General:Brad Derrick's Posts

Brad Derrick's Posts
Medium/Format	Online Forum
Interviewee(s)	Brad Derrick
Hosted By	TESO Forum Reddit

These are a few notable comments from Brad Derrick on The Elder Scrolls setting. Derrick is known as ZOS_SoundMaster on the forums and u/ZOS_BradDerrick on Reddit. These comments were originally archived by The Imperial Library.

2016

On music in the Maw of Lorkhaj trial, and further music questions (2016-12-20)

> those drums r in my nightmares

Then sleep tight! ;)

http://www.bradderrick.com/stuff/MoL_TheBentDance.zip

That zip has each of the loops that we used for "The Bent Dance" in the Maw of Lorkhaj, along with an arrangement I threw together where they play end-to-end - each loop getting a little faster and a little more dense. We had a lot of fun putting that all together, Bill Mueller and I...but yes, those damn loops can get stuck in your head for days... :)

-bd-

[Editor's note: further in the thread.] (2016-12-22)

Hey...thanks for the kinds words, everybody!

> Totally unfair that you got such an awesome @SoundMaster moniker, though.

lol...I don't think I picked that. That may have been picked for me way back when. I would have gone with AudioGod...something humble like that. :)

> Are you busy composing more gorgeous music for new zones for 2017?

I am! Well...right now I'm busy putting that off, and instead just eating Christmas cookies and playing PS4 for the next two weeks straight. But after that, I'm on it. It's shaping up to be another big orchestra & choir session, so I'm giddy as can be. :)

> Also, are there more soundtracks coming?

Yeah, we still owe you guys the Thieves Guild / Dark Brotherhood OST. Actually, in between cookies & gaming I'll be spending a few days next week finalizing the mixes & mastering for that. Fun(?) fact - the OST mixes are different than those in game. The music has to be mixed in a particular way to sit nicely with the in-game SFX & VO - cut some frequencies here, boost some frequencies there... But the OST mixes have no such restrictions, so they end up sounding a little different...more "full".

[Editor's note: further in the thread.] (2017-01-04)

RE: Offerings of platonic love in exchange for music requests...you just never know. :) A couple DLCs back, somebody on reddit or these forums or somewhere else pointed out that the music heard in Dwemer Dungeons was neither "Dwemery" nor "Dungeony". So I was like, "You're right!"...and came up with a new piece just for those spaces. I think it went live with One Tamriel. So, hey man...we're *listening*. ;)

> I have one question please, where we can find imperial city musics played
> during boss fights like this one ? They're all missing from Tamriel soundtrack sadly.

That's because I'm a jerk with high standards. :) See, those pieces were never performed live - that's all fake instrumentation you're hearing. And that's not my favorite thing. But since those pieces are typically heard in conjunction with about 120 decibels of combat audio, I figured it's fine. Nobody is scrutinizing those pieces all that closely in that context. But outside of the game, on a soundtrack, they just don't hold up IMO.

BUT. I'm planning to finally rectify all that during the next sessions, and record all the boss music (current & forthcoming). So the old stuff will effectively be getting a fresh coat of paint, and *all* of it will be soundtrack-worthy.

TL;DR - You'll have to wait a bit longer...but I hope to make it worth the wait. :)

> How large is the orchestra you generally get to use? Same for the choir.
> And which Orchestra and Choir do you guys generally use? Is there a local one to Maryland?

The orchestra is ~70-80 players, depending on the session. The choir is 24 singers, doubled to 48 through the magic of studio cheating. And there's a dozen or so soloists we use for various things. The sessions have taken place in Prague & Budapest in the past. Maryland would be more convenient, sure...but the beer is better over there. ;)

> anything similar is coming for old zones, or maybe planned for new zones?
> it's a bit strange when you hear similar music in sands of Alik'r and island of Auridon.

As you might have noticed, every time we create new music for a DLC, we roll that music back into the other zones, so *everybody* gets the benefit of fresh tunes. And yes - that's been a common refrain for awhile..."The music isn't zone/Alliance-specific". Well, at launch there simply wasn't enough to go around; it's a pretty big game, ya know. But at this point there's enough music that things have been shuffled around so that the ambient music of the zones are in fact Alliance-specific. That is, the pieces in the Aldmeri zones are not heard in the Daggerfall or Ebonheart zones, and so on. So while you might still hear "similar" music in Alik'r and Auridon (it *is* all supposed to kinda go together after all, ESO style) you won't hear the exact same pieces.

