August 2022
Jack Wall is an ASCAP award-winning and BAFTA-nominated composer best known for his rich, cinematic scores found within popular video game franchises such as Call of Duty: Black Ops II, III, & IV, Mass Effect I & II, the Myst series, Jade Empire.
Collaborating with the world's leading game studios, Wall is widely recognized for composing some of the most iconic scores for the medium. Continuing to raise the bar for emotional, performance-driven scores at the highest level, his repertoire encompasses a diverse range of musical styles and influences: from ethereal ambience, choral crescendos and heavy tribal orchestra to traditional Asian, Middle-Eastern, Eastern European instrumentation, futuristic electronic soundscapes and big band jazz, recorded with the world's top musicians. Let’s hear some more…
MASA: It would be wonderful to hear a little about how your interest in music began and how it led to you breaking into the industry?
JACK: As a 3 year old, I had a little suitcase record player that apparently I brought with me everywhere I went. I played “Michelle, ma Belle” until it wore out. Got my first guitar at 12 and played everything from Crosby Stills Nash & Young, formed bands in high school and promptly went to college for civil engineering. I continued playing in bands through college, then a year after graduation became a bartender to support myself while I interned at recording studios and learned the art and craft of engineering albums. At some point I met my wife Cindy who was a software engineer during the day and musician at night. We teamed up to compose some game soundtracks and the rest is history.
MASA: Wonderful! Did you always want to work in games?
JACK: Showing my age here, but I grew up in the arcades and missed a lot of the early consoles: Atari 2600 etc. Cindy turned me onto the game Myst and that’s where I saw the potential of writing for this new burgeoning art form. This was about 1994 which was a true turning point in technology. That’s when CD players came OEM with every computer and that additional storage allowed, for the first time, full bandwidth audio in computers. This was a new era and I wanted to be a part of it.
MASA: You’ve had the incredible privilege of composing for some of the most successful game franchises to exist, for example, Call of Duty and Mass Effect. Can you tell us a bit about your experiences on Call of Duty first? What have you seen change over the period you’ve worked on the series in terms of the use of music? Which was your favourite to score? Can you tell us some behind the scenes stories of stand out challenges / triumphs?
JACK: What a privilege to work on a series that so many people play! I don’t think I have a favorite in the series, though my first one, Black Ops 2 was special as the first. I have a couple memories working at Abbey Road. On Black Ops 2 we had a pretty large orchestra setup in Studio One. And Thomas Newman was in residence there scoring Skyfall (James Bond) at the time. So I got to hang with him in the pub. He was there with his family and he asked if he could take his family into the studio to see the setup. We walked in and he said something like, “Whoa, I wish we had this kind of budget for our movie!”. I laughed and realized that games were bigger than they’ve ever been.
On another occasion, not sure if it was during Black Ops 2 or another project, but I came in to Abbey Road one day and saw Sir George Martin giving a tour to one of his grandchildren. I regret that I didn’t say hi but I just didn’t want to disturb him. But how exciting to witness the man who put a giant thumbprint on my life (I mean he did produce ‘Michelle ma Belle’!!) giving a tour of where it all happened. Pretty special memory nonetheless!
I recently listened to the score to Black Ops 2 - which is now 10 years old. I was really pleased with it. Honestly, I haven’t changed how I use music in games too much over the years. I’m just trying to tell the story. To me it’s always an interactive movie score.
MASA: And on Mass Effect?
JACK: Ahh yes… my memories of this one were that it was really fun to work on but technically very difficult as well. Of course, ME1 came out in 2007 so it was one of the first games I worked on using the methods I use to this day. I’d ask for a video play through of a level and then score it like a movie then take it apart and put it back together inside the game engine so we could have a measure of interactivity to the score. I didn’t love how the score was implemented into ME1 so during the postmortem of it, I asked if on ME2, I could implement the score so the music would do more to advance the story and be more of what I intended. They agreed but I have to say that it was like the equivalent of writing 2 scores. I suddenly had new respect for the job of putting the music in the game. I learned a ton doing that and thankfully that part of the industry has really developed over the years and I never had to do that again. I think ME2 was one of my best implemented scores of that time simply because it was more of what I intended - but it was a struggle!
MASA: How do your initial musical ideas tend to come to you? What are your processes to get things started? And what do you need to garner from the director in order to be fully equipped to begin?
JACK: Every game is different. I typically start with what they can share with me at the point in production where I begin. We talk about type of music, feeling, vibe, what the music should be doing. I ask if they have any reference material that resonates with them. In terms of my ideas, I let the material speak to me. I trust my first instincts. Something I’ve learned over time is that my first idea is almost always my best idea. Rarely it isn’t. But even those first ideas morph and develop over time and things gel pretty quickly. I don’t second guess myself too much. It’s a recipe for immobilization and it doesn’t get you anywhere. Just believe in your gut.
MASA: Can you tell us a bit about your working environment? What’s your studio space like? Which system do you work on and do you have certain go-to virtual instruments, plug-ins, sample libraries…?
JACK: I wish I could say that I have my ideal writing environment. I’m just never happy with it. The digital all in the box writing space is always marred to me by latency. It’s a constant obstacle for me. Back in the day when I worked with analog tape, that never existed so it’s just a pain. But obviously I deal with that ok. My studio in LA is as good as I can get it with a beautiful custom desk with 6 motors to change the height of the desk and the best PMC monitors, etc. Currently I’m spending a good part of the year in Portugal and have a nice desk with similar gear there as well. I use Cubase exclusively all in the box after years of using Protools which really simplifies my work life. I have everything disabled, ready to go, in one giant Cubase template. I love the Spitfire stuff but some of the latest Native Instruments orchestra stuff has been really nice as well. I have almost everything so it’s whatever inspires in the moment.
MASA: Who has inspired you most throughout your career?
JACK: Peter Gabriel. Bar none.
MASA: What music do you listen to for pleasure?
JACK: Whatever sounds good. I also love ambient music. I own a label that produces music for meditation; healing music. It’s just a thing I got into about 6 years ago and it’s been fun.
MASA: And lastly, what will you be looking for when judging? What makes a piece of work worthy of a Music+Sound Award?
JACK: For me, here are the criteria:
1. Surprise factor
2. Pushing the medium
3. Quality of writing and production
What else is there?
MASA: Well we’re hugely honoured, and enormously grateful, to have you involved with this year’s judging. Thanks Jack and we look forward to following your future work.
For more information, click HERE. And to listen to Jack’s work, click HERE.
