How Matt Heafy Writes Game Music with Fishman TriplePlay

Years before he would prove his guitar and vocal prowess as a founding member of the heavy metal band Trivium, Matt Heafy’s fiery passion for music was kindled by a love for video games. Now, Heafy is again forging new ground in composing music for video games, and proving that you can create moving scores with just your guitar in hand. From singing in Simlish for The Sims to scoring for Magic: The Gathering Kamigawa, and the upcoming Martial Arts Tycoon, Heafy’s diverse compositions explore a range of styles beyond heavy metal, from Japanese cyberpunk to lo-fi Brazilian funk. To put the full range of necessary sounds needed under his fingertips, Matt Heafy chose the Fishman TriplePlay guitar MIDI controller to allow him to compose with his instrument of choice. Fishman caught up with him to learn more about how he got into gaming music, how he approaches composition, and how he uses the Fishman TriplePlay to unlock his creativity.

A Lifetime Interest in Gaming Music

Matt Heafy’s love of gaming music began before he ever got his hands on his first guitar. “Games were a huge part of my life, way back when I was about four or five years old, beating my first Mario (which reminds me I need to get my kids Mario so they can do the same.) The gaming music was always amazing, so I think it was a subconscious thing I was always subjected to. It was the Final Fantasy games that really started the set with me. I remember the sounds, the vibes, the themes of Chrono Trigger. It was DOOM at 11 that made me really want to someday make whatever these sounds were, unaware that it was metal, unaware that it was scoring games or anything like that.”

Influenced by Master Composers

Even at a young age, Heafy sensed how important of a role the soundtrack plays in the overall gaming experience. “I’m remembering games I’d randomly rent from Blockbuster and probably play them for five minutes and turn it off and say “this is terrible”. That’s probably because the gaming music wasn’t good. The music has to be good. It has to be great. That’s one of the huge reasons why the Mick Gordon DOOM games are so great — the music is ridiculously incredible. It is so unique and so fun and so interesting.” “I’ve been really wrestling with wanting to go back and play some of the old Final Fantasies, but I filled that void recently by watching all the Miyazaki Studio Ghibli movies instead, or listening to the soundtracks. I still, to this day, listen to Final Fantasy VII classical guitar music recorded by John Oeth. It’s really, really cool.”

From Heavy Metal to Singing in… Simlish?

When Matt Heafy finally received the opportunity to make his own musical contributions to video games, a unique challenge was posed to the heavy metal vocalist. When asked how Heafy first broke into gaming music, he points to The Sims, developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. “I believe the first introduction for myself and for Trivium into video game music was The Sims. The Sims contacted us and they said, “we’d like you to re-record “Like Light to the Flies” in Simlish” [the fictional language spoken in The Sims], so they actually gave me the lyrics in Simlish and had me redo it. I was like, “This is really cool!”

Exploring New Musical Territory with Fishman TriplePlay

Heafy would go on to explain how new opportunities would arise, being approached to write music for Magic: The Gathering Kamigawa and Martial Arts Tycoon. Needing to compose for a diverse range of instrumentation, the Fishman TriplePlay allowed him to create scores using his instrument of choice. “With a video game, scoring for Magic: The Gathering for example, if I see it, I know what the job is, I know exactly what it should sound like. The big struggle with Magic: The Gathering Kamigawa, it was for a cyberpunk Japanese world. I knew exactly what it should sound like. I also knew I didn’t have a Koto or a Shamisen or Taiko drums, or I didn’t know how to make electronic music or anything like that. Thankfully, I had a piece of gear, the Fishman TriplePlay. I was able to have all these instruments at my fingertips and not have to go, “I need to go get a Koto today from the Koto store.” That doesn’t exist. I was able to very freely, easily just click on this piece of software, the instrument I was looking for, and make those sounds and make it play. I find that any musician, when you have different pedals, heads, guitars, things that are slight differences of the instrument that you know how to play, it really opens your mind up into different ways and helps you create in ways you wouldn’t have ever imagined possible. What’s amazing about Martial Arts Tycoon is they asked me, “Do you want to soundtrack our game?” “Yes.” “Can you do Brazilian music?” “Yes.” In my head I was like, “I don’t know how to do that yet,” but I just said, “yes.” I think that’s a big thing in life, I like to encourage people to do that — take chances. Sometimes say yes to things that you might not be sure if you know how to do, and then teach yourself immediately and learn how to do it. I learned how to do Brazilian music and luckily, I’d been in the country before and do Brazilian jujitsu and I was able to really immerse myself. And obviously the Brazilian instruments, impossible to find all of them, so I was able to just simulate them with my guitar through TriplePlay.”