-bd-

2017

What is the language and lyrics of the ESO:Morrowind intro? (2017-05-25)

Ask and ye shall receive!

Lyrics, in Ald Chimeris..."Ald Chimeris" being the Elvish precursor tongue of the Dark Elves that's similar to Ayleidoon and descended from Ehlnofex. (Thanks to LoreMaster Lawrence Schick for that LoreMorsel.)

Resdayniil kan tarcel
Ghardooni ye fevel
Arcta nu malatanya
Vengha ehlnada-dra
Nu nu vane metanane

Lyrics, in English

Resdayn folk, dare resist
Invaders and weakness
We must face the truth of life
Venerate the god-ancestors
We chose for ourselves

On the Cliff-Strider Song and real life voices behind bard songs (2017-06-14)

> I am loving the new Cliff Strider Song! It hearkens back to the Cliff Racer song, flying so hiiigh XD

LMar for the win! :)

The chorus for that song was deliberately written to be reminiscent of [Oblivion's Cliff Racer song].

The idea was...that fella in Oblivion was singing the song from ESO, hundreds of years later and slightly misremembered. :)

[Editor's note: further in the thread.] (2017-06-20)

> Who is singing it do you know?

Two of our regulars - Gideon Emery and Cindy Robinson. They're amazing. :)

[Editor's note: further in the thread.] (2017-07-12)

Here it is...the full roster:

VANILLA:
Malukah = Generic (though I hate to call her that!) Female Bard
Kari Wahlgren = Nord Female Bard
Crispin Freeman = Generic Male Bard
Jim Cummings (yes, Winnie The Poo) = Nord Male Bard

MORROWIND:
Cindy Robinson = Dunmer Female Bard
Gideon Emery = Dunmer Male Bard

2018

On music in The Elder Scrolls Online: Music of Tamriel, vol. 2 (2018-01-12)

Any chance we could get the in-game locations for the tracks? I recognize a lot of them but can't quite place them.

Yep! I thought this might come up...since it's so much music, spread over so many releases.

Here's a broad breakdown of the function of each piece. Hope that's what you're looking for!

++++

01 - Landing at Abah's (Thieves Guild - Fanfare)
02 - Hinterlands (Thieves Guild - Ambience)
03 - A World Made Of Metal (Clockwork City - Ambience)
04 - Gold Coast Horizon (Dark Brotherhood - Fanfare)
05 - Anvil: Sun and Shadows (Dark Brotherhood - Ambience)
06 - Blood in the Foyada (Vanilla - Boss Fights)
07 - Dark Sanctuary (Dark Brotherhood - Dungeon)
08 - The Brass Fortress (Clockwork City - Ambience)
09 - Looks Peaceful Enough (Thieves Guild - Ambience)
10 - Midnight in Shadow Cleft (Clockwork City - Ambience)
11 - Sojourn in Kvatch (Dark Brotherhood - Ambience)
12 - Stealing Sunrise (Thieves Guild - Fanfare)
13 - So Many Pockets, So Little Time (Thieves Guild - Ambience)
14 - Sanctioned Murder (Vanilla - Boss Fights)
15 - Where Dreams Become Nightmares (Shadows of the Hist - Dungeon)
16 - Glimmers on the Brazen Horizon (Clockwork City - Ambience)
17 - A Land Burdened with History (Dark Brotherhood - Ambience)
18 - Malfunction in the Ventral Terminus (Clockwork City - Dungeon)
19 - I Dreamt of Akos Kasaz (Vanilla - Fanfare)
20 - Reverie: Sand and Stone (Thieves Guild - Ambience)
21 - Hope Just Out Of Reach (Vanilla - Danger)
22 - The Order of the Hour (Dark Brotherhood - Ambience)
23 - All History is Vengeance (Vanilla - Boss Fights)
24 - Drums, Murmurs, and Lamentations (Shadows of the Hist - Dungeon)
25 - Fanfare in Colovia (Vanilla - Fanfare)
26 - The Blessings of Morwha (Thieves Guild - Ambience)
27 - The Sky Wheels Slowly Spin (Clockwork City - Ambience)
28 - Delving the Bane (Vanilla - Dungeon)
29 - The Long Memory of Minotaurs (Dark Brotherhood - Ambience)
30 - Back Alleys and Bad Intentions (Thieves Guild - Fanfare)
31 - Port of Thieves (Thieves Guild - Ambience)
32 - Granite and Ashes (Vanilla - Boss Fights)
33 - Tonal Architecture (Vanilla - Dungeon)
34 - Pensive Meditation, with Pirates (Dark Brotherhood - Ambience)
35 - Glory of Dawn's Beauty (Vanilla - Fanfare)
36 - A Cold Wind Blows from Atmora (Vanilla - Ambience)

[Editor's note: further in the thread.] (2018-02-09)

> Any chance we could get the same sort of thing for Music of Tamriel, vol. 1?

