Interview with X Series Composer Alexei Zakharov

[Gregory]

The X-Universe is vast and beautiful. No matter where you are in the game, or what pursuits you are involved in, music is omnipresent. The music composed by Alexei Zakharov plays an integral part in creating the atmosphere of the universe and breathing life into its different locations and situations, from calm explorations to massive battles.

Today, we want to give you a glimpse into the mind of the artist behind the music, so we welcome Alexei for a short interview about his art and work for the X4 soundtrack. Enjoy!

Welcome, Alexei! How did you get into composing music?
I think that I always loved music. Even though none of my parents were musicians, music was always playing in our house. My dad was a fan of classic rock and was listening to Queen, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep… and little me was happy to be around that. My dad later told me that instead of lullabies, he was singing metal songs to me when I was born. Though I have never had a chance to get a proper music education, I was eager to play all musical instruments I saw, like old detuned and distorted sounding pianos at friends and relatives' houses, my granddad's broken balalaika (which I inherited), and every good sounding surface to use as a drum. When I grew up, I think that it was at the age of 13, my friend and I discovered our first music software, and I think that was one of the Trackers, probably Fast Tracker. There were many other software tools we tried back in the days, it was more out of the fun and I never thought that I would end up producing music professionally.

What are your biggest musical influences?
There have been many and they were changing throughout my life. As I have already said, I was really a fan of classical rock and I'm still listening to it. Also, some much heavier metal music. It always gives me energy, not always positive, but every energy and emotion is good for producing your own music. I also love to listen to some classical music: Sveridov, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov. Movie soundtracks too, but I am not a fan of modern soundtracks, when the sound is more important than the melody. Howard Shore is great in that regard, an amazing composer of an old school of soundtrack writing. As for games soundtracks, a lot are also way too generic these days. I can probably note Gareth Coker as one of the best composers in the games industry now. That guy rocks!

How did you come to create music for the X games?
It was a mix of luck and coincidence. Back in the day, I think it was the summer of 2003, I was already a fan of the X series and just on a whim decided to write an email to Egosoft, saying how much I love their games and how good the music in there was. I also mentioned that I am producing electronic music and would love to write something for them. A couple of days later, I received an answer from Bernd, the boss himself! I was shocked and happy at the same time, but he said that they don't really need any techno music, but that I am free to send whatever I have. I decided to write something completely new and after two days I had a track that I sent to him. He seemed to like it a lot and said that it will definitely end up being used in X2. This track was "Aurora" and you can find it on the X3: Albion Prelude soundtrack, which was released much later. After that, I composed several additional tracks like this and Bernd asked me to do music for a Rolling Demo, which was supposed to be released just a couple of days after his request. I composed four tracks for it on a very tight schedule, and the music was added to it just an hour before it was released. That was my first work for Egosoft. The rest is history.

Your music provides the X games with a strong identity. How do you explore the themes of the X-Universe musically?
I just play, explore and see myself... but trying to do that in small pieces. For example, we needed music for the HUB in our newly released expansion - X4: Timelines, I was just starting the game and making it run on a desktop for some time and was trying to imagine and feel what could fit each place there. After some time, I had a strict idea of what I should compose and how it would sound. After putting the tracks inside the game, I am also spending some time running around or just standing still and listening to the music and how it feels to be inside the game. Then I am showing the stuff to the team and listening to the feedback. That's my algorithm.

How do you approach your work on new X music? What does your creative process look like?
I have already partially answered that question in a previous one, but I can try to explain how it goes on a more global scale. On a global scale, it is always going very differently and sometimes even chaotic. Music production is spread throughout the whole development cycle. Since I am doing not just music, but the whole sound in our game, sound effects production and music production stages interchange with each other all the time. Sometimes it is hard to always change the way you work, but in other ways it helps to not be overly bored with doing the same stuff all the time. When it comes to the music composing itself, it is also coming very differently. Sometimes I just force myself to sit and write something, because I have to! But sometimes, I just manically wake up in the night and run to my studio PC to write a theme that just came to me in a dream. Music is such an unpredictable thing that it can get you in very uncommon places and you never know when exactly. And of course, these spontaneous tracks are the best. For example, track "Rise of the Protectorate" was composed like that. The idea of a vocoded robotized sounding choir came to me at night.

Do you compose only with electronic instruments, or do you also work with analog instruments?
I am mostly composing using hardware synthesizers and sampled orchestra. I own 6 synthesizers which I purchased during my career in Egosoft. Not everything at once, of course. My first purchase was a Virus TI, one of the most iconic modern synthesizers, which was sadly discontinued this year. It's one of my favourites for composing space-oriented music and I think that I will never ever get rid of it. Also, I own a couple of KORGs, and the last purchase was a Clavia Nord Stage 4. But if I need to enhance my tracks with live instruments, I contact my friends in the orchestra to record things for me. Whether it's a large-scale orchestra or just single instruments, it always sounds much better. Quite often I am also using real world sounds to enhance my music. For example, for the track "Mission Control" in X4: Timelines, I recorded the sound of my metal door. After working with that sound, I pitched it down and heavily effected it, it turned into this very ominous growling sound that you can hear throughout the whole track. That is just a small example of how these tracks become alive.

