PlayStation 5 Pack Astro’s playroom is full of amazing tracks, but the standout is definitely his ode to the console’s powerful graphics processing unit (‘GPU’ to friends). In celebration of the game’s official soundtrack released on March 12, composer Kenneth CM Young recently shared behind-the-scenes details of the process of bringing his catchy, GPU-focused song on life.
“I’m Your GPU” was actually the first track for which Young composed Astro’s playroom due to the stage at which GPU Jungle appears, it is the furthest next to the game when it joined the project. Of course, the song started out relatively barefoot, but after a few attempts, Young established a distinctive sound with basic lyrics that evoked the feeling of a love song. In this blog he took up his concept early on:
“Before I even started working on the game, I thought about personalizing the PlayStation 5 console by giving it a voice,” Young explained. ‘It took advantage of the idea that your PS5 might have always known or somehow encountered it, as if it were your true love. But I saved this idea for the CPU Plaza environment as it was the best place. But now that I’re starting music for the GPU Jungle again, I see an opportunity to introduce this concept to the team. ”
As for the real words, Young found himself stuck between the fact that he wanted to include real technical terminology as a nod to the talented engineers who worked on the PlayStation 5, while not alienating people who might no longer be able to connect obscure jargon . Around this time, he recorded a version of the song with lyrics closer to the final version, with his own voice before any editing was done to make him sound robotic:
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Since this was the first track, Young said that “I’m Your GPU” had to bear the burden for the whole project, as the musical direction of the game was in focus. It has a lot of repetition and feedback from the people at Sony and Astro’s playroom developer Asobi Team.
“You learn something from every little mistake and if you persevere, each one leads to something that clicks,” Young said of the writing process. “Rinse, repeat. Then you realize at some point that it is baked! Composers tend to discuss the work through the lens of the final product, but our ideas are seldom, or ever, fully formed. Music guidance is achieved through a journey. ”
More versions of the track currently in progress can be found on the PlayStation Blog.