Ayup!

++++

01 - Battledrums (Imperial City - Fanfare)
02 - Soul-Shriven in Cyrodiil (Imperial City - Ambience)
03 - Radiance and Glory (Champion Screen)
04 - Flickering Shadows (Vanilla - Ambience)
05 - Somber Vistas (Orsinium - Ambience)
06 - Subterranean Emanation (Vanilla - Cave)
07 - Restless, Tamriel Dreams (Orsinium - Ambience)
08 - Descend to the Vaults (Dungeon - Fanfare)
09 - Voices in the Vaults (Vanilla - Dungeon)
10 - The Breath of Kynareth (Orsinium - Ambience)
11 - Tombs Unremembered (Vanilla - Dungeon)
12 - The Slopes of Sorrow (Orsinium - Ambience)
13 - Mists of Wrothgar (Orsinium - Dungeon)
14 - Recollection of Wars Long Lost (Orsinium - Ambience)

++++

Hopefully that's what you're looking for. :)

- Brad

There is completly new music in Auridon? unintentional or intentional (2018-02-14)

Intentional. :)

As time allows, I try to write some new pieces specifically for the original zones, to inject some more variety there. I had enough time during this update to do just that, so Auridon ended up getting 5-6 minutes of new music.

On music of the Summerset chapter (2018-06-20)

I love the new music, both the soundtrack and the new bard songs (the Ancestor song is my favorite of those). Can't wait until the soundtrack is released!

A few questions for @ZOS_SoundMaster , if he sees this thread:

* Is the singing in the main theme just wordless vocalizations, or does it have lyrics like the Morrowind theme? (And if so, what are they?)

* Who sings the new bard songs?

* The music in the E3 trailer (the remix of Three Hearts as One) is fantastic; any chance of that song becoming available/part of a soundtrack?

Hi Alarra. Thanks for the kind words! To answer your questions...

The singing in the main theme is somewhere between "wordless" and "actual lyrics". With the exception of the singing in the Morrowind theme, most of the vocalizations in ESO's music are sung in a syllabic "dead language" that we came up with for the game. That is - they are words and syllables, but they don't actually translate to anything meaningful. So don't go crazy trying to figure out what they mean. :)

Sarah Tancer sings the new bard songs. She's one of our VO regulars, and also happens to be a great vocalist.

The music from the E3 trailer miiiiight be included on the Summerset OST. We're still figuring that one out. :)

-bd-

2019

What is the language sung when one dies in ESO? (2019-06-05)

The language you're hearing is one that we created for ESO...a kind of "dead language of Tamriel", akin to Latin being a "dead" language of Earth. :) It's the same language that is sung in much of the soundtrack music.

I hate to disappoint, but it doesn't actually translate to anything.

Which is just a fancy way of saying - yes, it's gibberish.

So if MattT1988 wants it to mean "You f***ing nooooooooooob, git gud scruuuuuuuuub", so be it!

Translation of Elsweyr's Song of Kingdoms (2019-06-18)

You're in luck! This one actually is translatable. :)

++++

Swift paws of Ne-Quin-Al
Rimmen gold rains down
Green Riverhold has farms
Blessed-moons of Dune

Clever-Smile Orcrest in Dessert [sic]
Verkarth Strong-Warrior stand
Must-smile drinks for Meirvale
Helkarn has wary eyes

Wise words Alabaster praise
River people of Bruk'ra
Pray Pa'alatiin of reverence
Corinthe carving wood

Green forests of Tenmar
Torval renowns the Mane
Sweet Khenarthia has fish
Senchal ocean traders

Anyone know what musical instrument this is in "Landing at Abah's"? (2019-11-18)

It's a steel string acoustic guitar being played with a bow. :)

2022

On music being reused from previous games (2022-05-02)

Hello,

While no music from the other games is reused wholesale in ESO, the classic "Elder Scrolls theme" is of course reinterpreted every time we introduce a new piece of title music. And a handful of other musical themes have been reinterpreted in various locales that appeared in earlier Elder Scrolls games (eg Morrowind, Skyrim).

Hope that helps!

Brad