The Mana World Forums

just out of boredom i downloaded the demo version of the music composing program FL Studio and tried to make some music. after a few hours i created this:
http://www.crushnet.org/TempFiles/tmw/e ... 0ruins.mp3
what do you think of it?

Note that i have never made music before and only needed a few hours of practice to make this. so when someone want's to do something for tmw but doesn't know what he could do: composing music isn't really as difficult as one may think.

Fruityloops is nice isn't it

Sorry Crush, you have a long way to go before your music skills are as good as your pixelling skills.

Yep it is not bad as a first try, but sure we need something better

i never intended to make music for tmw anyway. i just wanted to check out how difficult it really is.

Absolutely not that bad It is too repetitive and the instrument selected is awful but the initial tune is good, if mixed with other instruments and changes a with time it could be used, at least it gives some atmosphere.

What format does use?

its own propietary format. but the demo version doesn't allow saving anyway. it only permits export to wav or mp3.

The base format is .flp, and I had the opportunity to use a registred version with all the plugins and so on some time ago : it's great ... for fun, not to make real music. Or for DJs (some use it professionaly live), but we don't want techno, do we ?
Fruity Loop does no more than a tweaked Amiga tracker. If you want that kind of music, use Modplug Tracker or alike. This kind of music can also be done with a Midi sequender like Cubase, Rosegarden, MusE or Melody Assistant ... or even faster with a real synthetiser and a pianist.
But I think TMW needs real instruments, so don't hurry and try to find bands who would accept to record some titles for you (why not search on Jamendo and ask some of these bands ?).

But I think TMW needs real instruments, so don't hurry and try to find bands who would accept to record some titles for you (why not search on Jamendo and ask some of these bands ?).

That's unpracticable IMO, I mean where do you get a skilled musician that wants to do the job for free? Chances exists but they are narrow and even if you find the person recording and mixing it is not a easy job.
Also I'm a bit against the music being too realistic for a computer game, I'm a nostalgic I guess.
You can do nice things without real instruments.

Pajarico wrote:

But I think TMW needs real instruments, so don't hurry and try to find bands who would accept to record some titles for you (why not search on Jamendo and ask some of these bands ?).

That's unpracticable IMO, I mean where do you get a skilled musician that wants to do the job for free? Chances exists but they are narrow and even if you find the person recording and mixing it is not a easy job.

I said Jamendo because there are soooo many free music bands there, and some of them are really great ! I'm sure it would be possible to find some ones who would agree to do tracks for the game.

Here's a post from the official website of the band Within Temptation to show you what I mean (the game is "The Chronicles Of Spellborn" here, it's commercial but well ...) :

When we were asked if we were interested to write music for a computer game which is being developped in The Netherlands, we didn't have to think twice. We all are enthusiastic gamers. Whether at home or on tour, computer games are prefect to relax and sometimes they even inspire our music. We will be able to reveal more details soon.

As for the recording and mixing, most of the bands already have a home-studio, and for solo instruments like keyboards or electric guitar it's very easy (you only need a correct sound card).

Whether TMW needs real instruments or not is another question that has to be discussed by the dev team. I agree with you on the point that some games must keep a simple music (can't imagine Mario with a concerto instead of the usual music ) but fot TMW I think it would fit ... well that's only my point of view here !

Well, that post from a that band doesn't give me any proof. They are being paid, ypu know

And about mixing I was refering to this: make our own music sheets and handle *only* the part of the instruments we need from them, the rest should be composed by us and insert the recorded track there.
This way we would have the control over the mix, the same composition can sound completely different with different mixes.

I think having just some instruments recorded makes for a perfect balance between old and new.
Wind instruments and guitars are usually very bad emulated and sound cheap; while cymbals percusions, piano and string instruments aren't perfect either but sound more pleasing to me when emulated.

As for the recording and mixing, most of the bands already have a home-studio, and for solo instruments like keyboards or electric guitar it's very easy (you only need a correct sound card).

The problem is that elctric guitars doesn't fit in the game and keyboards are not an issue since thoose can be played in a compouter. What I was thinking is to have *real* instruments and recording them is not as simple as pluging something in your soundcard. Recording of a trumpet or a viola recquires some knowledge and mic gear that not every amateur musician has.

Games like Perfect Dark Zero and Halo 2 are starting to use more contemporary music. We should at least give it a try.

I'm with Pajarico.

I think we should settle for what we can get.

knivey wrote:I think we should settle for what we can get.

Music is one of the things that need to be quite consistent. You can't have a piece of instrumental music in one map and a crappy midi in the other. So if we would go for instrumental ALL our music wouldn't need to be done like that, preferably by the same band. It's a lot easier to have computer music fit with eachother.