So, what's Bobby Prince doing now?

I always found it kinda unfair that he doesn't compose for the modern big-budget titles. Could it be possible that his current job is not connected to videogames or even music at all?

I heard he's working on Carney's game.

I went to his website and immediately got this warning:

Warning: Visiting this site may harm your computer!
The website at bpmusic.com contains elements from the site girlongirllibido.info, which appears to host malware

Girl on girl libido? I guess maybe he branched out into new fields?

http://bobbyprincemusic.blogspot.com/

He completely ran out of all musical inspiration and originality after 1993. I'm not sure why it's mysterious that he faded away.

I thought his contributions for Duke 3D to be good.

Oh did he do the title music for that? Or did Lee Jackson just do the remix?

Orchid87 said:

I always found it kinda unfair that he doesn't compose for the modern big-budget titles. Could it be possible that his current job is not connected to videogames or even music at all?

What's so unfair about it? He made a couple beeps and boops for some now unknown games and stole some riffs from metal bands for the ones that anyone still talks about. What he hasn't done is grown with the industry or done anything to get noticed by this big-budget developers. I mean honestly a lot of the members from this very forum can make a midi better than anything Bobby Prince did.

He's a lawyer. I thought everyone knew this....

AndrewB said:

He completely ran out of all musical inspiration and originality after 1993. I'm not sure why it's mysterious that he faded away.

>implying making songs based around a specific metal/grunge/rock song's riff is original

Xeros612 said:

>implying making songs based around a specific metal/grunge/rock song's riff is original

>implying that all of the tracks for Doom were based around a specific metal/grunge/rock song.

Xeros612 said:

>implying making songs based around a specific metal/grunge/rock song's riff is original

>Implying that's bad
>Implying the other music he composed didn't make up for it
>Implying Doom doesn't have original music

>Implying this is 4chan

Anyway, I remember reading up on him recently, and he apparently did a few bits of music for recentish games that no one ever played. The last three games listed on his wikipedia page I've never heard of.

Fuck it. Bobby's music for Doom is still great. I don't care how many melodies he 'borrowed'. Is it not valid to re-contextualize an existing riff and forge it into something original? For example, I don't really hear the bands Bobby is aping in his versions. To the contrary, I hear Bobby Prince; I hear DOOM.

Bank said:

What's so unfair about it? He made a couple beeps and boops for some now unknown games and stole some riffs from metal bands for the ones that anyone still talks about. What he hasn't done is grown with the industry or done anything to get noticed by this big-budget developers. I mean honestly a lot of the members from this very forum can make a midi better than anything Bobby Prince did.

And your basing the assumption that he's trying to progress in the industry on what exactly?

bimlanders said:

Is it not valid to re-contextualize an existing riff and forge it into something original?

Original how?

Wow, I didn't realize how different those songs really were.

Also, Slayer and Pantera are quite boring to listen to. Robert Prince's versions are more intelligent.

I quite like a lot of his music.

What I don't like is that second video. Teling me it won't play on my iPhone. Is embedding disabled for that one or doni get to wait until I can use a computer next week?

Aliotroph? said:

I quite like a lot of his music.

What I don't like is that second video. Teling me it won't play on my iPhone. Is embedding disabled for that one or doni get to wait until I can use a computer next week?

Might be a partner channel or (more likely) a claimed video. Revenue enabled videos are often disabled on mobile devices because Apple doesn't allow some form of flash to be played, which in turn disables advertisements on videos.

bimlanders said:

Fuck it. Bobby's music for Doom is still great. I don't care how many melodies he 'borrowed'. Is it not valid to re-contextualize an existing riff and forge it into something original? For example, I don't really hear the bands Bobby is aping in his versions. To the contrary, I hear Bobby Prince; I hear DOOM.

You know who else runs on that sort of mentality? American pop music. See how many shitty pop bands literally steal segments of other shitty pop songs or occasionally non-shitty songs for their new autotuned hit single? (See: faggy rap song literally stealing the "Dear Sister" thing; some female fronted pop song stealing the chorus line from that "I'm Blue" song that nobody cares about, etc.)

