The music for the 2013 action-adventure video game Grand Theft Auto V , developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games , was composed by German electronic music group Tangerine Dream , American composer Woody Jackson , and American hip hop musicians The Alchemist and Oh No . The game is the first entry in the Grand Theft Auto series to make use of an original score. In collaboration with each other, the musicians produced over twenty hours of music which scores the game's missions. Some of the works produced by the musicians throughout the game's development influenced some of the in-game missions and sparked inspiration for further score development. Grand Theft Auto V has an in-game radio that can tune into sixteen stations playing more than 441 tracks of licensed music, as well as two talk radio stations. The composers of the score wanted it to accompany the licensed music, as opposed to detract from it.
62-491: The game's music has been released on five official soundtracks: The Music of Grand Theft Auto V , released alongside the initial launch of the game, consists of three volumes comprising the score, and selections from the in-game radio; The Cinematographic Score — GTA 5 , an electronic album released in March 2014, comprises tracks composed and produced by Tangerine Dream founder Edgar Froese ; Welcome to Los Santos , released with
124-403: A recursive <wave-data> (which implies data interpretation problems). To avoid the recursion, the specification can be interpreted as: WAV files can contain embedded IFF lists , which can contain several sub-chunks . This is an example of a WAV file header (44 bytes). Data is stored in little-endian byte order. As a derivative of RIFF, WAV files can be tagged with metadata in
186-445: A DJ to match the station's genre, such as Kenny Loggins who hosts the classic rock station Los Santos Rock Radio. He felt that to strike a balance between the radio and the score was a meticulous process, and cited a scenario where players would drive to a mission objective while listening to the radio, with the score taking over once players left the vehicle and proceeded to the mission's next stage. The Music of Grand Theft Auto V
248-401: A RIFF (or WAV) reader is that it should ignore any tagged chunk that it does not recognize. The reader will not be able to use the new information, but the reader should not be confused. The specification for RIFF files includes the definition of an INFO chunk. The chunk may include information such as the title of the work, the author, the creation date, and copyright information. Although
310-505: A RIFF file has a RIFF tag; the first four bytes of chunk data are an additional FourCC tag that specify the form type and are followed by a sequence of subchunks. In the case of a WAV file, the additional tag is WAVE . The remainder of the RIFF data is a sequence of chunks describing the audio information. The advantage of a tagged file format is that the format can be extended later while maintaining backward compatibility . The rule for
372-445: A Red Train (2008) was originally announced as an Edgar Froese solo album. It was eventually expanded with other band members performing, but the album remains composed entirely by Froese. WAV Waveform Audio File Format ( WAVE , or WAV due to its filename extension ; pronounced / w æ v / or / w eɪ v / ) is an audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on personal computers . The format
434-921: A big influence and a soundtrack to his life in Berlin. Froese died suddenly in Vienna on 20 January 2015 from a pulmonary embolism . He was posthumously awarded the Schallwelle Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2015. He was quoted by the BBC as having once said: "there is no death, there is just a change of our cosmic address". Tangents was a Tangerine Dream compilation album box set of five CDs issued in 1994, compiling music from their years with Virgin Records , 1973 to 1983. Disc five consists entirely of "previously unreleased material": ten tracks, seven of which are credited only to Froese as
496-412: A chunk to be deleted by just changing its FourCC. The chunk could also be used to reserve some space for future edits so the file could be modified without being resized. A later definition of RIFF introduced a similar PAD chunk. The top-level definition of a WAV file is: The top-level RIFF form uses a WAVE tag. It is followed by a mandatory <fmt-ck> chunk that describes the format of
558-477: A mix down for each of the eight stems needed for a mission and sent out the material to the other artists involved", Froese elaborated. Oh No drew from scenes within the game to make his work feel contextually pertinent with the action onscreen. The iconographic introduction of Los Santos early in the game, for example, inspired him to "create a smooth West Coast vibe that embodied" the city. He supplied horns, electric and bass guitars, and percussion parts to fit with
