Speech and Sound

For collaboration between the different artists creating music and sound for vegastrike.
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www2
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Post by www2 »

@Zeog
most want i the funny ads...
and a news broadcast at 1 of 2 times per hour...
And is a good idee...
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Post by klauss »

Well, I'll have to modify the soundserver protocol in order to allow client-controlled fading, and multiple concurrent reproduction of tracks, so I may as well start adding those commands:
  • 1) listen to shoutcast
    2) synthesize speech
    3) I thought I had three... oh, well.
PS: How to make them work is another issue...
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Post by zaydana »

After a bit of fiddling aroudn with my music program (of which the .torrent is attatched... not too special yet), I have thought of yet another way to organize all this music =) I think this way makes the most sense of all, and will be the easiest to write to, as well as being able to integrate with our current music pretty well. Also, it still gives the impression of a continous soudntrack. Basically, each "song" should have a fair few sections - intro, outro, and in the middle. And for each of these parts it should have at least three seperate sections: normal flight, enemy close by, and fighting.

Then, the way the music is played is basically one song is played after another after another blah blah like a usual playlist, but the variation of the song is what changes on the mood. That way, it won't be hell to get all the song to be linkable, but will still be mood based, pre-rendered music that pretty much seemlessly blends. Also, if needed it wouldn't be too hard to make the intros/outros blend, and the hell of making songs blend at millions of points go is gone =)

The torrent i've attatched is just me playing around with some musical ideas. It takes the three states i mentioned (peaceful flight, enemy nearby, and fighting) and puts them in that order. I havn't got an outro or anything yet, and the seperate parts need a helluva lot of work. However, you get the idea. I'll try to get in the near future a "complete" song which has the moods you guys want and can switch between them at certain points, as well as useable intros/outros.

edit: seems i can't attatch .torrents... its at http://zaydana.servebeer.com/pub/multi.mp3.torrent
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Post by klauss »

Well... You're the one composing, so you're calling the shots actually. Mine was just an idea.

What you say is, IMHO, doable right now with python.
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Post by klauss »

@zaydana:
I was fiddling with Frontier Elite (so many people were talking about it that I had to try it, so I googled it up), and something really nice hit me in the face playing a bit with it: Blue Danube.

If you played it, you must remember the Blue Danube playing whenever you landed. It creates a 2001: Space Oddisey feeling that really gets you in the mood. Perhaps we should find a way to do something like that in VS, since VS has all things set up for it - the big space, inertial flight (soon), slow landings (perhaps it would fit better with atmospheric flight, when it's done). But, anyway, some places could call for non-original soundtracks, don't you think?
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Post by zaydana »

sorry to be such an out of touch little kid... but wth is blue danube? =) I have to admit that vegastrke is the only space sim i've ever played, closest thing to it is terminal velocity... and closest thing to that is homeworld ;) (which isn't very close)
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Post by klauss »

Have you seen 2001: Space Oddisey? Blue Danube, by Strauss, is the music that's playing in the space-era opening, when the stuartess is walking through the ship, and the pen is floating in the air.
If you haven't, well, it's hard to tell. It's a Walz called Blue Danube, and was written by Johann Strauss.

Better listen to it: Blue Danube Waltz

But if you haven't seen 2001: Space Oddisey, in order to get my meaning, you should. It's not just the music, it's the combination of music and visuals which is so great. Really, Kubrick (the movie's director) has my admiration for doing it so perfectly.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

If a classic waltz is required, I vote for Maurice Ravel's "Le Valtz" was it called? Can't remember; but it's a gorgeous piece, full of dissonant moments and surprises..
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Post by klauss »

