Risen - KaiRo Music Interview (German)

World of Risen has an interview with Piranha Bytes' well-liked composer, Kai Rosenkranz. The (German) conversation focuses closely on the music and a little on Kai's background. English readers can try a rough Babelfish translation here.
More information.

Here's hoping a fan will translate this into English, KaiRo has interesting interviews.

Things have come a long way since Gothic in 2001, the English speaking communities actually get info and interviews in English occasionally now, thanks to great RPG sites like RPGWatch.

It is indeed very interesting. Unfortunately I don't have much time to translate it. Let me offer you a few insights.

- he thinks that the Gothic 3 music isn't used very well in the game. Sometimes it is too bombastic and dominant.

- his favorite composers are James Newton Howard and Harry Gregson-Williams.

- his ideas usually start with "doodling" some piano themes. He identifies the best motives and themes and develops them on the PC. The music only gets transcribed into sheet music if necessary.

- he uses a lot concept art for inspiration.

- he would like to work on a game that conveys some positive messages. He feels that current games make too little use of that potential. Films can communicate positive values in two hours. Some games take a hundred hours to finish and still fail to do so.

- he can imagine working on movie soundtracks.