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Episode 97 - The Music of Chris Granner w/ Chris Granner
PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago1 hr 19 min listen
Highlights
- Chris Granner has composed music for over 40 pinball machines throughout his career
- Pat Lawlor would sing the choreography and technical direction to Chris Granner during game design, not the music itself
- The Mamushka mode in Addams Family features a Russian-themed variation of the Hava Nagila theme
- Fishtails is Chris Granner's personal favorite pinball game of all time with no close competition
- Steve Ritchie composed the main theme melody for F-14 Tomcat, with Granner transcribing his note bends for the synthesizer
- Early Millionaire soundtrack used no pitch-bending capability, a feature that became available on later games
- John Hay co-wrote tracks on Earthshaker and Jokers after being brought in to help on Jokers when Granner was double-booked
- Transition from Yamaha FM synthesis to BSMT sampling synthesis presented creative challenges due to an established instrument library he did not create
Notable quotes
“There's me at my best in terms of like way that I use compositional structures. And then there's me at my worst.”
“My favorite. My absolute favorite. No close competition. This is my favorite game.”
“A million notes per nanosecond”
“Just sort of like paints this sort of, you know, middle layer. That middle layer was the basis of the high score tune in this game”
“I sat there for like an hour and listened to this tune it's like 35 seconds long but I it just it just really really struck me and it stuck with me for, you know, it's still with me today.”
“sound guys sit around and talk about when we get together in those undisclosed locations we you know we talk about right i want to kind of cover a game”
“Just like how you pique people's interest in in something that's happening in the game in a certain game state... I know something important is happening.”
“Pat would just say, do your thing. When it came to music, he mostly just said, do your thing.”
“I was going through a period where I did that on every game and I did that over and over and over again... I was really like figuring out how to make those kind of like really crazy wild guitar sound effects”
“These are Chris Grander games, and I can kind of see it, but you can hear the difference as well, which is very interesting.”
Entities
- Addams Family· game
- Big Guns· game
- Earthshaker· game
- F-14 Tomcat· game
- Fishtails· game
- Millionaire· game
- Ripley's Believe It or Not· game
- Roadshow· game
- The Sopranos· game
- Whirlwind· game
- Wedgehead Pinball Podcast· organization
- Alan· person
- Alex· person
- Brian· person
- Chris Granner· person
- Greg Dunlap· person
- John Hay· person
- Kyle Johnson· person
- Pat Lawlor· person
- Steve Ritchie· person
- Vince Pontarelli· person
- BSMT sampling synthesis· product
- Yamaha FM synthesis· product
