Some Music to listen to

[KingIdiot]

Hey guys they put up some of the music
I did for a recent game at
http://www.3do.com/godai/downloads.html (\"http://www.3do.com/godai/downloads.html\")

These aren\'t the best cues, and aren\'t the ones that I\'d hoped they put up that would really show some GOS beta work. But they put the least expressive music up. Anyhow, have a ball listening. I\'ll see if they can put up my favorite tracks jsut for me http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif I would love to post the whole soundtrack...but I would also love to keep working http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

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Really...I am an Idiot

[Kobb]

Nice stuff, King

My favorite clip was probably \"Air trial 2\". I like moody stuff, and there were elements of it which reminded me of The Shawshank Redemption, which is one of my favorite soundtracks (and movie).

Quick question for you: In Air trial 2 there is that eighth note pattern played on a tack piano sounding instrument. What library was that from? Do you use Total Piano? I\'d like to get a nice tack piano, and \"total piano\" is the only library I\'ve seen which includes that patch.

[Damon]

Very nice stuff King! Really you aren\'t an idiot http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif.
I liked Air Trial 2 the best as well. Were there some sounds from Rare Instruments in there and Heart of Asia? It sounded like Taiko drums and an erhu (or maybe it was a temple flute of some kind). Very nice.
-Damon

[Kobb]

Thanks for the reply, King.

Sounds like you\'ve got a pretty efficient setup if you can kick out stuff that quickly. The world of game music sounds like a fun gig - are you doing that full time?

I just recently ordered GOS from Soundchaser, and I\'m looking forward to checking it out. I still feel pretty green on GS, but due to the good folks at this forum and the support staff at Soundchaser I\'ve been able to continue taking baby steps. I\'m looking forward to creating my first homegrown sample instrument tomorrow (an antique toy piano). It\'s a great learning process.

Anyway, the next big step in building my system is getting a sequencer working alongside GS. I\'ve heard people say that some sequencers gobble up RAM, which cuts down on the polyphony of GS if they\'re on the same computer. Since my intention is to eventually build a system that is capable of pulling off an orchestra, I\'m a little concerned about the polyphony issue. Do you have any tips or recommendations? How are you set up?

If you\'ve answered this in a prior thread, feel free to tell me to check out your answer. I\'d hate to make you repeat yourself.

Thanks.

[Damon]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by KingIdiot:
[B]
Kobb, Shawshank is also one of my favorites long with Meet Joe Black, great string arrangements./B]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Interesting King. Shawshank is one of my favorite scores as well and I just finished listening to that beautiful cue (track 6) on Meet Joe Black in my car http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif.
I love track 19 on Shawshank (Compass and Guns) with that beautiful piano and solo oboe and then those expressive string swells that woosh in. Makes the hairs on my back stand up it\'s so pretty. Of course, I always think of Red out in the big open field looking for the money Andy hid. The music really complements that scene of the movie very nicely.

[This message has been edited by Damon (edited 11-09-2001).]

[Kobb]

Amen, Damon.

That soundtrack is just perfect from beginning to end. The \"Brooks was Here\" cue is beautifully sad, while \"The Shawshank Redeption\" cue crawls right along with the film from eerie and tense to the uplifting climax and back to slightly eerie again.

Just talking about it makes me want to go home and listen to it again.

Thomas Newman is great. His score for \"American Beauty\" is pretty cool too, though not quite as traditional.

[Damon]

I think I\'ve worn a hole in my American Beauty CD, I\'ve listened to it so much http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/blush.gif. Track 2 (Arose) is so cool. Nice and quirky. I need to stop listening to his stuff or I\'ll never find my own sound!
Newman has a unique sound that always sounds fresh to me. He has such a great palette of sounds he uses. They always seem to fit perfectly.
I always liked the \"Mouse on the Mile\" cue on Green Mile as well. Love that bass marimba and pizz.


[This message has been edited by Damon (edited 11-09-2001).]

[Chadwick]

King

Had a great time listening to the stuff.

Clever work with the HoA erhu - sounds very nice.

Meldoyne seems truly incredible, I just whish this stuff was integrated into the sequencing environment - what with the sequencer, Acid, Melodyne etc., It can get a little tedious importing and exporting.

Nice chunky guitar in the Fire Boss track http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

[esperlad]

good stuff. It\'s about time someone wrote some good music for video games, I must admit that I have not heard a lot of music from games since the type I like are Monopoly, Clue, etc.

