PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

For collaboration between the different artists creating music and sound for vegastrike.
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PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by Oblivion »

Proposed Reclassification of Music:

Per Faction

1.Deep Space - starts to play when you are a set distance away from a station. To illustrate further - it plays when you are orbitting a planet; it plays when you're swimming with a whole school of Clydesdales; It plays when you're out mining asteroids;it doesn't play when you're approaching a station.

2.Inhabited Space - starts to play when you are a set distance near a station. As illustrated above it plays only near stations. Not planets or ships.

3.Battle - unlike previous usage of battle music, just start playing battle music if and only if a ship, (any ship, including yours) gets damaged by weapons in your vicinity.

4.Victory - unlike previous usage - a short track that plays every time hostiles attacking you have been eliminated.

5.Loss - unlike previous usage - another short track that plays at the space hag :) splash screen.

6.Station - all of the tracks of the Inhabited Space playlist is included in here. However, it includes more music that is deemed unsuitable as background music for spaceflight - i.e. music meant to be HEARD. It plays when you are docked at a station or a planet. Do not confuse this with ambient sounds.

7.Ambient sounds of stations and planets(conversation, background station noise) should be separated and classified with sound effects, though they still have to be classified by Faction and perhaps by station type. The result would be: An Rlaan commerce station would have different music and different background ambient sounds (perhaps some clicking and rasping along with the Rlaan music) from a human Shaper asteroid mining base.

Reasons why I think threat and panic as unsuitable, as well as why victory and loss have different functions? Threat and panic are both like a magic warning signal. It takes away the mystery of not knowing when and where hostiles will attack. Victory and loss's former usage is somewhat the same. While playing VS, there are a lot of instances VS when I suddenly hear battle music, and victory music without knowing what's happening. That's not (i will not say realistic ;)) the way things should be. I don't much care if an Andolian tug gets torn to pieces by a pack of Pirate hyenas a couple of light-seconds from me. For one, I cannot possibly know that he has been attacked, unless he has sent a distress signal, which he has not. And a lot of other instances besides when a hostile, a few thousand kilometers away, declaring war on me would trigger battle music, kind of unsuitable, ain't it?

So do away with this and settle for battle music that plays ONLY when there is actually reasonable threat against your life. Define a radius around your ship, let it be small enough, if any ship gets attacked inside the immediate radius, that's the time get worried.

Perhaps if we can find other sources of damage in the future, we can reincorporate threat music, as a sort of another version of battle music for damage to your ship not done by weapons. That would mean - Flying too near the sun and having it fry your wings; wandering too close to a source of harmful radiaton; banging up your ship on serious collisions for three times in a row in a span of 30 seconds (indicating either your drunk or your inside one dangerous asteroid field) :).

The rationale behind somewhat simplifying the track playlists is also so that we can actually listen to music. Having a lot of playlists for each and every situation gives each track a very limited amount of time to play. Perhaps all of you have noticed this, VS music switch around all the time, mid-track, nonetheless. It destroys a sense of continuity. You only get to listen to the beginnings of the track. Rarely do you get to actually listen to it to the end. ;)

And moreover:
Faction music does not mean it plays every time a ship who is a member of that faction is near. It plays X Faction's music if and only if the player's ship is currently traversing or engaged (regardless of the faction of the enemies) in Faction X's system, when near a Faction X's station, or when docked in Faction X's station or planet.

Consider these scenarios:

a.Player ship is in an Andolian controlled system, but is attacked by a Luddite marauding party.
What music should play?
- Andolian Battle

b.Player ship is in an Andolian system but docked unto a Forsaken station.
What music should play?
-Forsaken Station, why? because Forsaken stations are classified as inside Forsaken space.

c.Player ship approaches an Rlaan Station in a Shaper System.
What music should play?
-Rlaan Inhabited Space, switching from previous Shaper Deep Space

d.Player ship approaches an massive fleet of Uln ships inside an Aeran system.
What music should play?
-Aeran Deep Space

In conclusion, I need some decisions and perhaps a commitment to reform the code support for the playlists. I know this is a long post, :). I have a propensity for long posts anyway, But please take this proposition seriously. I am currently searching the web for creative commons music, and until these issues are resolved, I may have to redo most of the work I'm doing now. I need a stable basis for choosing music. Besides the previous music classification makes it extremely difficult to select tracks suitable for the playlists.

