Video game musicians’ Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett’s journey to fame

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MUSIC
Video game musicians Darren Korb and Ashley
Barretts journey to fame
BY JOSHUA MANDELL
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In early March 2020 at the popular video game
exposition, PAX East in Boston, Darren Korb and
Ashley Barrett took the stage for an hour-long
concert. Korb is the composer for Supergiant
Games, a video game developer based out of San
Francisco. Barrett, a professional vocalist,
works with Korb on his soundtracks and has
appeared multiple times for live performances
alongside Korb.
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The groups 2020 concert poster.
It wasnt their ?rst time performing at the
exposition, either. The previous year, in August,
the expositions western equivalent in Seattle
hosted a concert for the studios tenth
anniversary.
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Given the high-pro?le nature of this event, one
would expect that Korb and Barrett, if not high-
pro?le musicians themselves, were at least
established as professionals long before this.
You wouldnt be wrong to assume that. However,
they werent established enough to have a
professional-quality studio when recording the
vocal tracks for Supergiants second game,
Transistor. Those lyrics were actually recorded
in a closet, a story that cant be separated
from Supergiants reputation among game
musicians. Korbs music is a combination of
virtual drums and electronic instruments, with
acoustic instruments especially guitars,
mandolins, and the like recorded from Korbs
own playing. The end result is surprisingly
coherent. Though the sound is stitched together
from synthesized tracks, samples, instrumental
recordings, and vocals, it all ?ts together. In
fact, Korbs soundtracks are downright
show-stealing compared to other aspects of the
games they appear in.
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Sound designer Beyond the music, Korb is
of?cially Supergiants sound designer, in
charge of the games sound effects and the
general audio direction. That means working
closely with Supergiants professional voice
actor, Logan Cunningham. Cunningham recorded
over 3,000 voiced lines again, in Korbs closet
for the adaptive narrator of their ?rst game,
Bastion. These lines trigger based on the
players actions in-game, and contribute
signi?cantly to atmosphere and tone. For
example, spend a minute in Bastion just smashing
objects, and youll hear Cunninghams dry
commentary Kid just rages for a while. Taking
indie to the big stage Prior to 2019, Korb and
Barrett had performed together a few times on
stage. But at PAX in 2019, and later in 2020,
they turned things up to eleven. They added an
orchestra, making their sound fuller and more
like what you hear in Korbs engineered, layered
recordings. Acoustic performances are one thing,
but having an orchestra to back them up? That
put them at a level most indie studios (without
the resources or backing of a major publisher)
can only dream of.
SO I SPOKE TO AUSTIN AND HES LIKE YEAH, MAN.
FIRST OF ALL, IM IN AND IM GOING TO CONDUCT
IT. SECOND OF ALL, YOU CAN DO IT AND ILL HELP
YOU GET THE GUY TO DO THE ARRANGEMENTS. HE WAS
REALLY INSTRUMENTAL IN GETTING THE WHOLE THING
TO HAPPEN. Darren Korb The 10th-anniversary
concert, Supergiants ?rst orchestral show, had
more established talent behind it too. Austin
Wintory, a friend and colleague of Korb,
conducted the concert. According to Korb, Wintory
the composer for 2012s Journey was really
instrumental in getting the whole thing to
happen. Korb may have been used to acoustic
shows and DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations), but
Wintory understood the orchestra.
Control Group and Supergiant
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Before composing soundtracks, Darren Korb was
part of a band called Control Group, which he
still does recordings with from time to
time. Theyre based in New York, where Korb lived
before moving back to San Francisco (and
Supergiant Games) in 2014. https//www.instagram
.com/p/CDmRGNOp4SZ/ When Korbs childhood friend
Amir Rao a co-founder of Supergiant Games
asked him if he wanted to be the new studios
sound designer and musician, he jumped at the
opportunity. The studio formed in 2009, according
to their website, and got to developing and
Korb, still working from his apartment in NYC,
began composing. Its unusual in video game
soundtracks for a composer to be brought onto a
development team this early. Much of the music
from the ?nished version of the game, and the
soundtracks album, predates most elements of
the game itself. Korbs music isnt just a score
it informs the tone of the game itself, along
with Jen Zees art direction, part of what makes
the studios games cohesive wholes. Its also why
the game designers built certain parts of the
game neatly around the music. Acoustic Frontier
Trip-Hop ?
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Because Darren Korb was not trained as a
classical composer, it didnt make sense for him
to use techniques typically associated with ?lm
and game scores, like leitmotifs for characters
and repeated themes that develop over a works
runtime.
SO I TRIED TO GET AROUND THAT BY CREATING A GENRE
AND HOPING THAT ALL THE MUSIC WOULD KINDA FIT
THERE. Darren Korb For each soundtrack he has
composed, instead of trying to ?t standard
composition practices Korb attempted to create
his own genre. He developed short descriptive
phrases to inform his compositions. For the
soundtrack to Bastion, that unique style was
Acoustic Frontier Trip-Hop. The melody
instrumentation is mainly acoustic, combined with
electronic hip-hop beats. An overall twangy
sound evokes the frontier setting of the game
and meshes with the old-time style of the
art. For Transistor, he created Old World
Electronic Post-Rock. Korbs second soundtrack
is heavy on vocals and includes harps and
accordians among its instruments. The guitars are
mainly ambient and electric. The entire games
tone seems to stem from this music, ?tting its
retro-futuristic setting. By Supergiants third
game, Pyre, Korb seems to have found his footing
in composition. Yet, he still referred to Pyres
music in an interview with as bardic acoustic
rock. The instrumentation focuses on mandolin
and lute, along with Korbs signature electronic
drum beats. It all meshes perfectly with the
occult themes of the game and the art
style. Finding a niche Building from the success
of two major orchestral shows, Korb and Barrett
are now working on a full orchestral
album. Again with the help of Austin Wintory,
theyre seeking to translate their popular
performances into a recording. For songs that
were composed in a DAW, its a brand new
format. But if the success of the PAX East and
West concerts are anything to go by, the ?nished
album will be a brand new sound. In less than a
decade, Darren Korb went from never having
composed a soundtrack to being one of
the most recognizable ?gures in indie game music.
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