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Op-Ed: there must be an improvement in MK11's soundtrack, featuring the Netherkast's Shad!

Charybdis

We are returned! Death to the False Emperor!
The rebirth of Mortal Kombat, and the team behind it, from a team within Midway Studios to Netherrealm, an autonomous studio under the auspices of WB has brought an almost total increase in quality. Compare the last efforts under the Midway label to the last two attempts under the Netherrealm label: Armageddon and MKvDC, almost unanimously considered the worst games in the history of the franchise, versus Mortal Kombat X and Injustice 2, which, from an objective perspective, are almost certainly the best.

Graphics relative to the competition, gameplay, balance, meta, story mode, marketing, everything has improved massively. There can be no doubt that the enhanced time and funds afforded to the team under WB has massively improved the overall quality of the games, even if it has arguably come at the ‘commercialization’ of the franchise through the addition of multiple guest characters.

One thing that has actively regressed, however, to the point where it is demonstrably worse than at any other point in the franchise, is the music.


The glory days.

Compare, for instance, this…..


…with this


Now, obviously music is almost entirely subjective. If you think the music in the most recent NRS games has been great, more power to you. I have to acknowledge that music, like all art, is inherently subjective (although I will say, to quote Yahtzee Croshaw, “if you maintain that a book is more enjoyable if the pages are covered with brown sauce, I don’t care if it’s your opinion, you’re just wrong”).

It is entirely likely that there is someone reading this who genuinely thinks that Five Finger Death Punch is good metal…..

Allow me to correct you

….or that Drake is good hip hop….

Allow me to correct you once again

….and that’s totally fine. In my opinion, however, the music in the more recent NRS games and is demonstrably worse. So, dear reader, preface everything below with the qualifier “in my opinion”.

And its also the opinion of the one and only @Shad, who you almost certainly know as one of the voices of the Netherkast. Although he is a grown man who still listens to The Cure, he’s also a grown man who listens to Nine Inch Nails and KMFDM, so it balances out.


Not pictured: a band anyone over 16 should listen to.

I had intended to critically assess the more recent Mortal Kombat soundtracks but Shad has saved me from doing so, and done it far better than I ever could have. He writes:

MK's musik has been on an unsteady slide for about a good decade now

If I had to put a measuring tape to it, I'd say that the drop-off in MK's soundtrack quality started at MKDC with the advent of the seventh generation of consoles. And before we go into it, let me get out of the way the fact that in terms of fighting game themes, Capcom’s classic works are seldom surpassed and so when MK games are compared to their repertoire, there’s a clear gap. But they’ve always been enjoyable nevertheless, and many has been the occasion when an old stage and its theme have been reintroduced, and sometimes reworked.

That said, prior to the introduction of the PS3 and X-Box 360, MK music always had a few common factors woven through the vast majority of the games' soundtracks. Frequently, one could find an Eastern influence in terms of instruments - common to MKI, II, and 4, and present in later games’ stages like Falling Cliffs or Liu Kang's Tomb up through the 3D game era. Think, for example, of Taiko drums, woodwinds, and the Koto, the Japanese harp, lovingly emulated throughout MK1's soundtrack.

And as the series became associated with dance music thanks to "The Immortals" ‘ (aka Praga Khan and Olivier Adams of Lords of Acid fame) Techno Syndrome track, and subsequently grew through two films and three soundtrack albums' worth of association with industrial rock, metal and EBM music, so too did the music of MK evolve to incorporate these influences. Starting with MK3, an emphasis on funky, catchy hooks and rhythms becomes noticeable. Synthesizers become woven into the fabric of the soundtracks and the music verged on the danceable more often than not. And with a bow of the head to the likes of Fear Factory, sometimes you had tracks that completely rocked, electric guitar distortion FX liberally melting faces across tracks like Slaughterhouse or Lower Mines/MKD's Pit, or Armageddon's take on Hell/The Netherrealm. So, to sum, usually you could dance to an MK stage theme, sometimes you could headbang to it. There was rhythm and melody and more often than not a groove.

