Nintendo 64, 1997
Released in 1997 for the Nintendo 64, GoldenEye 007 was easily the most influential console shooter game of all time. Combining the action of Doom with the mission-based gameplay of Super Mario 64 and the stealth of James Bond, GoldenEye set the standard for all future shooter games and is the benchmark by which all Bond games are judged.
In amongst various other features of the game—such as the comically-inaccurate Klobb—GoldenEye's musical underscore has endured the test of time. Even from such lo-fi sampling as the Nintendo 64 was capable of, we're still whistling the themes to the Facility, Archives, and Egyptian maps well into the 2020s. The musical tracks were undertaken by a trio of composers at Rare: Grant Kirkhope, Graeme Norgate, and Robin Beanland. While Robin only contributed a single song to the game (the catchy-as-all-get-out elevator theme in the Control map), the rest of the soundtrack was pretty evenly split between Grant and Graeme.
According to Graeme, EON Productions wouldn't allow the Rare developers access to any of the music from the Bond franchise, save for Monty Norman's iconic "James Bond Theme". While he admits to holding fairly close to that restriction, rebellious Grant—fresh out of a metal band—decided to utilise existing elements of Bond music to see what he could get away with. Indeed, quite a lot of the aesthetic quality of the GoldenEye film's soundtrack—composed by Eric Serra—was mirrored by the game's score; including that most enigmatic of sounds, Eric's trademark "sonar ping".
The sonar ping (or "bathroom pong" if the first place you happened to hear it was GoldenEye 64's Facility map) actually originated on the E-MU Systems Proteus/2 MIDI module as a synth effect called "Infinite One". Essentially, this is a sample of a brass tambourine being struck, then pitchshifted down approximately 2 octaves. Not having a Proteus/2, Grant discovered that his personal ProteusFX was able to make the same sound, only going by a different name. In the ProteusFX's filesystem, "Infinite One" went simply by "Infinite"; it is otherwise exactly the same sound. Thus, the iconic GoldenEye bathroom pong is an E-MU brass tambourine. Whilst E-MU gear is somewhat difficult to find these days, you can simulate the effect using any tambourine sample. Simply layer two instances of the tambourine over each other, then shift them down approximately 52 semitones (so, from A4 to G#1). Pan one of them 25% right and the other 25% left, then knock one out of tune about 15 cents. While the E-MU Brass Tambourine will provide a waveform-accurate replica of "Infinite", Roland or Yamaha tambourines serve remarkably well in its stead.
Since we're still in the Facility, let's discuss the track's hard-rocking synth bass next. Back in the '90s, Grant's go-to module for orchestral sounds was the Roland JV-1080, and its sound library could be expanded via EPROM sticks that Roland Corporation sold separately. One of these sticks, SR-JV80-04: "Vintage Synth", contained a patch called "Wavesync". Two discrete samples of "Wavesync" were taken; the first, at A2, was used for the Facility bass. The second, at A4, was used elsewhere in the soundtrack, such as the James Bond riff just before the loop in the Frigate's theme. A4 can be found elsewhere in Rare music; namely in Diddy Kong Racing—scored by Donkey Kong Country composer, David Wise—where it can be heard in the Lobby.
Talking of the JV-1080, basically all the orchestral sounds—strings, brass, choruses, and that sort of thing—originated either from the factory library or another of the expansion sticks, SR-JV80-02: "Orchestral"; likely owing to the fact that Grant was simultaneously working on the score to another chart-topper, Banjo-Kazooie, and simply migrated his samples from one computer to another. Thus, whenever you hear an orchestral instrument, it's a safe bet it's from the Roland. Though, that having been said, there is a solo trumpet from the ProteusFX that appears in the St. Petersburg levels.
Finally, the opening theme's metal guitar licks. If they seem a bit too detailed for presequenced MIDI and PCM samples, that's because it's Grant playing the James Bond Theme on his guitar. As mentioned before, he was in a metal band. Rather than entrust something so important as the iconic gunbarrel sequence to a pithy 10-duty-cycle sample of a Roland distortion guitar, he played the licks himself and then chopped them up and looped them.
--10 November 2023--