Winifred Phillips's Blog
Winifred Phillips is an award-winning video game composer. Her latest video game credits include the triple-A first person shooter Homefront: The Revolution, and the virtual reality games Dragon Front, Scraper, Bebylon: Battle Royale, and Fail Factory. Other credits include games in five of the biggest and best franchises in gaming: Assassin's Creed, Total War, God of War, LittleBigPlanet, and The Sims. As a VR game music expert, she writes frequently for Gamasutra on the future of music in virtual reality video games.
Phillips is the author of the bestselling book, A COMPOSER'S GUIDE TO GAME MUSIC (The MIT Press), which won the Global Music Award Gold Medal for an exceptional book in the field of music, and was described by The Boston Globe as "the first book designed to help experienced musicians brave the transition to the world of game composing." Phillips' popular game music book was also hailed by Sound on Sound magazine as "partly educational and partly inspirational... a great introduction to this specialist art." Music Connection Magazine added that "Phillips' hands-on insights and advice make this one a keeper," and Film Score Monthly praised the book as "a touchstone academic achievement."
Phillips has received an Interactive Achievement Award / D.I.C.E. Award from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, three Hollywood Music in Media Awards, six Game Audio Network Guild Awards, five Global Music Awards, an IGN Best Score Award, a GameSpot Best Music Award, a GameZone Score of the Year Award, a GameFocus Award, and three Gracie Awards from the Alliance of Women in Media.
She has released over fifteen albums. Her soundtrack album for the Legend of the Guardians video game was the first video game soundtrack album released by the famous WaterTower Music record label, one of the top labels for film music soundtracks, and the film music record label of Warner Bros. Entertainment.
She has been profiled in books such as Keeping Score by Tom Hoover, Cash Tracks by Jeffrey P. Fischer, and in Music Connection Magazine, which described her as a "Superstar of video game music."
Expert Blogs
Video game composer Winifred Phillips discusses newly announced headphone products for VR, and new technologies promising to enhance existing headphones for VR. Topics include Cingo, the Ambeo Smart Headset, Super X-Fi, and the Sowlo from Noveto Systems.
Video game composer Winifred Phillips explores headphones designed for VR use, including promising new models, and previously-discussed products that failed to hit retail. Includes an examination of popular misperceptions concerning surround-sound in VR.
Video game composer Winifred Phillips explores how composers can learn about Virtual Reality through VR arcades. Includes the history of some major international VR arcade franchises, with success stories and possible future developments in the field.
The 4th of a 4-part series. Video game composer Winifred Phillips shares ideas from her GDC 2018 talk, Music in Virtual Reality. Part 4: Comfort versus performance, with a discussion of composition & recording methods to address the VIMS problem.
The 3rd of a 4-part series. Video game composer Winifred Phillips shares ideas from her GDC 2018 talk, Music in Virtual Reality. Part 3: Diegetic versus Non-Diegetic, with a discussion of composition & recording methods to make music fit into a VR world.
The 2nd of a 4-part series. Video game composer Winifred Phillips shares ideas from her GDC 2018 talk, Music in Virtual Reality. Part 2: 3D versus 2D, with an exploration of the role spatial delivery can play in music implementation in a VR environment.
Winifred Phillips's Comments
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[Blog - 04/16/2018 - 09:50]
Hey, Mike You make an ...
Hey, Mike You make an interesting point. Like music, silence can be a powerful tool for both composers and sound designers. Last year I wrote an article here on Gamasutra about using silence as a way to enhance suspense: http://gamasutra.com/blogs/WinifredPhillips/20170516/298114/Composing video game music to build suspense part 5 semi silence.php
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[Blog - 12/11/2017 - 02:58]
Very interesting, Tim We can ...
Very interesting, Tim We can all definitely compensate for any localization issues by cocking and rotating our heads until our brains get used to the aural input that the game is delivering. Comfort and wearability are definitely the first barrier that users will notice right away, so that has to ...
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[Blog - 09/12/2017 - 09:47]
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[Blog - 08/16/2017 - 10:22]
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[Blog - 06/26/2017 - 02:02]
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[Blog - 04/24/2017 - 09:27]
Hey, Vincent Thanks for the ...
Hey, Vincent Thanks for the comment, and the kind words Regarding your question - the drone in the clip was a compilation of a number of elements, starting with an electric bass that was doubled by some heavily customized soft synth instruments. The resulting mix also received some EQ finessing ...