And on another take, it might even be more desirable to merge Deep Space and Inhabited Space together to avoid constant switching, as most techno tracks averages at 5 minutes or so in length. And/Or slow down SPEC itself (do away with seemingly instantaneous mode of travel that is quite boring, balance this with better ambient graphics and/or more ships travelling with you in lanes), implement SPEC Inhibition Zones, and code AI that will allow space lanes to naturally evolve. And also add more interesting places in stations, a mini-game perhaps?, something to persuade players to stop longer in each station.
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Re: PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by klauss »

Oblivion wrote:Reasons why I think threat and panic as unsuitable, as well as why victory and loss have different functions? Threat and panic are both like a magic warning signal. It takes away the mystery of not knowing when and where hostiles will attack. Victory and loss's former usage is somewhat the same. While playing VS, there are a lot of instances VS when I suddenly hear battle music, and victory music without knowing what's happening. That's not (i will not say realistic ;)) the way things should be. I don't much care if an Andolian tug gets torn to pieces by a pack of Pirate hyenas a couple of light-seconds from me. For one, I cannot possibly know that he has been attacked, unless he has sent a distress signal, which he has not. And a lot of other instances besides when a hostile, a few thousand kilometers away, declaring war on me would trigger battle music, kind of unsuitable, ain't it?
My original idea of the "threat" playlist was a lot more washed out than you think. Threat was meant to play when you're in hostile territory. That's all. I mean... an environment filled with tension.
The thing that enemy-triggered "threat/battle" playlists act as warning signs could be fixed, by modifying the triggers. For instance, we could say that the trigger no longer is the presence of a threatening ship inside a certain radius alone, but either a) within LOS (forward-looking), or b) targetted, or c) talked to, or d) fired upon.
That is... things that effectively prove you're aware of its presence - let the music be a reflection of that, rather than its cause.

BTW: This thread belongs to the music forum.
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Post by Oblivion »

That is... things that effectively prove you're aware of its presence - let the music be a reflection of that, rather than its cause.
Sadly that's seldom what happens. More often, currently, music IS the cause. It plays even when you are unaware.

The use of threat in hostile territory is a bit better than what i thought its use was, but that depends on how you define TERRITORY. ownership of a system, the presence of a hostile ship, etc. Hence its tendency to become a magic warning signal when the territory is not sufficiently clear.

So, okay, if threat can be used as a direct opposite of the use of deep space and station perimeters music, that would be great. But... it entails more work too. Unnecessary. A hostile environment is not that threatening unless it attacks you, and if it does, battle music would suffice. And most of the deep space and station music listed in the other thread are sufficiently threatening for the more belligerent factions, and less so for the peaceful races. Please try to listen to some of them. The pirate deep sapce music, for instance. Or the aeran ones. :?
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Post by Oblivion »

Okay.
Magnatune did reply. Though...

Here's the email.

Code: Select all

Since the project is non-commercial there is no charge for use of the music for one album of your choice.  However, you are required to give artistic credit and acknowledge Magnatune as well!  A credit in the form of "You heard the 'Song Name' by 'Artist Name', which is available at magnatune.com" in the game credits or on the website.

If you wanted additional Magnatune music for the game, you are welcome to use mp3s with vocal announcements at no charge.  You can find the files at www.magnatune.com/info/api. Alternatively, you may purchase the albums on our website  and just include attribution. 

You will receive our "New at Magnatune" announcements to keep you updated on new releases and events of interest.

Please let me know if you have any questions and good luck! 
What do I do next?
Seems as if Falik's music is the only music they are willing to license. :?
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Post by klauss »

We certainly can't use mp3s with "vocal announcements".
So... only Falik's?

EDIT:
non-commercial licensing wrote:If you meet these requirements, you have two options:
  • 1 - Free copy of the best-quality audio: You can email Teresa telling her about your project, and what album you want to use. She'll happily send you free download instructions as if you'd paid for the album. That way, you can use the best quality audio files in your project. In your email to us, please tell us if you have a web page about you or your project!
    2 - Download 128k mp3s with speaking on them: You can also download the MP3s for this album. Each mp3 will end with spoken text that says "you just heard..." If you'd rather not have the speaking at the end of the mp3s (and we assume you would) please see option number one above.
I'd say 1, once we have the final candidate .mp3s from option 2. Don't you think?
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

As a composer, I figure I should put my two cents in... :roll:

You run the risk of a few different issues by having so many different categories/lists of music.

I see no issues with "ambient (stations)", "normal" and "battle", but my personal feeling is that the fewer types you have the easier it is to write non-repetitive music.