If you need a good dulcimer, buy Post Piano Suite. IT has an excellent dulcimer, a lot better than the one from the Roland set. The pianos are good too, and they give you the extra variety needed in some instances.

[KingIdiot]

Kobb-
Its a nice set up, but it mostly involves me not tweaking and \"settling\" I lose alot of time tweaking out parts to sound perfect. When I dont have the time to do that I jsut need to stop and move on. Which is why even the composing suffers. After time I\'m sure I will get better at composing quicker and quicker. I do mostly Vidgame work. I do some animation work from time to time as well. My claim to fame is I almost took over Elfman\'s spot for Stainboy, but that went to someone else.....thats life http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif I just found some of those old ques. I might post them up for a laugh.

You\'ll LOVe GOS! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif what a way to get introduced to sampling...you will be so spoiled now! llooking forward to hering the Toy Piano I love samples liek that.

As for sequencers I\'m runing Cubase along side Giga. I haven\'t checked to actually see how much ram it uses, but it doesn\'t gobble up poly until you run audio tracks along side on the same drive. Itgobbles up the aount of samples you can load tho, if you have high buffer rates and lots of audio tracks set to play http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif I repeat myself...all the time almost, all the time. http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

I loev the way Freeman plays Red in the feild he is so out of his element.what a GREAT scene. That whole last act almost ALWAYS makes me cry. I actually kno someone who doesn\'t like that movie..and she proceeded to tell me that she didn\'t finish watching it. I just about died....Its like watchig \"The Shawshank\" instead of \"the Shawshank Redemption\"

Newmen is great, but I jsut LOVE the non vibrato strings in Meet Joe Black. The are so Stark

Chadwick-
Thanks for listening. I love the phrases in HoA I jsut ish they were more vrsatile. I want RI jsut for the Erhu, but I know I can\'t fade between dynamics..which is part of what the Erhu is to me. Dynamic swells...tho I ahve some ideas of getting around it. We\'ll see when I get the library at some point.

elodyne is peretty neat. I\'m still only playing with the demo version, but its the best formant/pitch shifter I\'ve ever fooled wit. I haven\'t messed with phrases yet.

I have some bigger guitar stuff I\'ll post at sme oint. I used to play in prog rock/Art Metal bands, and even a hardcore punk band at one point....and top 40..ugh... I want to play in an 80\'s metal cover band now MWAHAHAHAHA What a ball that would be.

esper- there are some GREAT soundtracks out there now. The Medal of honor stuff soudns great. I\'ve always liked the Final Fantasy games and the orchestrated versions are wonderful to listen to. Tehre are a cuopl of other vid game composers out here on this forum and they are all much better than me.

I\'ll look at Post Piano Suite. Its always good to have variety, and if there is a good Dulcimer I\'m interested to add tht to my lib. I\'ve always loved the sound of them.even tho I expect them to be over used with Gladiator being such a \"hit\". If I remember corrctly its all over American beauty as well right? Dont have that one so I dont know.


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Really...I am an Idiot

[KingIdiot]

Thanks guys. The Air and Water songs are probably my favorite out of the tracks I did for the game. They lay really back in the game and dont get too upfront. Also the Title Track isn\'t so bad. At the intro page there is a short clip of Fire Trial 3 in the background behind the SFX they put in. There are 23 in the final game, I did about 30 or so mostly 2 minute cues for the game on about a 2 month deadline. Its crazy to write so much and have to have it mixed and mastered (Tho I once did a project with 45 minutes of music in 14 days mix and mastered). The mixes are pretty drenched in verb but I kind of like the way it sounds for the Air, Water and Void tracks. In Fact Earth 2 is probably my LEAST favorite track I\'ve ever done for a project.

Kobb, Shawshank is also one of my favorites long with Meet Joe Black, great string arrangements.

The instrument you are asking about is a Dulcimer. The one in the song is from the Roland World Expansion board. Its not the greatest sample but it works most of the time. The Piano is GigaPiano I believe. I dont have any other piano libraries. since I dont do much writing that focuses on Piano, I can get away with Giga and the XP/JV stuff.

Damon, Man I jsut realised I still ahven\'t listened to the track you sent...I zoned I\'ll take a listen today.

