The Virtual Video Game Orchestra began last year as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down local in-person orchestras. Game Rant recently spoke to some key members of VVGO about the hurdles the group had to overcome, how open it is to new members, and the learning experience the past year has been for all of them.
The Virtual Video Game Orchestra had the chance to work with the composer of the original God of War trilogy, Gerard K. Marino, on the group’s third-ever cover. Game Rant couldn’t resist asking VVGO about how such a collaboration came to be, and what it was like to work with an industry veteran.
VVGO had only released two covers at that point, Metal Gear Solid 3‘s “Snake Eater” theme and Monster Hunter’s “Proof of a Hero.” As for how a fledgling YouTube channel nabbed an award-winning composer like God of War‘s Gerard K. Marino, it turns out one of VVGO’s co-founders, Jose Ruiz, played with Marino before in another orchestra at UCLA called the Game Music Ensemble.
VVGO had actually closed submissions on “The End Begins (To Rock)” from God of War 2/Guitar Hero before reaching out to Marino, but upon having him agree to join the project, it decided to reopen submissions. Gerard K. Marino’s star power caused the number of submissions to nearly double from 95 to 183. The group had 98 submissions on “Snake Eater” and 92 on “Proof of a Hero,” so to jump to 183 and land an industry talent did make the group a little nervous at the time.
But as for actually working with Marino, the group had nothing but praise for how hands-on he was with the project. Jacob Zeleny, who is a VVGO co-founder and leader of the audio engineering team, praised Marino’s willingness to chase perfection:
“He made it very clear that it was like, we want to make something really, really good. We don’t want to rush it, we want to focus on it and not let it just be something that we have a deadline that if it’s still not good, then it comes out crap. And that proved to be very wise words from him because that project actually took an extra month and a half to do than was originally planned, but we ended up turning something absolutely amazing out.
He is very good down to the dime of it and making sure that when he’s working on something that he’s focused on, getting the best possible product, and he understands the value of music and how it can impact people as well.”
Zeleny and co. were also impressed by Marino’s stitching together of multiple guitar solos by different artists to make it sound like the musicians actually were playing after one another. Marino also surprised the group when he selflessly decided not to contribute a guitar solo of his own, as Brandon Harnish, who first came up with the idea for VVGO, noted:
He was even going to play a solo and then gave it up and said, ‘Nah we’re going to have this other person continue to solo because what he played is better than what I was coming up with.’
Like, I think that was a really interesting move because we were always thinking like, Oh yeah, we’re going to feature the composer. It’s going to be awesome. And then he said, ‘no, no, I’m good. Like your people are awesome.’ And that was a really cool thing.”
Some may wonder why exactly the group opted to do the version of the song from Guitar Hero 3, specifically. Marino chose it, explaining to VVGO at the time, “because we can and we have all the things in place to make that happen,” according to Harnish. He also added that Marino contributed the original stems [original recordings of each instrument] he created when working on God of War 2, making it easier for VVGO members to cover their individual parts.
Another Virtual Video Game Orchestra member who prepares the music to be sent to each musician, Thomas Hakanson, also embellished the piece quite a bit further, adding six horn parts and an organ part, in order to compliment the “sheer hype of that song,” according to Harnish.
That wouldn’t be the last time VVGO would get to work with a video game composer, either. Maclaine Diemer, composer for Guild Wars 2, collaborated with the group on their a cappella performance of “Aurene, Dragon Full of Light.” Guild Wars has quite a few music fans, VVGO learned, as “a couple dozen” vocalists joined the VVGO’s Discord server just to lend their talents to the project, Harnish tells us.
As a treat to those new members, the group convinced Diemer to record video of himself conducting. The fans of Guild Wars were “just stunned” to have the game’s actual composer conducting them in the video. The positive reception has led to the video, which features no instruments, being one of VVGO’s most viewed songs, an irony which is not lost on the orchestra. Jackson Argo, who runs the orchestra’s website and Discord server joked that the orchestra “threw it in there for the choir guys.”
The Virtual Video Game Orchestra will be celebrating their first anniversary during VGMTogether, a three-day streaming event happening this weekend, celebrating video game music artists around the world. VVGO’s set begins at 9 AM PST/12 EST on Saturday, March 13. VVGO will have behind the scenes content and introduce their next song, a cover of “For Redemption, Decisive Battle II” from Octopath Traveler.
VVGO is also currently in different stages of production on songs from games like The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Final Fantasy 11, and Abzu. VVGO also accepts fan-submitted arrangements and welcomes musicians from any skill level. Those interested in finding out more about the Virtual Video Game Orchestra or joining their Discord server can do so here.
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