Miracle of Sound

Early life and origins of Miracle of Sound

Dunne is the son of late Irish poet Seán Dunne and is from Cork, Ireland. Before starting Miracle of Sound, Dunne spent 15 years playing in various groups.

As part of his previous band, Lotus Lullaby, he and his bandmates competed in and won the Bank of Ireland National Student Music Awards in 2006, as well as the Murphy's Battle of the Bands earlier the same year.

After the breakup of Lotus Lullaby, Dunne became inspired by the video games he was playing and wrote several songs based on his favourite games, intended on conveying the atmosphere of the game or the mood of the characters. He began with the song "Gordon Freeman Saved My Life", based on the character from the Half-Life franchise. The song amassed 15,000 views in one night on YouTube, something Dunne had struggled to do for years. He continued with "The Ballad of Clay Carmine", which had another positive reception, and Dunne realised that he had found a significant niche audience and he continued to write songs based on video games.

One of these early songs, "Commander Shepard", based on the character from the Mass Effect series of the same name, went viral and eventually amassed millions of views, leading to rapid rise in popularity for the musician.

Coordination with game developers

Following his success with "Commander Shepard", Dunne eventually met with the marketing team from Bioware, the creative team behind the Mass Effect series, while he was at gamescom in Germany in August 2011. There he released another Mass Effect song, "Normandy", based on the ending of Mass Effect 2. Coordinating with Bioware, Dunne became involved in the marketing campaign for the next game in the series, Mass Effect 3. Both voice actors for the male and the female Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series (Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale, respectively) performed dramatic readings of parts of the song "Commander Shepard" before the release of the Mass Effect 3, to raise publicity. Bioware subsequently sent Dunne advance footage for use in making a song and accompanying music video based on Mass Effect 3, so that his release of "Take it Back" could coincide with the game's launch. Dunne later made two additional songs based on the game; "Crucible" and "Kalros".

Some of his songs have also been used within videogames. His song based on the indie CRPG Wasteland 2, titled "Cries of a Dead World" was included in the game itself, being used for the end credits. One of Miracle of Sound's earliest songs, "Gordon Freeman Saved My Life", was later included as a playable song in the game Rock Band.

Music and reception by critics

In traditional video game style, his albums are named in increasing levels - Level 1, Level 2 and so on. However he has also released two other non-gaming-related albums. His instrumental album called Vistas had a mixed reception, receiving 3.5 out of 5 stars from Nick Mongiardo of Sputnik Music who said "Vistas has some issues with pacing and contains some jarring shifts in style, but anyone who enjoys chilled out instrumental music will love this." His seventh album, Metal Up, a heavy metal compilation with some songs based on Irish folklore, topped the iTunes Metal chart for 2 days following its release in early 2015. Metal Up was described as mix of classic rock, hard rock, and metal, and was praised by Firstherd for its celtic influences in some songs which were "very original when placed in a metal framework". The album was also given a 5 out of 5 score by Rock Review.

Shortly before the Wasteland 2 Director’s Cut re-release in 2015, Dunne released a parody of the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing", titled "I want my RPG". The lyrics of the song criticise modern free to play games, microtransactions and downloadable content and express the desire for more games of the old CRPG style. He did not include the song on any album, saying on Twitter that "It's a parody of someone else's song. Wouldn't feel right to monetise it." Dunne has also used his music to criticise quick time events in his Resident Evil 6 song "Wigglesticks". It has been suggested that other indie games on limited budgets could improve the quality of their music by employing indie musicians such as Miracle of Sound.

Many of his songs have received very positive reviews, such as his doo-wop song "Going Nuclear", based on the then-upcoming game Fallout 4, which drew praise from video game journalists for matching the tone and style of the game's aesthetic very well. His song "The Lucky Ones" was considered unique by being written from the point of view of the background characters, rather than the player characters of Tom Clancy's The Division. He has written two songs about the Uncharted franchise "Keep Drifting" and "Here we go Again", inspired by the main character's sense of adventure and being a drifter at heart. Nerdist reviewed his song "Get the Gang Back", based on the popular Blizzard game Overwatch, and called it "an incredibly catchy tune" and said that the lyrics "[mirrored] the game’s relentlessly positive outlook".

Collaboration with others

Dunne generally works alone, performing or electronically creating all of the instrument tracks for his music and layering the result to create a single track. He provides most of the vocals for his songs himself, plays guitar, bass and keyboard, and can use electronic programs for drums and many other instruments, including orchestral pieces. However, he has collaborated with other artists at times for vocals or other instruments that he cannot play or create electronically.

He has worked with several guest vocalists; with Malukah on the song "Legends of the Frost", with Irish singer Ailín Kennedy on "Lady of Worlds", with YouTuber Sharm on "Fires Fade" and "Mother of Flame", and with Lorna Dollery on "Dream of the Sky", "Dream of Goodbye", and "Evacuate".

He also has been featured in the songs of several other artists. This includes Dan Bulls "Metro: Last Light Rap" "Overwatch Rap" and "Last Guardian Rap" TryHardNinjas "Calling All Ghost" 331Erocks "Deadpool Meets Metal" and JT Machinimas "Let Your Soul Walk Free"

He also had guest musicians Jack O'Rourke (piano) and Gary Baus (saxophone) perform for his jazz song "Sweet L.A.", and guest musician Gwen Boyle (violin) on "Dream of the Sky". For his album Metal Up he had two guest musicians, 331Erock and Dave Divilly, who provided guitar solos for "I am Alive" and “Get Your Metal On”, respectively.

In late 2014, Dunne joined video game critic Jim Sterling and gaming journalist Laura Kate Dale (Laura K Buzz on social media) on a weekly podcast, the Podquisition, which primarily discusses video game and pop culture related news.

Sale and distribution of music

From 2011 until February 2015, Dunne released new music videos on The Escapist (an online video gaming website) every two to four weeks, in addition to releasing them on his YouTube channel.

Views on YouTube for Dunne have continued to grow, with 3-4 million YouTube views per month, and with total views of over 140 million. He makes the majority of his income with sales of his songs and albums on Bandcamp and iTunes, as well as monetisation of his YouTube videos. He has taken an unusual approach to piracy, and has said that he is fine with people pirating his music if they are poor or broke, and encourages them to tell their friends about him, credit him if they use his music, and buy it when they can.

In late 2013 multiple copyright strikes were issued by Youtube against Dunne's videos for use of his own music, as well as against other users who had used his music in their videos with permission. All of the strikes were initiated by INDMUSIC, on behalf of TuneCore, the company that distributed Miracle of Sound's songs at the time. Though the incident was resolved successfully, Dunne commented that although TuneCore was trying to help artists, their efforts did more damage than good and that he depends on let's plays and gaming videos to spread and popularize his music by word of mouth.