I mentioned the Blue Danube because it evokes the Space Oddisey. But yes, other "classic" music could go pretty well. Wagner and Prokofjev come to mind, primarily. Ravel is... to... impressionist (is that the term?) for most moods, it only accomplishes the "mistery" feeling.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Not in that piece -- he doesn't sound like an impressionist in that one piece; he sounds half Strauss half Stravinski, or something like that.
And, just for an intro I was suggesting. And IF a valtz was desired.
I love Wagner dearly, but I think he'd be out of the question for political reasons (not only WW2 memories, but Vietnam as well; --with a faction called kkk and Wagner music on top, VS devs would be suspected to be white supremacists, probably :-( ). ((Too bad there have to be political considerations, but RW actually earned it; he did hate Jews, himself; --which maybe at least part of the reason Hitler decided to hate Jews, he was fanatical about Wagner.))
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Post by klauss »

I would respond:
"Let them suspect all they want. Music is Art, and Art never bothered with politics".

I hate it how Wagner, one of the greatest composers, gets discriminated because a bunch of dictators used his music in bad circumstances (details aside).

Anyhow, a more politically correct response would be:
"It was introduced on purpose, so that poeople never forgets the wrongdoings of the past".

(But that would be BSing myself...)
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

It's not just the past, klauss; it's the present too. When I was living in Calgary I had an apartment right next to a Mormon church. They had these masses at midnight on weekends sometimes, and when mass was finished, almost every car leaving the parking lot was spinning the wheels, at like 2am, and phone booths windows would be shattered, in the neighborhood by the next day, and one of those nights, some of the people coming out at 2 or 3 am were going TAN TAN TA-TAN TAN... Wagner's intro to the Valkyrias, at the top of their voices. There's just too much crap associated with Wagner; and too many maniacs still using his music as their logo. And you're not exposed to the lingering problems of racism, where you live. Up in this part of the world sensitivities are heightened. Even in Canada... ;-)
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Post by klauss »

Let's not hijack this thread, but just saying: You're right, I don't get it. Really, I don't see the connection between the music and the freaks, but that may be because I'm not being "trained" in this perception of his music as those people's logo. What's most certainly is that those people are damaging the art world by rendering some work (like the intro to the Valkyries) unusable due to the attached implications.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Indeed they are. I don't want to hijack this thread either; I'll send you an email.
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Post by Chaos »

I was fiddling with Frontier Elite (so many people were talking about it that I had to try it, so I googled it up), and something really nice hit me in the face playing a bit with it: Blue Danube.
It's funny that you say that because i was secretly wishing to make a reinterpretation of Blue Danube. I have the exact same feeling, the link with 2001 and how Braben used it as well in Elite, there is a strong lineage. VS could as well have some classical pieces because classic music is beautiful and the nature is so extraordinary too. Space ! :)

Well, i want to use only analog synthezisers like W.Carlos did in the soundtrack of Clockwork Orange, another masterpiece of Stanley Kubrick. There are a few classical musics played with the Moog synthesizer (a big modular indeed). The result is very kitch nowaday but nothing short of amazing.

Thanks for the midifile, i will try to post my ogg as soon as i find time (i am in the process of recording other projects for the moment).
Last edited by Chaos on Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Chaos »

zaydana, i tried to download some of your torrent files, notabtly the one above "multi.mp3.torrent". Unfortunatly i cannot grab them. :(
Are they still available ?
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Post by jackS »

