel to the music. So I had to walk a fine line there, and the biggest key difference that the [audio] team wanted to hear in H.A.W.X was [music that supports] the super high-tech nature of these modern planes and the aspect of speed—because no matter what you’re doing, you’re always going fast, and usually there’s a crisis or you’re rushing to get somewhere. Therefore, the vast majority of the cues had some element giving a sense of speed and urgency.

Acceptable Use Policy blog comments powered by Disqus