Dynamic or static music

[svenskmand]

So I decided to make the first post here - beat you all to it :P

I was wondering if we should do static music as it was in DK, where we just have a sound track which runs along the game and gives mood to the game. Or should we have dynamic music which switch tempo and characteristics depending on what you do in the game, causal base building, attacking the enemy, defending you base from and intruding enemy, or trying to sneak past the enemy defences undetected. I think that DK2 had some of this, another game which has a good use of dynamic music is No One Lives Forever (NOLF), and NOLF2.

So what do you think?

[xahodo]

How about a music score which consists of multiple tracks. Tracks can be added or removed as the scene requires.

Then some music-meta information could be used for figure out which tracks fit together, when they should be used and figuring out which fit well together.

The music could then change according to what is happening in game and which area and/or creatures are involved.

Meta information for music could (for example) include:

• Create and room data on which it is applicable.
• Combat, quiet.
• Vicinity to dungeon heart.
• Starting track/ending track/transition track of the score.

[svenskmand]

My main question was just if we should choose dynamic or static music, but it is fine with some practical implementation suggestions I am also in favor of dynamic music

But the choice also depends on the choice of sound-engine. E.g. in NOLF I am pretty sure that they used some sort of trackers with instruments, that is they did not just playback different sound files, but actually generated the music from different sequences of notes using the instruments.