TANGENT ALERT
chuck_starchaser wrote: with a faction called kkk
Did you mean Klk'k?
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I FOUND IT! I FOUND IT! But it was called "La Valse", and this is a piano version in midi, but I'm sure forgiving ears will still appreciate it.
La Valse, by Maurice Ravel
It's a really complex piece, and in my mind, I think Ravel was part protesting waltzes, partly making fun of them. In his days, waltzes were "pop" music, in a way. To my ears, he's creating such stark contrasts of waltzistic simplicity and neoclassical complexity that this couldn't be anything but some sort of slap on someone's face; --who's I'm not sure... ;-)
In any case, when the Blue Danube was mentioned, it immediately came to my mind that it would be such a cool and subtle joke to have this piece as intro, given all the fine, tongue in cheek humor already present in Vegastrike. Not all of it, of course, it's like 15 minutes long... The cut scene could start with a ship flying in desolate and asteroid filled regions of space while playing this piece from one minute 20 seconds into it, or from 1:30. By the time the first waltzy part comes in at 1:57 we're out of the asteroid field. At 2:00 we enter a jump point, exit by 2:10 into a more populated and civilized system. By 2:22 we're flying over a cratered planet or moon. Cut at 2:41. Skip some of the track. Then a pirate encounter at the moment the piano player hits all the low keys at once (4:05), approach and fighting startss at the next hit of all keys (4:22) ((So we got the intro to Privateer alluded to, as well as 2001; now, somewhere inbetween if we throw in a scene of the ship cruising through a foggy flat plane or planetary ring (7:00), we get an allusion to Star Trek's intro. This could actually be put at the beginning, ahead of the asteroids part.)) The last 30 seconds of this piece are perfect for depicting the pirates getting hit again and again and exploding, BTW.
All this could be without sound, just the piano, like in the old silent movies. Then abruptly the music stops, we're near a planet and we turn on cabin sounds with full 3D positioning, and just then the 'clear for landing' comm comes in...
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Post by klauss »

Luckily, if we do something like this, many in my family play the Piano, myself included. We won't need a lousy synthesizer.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Excellent! Can you play Ravel? ;-)

PS: I haven't listened to your speech tracks yet; I downloaded the file to my Linux drive, but then had to switch back to Windows and I'm working overtime for a project at work, which I have to do in Windows. And tonight I have a conference to go to, so probably not till tomorrow night.
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Post by Chaos »

Did you mean Klk'k?
Does the name of theses aliens give a hint about the sound of their voice when talking ?

I imagine something like dolphins :) k'k'kakak !
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Post by klauss »

About being able to... I think I can. I heared, from my dad, that Ravel is a bitch. If you don't play it right, it sounds like crap. But (modest be Mussorgskly, not me) I have a natural ability at "playing music", quite the opposite is true about "playing notes". It requires a lot of work from my part to learn the notes. But once I do, I'm done. I don't have trouble with the interpretation, or anything else.

But... my dad... he doesn't have trouble with anything. He could play it at first sight. I remember he once gave a concert at first sight. He's unbelievable. I'm bugging him every weekend about recording stuff - somehow, he always finds an excuse. Perhaps I can convince him to record La Valse, or something we need (and let us use it, of course). Although trying to play it myself would be fun.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

That's super-cool! In fact he (or you) could rearrange the piece if we need to, such as doing the part at 7:00 before starting at 1:30... food for thought. Or even splice the opening of Rite of Spring at the beginning... to match to some ship-less vistas...

Hmm... Respighi... Sorry, I'm a sucker for the impressionists...

I was thinking about Mussorgsky, since you were hot to trot about Wagner, I thought the opening of "Night in the Bald Mountain" could substitute nicely ;-)
Sparks! Even Debussy sounds a bit Wagnerish in some parts of La Mer...
(I still like La Valse best for the intro, though :))

Do you play jazz too? There's one piece by Chick Corea, his Elektric Band, called "Cool Weisel Boogie". The first time I heard it I said, "That's IT!!! That's where the inspiration for Privateer's Pleasure Base music came from!", and it remains my best theory to this day.
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Post by MamiyaOtaru »

chuck_starchaser wrote:It's not just the past, klauss; it's the present too. When I was living in Calgary I had an apartment right next to a Mormon church. They had these masses at midnight on weekends sometimes ... Wagner ... maniacs ... racism ... blah
I call shenanigans. Mormons don't hold mass and they as a general rule don't have activities past midnight. The only things that approach midnight are dances for the youth, services are always in the daytime. And Wagner is never a part of the services; that would be an odd church service indeed. I'd buy it if you said there was a classical music concert there once and Wagner was played..

/mormon, and I don't really appreciate the insinuations. PM me if you feel like justifying those comments ;)

back to your regularly scheduled thread.
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