Variable Mix: Difference between revisions

 

Often overlaps with [[Musical Spoiler]] for more [[Genre Savvy]] players who know what particular variations to listen for. Can sometimes enter a variant of [[Mickey Mousing]] known as [[Musical Gameplay]]. See also [[Theme Music Power-Up]], which this often turns into if it happens during a boss battle. Also, see [[Songs in the Key of Panic]] for the other end of the scale.

 

* ''[[Luigi's Mansion|Luigis Mansion]]'' repeats the main theme of the game when you're in the Mansion, but it has variations for hallways, dark rooms, and outside. All have Luigi humming over the theme, except in lit rooms, where he whistles the theme. The tempo also decreases if Luigi's health worsens.

** The poor guy's humming sounds more and more scared and shaky as his health lowers, too!

 

 

* A large number of classic [[Lucas Arts]] games, beginning with ''[[Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge]]'', used a system called iMuse to provide interactive music, one of the first such examples of this. The most famous example is probably MI2's Woodtick, where the music has dozens of transitions meaning that each piece of music comes to a natural end, ''wherever it is in the track'', before moving on to the next piece. The result is mindblowing, and it's the kind of thing which is only possible with MIDI.

** The [[Video Game Remake|Special Edition]] tried to recreate the effect with live instruments. They did a pretty good job, but the effects were much simplified in many cases.

 

 

* Most recent ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' video games use three different songs during each duel: one for when the Life Points are close to even, one for when you have a big lead, and one for when your opponent has a big lead. The music simply fades out and fades in once the threshold is reached, however, without any fancy attempt to blend the songs together.

 

 

* ''[[Diddy Kong Racing]]'' as well; not only on the racer selection screen (each racer had a unique instrument playing a variation of the same melody over the same accompaniment), but the track Boulder Canyon switched between a rock organ, a flute, and a trombone depending on where you were in the lap. The only problem was that if you listened to these tunes on the in-game [[Sound Test]], it would play ''every'' instrument and melody at once.

** Also occurs in the [[Hub Level]].

 

 

* In ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Brawl'', the main tracks of the stages Summit and Yoshi's Island constantly change in tone and tempo to match the current state of stage (Though the Summit music is a single audio track that's merely ''timed'' to match up with the stage's various events; if you're playing in Slow Brawl, for instance, you'll hear the audio desynch from the onscreen events).

* In ''[[Def Jam Series|Def Jam - Fight for New York]]'' used a variant that revolved around the [[Limit Break|Blazin' Moves]]. Most stages in the game have instrumentals of various hip hop songs as their BGM, which cuts out to one of a few slightly more intense, shorter loops whenever someone activates their ability to use a Blazin' move. If the successfully pull the move off, [[Ominous Latin Chanting]] or some other brief, suspenseful leitmotif plays in the background while the attack is being performed, and, if the Blazin' move is used when the opponent's health isn't in the danger zone and is able to continue fighting afterward, the normal music resumes and for about ten seconds afterward the lyrics of the song play before cutting back into a looping instrumental again. A lesser example occurs whenever you use a submission hold, with disk scratching and various generic sound effects thrown in.

 

 

* ''[[Tron 2.0]]'' had a rather smooth transition between normal wandering-around music and when combat began.

* Ditto for ''[[Deus Ex]]''.

 

 

* ''[[Chaos Legion]]'' has a normal level music, and adds [[Ominous Latin Chanting]] when your have a legion out.

 

 

* ''[[Zone of the Enders]]'' spliced in different loops to the mostly trance in-game music depending on whether Jehuty was shielding, locked onto an enemy, trying to escape, etc.

* ''[[Zone of the Enders]]: The 2nd Runner'', for the second stage, had an ominous choir background music with industrial drums fading in and out with the action. A rather memorable scene occurs at the end of the stage when the protagonist reaches the end, gazing out the battleship windows out into space as the drums go out entirely. [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vKMBeYKhcFg Have a listen - this version has the drums almost the whole way through.]

 

 

* ''[[Action 52]]'' has this unintentionally in level 3 in ''Lollipops''. While belonging to glitch chiptune subgenre, it changes with every action like walking, jumping and attacking.

* ''Rescue: The Embassy Mission'' for the NES had this during the sniper positioning sequence. If your sniper was hiding, the music became subdued; if your sniper was running, more instruments come in.