The way I see it, composers who can write good, cohesive underscore are a lot more rare than coders and graphic artists.. You should not make things too complicated for composers at the risk of scaring them away from the project.. I would have put more effort into vegastrike music personally had the needs been simpler.

Actually making the music all fit together is a big job, and use of library music not written for this does not help matters.. you end up with a mish-mash of various pieces that do not belong together with rather jarring transitions.

Given so few composers, you would have a difficult time building up pieces of music for those different lists that actually sound like they belong together.

Also, transitions between pieces of music must be considered.. You can't necessarily just switch out of one piece and into another at any point you want as they may have completely different keys, rhythms, etc. This leads to the need to program in pre-set "break points" where a piece of music can seguey into another one, with small MP3s of a transitional nature as connecting music to bridge between the different pieces. It's made easier by writing an entire composition in a single key and writing all others in the same key, but that is a surefire way to make very boring music.

Look at one of the biggest music changes between WC1 and 2 and 3 and 4 - fewer types of music. While Govett did music for battle, losing battle, victory, defeat, mission, death, enemy ship destroyed, good ship destroyed, etc, notice how Oldziey just uses a single piece of music throughout basically the entire mission.

I believe the reasons for that are two-fold:

1 - Oldziey wanted to write longer compositions that had more structure, development and interest to them. It is more difficult to develop compositions that you have to keep in one key or closely related keys as Govett needed to to give his pieces strong tonal unity to make the transitions sound acceptable.

2 - WC1 and 2 were MIDI while 4 was audio recordings. It is easier to program transitions in MIDI as the playback software knows where every bar of music stops and starts - it's built into the file and the composer doesn't really need to do anything, plus the MIDI playback software can enforce a certain tempo on the music whereas with audio you have to have a "config file" for each .OGG that shows the different breakpoints where the music can safely transition to another piece with links to different transitional pieces. Putting those together and composing the transitional pieces is a LOT of work, and when you don't have a lot of composers, it isn't very realistic.

Therefore I suggest you keep things simple in the interest of improving the musical quality and musical identity of the game:

- Have just ambient base music, normal flight music, and battle flight music - worry about different categories later if there are actually enough composers to handle all the work and do a reasonable job of making everything fit together stylistically with reasonable quality
- Nevermind music for the different races yet, just get the available composers working together on the base music, normal flight music, and battle flight music, agreeing on certain keys and thematic material to promote unity in the game's music. Given how long people will be playing the game, you'll need at least 6-8 different "normal flight music"s and "battle flight music"s. That's a lot of work as it is!

Keep this thing as simple as possible guys.. My two cents anyway.. :)
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Post by klauss »

One of the very old threads (one of the very first) has considerations about transitions.

I will eventually code all that, it's not hard at all, but I didn't hope for it to be used. It's a lot of work, and my initial proposition scared the few composers we had so I quickly backed out gracefully with a "I'll code it, but you don't have to use it if you don't want".

I happen to know a thing or two about music and music composition (though I have nil talent at it), hence the proposition. I know you can't just crossfade. You need bridges to connect two different keys and/or themes, you need those bridges to somewhat make sense to the overall structure, you also even have to restrict possible transitions (not all pieces can make the transit to every other without loosing continuity).

About the "too many categories", I don't think it's a problem. It might seem to be, but have in mind that they are "lists". Nothing stops you from using a track for several lists, if appropriate.

About the heterogeneity of using library music. I know. It would be ideal to have pieces composed for us, but that proved to be very difficult (getting people to compose them). I know how demanding composition can be, and I understand it's a lot to ask (so many tracks, with such specific requirements), so I'll be happy to have less coherent (but still coherent) library music instead or until we get our hands on a/some composer(s).
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Post by Oblivion »

@klauss:
I'd say 1, once we have the final candidate .mp3s from option 2. Don't you think?
Notice that the announcement for non-commercial licensing specifically says "album". So only Falik's, I think... :( But Falik's music is stellar for the Forsaken faction, anyways.

@Mike Ducharme

Thanks for the dollar, I get to keep the change. :wink:
having so many different categories/lists of music
actually it's already toned down. ;) Unbelievable as it may seem. I'm proposing to simplify music classification by having only 4 main music types:
1.Deep Space
2.Inhabited Space
3.Battle
4.Station Interior

Though, 1 & 2 can be combined for the normal in-flight music.
Or all 1,2, & 4 as Faction peace music.

Victory & Loss are preset music. So only one track for each.

