Music

[Auria]

Yeah there will. I wonder if we really need a special song for that however? As i said I think the current Fort Magma song is quite good so I'm not sure we really need another

[0zone0ne]

How many boss races are there going to be? They could all use the same music. This way we could keep Kalsan's old fort magma music.

[Auria]

There will only be one, so far. Adding more music is something we don't do without thought because we try to keep the download size not too big

[0zone0ne]

Ok.

What else do you think needs to be done to the Fort Magma music to make it into the game? I am pretty happy with it myself.

[Auria]

Hi,

well the main issue with the fort magma music, frankly, is that you made a song for a track for which we like the song we already have, otherwise it would have been accepted much easier

This song is a little 'aggressive' so it might be best kept for the boss battle. However at this time we don't have a mechanism to play a different song for one specific race. Nonetheless I will keep your track around (you do release it under CC-BY-SA 3 right?), because we hope in future versions like 0.8.1 or 0.8.2 to add more 3 strike battle tracks, and possibly end the game with a battle against nolok or so, and your song would be perfect for that. I just don't think we'll manage to do that for 0.8.0

So I don't want to disappoint you, but I think it's usually better to start by talking to check what the project needs before you start working, this will avoid this kind of situation

[0zone0ne]

Yes, I understand completely. There are a few slight modifications I want to make to it, then it will be finished, for now.

So, what is the priority now for new music? Would I be right in guessing Black Mansion? And what would come after that?

[Auria]

The mansion and the overworld are two for which we would welcome new music. The one that is currently used for Crescent Crossing is not bad, though a little repetitive and not original to STK which is why it would be good to replace it. An overworld song, contrarily to most others, would need to be a little quieter and more of a background music I guess

[Arthur]

And, if I may add, overworld music should probably be longer and very varied (without changing mood too abruptly of course).

[0zone0ne]

I've just finished off (formerly) Fort Magma, for now.
I will make another attempt at the overworld music right away, then focus on black mansion.

Since I've never actually raced on Black Mansion, making music for It might be tricky, but I'll see what I can do.
Attached below is also a PREVIEW of black mansion.

[ctdabomb]

those two sound the same :/

[Auria]

I think for black mansion we should be aiming for something that sounds a little less electronic, and a bit more grim. You can listen to the current song we have for Crescent Crossing, that's more the mood we are looking for

[0zone0ne]

Is this the kind of mood you want for the overworld? Or is this too electronic and not ambient enough? This is just a preview, it will be much longer when it is finished.

[Auria]

I think this has quite a bit of potential
I'm just a little unsure about the background chord progression, which rarely seems to fully resolve and creates a tension or uneasy feeling that we may not want. I wonder if you can improve that? Because otherwise it's quite in line with what I would want in the overworld, let's just remove a little tension

[0zone0ne]

That was a fast response!

I know what you mean, I'll try to fix it.

[0zone0ne]

I just finished the overworld draft!
Im pretty sure that I got the right mood, but as I said before it might be too electronic and not be ambient enough. I tried to vary it between being upbeat (in the middle of the song) and being ambient (most of the second half). I also made it quite long, like Arthur suggested.

I am very interested to hear what you guys think...

[Auria]

We are definitely getting somewhere
I think though that the strings sound a little too synthethic. Maybe they can be improved on that front, and maybe they can be just a little quieter too, too make the track more ambient

[0zone0ne]

I personally like the synthetic-sounding strings, but oh well.
How they sound now is as realistic as they are going to get, because Garageband's default instruments are sort of crappy.

[Auria]

I think it's overall good do you agree to release this song under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license? ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ )

[0zone0ne]

I never thought I'd actually get this far, I've always wished for my music to get into something official...

So yeah, CC-BY-SA is fine, and I think the piece is finished unless someone else has something to say, or I somehow happen to find something wrong with it. It's the holiday for me now, I'm at my grandparent's house but unfortunately without my keyboard so I may not be able to do much music until the end of the week.

So what comes next? Black Mansion? I have a lot of ideas for this one already, but if anything else has a higher priority then I will get to that first.

[0zone0ne]

I think the piece is finished unless someone else has something to say, or I somehow happen to find something wrong with it..

I found something (very minor) wrong with it, so this is the finished version.

[Auria]

Mansion would probably be next I guess yeah. Now the challenge of making a song for it is probably higher, I warn you : the song we already have is really not bad. We prefer to have original sound track, but you will need to be able to make something at least as good as what we already have Also there is another person on the mailing list at this time that is thinking of making musics (though it looks like he wants to make XR591 first)

[0zone0ne]

I think it would be easier if I could actually play the Black Mansion track first, is there a download anywhere of it?
Right now I'm thinking that the music would be dark/grim sounding with organs and strings, but also with softer bits that remind you of maybe a music box playing a lullaby. Something like music from The Binding of Isaac.

I would also be interested in hearing this other person's version of XR591 when it is finished, just to see what they came up with. I always liked listening to the music on that track.

[ctdabomb]

if you have linux, you can use the nightly build (viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3389)
if you have something else, you could try to compile it or wait for the alpha/beta release which might be a bit late.

[Auria]

overworld music has been committed

with regards to the mansion track, its feeling is very similar to crescent crossing. it's basically a haunted type mansion, sort of halloween type, dark and all. This should be enough to make something I think Anyway the current mansion track is very probably not in its final state

[0zone0ne]

I've finished the first version of Black Mansion

I went on a slightly different approach to the current Crescent Crossing music; I tried to capture the grim/dark mood while keeping the music fun and cartoony sounding. I tried to make some similarities to the current music, like the style of the drumming, and the bell/music box melody.