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StratCaster Music

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2004 8:07 pm
by StratCaster
I just compiled all the stuff I've been working on and put it up on a webpage.

check it out......

http://stratcaster.tripod.com/

Just found out (painstakingly) that the tripod server does not support ogg formats, so its all mp3 for now....

comments are welcome!

Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 2:11 am
by Impaler
well I dont know what ogg is but I can play thouse Mp3's and I liked them quite a bit, these sound very RPGish to me something like what Elves might play on pan pipes or something of that nature :wink:

Race theam music is a realy nice idea, it should be heavily mixed into the play list when your playing that race to set the mood. Likewise their could be page theam music that plays based on what aspect of the game your in, Diplomacy Music (back ground chatter, mumbling), War Music (tecnical sounds and some triumphant music) music for each planet environment that plays when you open up that planets screen (probly just 10 seconds long is sufficent here).

Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 3:41 am
by Geoff the Medio
Impaler wrote:music for each planet environment that plays when you open up that planets screen (probly just 10 seconds long is sufficent here).
imo, not a good idea. Planet windows are part of the galaxy map, not really a separate "screen". Having separate themes for each would be jarring.

Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 3:53 am
by StratCaster
ogg file format is the specified standard for music in FO. Not that it really matters at this stage, I just like the way winamp plays them. It fades them in and out when you close etc...

The clips that I have written so far would probably not actually fit the game as is and would need to be reworked in order to fit an actual 'scene'. They fit more of a 'cue' mold.

i.e. It would follow specifications like...
scene: dipl screen
music: trag theme
mood: angry..declaring war
min time: 10 seconds
max time before loop: 25 seconds

I'm just making this up, but it could be something to that effect.

However, that is a good idea to have some race music in the ambient in-game starmap music. You'd have your standard tracks that everyone would hear, and then you could mix some of the your race's music in between. Or even take a tune like 'Artificial Intelligence' and pop in the trag theme in there somehow (subtlety of course)....it could work...

Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 3:57 am
by StratCaster
Geoff the Medio wrote:Having separate themes for each would be jarring.
I agree. you'd only want music for a special event. not a mundaine task such as clicking on your planet to see its tax rate...

but maybe in an empire screen or something... somewhere you don't go often and wouldn't be annoyed with the music over and over...

Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 7:22 pm
by LithiumMongoose
Woot we finally have DNS. :)

I like these a lot, Strat. Agree with Impaler they sound very RPGish, but that's a good thing hehe. The strings sound a little low-quality (funny how they're always the easiest to notice), but the drums are nice... War Horn and the two Rills are probably my favorites.

As far as use in-game goes, they're definitely destined for the diplomacy screen imo, and could probably stand to be 2 to 4 times longer, but that's easy compared to getting the initial material down on paper. Thanks for the submissions, glad to finally have something out of you. :)

Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 7:47 pm
by StratCaster
thanks...

yeah, strings are hard... depending on what you do with them, its hard to make them sound real... sometimes they can sound great...and then even with the same patch can sound lame...

honestly, I didn't work too hard on the dynamics... so I could probably edit the midi data to make it sound more realistic.

and yes, they are RPGish. I guess they have some sort of purpose to them... so it seems like they would be best suited for an event like a diplomacy screen or such. Although I really want to take a crack at an ambient piece...

its good to have the site back up though... I found myself checking back quite often and was worried it was gone for good. phew.

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 12:41 pm
by LithiumMongoose
Strat, would it be possible to get some MIDI's from you? It occurs to me, after stumbling upon and watching your brilliant Sakkra movie, that I'd like to take a crack at working with some of your material... Course I'm bored at the moment, so I may just try reconstituting it by ear, hehehe...

(Feel free to yell at me to stop if you object, and feel free to request any of my stuff if it interests you. :)

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2004 6:00 pm
by StratCaster
Yes! Feel free....I will put the midi file up on my site.

Although my PC crashed (where I usually modify the web stuff). I should have it up in running soon (I keep having problems with corrupt hives, an XP thing). Thankfully no data is lost, usually its just the preferences that get flushed. And all the music is on my Mac anyhow.

I'll try to have midi data up by the weekend...

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 4:17 am
by StratCaster
I actually had sometime tonight, so I was able to revive my PC.

here's the midifile... its not pretty, it needs some serious cleaning up. The velocities go with the patches I was using, so they may seem off. If the track names don't come through its:
-Trumpet (although French Horn sounds better with standard midi)
-Bass Strings
-Tuba
-Strings
-Timpani (although I had this as a drum kit with decent kettle drum sounds)

http://stratcaster.tripod.com/warhorn.mid

I've been so swamped lately, I haven't been able to do any writing for FO :(

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 5:57 am
by LithiumMongoose
Damnit, argh, farking, mother of... Yeah so LlamaWare's MIDI importer screws up on your file too, that's the last straw, I'm going to have to figure out what the problem is now...

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 2:06 pm
by StratCaster
wait, let me try importing and then exporting with QT on my Mac....

before I uploaded, I opened the .mid in SONAR on my PC and made some patch changes.

can you normally load .mid files?

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 3:12 pm
by LithiumMongoose
Eh, it varies... Some files import fine, like the ones I export myself first (I think; actually not sure I ever tried)... The rest import and the basic structure of the result is right but there are bogus values everywhere particularly for tempos and note durations... I've known about this problem for some time but haven't had much luck fixing it yet. I need to try again I think, I'm either missing something in the MIDI spec or doing something wrong in my code, either way I know the files are valid since QuickTime can play them just fine. I'll get back to you in a few days, I'm prolly gonna have to open a problem midi like yours in a hex editor and go through it byte by byte to figure out what's going on. Meh.

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 3:47 pm
by StratCaster
midi like yours in a hex editor and go through it byte by byte to figure out what's going on.
ooh fun! can I come over and play!!?

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 5:20 pm
by LithiumMongoose
Err... if you feel like hopping on a plane to Cincinnati, sure. :)

Alternatively I'll be happy to send you the relevant C source code if you think you can find the problem faster than me. :p

(Can even send you the full app if you want to play with it, but I can't promise it'll work perfectly in a different environment heh.)