Ambient is necessarily separate from the music itself.
The way I see it, composers who can write good, cohesive underscore are a lot more rare than coders and graphic artists..
True. Which is why I'm trying to draw from other sources than original composers. You can't guarantee cohesiveness from original composers too anyway. And having to wait for each music piece to be finished is rather limiting.
You should not make things too complicated for composers at the risk of scaring them away from the project.. I would have put more effort into vegastrike music personally had the needs been simpler.
:wink: Sorry, if it looks that way. But I really want to simplify music needs. Consider the original music types:
1.Peace, deep space
2.Peace, near inhabitation
3.Threat
4.Battle
5.Panic (losing)
6.Imminent Victory
7.Victory
8.Loss (death)
9.Ambient
10.Station music

Not sure where each ends and where others begin, but that's about it, currently.

And I agree that with THAT configuration. Making music fit for that is very difficult. It's difficult to choose from pre-existing creative commons music as it is.
Actually making the music all fit together is a big job, and use of library music not written for this does not help matters.. you end up with a mish-mash of various pieces that do not belong together with rather jarring transitions.

Given so few composers, you would have a difficult time building up pieces of music for those different lists that actually sound like they belong together.
Jarring transitions can be solved by fade-ins and fade-outs, even without preset transition points. Which doesn't seem to be implemented, currently (afaik, not coded?). And I am not getting music from composers, but from music already existing with gpl or creative-commons licenses.

I know it would sound as if I'm passing over composers, but I'm not. It's just that there have been a lot of complaints with the current music, and I think it's time to start tapping other resources. The current music is much more incohesive, apologies to the composers, but they sound totally different from each other... which should not have been. But it is.

So until composers start churning out quality music that fits, I think its best to have outside music in interim. I actually specified Techno music and its variations to keep it in the right atmosphere and reasonably similar.

Please don't take this as a discouragement to composers. What I would compile from what I sources I can get would be TEMPORARY. I will have no complaints whatsoever if the music files would be replaced or added with originally composed music. But as of now, what exists are two things which nature abhor:

VACUUM
CHAOS

So let's try to get some order first, then worry about specifics later. :wink:

- Have just ambient base music, normal flight music, and battle flight music - worry about different categories later if there are actually enough composers to handle all the work and do a reasonable job of making everything fit together stylistically with reasonable quality
- Nevermind music for the different races yet, just get the available composers working together on the base music, normal flight music, and battle flight music, agreeing on certain keys and thematic material to promote unity in the game's music. Given how long people will be playing the game, you'll need at least 6-8 different "normal flight music"s and "battle flight music"s. That's a lot of work as it is!
I think I'll try to take advice #1. Precisely because there are no composers composing right now. 8)

As for 2. Nope. I think its a must. Making general music for now would encourage its staticity. Changes would have to be made again when faction music will be implemented, which as is obvious, will again be debated upon, etc... So even if a faction only has one track for each music type, it will suffice for now, additions will be made by judgement. It will provide a BASIS for the faction styles. Getting composers to provide ALL the music seems unlikely, given that they're few and far in between. As for length and number, try to listen to a sample music from the tentative playlist. Falik's music for instance are long, non-repetitive, yet with the same beat all throughout the song, and possibly through all the songs. Yet each song has a lot of moods buried in it, making choosing for a music type harder. But it makes even one track sufficient for a music type.

..that's all...i think :wink:
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Post by klauss »

Oblivion wrote:@klauss:
I'd say 1, once we have the final candidate .mp3s from option 2. Don't you think?
Notice that the announcement for non-commercial licensing specifically says "album". So only Falik's, I think... :( But Falik's music is stellar for the Forsaken faction, anyways´
Nope. I don't think that's what it meant.
Basically, because a) I found it in an albumless context (a general FAQ), b) I also found it in a random composer's album "licensing" link (not Falik), and c) because, being Creative Commons, it should apply to all and every one of them. I think they require you to contact Teresa to help enforce the Creative Commons - that way, they can make sure you'll give proper use to it before submitting the high-quality versions.