Now with every new generation comes the capacity for better graphics, better sound. And while I wouldn't call Mortal Kombat vs. DC's soundtrack especially horrible, there's a trend that emerges here and continues to the present day - perhaps in view of the presence of comic book heroes, with whom come a collective history of sweeping orchestral scores. Think of the epic film themes of Superman and Batman, and how the feel of those scores, particularly Batman's, was transposed to the spectacular DC Animated Universe across its various opening numbers from Batman: The Animated Series all the way through to Justice League Unlimited, and it's easy to see how the influence worked its way into the game's OST. There's a focus on strings and horns which dominates much of the soundtrack. Even the MK stages seem to bear mere hints of the Eastern instrumentation at times. The synths are present, as they've ever been, but here is where they begin to give way to the orchestrated feel which would occupy much of MK9 and X's aural space. When I first played MKDC, I found myself simply listening to the soundtrack passively - that's seldom happened before. And I start to wonder if, just because the sound design team had the opportunity to make the soundtrack bigger in scope – lending the flavor of the epic feel of a big self-indulgent Hollywood film – did it mean that they should have?

By contrast, I actually enjoy a good deal of MK9's soundtrack. I might be an outlier in this, but I particularly enjoy their takes on the Courtyard - both of them, especially the nighttime variation. Goro's Lair still feels urgent and deadly. Themes for familiar areas like the Soul Chamber and The Living Forest are still menacing and foreboding, the electric guitar work threaded through the latter impeccably for a good new spin on an old favorite of mine. The Subway retains its urban feel, the hip-hop flavor intact (though I do wish the familiar lead guitar line were a bit closer to the forefront).

As with the Forest's theme, the new bridge section slots in and suits it perfectly. And The Pit kicks my ass. There's no doubt in my mind that MK9's score pays due respect to a lot of the original MK1-3 themes; in my view it's to be commended more than disparaged. There are several new themes that hit the right spot for me too; hell’s new theme gets a good take; though I preferred Armageddon's metal-laden work, I suspect this change was made to better underscore the dramatic scenes which occur here in Story mode. I really enjoy Kahn's Throne Room as well, and the Flesh Pits theme slithers along with a sinister air; I hope to revisit that number someday. And the overhauled Shang Tsung's Garden theme does makes me want to kick some ass.

But then you have tracks like the Bell tower, a new composition that makes little mark, though I applaud the sound team for trying to give it its own identity. The Desert, though possessing the aforementioned Eastern feel, comes across as generic somehow. It's a slight, atmospheric piece and for most of its duration, I don't feel involved or swept away. It’s the same with the Street theme; some sort of unrecognizable quasi-meshing of MK3's Bridge and Street stages, it feels like. If I had to say it sounded like either one of those, I'd aim for the Bridge theme, but just barely. Whatever they were going for here didn't work, and it just comes out generic. Shang Tsung's Throne Room starts with promise, but in a bizarre choice, remains subdued and quiet for much of its span, eschewing much of the original focus on the strings' melody in favor of a focus on its percussion and the occasional string crescendo. Like many of the lesser tracks, it meanders. It fails to bring you into the moment.

Where's the bombast of Shao Kahn's Arena? The immediacy and urgency of the original track is gone in favor of an aimless and flavorless take that (much like Shao Kahn's MK9 outfit) bears but a superficial resemblance to the original. Sometimes changes are made by need; I quite like the updated ethereal feel of the Graveyard; it's the one big instance where I think leaving the X-Files tinged creepy-spacey air of the original behind for a focus on strings and tension was a reasonable choice. I think it worked, but I've heard more than a few fans voice their disapproval on this one.