Which track that you have created for X are you most proud of and why?
I think that there is not one super specific one. Of course, I love what I do, but there is always room for improvement. We should never stop learning and evolve. So, I would leave that choice to our dear players and listeners.

Have you ever encountered a creative barrier while composing? How have you overcome those hurdles?
Of course, I have and that is a part of the creative work process, when you always have to do something new, but in a way, so that your audience will be happy and not disappointed. I think that is my main blocking factor, not to disappoint, and make it as good so the team and myself are happy with the results. But, as always, most of these blocks are mainly in my head and I tend to give them too much room. What helps? Hmm... maybe walking in the forest, or sitting on a bench at the river, always different stuff. But sometimes, the most helpful thing is just to force myself to sit down and just do it.

Are there themes or musical influences that you would like to explore further in the future?
We are always trying something new. Though in slow portions. But for the future, I would like to make a bigger step in changing music. It could become darker and much heavier, but of course, it will stay melodic.

What is your single most important advice for aspiring artists?
Don't start it, haha. It will take all of your time, heart, emotions and even eats you alive… and it is not guaranteed that you will become successful in any way and make you profit. But if you are not afraid, and have already decided to overcome all of this, it is your first step to becoming successful. Just remember how hard the road can be and that many famous composers were not actually famous during their lifetime. Many of them were unhappy and never believed truly in their work. Only much later have people acknowledged their genius. So, after saying this, my advice would be to believe in your work. Maybe today, nobody listens to it, but if you will be truly faithful to your job, there will be a time when it will be appreciated!

Besides creating music for a whole universe, what do you enjoy in life right now?
Oh, I don't have much time for anything else. Probably just playing games sometimes, since this is my first passion after music. Travelling to mountains, once a year. Mountains give me a lot of energy and inspire me a lot. I would say that this is my place of power.

Where can people follow you and your work?
Sadly, I don't have any website at the moment, since all we need are social networks these days. So, here are my social pages and music streaming profiles:

• Soundcloud
• Spotify
• Apple Music
• YouTube Music
• Amazon Music
• Deezer
• Tidal
• Yandex Music

Any last words you want to direct to your fans?
Thank you very much for being with me for all these years! Love you all!

[thegreybetween]

It is no overstatement to say that Alexei is why I love the X Universe so much. I mean, the game is great. But that MUSIC! That's X.

Thanks for the interview! And I can definitely echo his closing advice from the other side of the coin. I had once aspired to compose professionally, and got to the point where I was landing decent gigs but also encountering some major obstacles, and I ultimately decided that I had too many responsibilities to really embrace the uncertainty and chaos of professional music. In short, it is a challenging path and my need for stability clashed with it. I still believe in my stuff and work the occasional side gig, but I wasn't up to the monumental task of supporting myself on my music. That said, life has been good to me, and I may one day throw my hat in the ring again from a more stable place. But I will always respect and admire composers like Alexei for their sheer force of will (not to mention the brilliant music). Good times.

Favorite tracks: Too many to say. I will say that it was probably the full cut of "Nemesis Two" (XR's original menu music) that catapulted the scores into my favorites. I also really love the X4-ToA score, particularly the (Suspense) variants.

Edit: I also have a special appreciation of the track "Eighteen Billion (Space Bar Chillout)". The semi-intelligible voice in that song sounds like it is saying "Brown cotton candy", so my wife and I sing along to it whenever it comes on

[rudi_pioneer]

Any chance of asking for few rock and metal albums or artists Alexei likes?

[alt3rn1ty]

Since X2 I always loved the music in X game series.

One thing surprised me in this interview though, influences. Being born in the 60's and seeing the introduction of electronic music, I always imagined influences to be from the likes of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Jean Michele Jarre and maybe a bit of Orbital. There are moments in the X series games music which remind me of their music.

Also loved to see Alexei experienced using Fast Tracker. My first (owned) computer was an Amiga 500, with its Paula chip and four sound channels there was a range of Trackers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_tracker), I loved NoiseTracker and had a heap of floppies full of sound samples I pottered about with. Kept me out of mischief for many an hour when I was a teenager .

[Ebany]

Thank you.

My whole life I've had trouble sleeping at night, work has always required me to sleep but nights are when I fell most alive. With the screen dimmed and only X2's music playing in the background I'd sleep without the usual feeling of disconnection. As the years have rolled by I still find all the X-music eerily tranquil, however these nights I play all the X-series on random from my GOG goodies folder.

Thank you for letting me feel connected to the cosmos while I sleep.

[adeine]

+1 to the much deserved praise and thanks.

Music is definitely one of the most important components of the X game experience. Patch 1.60 (adding the full catalogue of tracks in) and 3.0 (when the various music playback issues were finally fixed) will always be my favourite updates to the game just for that. Alexei's work is simply excellent across the board, perfect for the series. Hearing that he actually plays the game to get the inspiration, you can definitely tell in the final product.

Also loved to see Alexei experienced using Fast Tracker. My first (owned) computer was an Amiga 500, with its Paula chip and four sound channels there was a range of Trackers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_tracker), I loved NoiseTracker and had a heap of floppies full of sound samples I pottered about with. Kept me out of mischief for many an hour when I was a teenager .

I really liked Octamed with MIDI support!

[vidar.mk]

I also love to listen to some classical music: Sveridov

It`s Sv_I_ridov, you, "x-perds"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Sviridov