620-415: A piece from here, a piece from there ... We pitched stuff up, chopped it, tweaked it. Then we chose the tracks that worked and everyone came in and layered on that". DJ Shadow then mixed the team's creations together and matched it to the gameplay. Pavlovich considered "how to make the hip-hop and rock score not sound like they were instrumentals of songs on the radio, but rather something unique to
682-467: A result". The album peaked at 18 and 41 on Billboard ' s Top Soundtracks and R&B Albums charts, respectively, in the week of 9 May 2015. Notes Grand Theft Auto Online: Arena War (Official Soundtrack) is a soundtrack album by American noise rock band Health consisting of original music from the Arena War DLC for the multiplayer mode Grand Theft Auto Online . The album
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#1732800983526744-556: A sequence: "A LIST chunk contains a list, or ordered sequence, of subchunks." However, the specification does not give a formal specification of the INFO chunk; an example INFO LIST chunk ignores the chunk sequence implied in the INFO description. The LIST chunk definition for <wave-data> does use the LIST chunk as a sequence container with good formal semantics. The WAV specification supports, and most WAV files use,
806-404: A set of subchunks and an ordered sequence of subchunks. The RIFF form chunk suggests it should be a sequence container. Sequencing information is specified in the RIFF form of a WAV file consistent with the formalism: "However, <fmt-ck> must always occur before <wave-data> , and both of these chunks are mandatory in a WAVE file." The specification suggests a LIST chunk is also
868-413: A single contiguous array of audio samples. The specification also supports discrete blocks of samples and silence that are played in order. The specification for the sample data contains apparent errors: Apparently <data-list> (undefined) and <wave-list> (defined but not referenced) should be identical. Even with this resolved, the productions then allow a <data-ck> to contain
930-402: Is CSET chunk to specify the country code, language, dialect, and code page for the strings in a RIFF file. For example, specifying an appropriate CSET chunk should allow the strings in an INFO chunk (and other chunks throughout the RIFF file) to be interpreted as Cyrillic or Japanese characters. RIFF also defines a JUNK chunk whose contents are uninteresting. The chunk allows
992-636: Is a collection of music from Grand Theft Auto Online produced by Dam-Funk . A series of singles from the Grand Theft Auto Online expansions The Cayo Perico Heist and The Contract were released in December 2020 and February 2022, respectively. Critical reception to the soundtracks was positive, as reviewers felt that the music connected appropriately with the gameplay. Grand Theft Auto V uses an original score, unlike most of its predecessors. Music supervisor Ivan Pavlovich summarised
1054-403: Is limited to files that are less than 4 GiB , because of its use of a 32-bit unsigned integer to record the file size in the header. Although this is equivalent to about 6.8 hours of CD-quality audio at 44.1 kHz, 16-bit stereo , it is sometimes necessary to exceed this limit, especially when greater sampling rates , bit resolutions or channel count are required. The W64 format
1116-422: Is uncommon except among video, music and audio professionals. The high resolution of the format makes it suitable for retaining first generation archived files of high quality, for use on a system where disk space and network bandwidth are not constraints. In spite of their large size, uncompressed WAV files are used by most radio broadcasters, especially those that have adopted a tapeless system. The WAV format
1178-459: The INFO chunk was defined for RIFF in version 1.0, the chunk was not referenced in the formal specification of a WAV file. Many readers had trouble processing this. Consequently, the safest thing to do from an interchange standpoint was to omit the INFO chunk and other extensions and send a lowest-common-denominator file. There are other INFO chunk placement problems . RIFF files were expected to be used in international environments, so there
1240-483: The Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) format used on Amiga and Macintosh computers, respectively. The WAV file is an instance of a Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) defined by IBM and Microsoft . The RIFF format acts as a wrapper for various audio coding formats . Though a WAV file can contain compressed audio, the most common WAV audio format is uncompressed audio in