In my view, there's a trend with MK9/2011's soundtrack - much of it is tinged through with that orchestration which came to the forefront in MKDC, and where it's placed in focus, the times where the music sounds less like 'fighting game stage themes' and more like pieces written to set a scene - that's where it can be said to suffer. But it's far from a case of that feel being universal throughout the game. The old tracks mostly flourish, and the new ones mostly don't, is all.

Which brings me to MKX, and I’d like to apologize to the sound team in advance for what I’m about to say.

Where do I start? What happened?

A common criticism about MKX's presentation is that it's bland and washed out, that the visuals feel flat and brown and ugly. It's been said that a common reaction to X is 'meh', as good a game as it is, and I suspect that the sound as much as the visuals might play a part in that. For all that I say MK9/2011's score can be said to be passive and aimless at points, the mix feels very much focused and polished.

Mortal Kombat X's score feels like a bland soup of too much going on at once, instruments often in competition for dominance but rarely placed in the foreground to seize the moment. Utterly unfocused. And all of it sounding vaguely the same, the lion's share of it like a great big epic movie score, most of it thoroughly unmemorable. To me it is absolutely the worst soundtrack in MK's history, a giant misstep. Pains me to say it, but there it is.

And yet it's got the familiar elements. The prior notable elements of MK's soundtrack work are present - leanings of rock, leanings of synthesizer, taiko drums - but this time everything sounds homogenized and blends into each other. Horn and string sections are omnipresent. Leitmotif feels all but absent. The arena themes are not music to fight to, but music that feels like it's meant to cycle in the background while people fight, and there's a gigantic difference there. Worse, every track is broken up into unique segments per round, and this plays a significant part in robbing each arena of the aural identity that MK's stages have enjoyed in the past.

Let's take the Jinsei Chamber's theme. Round one starts off with a low synth and string buildup to the proper start of the round, nice cycling rock riff kicks in, and then strings scream for tension like a horror film, then there's a quick guitar breakdown, and then the round's over. Round two places more focus on the strings, the electric broken up into two-note chunks while horns build up before a wavy synth effect interrupts, and then the horns dominate while synths wash around in the background. A string breakdown ends the round. Round three revisits the cycling riff from round one, except that it kicks in with heavy drums and subdued strings and guitar accompaniment. Gradually there's a wah synthesizer effect which makes itself known and they all drive the riff along until the climax.

That's the structure for MKX's arena themes - introduce some elements of a track in the first round, rearrange the feel with more in the second, bring it all together for an (allegedly) rousing third. I could write that basic description for most any track, swap around instrument names, and I wouldn't be far off. Usually there's a guitar. There's always a big percussion section. And maybe if we're lucky there's one instrument unique to the track that helps to lend flavor, like Kuatan Jungle's hints of good ol' Aussie didgeridoo.

And almost all of it so...subdued. The Kove's music is dominated by aforementioned drums, horns, and background strings, and yet nothing leaps out to get one's attention but a synth whine in the second and third round. What instruments are really being allowed to lead here? What's calling for attention? Nothing, really. It...somewhat feels like background music suitable for a fight on a bridge under darkened skies, sure. Sorta. And there's a problem: What separates the Jinsei Chamber, a locus of energy for Earthrealm, from a refugee camp? What separates that camp from a destroyed city? Chug-chug, chug-chug go the guitars in the Dead Woods. And the Krossroads. And the Destroyed City. And...the Emperor's Kourtyard in the third round for some reason.

A little while ago, I tried an experiment in one of my many attempts to find something to like about MKX's score. I put the arena themes in my music player, pressed play and went about my day. With the exception of Kuatan jungle, I had to guess a few times at identifying most of the stages the tracks were assigned to. That should never, ever be happening in an MK game, where location has always stood out, and the music totally suits the mood. Is this in part because the stages themselves are by and large not particularly exotic by MK standards? Debatable. I'd call it part of the problem. In theory, 'some place in hell', 'a creepy woodland' and 'a ruined city' are standard MK fare. But there is sadly something of the mundane that afflicts every background, which the music does little to alleviate. It likely even highlights that unfortunate dullness.