 

 

* ''[[Phantasy Star Online]]'' has two themes for each area, one for exploration and one for battle. There are around five transition points in each track - once a battle begins or ends the game will wait for the next of these points and cue the transition to the other theme.

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', the PVP only zone Wintergrasp uses a number of different songs dependent on what's happening in the zone at the time: three or four calm tunes for when battles have died down, and an equal number of high energy war songs when players are vying for the fortress.

 

 

* An unusual example comes from ''[[Wario Ware]]: Smooth Moves'' on Dribble and Spitz's stage. The vocal song "Tomorrow Hill" plays throughout the level. When you mess up, the song distorts. You might think it's just an effect placed over the original song, but it's actually a [[Variable Mix]]- the distorted parts of the song are ''actually sung differently'', sometimes even [[Mondegreen|with nonsensical words in place of the normal ones]] ("Already said my goodbyes" becomes "Already ate my french fry", for example). This alternate version of the song, "Falling Off Tomorrow Hill", can even be heard in the [[Sound Test]].

 

 

* [[Sly Cooper]]

* ''[[Super Mario Bros. 2]]'': The music continues playing when the game is paused but cuts out the main instruments, leaving a sort of "drum and bass" mix.

 

 

* ''[[Worms]] Blast'' used this as the blocks got closer and closer to you.

* Cipher Prime games ''Auditorium'' and ''[[Fractal Make Blooms Not War|Fractal]]'' do this. In the former, each level starts in silence. Every "bucket" you fill with the correct type of flowing particle adds a layer to the music. In the latter, creating more blooms adds these layers. Each level starts with the stereotypical "howling wasteland" sound.

 

 

* In ''[[Age of Mythology]]'', the normal game music would change to battle music during a large battle, often triggered by an attack on a Town Center, then afterward it would often change to the original music or a "mellow mix" (their own words).

** The "mellow mix" would also trigger if you lost a significant chunk of your population (about 50% or more) in battle, basically the game telling you you're losing.

 

 

* In ''[[Parappa the Rapper]]'' and its spiritual sequel ''[[Um Jammer Lammy]]'', parts of the backing track drop in and out depending on how well you're doing. When performing well, the track is as it's meant to be heard. When performing badly, the midrange might drop out, the bass remaining only barely; in a few stages the melody changes into a minor key.

* Turning on all tracks of a Variable Mix song is the goal of the game in early Harmonix games ''Frequency'' and ''Amplitude''.

 

 

* ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'' uses two different applications of this trope. The overworld travel music acquires distinctive background instrumentation when the characters' ship flies over or near one of the several continents--tribal drums in the vicinity of the South America-derived continent, chimes in the area of the ice continent, etc. Additionally, certain boss battles can be accompanied by normal, triumphant, or desperate sounding themes depending on how the main characters are faring in the fight.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] IV: [[Oblivion]]'' has a soft fade-out transition to various musical themes whenever appropriate.

 

 

* ''[[R-Type]]'' did this once: in ''Delta'', when your ship goes underwater, the music changes to a more subdued, muffled version of the level's soundtrack, then goes right back to the original when you get back in open air.

** ''Final'' does this in some levels, for example, techno-industrial percussion is added to the ambience when the [[Humongous Mecha|mecha]] [[Mini Boss]] appears in the first level, and in the Giant Warship level, the music gets faster and more epic during the final approach to the boss.

 

 

* In the ''[[Harvest Moon]]'' games, the music track changes according to the seasons, with one track for spring, summer, autumn and winter. there are also howls at night, and crickets in summer in some places. In several games in the series (most notably the Mineral Town games), if you are low on stamina and turning blue, the theme becomes slow and creepy-sounding. Also in some games, the BGM will get deeper and slower the lower you get in the mines.

* This occurs during Hank Freebird's operations in ''[[Trauma Team]]''. The operations start with a base soundtrack that adds more instrumentation with each successful series of combos you perform. A single screw up causes the last set of added instruments to immediately drop out.

 

 

* ''[[SSX]] 3'' did this pretty well: each event would have a single track play thought, with sections of the song playing and looping in certain segments, sound effects tied to the song that came on when the player successfully executed a trick and, the most apparent, the music almost going silent whenever the player hits big air, with only the sound of the wind and a VERY muted section of the song playing. When the player would wipe out, lyrics would stop until they got back up to speed or did a decent trick.