The word "album" there is... well... just a coincidence, as the text was taken from the "licensing" link (that is, it applies to one album). But, since you can repeat the process, you can get "many one-album licences" ;)

BTW: I misunderstood the phrase "vocal announcements" - I thought it was publicity, not copyright. I wouldn't mind a copyright notice that much as a temporary measure, but I certainly still don't think it would be suitable as a permanent thing - it just kills the mood. :idea: Unless the mood is listening to a radio


About the rest. Please, people, understand that I overdid the classification on purpose, since by simply repeating tracks or entire playlists you can easily simplify the scheme (that is, if you specify the same playlist to battle and threat, or to peace and threat, you effectively erase the threat category, but if you don't want to go that far but are still resource-limited, you can just add a few changes, sharing most tracks).
It's the most flexible way. That means it can take both simple and complex stuff, no need to feel forced to use all the features (though... I would say: "pretty please do?")
Ah, yes: transition points not coded yet. It's rather difficult to do it with the current engine, it's slated for addition once the new sound engine takes shape. Don't get hyped, though... "new sound engine" is a long-term project, it's one of my specialties, and I intend to do high-end stuff there (which means, it has no timetable at all). I've always wanted to have a place to put my sound ideas to good use, and VS seems to be the logical choice.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

Oblivion wrote:Jarring transitions can be solved by fade-ins and fade-outs, even without preset transition points. Which doesn't seem to be implemented, currently (afaik, not coded?).

And I am not getting music from composers, but from music already existing with gpl or creative-commons licenses.
I disagree that fade ins and fade outs are a viable solution as they disrupt the flow of the gameplay. You're still moving to pieces that probably are in a totally different tempo, different key, etc, than the previous one.
Oblivion wrote:The current music is much more incohesive, apologies to the composers, but they sound totally different from each other... which should not have been. But it is.
The lack of cohesiveness in the music I suspect is not due to any lack of talent among the composers. It is however due to a lack of standardization. The only way you're going to get these composers to sound similar is by requiring that they use certain instrument combinations, requiring they use specific keys for their pieces, and most importantly have the thematic material for the music and the motifs for the music pre-constructed and require that all the pieces of music done by the different composers use chunks of the common materials. This way the common themes and motifs provide unity across the entire spectrum.

Not that it is anybody's fault, but there are no set requirements for music composition for VegaStrike, and composers who want to write for it are faced with lack of direction other than the chaos of conflicting suggestions by different users in these forums.
Oblivion wrote:So until composers start churning out quality music that fits, I think its best to have outside music in interim. I actually specified Techno music and its variations to keep it in the right atmosphere and reasonably similar.
You're never going to keep composers on this project if they spend hours doing work that is reasonable quality and you end up not using it becuase they were not given proper guidelines on how to write from the beginning.

Suppose you guys had no standards or rules for 3d models on the graphics end of things, and you told people "go ahead and make some models".. a designer could spend hours, days, weeks working on the models, and do a really good job of them. But perhaps he/she used the wrong color scheme or look for that race, or even used the wrong modeling program or file format entirely. Would you then say sorry we can't use these because they don't fit with the rest? It wouldn't be their fault -- had they been told what color scheme, 3d modeling program, file format etc to use from the get-go in a clear way they could have done a great job with the stuff.

It's the same thing with the music - your composers need direction, and by saying "we're not providing you with direction in what to write, instead you just write and we toss out what we don't like". That's silly - it's definately not a way to retain composers - it makes them feel like they are not respected and that their contributions are not valued. Replacing the existing music with Techno is not a way to retain those who have already composed for VS.
Oblivion wrote:But as of now, what exists are two things which nature abhor:

VACUUM
CHAOS
I can paraphase Spock too: I believe illogical to think that you'll get anything other than chaos in the music when you don't set guidelines for the composers. (again, nothing personal, and not directed at anybody in particular, but putting my two cents in)
As for 2. Nope. I think its a must. Making general music for now would encourage its staticity. Changes would have to be made again when faction music will be implemented, which as is obvious, will again be debated upon, etc... So even if a faction only has one track for each music type, it will suffice for now, additions will be made by judgement.
I believe that while the music for the factions is a good idea, it can only be accomplished over time. Creating generic normal flight and battle flight music that will work for all the factions I feel should be the first order of business. Afterwards special battle and flight music can be written for battling the Rlaan and the Aera, continuing to use the generic music for the other factions.. after enough good, cohesive music has been written for the Rlaan and Aera then look at one by one replacing the generic music with the faction music, in order of importance.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

klauss wrote:About the rest. Please, people, understand that I overdid the classification on purpose, since by simply repeating tracks or entire playlists you can easily simplify the scheme (that is, if you specify the same playlist to battle and threat, or to peace and threat, you effectively erase the threat category, but if you don't want to go that far but are still resource-limited, you can just add a few changes, sharing most tracks).
It's the most flexible way. That means it can take both simple and complex stuff, no need to feel forced to use all the features (though... I would say: "pretty please do?")
That's all well and good from a developer standpoint, but I don't believe the composers understand that clearly.. at least I know I didn't.. VS can have things as complex as it wants on the back end - as long as the composers jobs aren't being overcomplicated, scaring them away from the project. Again, to me, shows the need to have good guidelines and instructions and requirements for composers to help them make an easier job of composing.
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Post by Oblivion »

You're never going to keep composers on this project if they spend hours doing work that is reasonable quality and you end up not using it becuase they were not given proper guidelines on how to write from the beginning.


