I recently had a chance to sit down with a couple of members of Freestyle games to talk DJ Hero 2 at an event held in San Francisco. This time I cornered Tom in his DJ booth just before he was about to go on stage and show off a few of his skills. His focus is more about making the music sound great in the game, and he’s done a great job so far. He’s got some interesting things to say about being a DJ, so if you’re interested in that at all then you should definitely give this a read.
Would you like to introduce yourself and tell the readers a bit about what you do on DJ Hero 2?
Hi, my name is Tom Oke. I’m one of the lead remixers of DJ Hero 2. I’ve been with the DJ Hero team from the very beginning, and I’ve contributed 10 mixes to the sequel.
How do you feel about the way your mixes turned out?
One of the mixes I created is actually my favourite track in the game, not that I’m biased or anything… I got to mix Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop with Sean Paul, and I had a lot of fun putting in police sirens and cars screeching in the background to kind of get that Axel Foley feel. It was an idea I had for the first game, but everyone laughed at me and said it wouldn’t work. But I kept pushing them to let me create it, and it made it to DJ Hero 2.
Can you name your top 3 songs in the game?
Top 3 huh? Other than the previously mentioned song, obviously Gaga and Dead Mau5 was one that we all thought was really strong, and it’s kind of become the unofficial anthem of DJ Hero 2. Janet Jackson vs. Justice is also great just because the Justice track is based around Michael Jackson, and pairing it with Janet we thought would be pretty good. We also have got Malcolm McLaren in there, which is just a bit of a tribute to him since he’s passed away. Those would have to be some of my top songs in the game, though there are so many more all worthy of mention.
How many years have you been DJing for?
I’ve been into DJing since I was about 16 years old, so it’s completely my passion and I’ve always wanted to be involved in some way in the music industry. I’ve always loved music games too, so I guess it’s kind of like the ideal job for me here at Freestyle Games. My dad is an opera singer and my mom is a music teacher, so I had music everywhere around me when I was younger. My dad would be practicing in a nearby room and I’d be trying to play [Sega] Genesis or the Megadrive with a friend or something, which caused a bunch of embarrassment actually. Because of them though, I gained a real love of music and became super passionate about it. Growing up I just had to be involved in music, whether it was creating it or altering it, and I found that when you’re DJing you get to do a bit of both. It’s such fun because you’re in control of the party, and everyone else is having a great time because you are too.
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How did you get started with DJing in the first place then?
Well I remember my parents saying when I was 17 that I could either have driving lessons, or I could have [turntable] decks. Thinking back, it doesn’t really make sense because driving lessons would have been much more money, so I probably should have taken them… but I was just so desperate to get a pair of decks at the time. I just had a double cassette deck back then, which I used to tape stuff off the radio to see what different songs mixed together sounded like. I just pressed play on both of them at the same time to see what would come out, so even back then I was always interested in manipulating music.
Do you think the DJ Hero game represents the actual feeling of DJing well?
Oh totally! It really does. It’s great that it’s not just a simulator though, because I think that’d be a bit dull at times. A lot of what you do behind the decks is like: slow it down a bit, speed it up a bit, slow it down again, etc. and I don’t think that’d translate into a game very well. Definitely when you pull off some of the complicated moves, like when you nail it perfectly and the music doesn’t drop out or anything, then it does feel similar to when you drop a track in a big club.
Is there anything important to DJing that you feel could still be missing from DJ Hero 2?
Not particularly no, especially since we’ve got the freestyle stuff in it now too. The freestyle cross fade, freestyle scratch and whatnot I would have maybe said was missing in the first game, but now we’ve got it in the second game so I think we’ve covered all bases.
Do you think it’s a big improvement over the first one?
I think it’s a massive improvement. We’ve got so many new big things, music wise and new features. Getting Tiesto is amazing, because he’s such a big DJ and his music spans every culture.
Would you consider him your favourite artist to work with then?
I really like him, but I have to say that A-trak was great to work with because he’s like a hero of mine. He won the DMC’s at age 15 or so, which is a big turntablist competition. I remember watching him when I was a similar age at the time, and I was just thinking “my god he’s amazing.†It’s really something watching a 15 year old destroy this contest, and it was really fun meeting him. He came to the studio and we had a bit of a laugh together while he watched one of my mixes that I had done with his track. That was really cool.
Is there an artist that you’d like to work with that you haven’t already?
Well, working with Madonna or something like that would be good. Someone like that who’s a real pop icon would be excellent. Aim high right?
When you do decide who’s going to be put in the game then, what would be the first steps in creating a new mix?
Making DJ Hero mashups involves lots of steps. We’ve got to check things like: what’s popular in the charts, what’s been big in the past, what DJs there are, what songs they have, and what genres are particularly big at any point in time. Then we have to sit down as a group and figure out what tracks could go fit together basically. That’s all done by taking into account the tempo and key of the song, and a bunch of other technical stuff. After we’ve got the mashups planned out, we just divide them up between us and start creating the songs in our sound software. Then we mark it up for the game (code it), and playtest it like crazy until we’ve got fun patterns that will give the player that feeling of nailing it.
What’s the easiest way to figure out what tracks would go together then?
There really is no rhyme or reason to it, because as I mentioned earlier the Axel Foley song and Sean Paul are two completely different styles. You could laugh at the idea of it as some coworkers did, but it’s kind of quirky and it turned out to be quite fun. Obviously not all of the songs can be like that though, as some have to be serious of course. If we did that to something like a Rihanna track, it might be a bit strange. Rihanna fans might not appreciate it, but because there generally aren’t going to be a lot of hardcore fans of an instrumental track from Beverly Hills Cop, we had the licensing to do whatever we wanted with it. Basically we have to be sympathetic to the artists I’d say.
What’s the first thing you start with when mixing a new track then? Just the absolute basics.
The absolute basics of DJing would be to make sure the songs are the same speed first, so on a set of decks that involves sliding the pitch control around a bit. We have access to special software to do that and make sure it’s all lining up exactly right. Then we chop bits out where the cross fades are going to be, maybe like accentuate certain bits of the track, and that’s it for basics.
What’s your favourite part about working on DJ Hero?
My favourite part about working on these titles is watching people play the mixes that I have created. I remember when the first game came out and I searched YouTube for all the different mixes I had done, and I loved watching people and kids sitting around with the DJ table in hand getting excited when they were able to play part of it perfectly. That’s still amazing fun to watch even now.
What would be your favourite aspect of the sequel?
I reckon one of my favourite things about DJ Hero 2 is the two player mode, because I don’t think we quite nailed that in the first one… but in the second one we really have. We’ve got accumulator battles, where you have to get a streak of notes and bank them at the right time, which makes the gameplay really exciting. That’s one of the major things, but also the vocal mark up because it lets you sing along to all the mashups we’ve made for the game.
Thanks for taking the time to speak with us Tom, and we look forward to playing your mixes when the game comes out!
No problem! DJ Hero 2 will be out late October, so make sure to pick up your copy then. You’ll have amazing fun!