1302-530: The Windows version of the game, features songs from the in-game radio station "The Lab", produced by The Alchemist and Oh No; Grand Theft Auto Online: Arena War (Official Soundtrack) , released in March 2019, features music by Health for the Grand Theft Auto Online expansion Arena War ; and DāM-FunK Presents The Music of Grand Theft Auto Online Original Score , released in December 2023,
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#17328009835261364-536: The linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM) format. LPCM is also the standard audio coding format for audio CDs , which store two-channel LPCM audio sampled at 44.1 kHz with 16 bits per sample . Since LPCM is uncompressed and retains all of the samples of an audio track, professional users or audio experts may use the WAV format with LPCM audio for maximum audio quality. WAV files can also be edited and manipulated with relative ease using software. On Microsoft Windows,
1426-517: The INFO chunk. In addition, WAV files can embed any kind of metadata, including but not limited to Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) data or ID3 tags in extra chunks. The RIFF specification requires that applications ignore chunks they do not recognize and applications may not necessarily use this extra information. Uncompressed WAV files are large, so file sharing of WAV files over the Internet
1488-793: The Nazis and after the war his mother and surviving family settled in Berlin . He took piano lessons from the age of 12, and started playing guitar at 15. After showing an early aptitude for art, Froese enrolled at the Academy of the Arts in Berlin to study painting and sculpture. One of his most lucrative jobs was to design advertising posters for the Berlin buses. He started an evening degree in Psychology and Philosophy and received his doctorate on Kant's categorical imperative . Since his interpretation
1550-599: The Stone Age . When he learnt that the team would be building off each other's work, he voiced concern that the finished product could be disjointed. After sharing his work with the team, he was particularly impressed by Froese's contributions. "Edgar evolved the music, made it into a whole other thing", Jackson said. Froese had interpolated funk sounds with Jackson's hip-hop influences. Froese and Jackson then sent their work between The Alchemist and Oh No, who heavily sampled it. The Alchemist opined, "We were sampling, taking
1612-583: The WAV format supports compressed audio using the Audio Compression Manager (ACM). Any ACM codec can be used to compress a WAV file. The user interface (UI) for ACM may be accessed through various programs that use it, including Sound Recorder in some versions of Windows. Beginning with Windows 2000 , a WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE header was defined which specifies multiple audio channel data along with speaker positions, eliminates ambiguity regarding sample types and container sizes in
1674-451: The actual samples in the format previously specified. Note that the WAV file definition does not show where an INFO chunk should be placed. It is also silent about the placement of a CSET chunk (which specifies the character set used). The RIFF specification attempts to be a formal specification, but its formalism lacks the precision seen in other tagged formats. For example, the RIFF specification does not clearly distinguish between
1736-498: The car chase scenes. "We wanted everything to set the right tone", he explained. The Rockstar team wanted to synergise the game world's depiction of California with the radio stations by licensing tracks that imparted an appropriate "Cali feel". Pavlovich noted that Los Angeles' cultural saturation of pop music necessitated the Non-Stop-Pop FM station; he said that "the first time you get off an airplane in L.A. and you hear
1798-503: The composer. No information is given as to where or when these tracks were recorded, or by which line-up of Tangerine Dream. Most Tangerine Dream tracks credit the line-up that recorded it as the composers, therefore these appear to be Froese solo tracks, released under the Tangerine Dream name, and may have been recorded for this album. Furthermore, five tracks on disc three are described as "re-recordings by Edgar Froese", while
1860-471: The electronic music group Tangerine Dream in 1967. Froese was the only continuous member of the group until his death. His solo and group recordings prior to 2003 name him as "Edgar Froese", and his later solo albums bear the name "Edgar W. Froese". Froese was born in Tilsit , East Prussia (now Sovetsk, Russia), on D-Day during World War II ; members of his family, including his father, had been killed by
1922-404: The establishment", describing it as "a social game". Welcome to Los Santos (also known as The Alchemist and Oh No Present Welcome to Los Santos ) was included with the Windows version of Grand Theft Auto V , which was released on 14 April 2015. The album was put onto a fictional in-game radio station called "The Lab" to fit with the rest of the in-game music. A retail version of the album