There isn\'t any rare Instruments on the soundtrack. I wanted to get it and use it, but I was a few weeks into the game when it released and I was afraid there would be a distinct difference in sounds if i started adding RI sounds to later songs. I still ahven\'t picked it up, but I will thats for sure. The \"world\" soudss are from Heart of Asia, Ethno World, and the Roland XP/JV world board. I built a HUGE percussion ensemble with about 10-16 tracks dedicated to percussion. The World board has a pretty nice \"kabuki\" menu that has a cool Taiko hit that I pitched around and some good asian percussion hits. HoA has a bunch of chinese dragon drums and other percussion. Ethno world has a bunch of percussion hits that you can pitch all over to make more drums.

The erhu is from HoA. Its got some good phrases that I can cut up and make my own from. I\'ve been fooling with the Melodyne demoilately I think I\'m gonna be able to do CRAZY stuff with that app and phrases now.

I used alot of libraries on this game, GOS in its early beta form gave alot of inspiration tho. Also wacky techniques outside of sequencing at times. Since they wanted lots of grooves I went into Acid and built loops and cut stuff up and pitched and stretched them weird in the app. It was a bit of fun.


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Really...I am an Idiot

[SCARBEE]

Nice work!

Do I hear Rare instrumensts there? Sounds really good.

Is the game any good?

cheers

Scarbee

[SCARBEE]

Ups, sorry

I just read throug all the posts and I see that you don\'t use Rare Instruments.

Anyway - keep up the good work

have a nice weekend

Scarbee

[KingIdiot]

Hey Scarbee-

Thx! I\'m sure that due to NDA\'s I sholdn\'t even comment on the game or its gameplay, its status, or whatever http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif. That said I\'m pretty critical about games so I tend not to give ratings on them anymore. I used to work as an editor and writer for a Video Game Magazine. I\'ve become very jaded about games now as well as movies. I\'ve become one of those \"I can do it better\" people with those. Even tho I know fully well that I can\'t...its jsut that there is so much crap out there. As for music..thats the only thing I never say \"I can do it better\" to...possibly cuz its the only thing I fully understand the amount of work that it takes to create good music....and because I know I cant do it better than half the people on this forum http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

As for Rare Instruments. I want to pick it up (as well as your libraries) Both will have their time whe I \"need\" to buy them. RI actually was needed for this project, but it was released just a few weeks too late for me. Nick remembers I was all over him about it http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif Next time http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif I\'ve heard some pieces using the taiko\'s and I love them. I REALLY want the library for these. I\'m fairly happy with the ehru phrases and multisamples in HoA, now. After fooling with them and cutting them up a bit.

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Really...I am an Idiot

[This message has been edited by KingIdiot (edited 11-13-2001).]

[SCARBEE]

Hey KingIdiot,

I am a big gamer and I have 3 boys so our house is filled with PX2, Nintendos, PC\'s, gameboys, etc. I actually got the idea of comercializing my libraries when I designed new turfs for FIFA 99 (EA sports soccer game). They were a major succes all over the internet and I still get mails from people who asked how I did it!

If it wasn\'t for music I would be in the Game world...

cheers

Thomas

[This message has been edited by SCARBEE (edited 11-13-2001).]

[Robert Kral]

Hi King not so much of an idiot!

Great stuff, I really enjoyed this music.

Can you clarify (once more): the low drums (taiko?) in \"Air\" are from Roland JV expansion World board?

Really nice material, well composed, mixed and recorded.

[KingIdiot]

Scarbee-

I will be a game geek till I die http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif Its been 12 years in the industry and 23 years of playing http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

Robert-

Thanks! The low drums are a combination of drums from The Roland JV World board (Mostly Kabuki Menu, The \"Ceremony Timp\" patch in the standard JV/XP patches is in there. I dont think I used any percussion from Ethno World or Heart of Asia (I forget, there could be some in there) in that piece. I did alot of layering to thicken up the sound. Even plaing up to 4 notes layered from the same instrument at different pitches. Actually on big hts I\'ve done things like jsut slam my arm down on the keyboad for massive \"wall of sound\" hits. Or more often play octaves/fifths/power chords. To lessen the phasing/flanging.

I also layered in some AO timpani and bass drums...and/or JV orchestral percussion as well.


In all the songs, there were usually 7 patches from the XP/JV stuff and then 7-10 more from libraries. LOTS of percussion. Some other pieces have some frenetic percussion parts. Lots of fun programmng those.

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Really...I am an Idiot

[This message has been edited by KingIdiot (edited 11-14-2001).]