48: WGE MAG
Super Sonic
Legends By Keith Olexa N
ot every musician can conduct a business operation as deftly as they might an orchestra. Sonic Legends (
www.sonic-
legends.com) founder Erika Lieberman, however, is clearly one such musician. Lieberman, along with her fellow music composers Christie Carew, Alex Kovacs, Randin Graves and Jon Ollsin (among others) strive to do what few have done: Provide through Sonic Legends an automated, one-stop music shop that will cater to all video game and computer software developers’ compositional needs.
Lieberman originally created Sonic Legends to develop “soundscapes” – looping music tracks, often mixed with accompanying sound effects or auditory flourishes – for users to purchase in order to enhance their tabletop role-playing game experience. Through such evocative titles as Prosperous Tavern, Vampire’s Castle or Forest Skirmish, a game’s sense of peril, terror, or wonder would be elevated and enriched, captivating players in a whole new way.
Since Sonic Legends inception in 2009 Lieberman has grown her company’s brand and now offers a vast music library, and also a new online tool for video game and computer software developers to use to license the company’s music. But Sonic Legends’ most impressive offering is its sophisticated compositions that cleave beautifully and precisely to the milieu or scenario they were created to enhance.
“It’s extremely cliché to say that, but it’s true. I started playing piano at five years old, when I was in kindergarten; it was all I could do.”
Such lyrical magic doesn’t come easy, though. Nuanced compositions like those offered by Sonic Legends need talented and seasoned composers to create them, so Lieberman wasted no time in gathering that talent. All of Sonic Legends’ composers had significant success prior to joining the company in film, TV and/or video game scoring. Each has helped elevate Sonic Legends to the position it now holds as one of the key aggregators of compelling multimedia music content.
Like Lieberman herself, many of Sonic Legends’ composers were swept up by their art at an early age: “I grew up with music and theater,” admits Graves, whose work also extends to video games (Atari’s Civilization II). “I never had formal lessons as a kid, but my grandmother always tried to egg me on, and even got me a little Casio keyboard.” Nearly all the Sonic Legends composers echo Graves’ sentiment. “Ever since I can remember
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