Music of Grand Theft Auto V - Misplaced Pages Continue
1984-430: The free-rock band that would become Tangerine Dream . Froese declared himself to be vegetarian, teetotal , and a non-smoker; he also did not take drugs. Froese was married to artist and photographer Monika (Monique) Froese from 1974 until her death in 2000. Their son Jerome Froese was a member of Tangerine Dream from 1990 through 2006. In 2002, Edgar Froese married artist and musician Bianca Froese-Acquaye . Froese
2046-424: The full-scale range representing ±1 V or A rather than a sound pressure. Audio compact discs (CDs) do not use the WAV file format, using instead Red Book audio . The commonality is that audio CDs are encoded as uncompressed 16-bit 44.1 kHz stereo LPCM, which is one of the formats supported by WAV. Audio in WAV files can be encoded in a variety of audio coding formats, such as GSM or MP3 , to reduce
2108-595: The game involved a greater discernment than in Grand Theft Auto IV , as the music in Grand Theft Auto V played a greater role in building a Californian atmosphere. "It reflects the environment in which the game is set", he explained. Initially, the team planned to license over 900 tracks for the radio, but over time they refined the total number of tracks to 241. The tracks are shared between 18 stations, including two talk radio stations. Some of
2170-409: The game's development , the music team were shown an early build before starting work on the score. Their work was mostly complete later in development but they continued composing until its final build was submitted for manufacturing. Edgar Froese , Tangerine Dream's founding member, initially rejected the offer of producing music for a video game. After he was flown to the studio and shown the game, he
2232-504: The game's sound design "impeccable", directing praise at the score. The staff at Edge wrote that the licensed music "enrich[es] Los Santos' already remarkable sense of space" and considered that the original score enhanced the atmosphere of the gameplay, retrospectively noting "...it's only in replaying GTAV ' s missions that you come to appreciate the complexity and power of [Rockstar's] bespoke, dynamic score, whose rhythms do so much to achieve that age-old videogame goal of creating
2294-448: The genre of music the station hosts; for example, in developing Los Santos Rock Radio the team licensed classic rock tracks and it was decided that Kenny Loggins was a fitting choice as the station's DJ. Edgar Froese Edgar Willmar Froese ( German: [ˈɛtɡaʁ ˈfʁøːzə] ; 6 June 1944 – 20 January 2015) was a German musical artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding
2356-435: The original score idea as "daunting", because it was unprecedented for a Grand Theft Auto game. Like most previous series entries, the game uses licensed music tracks provided by an in-game radio as well. Pavlovich hoped that the original score would enhance the licensed music use, not detract from it. He further noted the balancing act between the score's "ambient subtext and tensions" and the game's onscreen action. To work on
2418-507: The radio and the pop just seeps out ... We wanted that. It really connects you to the world". He felt that greater discernment was required for licensed music choices than in Grand Theft Auto IV because Grand Theft Auto V ' s music plays a pivotal role in generating Californian atmosphere. Music "reflects the environment in which the game is set", he said. Initially, the team planned to license over 900 tracks for
2480-571: The radio but they refined the number to 241. The tracks are shared between fifteen stations, with an additional two talk-back stations and a radio station for custom audio files on the PC version. Some tracks were written specifically for the game, such as rapper and producer Flying Lotus ' original work composed for the FlyLo FM station he hosts. Pavlovich noted how the team would first develop an idea of what each station would sound like, and then select
2542-416: The radio stations, and selecting a disc jockey that matches the genre of music the station hosts. The soundtrack consists of a wide variety of radio stations that play different genres of music, including reggae , hip hop , hardcore punk , pop and country . In September 2014, it was announced that new songs would be added to some of the radio stations in the next-gen releases of the game. In developing
Music of Grand Theft Auto V - Misplaced Pages Continue
2604-443: The radio stations, the development team sought to reinforce the game's recreation of California by licensing tracks they felt appropriately echoed a "Cali feel". On the inclusion of the pop station Non-Stop-Pop FM, music supervisor Ivan Pavlovich noted "the first time you get off an airplane in L.A. and you hear the radio and the pop just seeps out... We wanted that. It really connects you to the world". He felt that music licensing for
