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Stellaris - Dev Diary #82: Synthetic Dawn Music

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary! This time I'm going to give the word to our very own composer, Andreas Waldetoft, who will be talking about new music in the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack.
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I have once again been given some time to work on Stellaris, which always has been something very inspiring for me. There is so much freedom in writing the music for this that I never run out of ideas. For me, it is not the harmony or melody that is the hard part for Stellaris, it is finding the right sound and synth for the job.

For Synthetic Dawn I wanted to have the focus on simple synthetic sounds that would sit in the front seat throughout the songs. Some would call it a retro feeling with that 80-90’s game soundtrack kind of feeling, with my own style blended in. Musical lines that keeps changing more in tempo, dynamics and shapes rather than in musical harmony.

I did not however want to change the focus and soul of what has become the essence of Stellaris music so that it would sit wrong with all the other tunes that is in the game now. There is still similar musical language and ethereal sounds that we have heard before.

In total there are 3 new tracks, totaling ~18 minutes of music. Here is one of them, called 'Synthetic God' for your listening pleasure:

That's all for today! Next week we'll be going over a number of smaller changes coming in the 1.8 'Čapek' update, including the rework of Core Sector Governors and changes to democratic elections.
 
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Love the music. I really appreciate the length of the tracks too... despite 'only' being 3 tracks, it's 18 minutes of listening! For such a long-term investment game, the length is just right. For example, Oblivion had lovely music, but the tracks were far too short. All the town music tracks were barely over 2 minutes long... for a game that you're going to sink hundreds of hours into, it just didn't feel adequate. Stellaris and other Paradox games get it right.

I love all the music by Andreas Waldetoft so much that I listen to CKII and EUIV music when not playing the game. And there's so many hours of it. Now Stellaris has joined the list.

One problem though is that currently, the game has maybe a few too many 'energetic' tracks that suggest lots of activity and exploring. I feel in the late game when things slow down, they do not represent well what is going on.

I'm also a fan of Lustmord (whose tracks can be up to 25 minutes long) and dark ambience in general. I regularly listen to Aphex Twins ambient works... what I'm hoping for one day is a 'Andreas Waldetoft Ambient Works' pack that comes with very long (20 min+) ambient tracks. This would be perfect for late game in my eyes.
 
I really disliked the music of Utopia, (except for "the Titan" which was awesome), it just felt either too bombastic or too confusing.

But this theme sounds just right!
 
That's all for today! Next week we'll be going over a number of smaller changes coming in the 1.8 'Čapek' update, including the rework of Core Sector Governors and changes to democratic elections.

By any chance will those changes to core sector governors involve having govern whole systems instead of just one colony in multi-colony system?
 
Pretty good music, Andreas...retro-electronica but with a more modern scifi vibe. I am really loving this new song. Could you tell us some composers/artist influences that have inspired you making these three new tracks?
 
Heavy metal music most suited for this game would be "space metal" such as some of Arjen Lucassen's work or even space-themed power metal such as Iron Savior and (sometimes) Metalium, imo.

Something like Mechina probably could be made to fit if the death metal was toned down.
 
That's all for today! Next week we'll be going over a number of smaller changes coming in the 1.8 'Čapek' update, including the rework of Core Sector Governors and changes to democratic elections.
And major changes were disclosed before are all related to Robots? Or Habitability and Terraforming changes, genemode templates are now considered "major"?
 
THIS SONG DOES NOT FIT MY MILITARIST EMPIRE!! CHANGE IT!!! *joke*

Wonderful job, Andreas, I have all stellaris tracks in my relaxing playlist and these 3 will be very much welcome in it!! Thanks <3
 
Going by the current pattern of announcement/release date reveal/actual release:

Leviathans:

Leviathans announcement: 2016-09-15 [0].

Leviathans release date reveal: 2016-10-10 [+3.5 weeks].

Leviathans release: 2016-10-20 [+5 weeks].

Utopia:

Utopia announcement: 2017-02-02 [0].

Utopia release date reveal: 2017-02-27 [+3.5 weeks].

Utopia release date: 2017-04-06 [+10 weeks].

Synthetic Dawn:

Synthetic Dawn announcement: 2017-08-03 [0].

Synthetic Dawn release date reveal: Unknown [+3.5 weeks = August 28th, 2017].

Synthetic Dawn release: Unknown [+5~10 weeks = September 7th till October 5th, 2017].

The assumption here is that these three-step announcements are a reflection of Paradox's internal milestones. So if we do not get a release date reveal around August 28th, we can assume development on Synthetic Dawn is going slower than on Leviathans/Utopia and actual release will be further away. (Obv. it can also be that Paradox's announcement policy has changed since Utopia, but in that case all bets are off anyways.)

Well, you might be able to handwave the pattern a bit by acknowledging that they teased 1.18 all the way over summer where they didn't have the manpower to run streams.
 
Partially disagree, add some power metal metal on top of it.

P.S. I guess people disagreeing are not fan of Machinae Supremacy.
Everything is better with power metal.

I really disliked the music of Utopia, (except for "the Titan" which was awesome), it just felt either too bombastic or too confusing.

But this theme sounds just right!
The titan was from leviathans.
 
Well, you might be able to handwave the pattern a bit by acknowledging that they teased 1.18 all the way over summer where they didn't have the manpower to run streams.
They always 'tease' the upcoming patches and DLC long before they announce them though, in Stellaris, EU, CK, etc. The dev team is always working on new features. Official announcements are reflections of when things get 'locked in', which is why those are more likely a reflection of actual internal milestones. As opposed to 'teases' which just confirm that stuff is being worked on, which is pretty much a no-brainer and doesn't tell us much as to the actual progress towards the internal goals for the next actual release.
 
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Amazing music, as always. I really like having the odd up-tempo track in the rotation as it gives a bit of variety. I'm also a big fan of the more synth-heavy tracks so it seems like this is going to be my day!
 
Heavy metal music most suited for this game would be "space metal" such as some of Arjen Lucassen's work or even space-themed power metal such as Iron Savior and (sometimes) Metalium, imo.

Thank, might have to look more deeply into Arjen Lucassen, the start of Space Metal seem to be the type of metal I am looking for. Iron Savior is not what I am looking for, unless you had some specific work to suggest in mind, but still enjoyable.

Sadly when it come to Metalium, it probably the worst suggestion ever, in my case, but not like you could know. Basse's vocals annoy the hell out of me, no idea why, but basically his voice feel like erasing a blackboard to me.
 
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