Granted, Bobby's a hell of a lot more respectable about it when he does it, but still. If you've listened to music at all most of the songs that fall under this category are bleeding obvious. E1M1 = chorus guitar part from Metallica's No Remorse, E1M4 = opening riff from Believer - Sanity Obscure, E3M3 = Slayer - Behind the Crooked Cross, etc.

printz said:

Also, Slayer and Pantera are quite boring to listen to. Robert Prince's versions are more intelligent.

How so?

Stealing riffs, or "sampling", is very common in music and sometimes the results can be very good. Anyone who listens to artists like Fatboy Slim or the Prodigy has heard sampling and, presumably, likes the results.

Personally, I like both of these songs. I love the original riff and I love what Cypress Hill did with it too. Does this make Cypress Hill dirty thieves or creative re-inventors who saw something previously untapped in an existing and well-known riff?

I guess it depends on whether you see it as "stealing" or reusing and reinterpreting or as being unoriginal or whatever. I think it has its place and although some of Bobby Prince's "stealing" does sound very much like the originals, sometimes a lot of what he did was take competent, good sounding, appropriate riffs and repackage them in a way entirely fitting for the games he was writing for. I don't have a problem with that and, what's more, I love some of the more original of his tracks too. I have to say, however, I have always considered the Doom music significantly better than most of the Doom2 tracks.

As for whether his current position is a shame or not, frankly I have no idea, nor do I have any idea about how happy he is with his lot. For all I know, he may be very happy to not have any current major associations with the game industry.

Gez said:

I heard he's working on Carney's game.

Yep :) He's just worked on sound effects so far (and helped big time with the sound engine - I'm pretty convinced the game would sound like total ass if not for his help), but so far the results have been fantastic. He's done a masterful job so far - of course, I would expect that of him :)

I learned a few days ago he was helping with your project. How did you approach him and what are you paying him?

That's pretty damn impressive, Carn.

Carnevil said:

Yep :) He's just worked on sound effects so far (and helped big time with the sound engine - I'm pretty convinced the game would sound like total ass if not for his help), but so far the results have been fantastic. He's done a masterful job so far - of course, I would expect that of him :)

Holy shit, that's awesome.

Technician said:

And your basing the assumption that he's trying to progress in the industry on what exactly?

I'm not basing an assumption on anything, I'm refuting the OP's claim that it's "unfair." Where do I say he's trying to get back into the industry?

The point being, whether Bobby Prince is trying or not, he's certainly not making music for modern video games and there's nothing unfair about that.

Scuba Steve said:

I learned a few days ago he was helping with your project. How did you approach him and what are you paying him?

I went to his website and e-mailed him asking if he still made music for games. He said that he did, and I told him a bit about the project I'm working on. After he did his homework on it, we had a great 5 hour Skype conversation, and thankfully he ended up wanting to do the music (and much to my delight - sound) for the project.

Xeros612 said:

You know who else runs on that sort of mentality? American pop music. See how many shitty pop bands literally steal segments of other shitty pop songs or occasionally non-shitty songs for their new autotuned hit single? (See: faggy rap song literally stealing the "Dear Sister" thing; some female fronted pop song stealing the chorus line from that "I'm Blue" song that nobody cares about, etc.)

Granted, Bobby's a hell of a lot more respectable about it when he does it, but still. If you've listened to music at all most of the songs that fall under this category are bleeding obvious. E1M1 = chorus guitar part from Metallica's No Remorse, E1M4 = opening riff from Believer - Sanity Obscure, E3M3 = Slayer - Behind the Crooked Cross, etc.

Stealing, borrowing, and so on has nothing to do with quality. A good composer can steal something of lesser value and make it into something respectable. Shitty ones steal crap and make crap. There are distinctions to be made. Most of the rock songs that Bobby sampled aren't exactly masterpieces to begin with. But as game music, these pieces are quite effective. Let me ask you this: if you didn't know that these melodies were stolen would your opinion be different?

Music culture is all about borrowing, anyways. Without it there's no High Baroque, no Brahms symphonies, no Classical period. When there's a culture, they all learn from each other and occasionally will lift passages from each other verbatim.

Just as an aside, where would Metallica have gotten their start without stealing from Mustaine and Exodus? Those hacks! ;)

I'm not trying to directly compare these composers with Bobby Prince, but we have to look at the context. He's making game music! And by those standards, he did an excellent job.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SampledUp

Shits been around for years and years, and is never going to go away. Are Van Halen and Led Zeppelin fucking bad now too?