In a Mortal Kombat game, I should not be listening to someone soundcheck the same two-to-seven distorted guitar notes over eastern percussion and lilting string and horn sections nearly every single time I enter a stage, and those stages' moods should not be interchangeable. There's a dearth of variety at play. It's almost like one giant score. Say, for a movie. I heard MKX's score referred to not so long ago as 'Zimmerized' as a comparison to the Nolan Batman trilogy. Can't say I disagree with the sentiment.

You'll note I haven't brought up any of Injustice's soundtrack work - that's because from day one it's all been the same. As I type this I'm going through various IJ2 themes and, yep, I'm hearing nothing but horns and violins and strings it's mostly the same - an extension of what came to the fore in MKDC. Hell, you could make Brainiac's ship theme into an MKX arena and I probably wouldn't notice much of a difference. And just like Lex Luthor and his proverbial forty cakes - that's terrible.

I sincerely hope NRS' sound team stops writing for a theatre for every one of their games and starts writing for locations again, at least as far as MK is concerned, and breaks out some different instruments. Remember, we used to be able to dance and rock and really move to this stuff, not just bob our heads a little.

We can do better. C'mon guys - remind me I'm in Outworld again.
I fully agree with the above: but why is this the case? If all of the funds and time available to the team serve to enhance the games quality everywhere else, why does the same principle not serve to enhance the quality of the music?

I once heard a theory that constraints breed creativity, that by having set parameters to work in, creativity blossoms. Think about it this way: if someone asks you to tell a joke, your mind goes blank. If someone asks you tell a joke about children, you say [EDITOR’S NOTE: Removed on grounds of decency and to save the soul of anyone else who would read the joke.]


Charybdis is dead inside.

So, under that logic, when Dan Forden sat down to work on the soundtracks for the earlier games, limited by technology, budget, time and available additional personnel, he was trammeled by those constraints, allowing the creative juices to flow. On the other hand, when presented with almost a year of massive budget, technology and as many personnel as any game in the industry, the lack of constraints means that there is simply not the equivalent level of creativity.

That may be part of it, but I don’t think it’s the entirety of it. If we look at some of the music used in the trailers for MKX, it stands out as being of far higher quality than the music actually in the game.

What, did you think I was going to link Wiz Khalifa? Get that **** outta here.

So what else can we look to for an explanation? Well, I would argue that there has been a deliberate policy from Netherrealm to utilise music in the franchise in such a way that, possibly inadvertently, reduces the importance and quality of the music.

In the arcade, the loud blasting music of the game served as one of it’s most powerful attractions to grab the attention of the crowd, while even beyond the arcade and into the console, it serves to set the ambience. MK1, 2 and 4 are rooted in Eastern mysticism, so the music for those games is heavily Eastern-tinged, a feel brought back in Deadly Alliance, combined with modern electronica.


MK3 and Deception, however, are different. MK3, although it began the tradition of camp in series, has music far closer to industrial dance and metal, set as it is in the midst of what is essentially a post-apocalyptic Earth.


Similarly, Deception is arguably the darkest game of the franchise in it’s tone and design, and heavy industrial music, almost reminiscent of early 90s industrial, carries this through.


The ambience of the most recent NRS games, however, has been decided, not only by the music, but by the story mode. The story mode has rapidly become arguably the USP of Netherrealm games, the ‘story’ fighting games, with wide branching cinematic story modes. This contrasts to the 'Konquest' mode of earlier games, even if the Konquest of MKDA remains the best source of lore in the history of the franchise and should absolutely be revived as an extended training mode, lore included.

Okay, it doesn't make for great viewing but trust me, it's awesome.