Capturing Lightning in a Bottle

When asked whether it’s harder to write music games or for a band, it’s clear that either way, Matt Heafy needs to be able to capture inspiration right when it strikes. It’s also apparent that it helps to immerse yourself in great music from all angles. “It’s not necessarily harder either way. It’s just different. With Trivium and Ibaraki, I cannot sit down and say “I’m going to write.” It has to be a moment of capturing lightning in a bottle. Sure, I could say I’m going to write a Trivium song right now, but I prefer it when it just shows up randomly, whether on stream or sitting on a park bench like when I wrote the intro to “Into The Mouth of Hell We March”. Video game music is easy. You show me a clip, you show me a picture, you explain to me a concept, I know exactly what it should sound like. And I believe it’s not just because I’m some wunderkind of soundtracking, but it’s because I was raised on playing video games.” “I believe that when you train yourself correctly in that way, I’m 40 years old, basically playing video games with the best music because all the music had to be great. I feel like I can’t really think of a game that has a bad soundtrack that I liked. I probably didn’t play it. The soundtracks have to be great. Writing video game music is very, very easy because… I think just all the time I put in playing games throughout my entire life.” “It’s instinctual, knowing what a game should sound like. From 4 or 5 years old on, I’ve been playing only great games with great music in my opinion. Final Fantasy 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, Chrono Trigger. Those games have always stuck with me. Even the Super Mario RPG soundtrack was amazing, or Super Mario 64. All these things, just great music. Metroid soundtrack, Donkey Kong Country soundtrack, so many great things. I think if you are exposed to great influence, I believe that it shines through you eventually.”

Unlocking Creativity with an Unlimited Sonic Palette

Considering the wide range of instrumentation Heafy has utilized in his scores, we asked him how TriplePlay helped inspire him to find the right sounds for production. “When I was doing Kamigawa for Magic: The Gathering and I knew that I needed Japanese instruments, I was like, “I can’t just get one. I need to have the whole array of all the instruments to really paint this picture correctly. Thankfully, just getting a software suite that had the Japanese and Asian instruments, it was very, very easy to play through my guitar versus someone getting me an instrument I didn’t know how to play properly. To be able to play it through guitar, the instrument that I understand, and make any sounds possible, that made it incredibly, incredibly easy.” “I find that when you’re inspired like that and you’re inspired with tones, inspired with an instrument, it makes it so much easier versus learning how to play a bouzouki or something. For me, the only instrument I can really play well is the guitar because that’s all I’ve ever played. I like to play guitar, and I like to express myself through the guitar. I find that through different pedals or different tones, different scales, a new amount of strings, anything like that really opens up the way you play. “If you’re able to play a harpsichord through your guitar or you’re able to play a synth through your guitar, or any other world instrument or technological instrument, even simulate a nylon string on your guitar if you don’t have a nylon string, I think those are all amazing things and it opens up these sonic possibilities that make you inspired to create. I think that’s all the tone chase is, everyone buying pedals and different pickups and different guitars, different amounts of strings, all these things. It’s all just finding subtle different textural changes to the tone. I find that always inspires something.” Considering the diverse range of musical styles explored by Matt Heafy’s scoring work, we asked if there was a game music project that would take him out of his comfort zone. “Out of my comfort zone? I think I already did it. It’s Martial Arts Tycoon. It’s all Brazilian music. Bossa Nova, Samba, Brazilian Funk. I didn’t know what any of those things sounded like. Obviously from Mario — they’ve got Bossa Nova stuff in all the old Mario. Maybe that’s why it made a little more sense for me. That was totally out of the comfort zone. They said, “We want no metal, we need no metal, we need chill Brazilian lo-fi music.” I said “yes” and learned how to do it. That was definitely out of my comfort zone.”

Using Guitar to Explore a World of Synths

When asked about his creative process using TriplePlay, Heafy describes defining the vibe of the project and going from there. “For example, I made a song for ASTRO for a little commercial of me repping some headphones. I knew I wanted the sound electronic and modern, and I was able to just create this new tone with my guitar using the Fishman TriplePlay. I just held out an open string and messed with the tones on stream and created this new sound for myself that I get to play with my guitar, through my TriplePlay into my computer.” “Those are those weird, interesting wavering sounds. I’m a big fan of obviously everything Mick Gordon has done. I don’t really know how he does what he does. How can I make my own version of that with the own tools that I have? Because he could do modular synthesis. I can’t, I can play guitar. He could play guitar too, but I was like, “How can I emulate these tones and create these tones in a different way that no one else maybe has?” I think that’s always inspiring.”

