game background music

Hey All,

I do not consider myself even the least bit musically inclined, however I have given Adobe Audition a shot as of recently. If you have some spare time listen to the two tracks and let me know what you think.

The first track was done 100% by me using single note loops. The second track is a mixdown of existing production music that I edited the bmp (beats per minute), added some stuff, took out other stuff, and added another layer onto.

track #1: http://enigmaticgames.com/match_track1.mp3
track #2: http://enigmaticgames.com/match_track3.mp3

The links don't work for me.

The links worked for me but I wasn't very impressed with the first one (too 'beepy' and tuneless), so I didn't even bother listening the second one.

the 2nd one is by far better than the first. I am honestly thinking about ditching the first one.

The 2nd one appears to be a mixture of styles. It is okay, I don't particuarly like it. Maybe a bit too much happening - to many different beeps, woops and weeps dotted about.

They're working now.

The first 19 seconds of the the first one reminds me of the opening moments of an old children's cartoon called Jamie and his Magic Torch (imagine a cat meowing at about the 12 second point and a woman softly saying "goodnight, Jamie!" at about 19 seconds) crossed with some of the score for the movie 28 Days Later. I'm not sure why, but there you go. Nice effort but it doesn't "do it" for me.

The second one is more interesting but it still has problems. It seems to me that it is too forceful for repeating ambient background music but not melodic enough for a more prominent piece. Having said that, this style of music is one that I particularly dislike, so I can't give a too objective opinion as to its merits. I don't mean that as a criticism - it's just not to my taste, I'm afraid.

Nice try though.

Of the two tracks, I prefer the first - but I wouldn't want to listen to it as background music.

What sort of game are they for? They are not at all suitable for a casual game imho (even though they are interesting and mixed OK). I also make tracks with Fruity loops and have been doing so for years (since the Amiga days), but I still hire professional musicians to make proper music and the difference is well worth it.

bolax had too repetative music
i think eventually without a volume controll or mute id smash the speakers (cept for they are built into the monitor)

will give your tracks a go in a min ... just feeding my ipod its hungry ... almost as hungry as puki's stolen media folder ;)

but i feel like with movies most background tracks should stand on their own two feet without the game or movie they were in (some are just music for the sake of filling in silence in scenes but others have to WORK)

Thanks for the comments thus far.

I will keep editing and working on them, but in the end I might just come up with 1-2 decent tracks for each area of the game and allow the user the option to select their own music with a built in mp3/oog player.

now THAT would be handy

i used to have portrait of an american family and or smells like children CD's going through marathon 2 durandal demo way back when
kinda added to my mr white two gun toting mayhem :)

funny how all xbox games i own failed to have custom soundtracks ... i had damn near filled it with cd's (as i didnt have a pc at the time thus no mp3 player)

EG: if you claim to have funds for gamedevelopment as you did in your introductionpost, then be wise: If you want to take a gaming element seriously: hire an expert.

I would rather get another colonoscopy than listen to either of those tracks again. Of course what I don't like, the kids today like, so these tracks are probably really good!

lol, I agree with most comments and I will probably hire a professional to design the game score, or at the very least find decent public domain music that would work.

Whats the going price for a proffesional musician?
I would really like to know, because I need some
original music for my games.

Right now, I simply record the music from other games
like some of the old nintendos, and the problem with that is I can't copyright my games.
Since I'm using copyrighted music.

That is Okay to do isn't it?
as long as I don't try to market my games?

That might be okay if you don't sell/give away games, but I don't know.

And for your first question, I don't know.

No, it isn't.


How long is a piece of string? ( From end to end, I remember :P )

You could pay anything from $100 to $1000 for a piece of music, depending on the artist, where they live, what their day job is, how much experience they have, etc.

If you're just making a free game, there are plenty of sites with free music on them, that you're allowed to use. Achim Tober's site is one that springs to mind. Shouldn't be hard to find.

If you want something a step up without spending too much, there are dozens of sites selling royalty-free music from $25 and up per track. It's non-exclusive so other people may use the same music in other projects but there are so many thousands of tracks out there, that it's unlikely to be a problem.

EDIT: And looking up, I've just realized this was someone else's thread. Sorry for going off topic.

Depends on what he needs to do. A piece for a few synths is far easier to do than a complete -official- orchestration. (with 'official' I mean that it's genuine orchestrated music, not some random synthplayer hitting a few presets from some orchestral expansion board, that'd be the 'few synths'-option again.). Furthermore, most large-scale RPG's are large-scale in everything: a wide range of textures, deep story, much character development, huge maps, and large-scale music. For large scale music you need a solid architecture in the music, which costs time, and is thus more expensive than the odd casual tune one can make in an afternoon.

The first one was bad.

The second one was pretty decent.

Blunt? I know.