Music for mods

Sounds awesome, I know Distant Stars and a few others have custom soundtracks, though I think taken entirely from other games and movies. They might be interested.

Alot of the music I use in my mod are pulled from music production groups (TSFH, Thomas Bergerson's original work, Erik Ekholm/Brickwall Audio, White Wall, Audiomachine, etc).  I have a 4.41 gig folder on my hard drive of music I've collected and used (or plan to use) in my mod.  I've got 14 opening themes alone (to give you an idea) that I've been through.  I also do some work on them, too.  Not a whole lot, but it can range from filter, balancing, or simple editing work.

Personally I think trailer music is massively overused, along with all the general mainstream soundtracks (anything by Hans Zimmer, for example). I really can't even stomach hearing the stuff anymore, especially coming from a video producing perspective where it's literally next to impossible to find a video without trailer music or E.S. in it.

I would love to hear some examples from the OP.

Only some of the work is "trailer music".  The groups make money from licensing off for whatever reason.  I also use stuff from singular artists like White Noise Lab.  I highly doubt you've heard his work before and I doubt you'll ever hear it widespread anywhere else.

 

White Noise lab is not familiar, no; most of my musical research goes into stuff like ambient BM pieces, European/eastern folk, and other such things. I'm curious how you make all of this stuff fit together thematically. Truth be told, I was tempted to open a music design thread in the past, but figured no one was really interested in researching stuff any deeper than the typical X-ray dog and IM copy pasta.

I would have linked some of the stuff I was using in Ep1 but it appears that google went on a banning rampage and a ton of the good stuff is gone. Gotta police the world somehow, I guess.

I hate to overthrow the OP's thread, but music is a pretty massive subject in my design.

The track I put up there was an opening theme I used at one time.  I'm currently using an Erik Ekholm one.

As for putting it all together, it's as simple as finding elements that best serves each faction, and looking for tracks with those elements.  I went through TONS of music.  That's why I have 4.4 gigs of possible candidates.

Here's a good Vasari example:


Only problem with music like what you posted, though good, is that I can't see it fitting into a game like Sins (well, not easily).  That genre of music screams more appeal to a fantasy compared to a sci-fi setting (that's my thought, anyway).  I had the same issue when sorting through all of it.  Did it suite well with the sci-fi setting, or was it more appealing to a fantasy?

I'd love to see more input from other modders or aspiring musicians.

Well, my world is a blend of scifi and fantasy, so it fits well in the context and prose I am aiming to achieve. I have this track you posted, too, in considerations for another project. My collection overall is around 1.5 terabytes now, so finding specific things to fit specific themes is an extremely time consuming and diligent process. That is why I am always looking for more.

I was a musician at one point, a long time ago. I posted some of my material in my resource thread. I wasn't very good, though.

 

While I find nothing wrong with trailer music and the like, I see your point.

 

My thoughts on why it seems overused and what not is simply access to it. Its there and its really easy to find.

Another point on why its used alot it is easy to plug and play alot of this style of music into a game setting. Since trailer music generally is trying to show off a movie with high emotional scores. 

And while some want a more personal stylized score to their game, alot of people just dont have the time or skills to make their own. Or even to scour the interwebs for less known artist and tracks.

 

Im sure Im just saying things already known and thought about. But as someone who does enjoy the big score trailer music and what not, I thought I do it justice to clarify why its seems overused.

Well, when I first started listening to trailer music was when it first started getting leaked. That was when I was first entering video production as well. So, I watched, and participated in, a lot of video productions (say just gameplay videos) that would then all rely very heavily on this music. I wouldn't say it's necessarily bad on its own, if you consider it independently of this fact, but the leaks became more prominent and the usage exploded. Soon it was very hard to find such media without them all using the exact same music, and I ended up becoming very opposed to it (making too much use of a good thing, so to say).

I can understand why it's overused, especially having watched a lot of video productions come to rely on it, and in turn a lot of mods (I was making the same argument against the massive over use of final fantasy soundtracks back before this), and to me it feels to greatly diminish the impact of the individual pieces when they are heard so much elsewhere. This is more a problem with TSFH, IM, and X-ray dog - some of the companies less-known produce equally good or close to as good work and aren't nearly as widespread, but I end up looking for alternate sources for my projects anyways out of style considerations. After all, I can find plenty of emotion and epic outside of this even if I wanted a similar sound.

I also understand why people don't feel anywhere near the need to devote time to building such tuned soundtracks as I do. In a way, my experience has been ruined I suppose. But all I have in life is time to make ends meet, and so time is indeed burned in gratuitous quantities. Unfortunately, I was not up to the task of composition myself. Being completely and utterly incompetent, I failed to make anything I could myself respect.

Yeah, hearing tracks from other sources can break immersion and such.

 

As for that stuff being leaked, its really the only way to find it. Had I not found leaked stuff say on youtube, I wouldnt of know about many of these artist and such.

Its getting easier for everyday person to find legal copies of this genre of music. I think with those massive amount of leaks can the knowledge that there was a demand for this outside the trailer making industry.

 

And everyone is their own worse enemy when it comes to their own stuff. I know my attempts to make music leaves me frustrated that it sucks. But thats only b/c you the creator know all the tiny flaws most wouldnt hear or see.

 

I did enjoy your musical tracks you have posted. So remember not to be to hard on your work.

 

oh, and Black Sun was awesome remember that. 

Well, I'm not arguing against the leak. I thought it was pretty cool we finally got to hear a lot of this stuff. Just that people became very reliant on it kind of spoiled it when it came to media production for the end user. And yeah, it encouraged a lot more publicity on the subject and the stuff is more open now.

One of these days I want to amass a compendium of good artists and sources for music of different styles and such. I know of a great many. But there's many I don't know, and my way of research is rather crude and not so effective at finding what I want. Perhaps I should make a new topic for this...

Here is an arrangement where I was trying to reproduce the sound from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2.

http://soundcloud.com/scaldinghotsoup/the-sky-pirate-from-the-east-final

Here is the original file for reference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16X5i517JhI

Note that I didn't have castanets in my music library at that time. I think I have them now, so I might re-record and reupload.

Also, my sound library has been upgraded since this was recorded as well. Still not great though.

I enjoyed your attempt to keep to original as best you could.

 

But since your offering your services to mod for a space game. Got a sample of your style for this genre?

 

Nope, nothing from a space game. :-/ It's something I'd be interested to try, though.