Driven by Passion, No Signs of Slowing Down

With some impressive scores already under his belt, we asked if Heafy had a passion project he’d like to work in within the gaming industry. “I obviously am working on a lot of things going on at all times. Everyone, the joke with me is always, “Matt, you’re doing too much. How do you do so much? What’s going on? How are you doing all this?” I don’t know if it’s a combo of ADD, ADHD, and OCD and wanting to work and wanting to create and never wanting to stop.” “I think the biggest passion project for me is to keep getting into game scoring. I made a collection of songs. I’m not doing it, but I made a collection of songs of what I would do if I scored DOOM. I should probably release that someday. These are the kinds of things I work on in the background, not even on stream, nowhere else. The passion project was just to do more. I would love to score more games. DOOM has been the childhood goal. I’m not scoring it. I would love to. Final Fantasy, anything like those, I would love to do that.

Always Be Ready for Opportunity

When asked how someone goes about getting into the gaming music industry, Heafy admits that the path is not clear. “That’s a great question. I’d love to know the answer myself. I imagine once you’ve done one or two and once you’ve appeared in a couple things, it starts to go from there, starts to snowball, I would imagine so. At least that’s been the experience for me thus far.” “It’s random every time. For me, Martial Arts Tycoon was through a jujitsu teammate of mine who worked on Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare. He hit me up, said, “I know you want to get into scoring. Do you want to score my game?” That’s how that happened.” “The second game was actually through one of my viewers on Twitch chat, who said, “Hey, can I DM you about a game soundtrack?” I was like, “Sure, I’ll take a shot. I’ll see what it is,” and it was legit and it was real and the game’s amazing. I have been asked to try out for a couple of random little things here or there. Maybe you’ll see some of those materialized, maybe you won’t, but it’s pretty random. It’s like finding a career in music. It’s pretty random.”

Using TriplePlay with Software Synthesizers

We asked Matt Heafy which software instruments he has enjoyed the most to give him the sounds he wants when using the Fishman TriplePlay. “I would say Xfer Serum is one of the absolute most fun things to use through TriplePlay for guitar. The latency feels really excellent, when I play Xfer, it is perfect. It sounds amazing to be able to make your guitar sound like Skrillex if you were in DOOM, I think that’s a really cool thing.” “The Massive software suite was really cool. I’ve really been sticking to Massive and Xfer for most things. For my ghost organ, I used a Vintage B3 that was just actually already in my DAW. You can click through Pro Tools or Logic and use anything that’s MIDI. I absolutely love my harpsichord sound, which I think is just one of Logic’s normal built-in harpsichord tones and it sounds amazing. It’s what you stack it up with afterwards, what you put on top of the tones that make it something special.” “For my Brazilian stuff, I believe I was using Native Instruments Kontakt for world instruments. Really, anything that you like is correct, and I don’t have favorites outside of Xfer or Massive because I like to try everything, jumping around a lot. For Magic: The Gathering Kamigawa, I use the Asian or Japanese sound pack that was in Native Instruments Kontakt.”

Discover Your Own Sonic Signature with Fishman TriplePlay

As far as his own personal enjoyment, which five instrument sounds does Heafy have the most fun playing with his TriplePlay? “I’d say the ones that I made. The ones that I built are my favorites, you can’t have them because they’re mine. Big Evil Saw, Blade Ranner, Creepy Synth, Small Saw Melody, Dark Motion Based Rhythm, and Ghost Reverse Organ. Those are probably my five favorites that I built. Serum into PHAT effects is the main thing for Big Evil Saw. Blade Ranner is Massive into PHAT effects. The Creepy Saw is Massive into PHAT effects. Dark Motion is Massive into PHAT effects. Man, I’m using PHAT effects a lot. Vintage B3 into a whole bunch of Space Designers in Logic for my Ghost Reverse Organ is what I did. It shows you, there’s no right or wrong. You can put guitar effects on there, you can do whatever the heck you want. It’s all about painting any sonic sound that you want. I believe that’s what makes it the most fun.”