The stories themselves can be criticised (the script for MK9, taken away from it’s presentation, is actually extremely lacking in storytelling and logic) but, in all reasonableness, the presentation cannot, nor can the impact the story modes have had. Demands for story mode in fighting games have led to a far greater emphasis on story mode in fighting games, such as in Killer Instinct, Street Fighter V and MvC: Infinite, and this can largely be traced back to the advent of story modes in Netherrealm games, beginning with MKvDC and in earnest in MK9.

If story (as well as overall design and colour palette etc) is now the primary vector of ambience, what is the role of music? In my view, the role of music is now to enhance the story told through story mode. Instead of having the entire ambience of, for instance, the Pit or the Courtyard demonstrated through music, the ambience of Mortal Kombat is demonstrated through the story mode.

We do not need to 'feel' that Outworld is a dangerous, strange, twisted world: we can be shown such in story mode, or even told outright (though, given that MK9's soundtracks consists of remixes of previous themes, this is not so apparent with MK9). We do not need to 'feel' that the Lin Kuei Temple is a place of secrecy and martial arts training, we are shown it in story mode. The role of music in Mortal Kombat games is now to enhance the story being told, not to demonstrate ambience in and of itself.

This can be seen in the other Netherrealm series: Injustice. Right now, I want you to think of a single Injustice 2 stage theme. I'll give you a specific one: Gorilla City. How does that theme go?

Like this, incidentally.

To build on what @Shad said above regarding MKX, there is nothing in this theme which sets the ambience of Gorilla City. What is Gorilla City? What role does it play, how should we feel about it? The theme itself tells us nothing. For the love of God, it's a city built by sentient, hyper-intelligent giant gorillas in the middle of Africa and nothing about the theme screams 'African' or 'animalistic', and the same principle applies to every stage in Injustice 2 (with the arguable exception of Joker's Playground).


On the other hand, the Living Forest theme immediately tells us 'alien' and 'foreign', 'strange' and 'dangerous'. You can listen to that theme and get the ambience of the Living Forest without any other context.

In essence, music in Netherrealm games has become similar to music in most by-the-numbers Hollywood blockbusters, as averted to by @Shad above.. Leaving aside franchises to whom music is central (Star Wars being the great example), music in movies is intended to enhance the story told but to not itself absorb attention. Think about it: when was the last time you were distracted during a Michael Bay movie by the orchestral score behind the giant 80s toys smashing each other?

Similarly, the music in the most recent Netherrealm games is not designed to grab your attention, but to underscore the atmosphere of the cinematic story mode or the stage fought on. The music is bombastic but incidental, not memorable. Now, this doesn't necessarily reduce the quality of the music per se, but if music is designed to be incidental, to amplify rather than stand on it's own merits, that will, in my view, have a natural impact on the quality of that music relative to music design to stand on it's own merits.

But why is this an issue? To be fair, it isn’t, really. Music in a video game is very much a ‘quality of life’ issue, particularly when taken in conjunction with the massive other improvements and high quality in the most recent Netherrealm games.

And yet, music can be hugely important for reasons other than simple enjoyment, for three reasons.

The first of this is recognisability. Consistent themes lend huge amounts of recognisability to anything, be it characters within a fighting game or whole franchises, such as Guile’s Theme or the riff from Jin Kazama’s theme in Tekken 3. Now, this doesn’t really apply to Mortal Kombat, as Mortal Kombat never had characters tied to stages as other fighting games did. But there is no reason why improved quality of music could not itself lend the game and its characters enhanced recognisability from game to game. For instance, Jin Kazama's theme from Tekken 3 was echoed in a later theme in Tekken Tag 2



Jin also makes for an interesting character study for our purposes. He was introduced in a game with many new characters, made the central protagonist of the series and is the child of two previous characters.



And yet, Jin became beloved almost instantly, in a way that Cassie most certainly has not. Now, I'm not suggesting that the only reason for this is because Cassie doesn't have a bitchin' theme with an awesome riff, but that couldn't hurt could it?