2666-528: The remaining tracks on discs three and four are described as "re-mixed plus additional recordings by Edgar Froese". The tracks on discs one and two are also remixed and contain new overdubs, and Froese is credited as producer for the entire album. Another compilation box set, the 6-CD I-Box (2001) contains further bonus tracks credited only to Froese: "Ivory Town", "Storm Seekers", "Cool Shibuya" and "Akash Deep". Several of Froese's tracks from Tangents are included as well. The Tangerine Dream album Views from
2728-401: The sample data that follows. This chunk includes information such as the sample encoding, number of bits per channel, the number of channels, and the sample rate. The WAV specification includes some optional features. The optional <fact-ck> chunk reports the number of samples for some compressed coding schemes. The <cue-ck> chunk identifies some significant sample numbers in
2790-405: The score "dynamic to say the least", praising the music for its appropriation within the gameplay. He concluded that the team have "craft[ed] an entertaining blend of musical tastes that everyone can get on board with". Tshepo Mokoena of The Guardian deemed the soundtrack "inaccessibly trendy at points, but varied enough". The album peaked at 11 on Billboard ' s Top Soundtracks charts in
2852-634: The score" a challenge. Pavlovich found that while Rockstar assigned the team missions to write music for, some of their random creations influenced other missions and sparked inspiration for further score development. He discussed a "stem-based" system used to make music fit dynamic game factors where the team would compose music to underscore outcomes players could make immediately after completing missions. Each of these stems, Froese reflected, included up to 62 five-minute WAV files, which were sent to Pavlovich in New York. "He then created, very professionally,
2914-427: The score, Rockstar engaged The Alchemist , Oh No , Tangerine Dream and Woody Jackson , the latter of which had previously worked on Red Dead Redemption , L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3 ' s music. The team of producers collaborated over several years to create more than twenty hours of music that scores both the game's missions and dynamic gameplay throughout the single-player and multiplayer modes. Early in
2976-440: The sensation of playing a movie." Carolyn Petit of GameSpot also thought that the score "lends missions more cinematic flavour", while Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb said that the score helped enhance dramatic tension during missions. Keza MacDonald of IGN commented that the licensed music had been selected well, and agreed that the original score "builds tension" on missions. Alex Young of Consequence of Sound considered
3038-468: The standard WAV format and supports defining custom extensions to the format. A RIFF file is a tagged file format. It has a specific container format (a chunk ) with a header that includes a four-character tag ( FourCC ) and the size (number of bytes) of the chunk. The tag specifies how the data within the chunk should be interpreted, and there are several standard FourCC tags. Tags consisting of all capital letters are reserved tags. The outermost chunk of
3100-415: The tracks were written specifically for the game; for example, rapper and producer Flying Lotus hosts the station FlyLo FM which includes original work he composed for the game. For each of the radio stations, over time the team would develop an understanding of where the station's music was going and then select a DJ to host the station. Each station's DJ was selected with the mindset that they would match
3162-400: The wave file. The <playlist-ck> chunk allows the samples to be played out of order or repeated rather than just from beginning to end. The associated data list ( <assoc-data-list> ) allows labels and notes to be attached to cue points; text annotation may be given for a group of samples (e.g., caption information). Finally, the mandatory <wave-data> chunk contains
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#17328009835263224-434: The week of 12 October 2013. The Cinematographic Score — GTA 5 was released on 24 March 2014, limited to 2000 copies. The album was composed and produced by Tangerine Dream founder Edgar Froese , while his wife Bianca Acquaye provided the cover art and acted as executive producer. Froese agreed to work on the game despite his distaste for the medium, intrigued by Grand Theft Auto V ' s philosophy of "working against