** Pretty well my ass. They played the chorus lines for songs over and over again, and that was if you were doing well. These were not pleasant background videogame songs, these were actual licensed songs with lyrics. It was annoying if you hated the song and wanted it to end or liked the song and wanted to hear the entire thing.

 

 

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 1'', ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty|2]]'', and ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater|3]]'' have two versions of the Alert theme, one for the "Alert" phase and one for the "Evasion" and "Clearing" phases. They are alternate versions of the same theme, and fade between each other seamlessly when the phase changes. An experimental "Making Of..." compendium called ''The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2'' allowed users to ([[wikipedia:The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2#The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2|among other things]]) segue between the moods of each track at the push of a button. (For the curious, compare and contrast [http://www.mgstus.org/downloads/music/mgs2_documix/04%20-%20sons%20of%20liberty%20-%20lethal%20encounter.mp3 the Tanker Alert music] with [http://www.mgstus.org/downloads/music/mgs2_documix/05%20-%20sons%20of%20liberty%20-%20tanker%20-%20evasion%20mode.mp3 the Tanker Evasion music]. As you can hear, the claustrophobic Evasion theme is a stripped-down version of the passionate, exciting Alert theme with the same chords - so if Snake gets seen again, the melody of the Alert theme can cut straight in.)

** There's also the "suspicion" theme, a more tense version of the main stealth theme, played when a guard notices something, before going to full alert, ala ''[[Splinter Cell]]''.

 

 

* Used a lot in the ''[[Silent Hill]]'' series, sometimes there's a variation of a music piece that only plays when entering or exiting a room(like the scary music when you return to the clock room for the last time in the second game, and the [[Scare Chord]] when you jump across the alleyway), or different variations are used for different types and numbers of enemies (e.g. the music quiets down when there's only one or two left), as well as different rooms(The alternate mall in the third game is a major example).

** The music often gets scarier when you're about to enter the [[Dark World]], such as after you unlock the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOReJnwhALo school]'s clock tower or activate the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nytCCJ8hfEo hospital]'s generator.

 

 

* ''[[Dead Space (video game)|Dead Space]]'' has a fairly revolutionary dynamic music system; the background music would rise as you walked through a room, and hold if you stopped.

** By far the worst, though, is that the music sting that would play when enemies were approaching would not be played ''unless the player was looking at the creature''. As a result, it's entirely possible to wander around a room, thinking there's nothing in there, and get stabbed in the back by something that's been stalking you.

 

 

* In the original GBA version of ''[[Yggdra Union]]'', changing your in-battle tactics to Aggressive or Passive would change the tempo of the music and alter its mix slowly. The PSP rerelease has a similar mechanic, but restricts it to the player characters and only loops the first half of each [[Leitmotif]]. Too bad that there's no option to actually trigger the glitch that occasionally makes Yggdra's theme play [[Crowning Music of Awesome|sans bass]] in the GBA version.

 

 

* ''[[X-COM]]: Interceptor's'' take on this was to use 5-second snippets of music played randomly and in succession during space battles. When something good or bad happened in the battle, like destroying an enemy or taking a friendly casualty, it would interject a "happy" or "sad" snippet of music into the stream. When the battle was over, the fast-paced battle music would change to something a little more spacey and ambient.

 

 

* The 2nd ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' game transitions from "Pursuit ~ Cornered 2002" (where the player character reveals what really happened) to "Hotline of Fate" (where they back it up) and back work like this.

** As does ''Apollo Justice''s perceive system.

 

 

* ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' is, with the exception of a [[Crowning Music of Awesome|couple of songs]], scored like this. The game is always in A minor at a fixed BPM, but drops backing instruments in and out depending on what is happening in the environment, which of the three areas the player is travelling in, and what the player is trying to do in those areas. Usually, bass riffs indicate combat, and whistling melodies means you are preparing to do something awesome (like raid a hideout).

 

 

== Non-video game examples: ==

=== Theme Parks ===

* This is not strictly limited to video games. This technique is used in a lot of rides at [[Disney Theme Parks]]. For example, the "It's a Small World" ride has speakers throughout the course, with each set playing a different arrangement of the theme.