Secondly, attraction to the franchise. Although the days of the arcade are gone, music can still serve to attract people and eventually make fans of them. For instance, I had no interest in Killer Instinct as a franchise until I heard some of Mick Gordon’s themes. In particular, his themes for Spinal, Orchid and Combo are some of the greatest music ever made into a video game. Not only does this serve to bring more fans to the franchise, it also helps with the recognisability touched on above.

In general when making a fighting game, if Killer Instinct Seasons 1 and 2 did something, its probably wise to do something similar.

Let's conduct the same experiment we did earlier with themes. So, remember how nondescript the Gorilla City theme is?


Unless you speak Swedish, you don't understand the lyrics, but you get what Spinal is about and you can imagine the kind of scene where one might find a character defined by this theme. The fact that you fight Spinal here only confirms that.


God, I love that game.

It's also worth noting that Mick Gordon is an absolute musical genius and having him on-board for MK11 would get me unbelievably pumped. Just a quick shout out there.

Finally, media profile. Mortal Kombat fans know this better than almost anyone: Techno Syndrome is arguably the single most widely known piece of Mortal Kombat media in the entirety of pop culture, even more so than the likes of Scorpion and Sub Zero.

You knew this was coming at some stage in this article

This helps these franchises grow within pop culture: what would Mortal Kombat actually be like with Techno Syndrome? Where would it stand in the pantheon of pop culture without that single song, and how much would Mortal Kombat’s pop culture soft power be diminished if that song were to never exist?

This brings us to an interesting issue. We all acknowledge the central role Techno Syndrome plays to the place of Mortal Kombat in pop culture and, even if it's slightly, ironic, we all love it. Even people who don't play video games love the song and that brings with it great recognition. And yet, Netherrealm have never used it.

Similarly, they've never used any of the other tracks from the album Techno Syndrome comes from, a concept album by the future Lords of Acid, consisting of a track for each of the original Mortal Kombat characters. To fans of a certain vintage, some of these songs are inherently wedded to these characters.

To younger fans, you're welcome.

The music is somewhat dated and cheesy, admittedly, but since when is Guile's Theme as timeless as Beethoven? There's no reason those songs couldn't be updated or remixed or featured in some way to enhance the profile of the game and the characters itself. I suspect the reason, frankly, is mild embarassment and a wish to distance modern MK games, with their serious, cinematic soundtracks, from the classic sounds. Which is odd, considering the only embarrassing music in the history of Mortal Kombat is Immortal.

So bad, it's bad.

So, to conclude, the music of Mortal Kombat has been on a significant decline and, for the good of the franchise, this decline must be arrested and music restored to the central importance it had during the classic era of the franchise. This would not only provide the enjoyment we would derive from better music, but would enhance the franchise itself in several ways.

What do you guys think? Would you like to see Netherrealm use music as less incidental and more central to the series? Can we all agree Mick Gordon working on Mortal Kombat themes would be an absolute dream?

Whatever you think, don’t forget to check back to TYM every day for all the latest news on Mortal Kombat, Injustice and everything NRS!
 
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Blade4693

VIVIVI
Yes. MKX had ZERO memorable songs in it, I am not even completely sure it had music at all. I certainly don't remember hearing anything of note. The original trilogy, some of the later games all had some memorable osts. Even MK9s redone versions of the classics were good.

MKX? Again, I don't even remember hearing the music.
 

MKF30

Fujin and Ermac for MK 11
As much as I hate to admit it, I don't even think MKvDC or MK Armageddon are the most hated, but MK 4 actually. The game gets literally no recognition. I also believe the former games sold much better.

For soundtracks, I love MK 2 and MK3/UMK3/MKT soundtracks, one thing gotta admit MK X's select screen had a boring music. They need to bring that MK 2, MK 3 or MK Deception kind of theme back. That dark, gritty this is MK you're playing theme with character select screen and some stages as well imo.
 

Konqrr

MK11 Kabal = MK9 Kitana
I couldn't name a single piece of music from either Injustice game or MKX...