3286-573: Was a friend of such artists as David Bowie , Brian Eno , Iggy Pop , George Moorse , Volker Schlöndorff , Alexander Hacke and Friedrich Gulda . Pop and Bowie lived with Froese and his family at their home in Schöneberg before moving to their apartment on Hauptstraße. Froese also helped Bowie with his recovery from drugs and introduced him to the Berlin underground scene. Bowie named Froese's solo album Epsilon in Malaysian Pale as
3348-417: Was also featured in-game. In February 2022, the songs from the radio station were collectively released as a digital EP named GTA Online: The Contract through Aftermath Records and Interscope Records . Since the game's location is modelled on Southern California , the developers attempted to create an accurate representation of the region. Production of the soundtrack also consisted of licensing music for
3410-500: Was developed and published for the first time in 1991 by IBM and Microsoft . It is the main format used on Microsoft Windows systems for uncompressed audio . The usual bitstream encoding is the linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM) format. WAV is an application of the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) bitstream format method for storing data in chunks , and thus is similar to the 8SVX and
3472-500: Was impressed by its scale and cinematic nature, and changed his mind. Froese's first eight months of work on the score produced 62 hours of music. He recorded with Tangerine Dream in Austria but further work was conducted at Jackson's United States studio, which The Alchemist and Oh No used as well. Jackson's initial role was to provide score for Trevor's missions, and he took influence from artists such as The Mars Volta and Queens of
3534-783: Was not in accordance with the academic way of thinking, he left the college with the remark: "The dust of the universities is like a shroud over the truth." In 1965 he formed a band called The Ones, who played psychedelic rock , and some rock R&B standards. While playing in Spain, The Ones were invited to perform at Salvador Dalí 's villa in Cadaqués . Froese's encounter with Dalí was highly influential, inspiring him to pursue more experimental directions with his music. The Ones disbanded in 1967, having released only one single "Lady Greengrass" (b/w "Love of Mine") on Star-Club Records. After returning to Berlin, Froese began recruiting musicians for
3596-465: Was released digitally on 15 December 2023. All song names are stylised in uppercase. On December 18, 2020, three singles were released by Rockstar alongside the Grand Theft Auto Online update The Cayo Perico Heist . The singles were released by various artists and contained music that was featured in the update. A new radio station was added to Grand Theft Auto Online in its The Contract update in December 2021, featuring music from Dr. Dre who
3658-440: Was released digitally on 24 September 2013, in three volumes, including an original score composed for the game in addition to selections from songs that were licensed for the in-game radio. The retail version of the soundtrack was released on 9 December 2014, for CD and vinyl through Mass Appeal Records . In the context of the game, The Music of Grand Theft Auto V was well received. Jim Sterling of Destructoid considered
3720-471: Was released on 21 April through Mass Appeal Records . David Jeffries of AllMusic felt that the album "captures the excitement of flipping the radio dial in the game". Pitchfork Media 's Clayton Purdom praised the album's variety of artists and genres, calling it "music blooming out of a club you are supposed to want to go into". Andrew Matson of NPR spoke positively of most of the album's tracks, though felt that some were "unconsidered, and ... never jells as
3782-632: Was released on streaming services on March 1, 2019. All song names are stylised in uppercase . All tracks are composed and produced by Jacob Duzsik and John Famiglietti, except for "Slaves Of Fear (Arena War Remix)", written by Jacob Duzsik, John Famiglietti and Lars Stalfors , produced by Stalfors, with additional production by Dave Cerminara and Stint . DāM-FunK Presents The Music of Grand Theft Auto Online Original Score features music featured in Grand Theft Auto V ' s multiplayer mode, Grand Theft Auto Online . It features songs from several artists, re-arranged and produced by Dam-Funk . The album
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#17328009835263844-702: Was therefore created for use in Sound Forge . Its 64-bit file size field in the header allows for much longer recording times. The RF64 format specified by the European Broadcasting Union has also been created to solve this problem. Since the sampling rate of a WAV file can vary from 1 Hz to 4.3 GHz , and the number of channels can be as high as 65535, WAV files have also been used for non-audio data. LTspice , for instance, can store multiple circuit trace waveforms in separate channels, at any appropriate sampling rate, with
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