JerMarMu

Yes, when I started there it was just Maxis. When EA took over they had a weird meeting where the told everyone not to worry about loosing their jobs and that they weren't going to fire anyone. Two weeks later about 80% of the people were gone. EA definitely changed the vibe and it wasn't as fun after.

I love "Magic City" too. It's one of my all-time favorites too. It's actually a lot of "inside the piano" stuff where I scraped the strings or strummed them while holding down chords. Also the main rhythm was done by me banging a pencil on one of the bass strings. Then I had a great violin player, Darol Anger play some rhythmic stuff along with the melody and also Rock Hendricks played soprano sax. I use Digital Performer software. (boombamboom.com)

No. No. No. Simlish is a very exacting art form. There are very few voice actors that can pull it off. It's basically improvising using non-words to express the meaning. We originally found some great improv actors that could do it. It's evolved over the years and now I think they have quite a lot of actors that are in the "simlish" stable. Drew Carey was a big Sims fan and he wanted to do it but he couldn't improvise very well at all so he ended up writing it all down like a script. (pretty ironic for a guy with an improv show!!)

http://www.boombamboom.com

No one knew! EA was even thinking of not putting out because they had a sports focus and didn't get why it would be fun. Then when it hit a lot of people came over from the EA HQ and wanted to be involved.

I just really love music. It helps to have a deadline too.