Also, I like the Adema song lol
 

Lt. Boxy Angelman

I WILL EAT THIS GAME
Could not agree more.
Red Dragon and Falling Cliffs are still 2 of my favorite tracks of the franchise.
I am praying with all my power that this game is MKDA/Deception/Armageddon nostalgia the same way MK9 was for the originals.

If they're approaching this title with the same fire they did back then, it's gonna be better than MKX by several miles.

People forget how hype and addictive this stuff was back in the day.
 
first of all, game music has very different requirements than "normal" music, like playing in frequencies and at volumes that dont collide with important sound effects and language. you cant just put an unmodified hip-hop or DnB track under video game action; and if you modify it, it might lose its spirit (classical music works so good because it has few noise/punch elements which would mask many kinds of impact SFX).

Dan Forden is imo a good composer with a great taste in sound and capable of unconventional, tricky rhythms and melodies - still today. He did not make all the music for mkx though, only a fraction of it. The others composers are also good though.

My major gripe with mkx music is that the 3 round tracks for any stage seem completely unconnected to each other. if it would be a rise of tension in the same style for every round it would be great, but a completely new track starts. that doesnt make a sense to me and id like to see that improved.

otherwise, NRS games have a pretty subtle, but unique sound which i appreciate. not everynthing has to have the same "epical classic" 4/4 background music. and yes i also dislike the tendency into that direction.
 
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I don't think videogame music being memorable necessarily makes it good. Streetfighter has very memorable character themes, because they're very busy and melodic. I personally enjoy listening to them as standalones, but in-game I find them distracting.
 

RyuKazuya

Jesus is my Lord and Savior!
I definitely think this post is amazing just because it points out the problem with current NRS music. The presentation has changed entirely. Older MK titles stood out because of the unique music it had for each stages. The only MKX music that really comes to my mind is JInsei Chamber round 1, because of the Goro release trailer. Another thing that seemed to be very important to me is the music played during char selection. In older MK titles it had some sort of impact whenever you entered the char selection screen. It gave you the feeling of "Shit is about to go down". MKX however was quite boring in my opinion for just playing menu music. I hope they will change that in the next MK title! Let the music rock hard again!
 
I don't really think older mks had any memorable music. I've been playing this saga since i was like 10 yo and when i think about Mortal Kombat music the movie theme starts sounding instantly in my head.
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Audio Volume of NRS games needs to be updated indeed, most of the time it becomes hard to actually hear anything at all, this is also one of the reason why people can't remember MKX soundtracks, in the end, i think it cripled most of the great themes in the game, they also need to drop the movie theme soundtracks, i really wish Dan Forden could get his shit together.

Case in reference the best soundtracks from MKX if you do some magic to turn the volume up are:
The Kove (Round 2)
Kuatan Jungle (all 3 Rounds) probably the only MKX soundtracks with MK style of composition.
Outworld Market Place (Round1 and Round 2)
The pit (Round 1 and finish him loop)

Everything else it really felt like missed the mark.
 
i am a professional musician/audio engineer/producer

i am working curently (for fun of course) on stage music for mk11, i mean for myself. i would like to use it myself (you can mute the music but leave all other sounds on) when mk11 comes out.
when my music is finish maybe i could upload it so u guys could listen to it if u like.

the reason im doing this is, i dont like the newer nrs ost,s.
 
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Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
i am a professional musician/audio engineer/producer

i am working curently (for fun of course) on stage music for mk11, i mean for myself. i would like to use it myself (you can mute the music but leave all other sounds on) when mk11 comes out.
when my music is finish maybe i could upload it so u guys could listen to it if u like.

the reason im doing this is, i dont like the newer nrs ost,s.
I'm down, if you have soundcloud please share, i'm not a professional musician but i do sometimes upload stuff related to gaming music or TV shows music, i even compose some of them.

@DarkSlayerSmith is a natural at it, and we also do collabs from time to time with a mutual friend we have.