Quite true again. But then again. How do you make guidelines for music. I am not a musician, and I can't even read notes. :roll:

I guess, with the visual artist that I am, I tend to give examples rather than guidelines. i.e. Concept Art = = Concept Music. :oops: That's the way my mind works, anyway. So, if someone CAN write guidelines, that'd be cool. As of now, my idea is to create a few example playlists to have something for composers to base things on.
our composers need direction, and by saying "we're not providing you with direction in what to write, instead you just write and we toss out what we don't like". That's silly - it's definately not a way to retain composers - it makes them feel like they are not respected and that their contributions are not valued.
Okay, sorry. :oops: :oops: :oops: I guess I'm just being honest in saying that I don't like most of them. Not to compound things further, but they do conflict rather badly with the game's atmosphere. Not to say I don't like them all. I like peace3 by Ken? because it's got the right atmosphere. Not too brash. Not too intrusive. Yet not too boring.
I can paraphase Spock too
I wasn't paraphrasing spock. lol. I've never read one star trek novel in my life. I saw only the movie Nemesis, and some bits here and there of other Trek episodes. Some comics. But no, I wouldn't know what spock would say. I actually just finished reading PJFarmer's The Unreasoning Mask. Got full of strange ideas. :wink:
That's all well and good from a developer standpoint, but I don't believe the composers understand that clearly.. at least I know I didn't.. VS can have things as complex as it wants on the back end - as long as the composers jobs aren't being overcomplicated, scaring them away from the project. Again, to me, shows the need to have good guidelines and instructions and requirements for composers to help them make an easier job of composing.
Well... I can't make guidelines. Not that I would refuse to, if I could. :wink:
Basically, because a) I found it in an albumless context (a general FAQ), b) I also found it in a random composer's album "licensing" link (not Falik), and c) because, being Creative Commons, it should apply to all and every one of them. I think they require you to contact Teresa to help enforce the Creative Commons - that way, they can make sure you'll give proper use to it before submitting the high-quality versions.
Can you try to contact Teresa? :wink: I'm scared I would scare them further. lol. She also gave me a link to download the high quality oggs. However, I can't find time to DL that much in MB's. I'll give you the ftp and the passwords if you like. just email me.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

Oblivion wrote:I guess, with the visual artist that I am, I tend to give examples rather than guidelines. i.e. Concept Art = = Concept Music. :oops: That's the way my mind works, anyway. So, if someone CAN write guidelines, that'd be cool.
Certain guidelines that we can introduce and enforce through a VS music committee are:

- The use of certain time signatures and tempos.
- Use of certain keys, at least to start and end the pieces.
- Use of common motivic and thematic material.
- List of instruments to use with percentages for how much each group should be used
- Defining type of harmony such as tonal or atonal structure, use of 20th century harmonic concepts, serialism, minimalism, use of parallels etc.
- Recording techniques (amount of reverb and other effects)

Plus exceptions to the above to represent the more alien cultures (ex. we may have a sound-effect or synth used for a certain species, like a Theremin for the Area (could sound cheezy though :lol:), or unusual time signatures like I used in the concept theme I wrote for the Rlaan).

I can also write up a brief harmony how-to for the composers.. Though you can get extremely far by ear, one major concept that is difficult to grasp by composing by ear alone is modulating to different keys. Lack of modulation tends to make pieces boring and is a must for longer pieces.

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Post by klauss »

I'm reluctant to restricting keys.
I think themes would go a long way down that route, and further restrictions would just be overkill.

Also, I would point out (if y'all agree), that the point about the overall color guidelines (instrument percentages) should be a very general guideline, to be taken very lightly. It's true that excessive disparity would break coherency, but excessive coherency turns easily into monotony.
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Post by Mike Ducharme »

klauss wrote:I'm reluctant to restricting keys.
I'm just thinking about restricting the start and end keys of a composition to be one of 6 different closely related keys.. If someone wishes to modulate to remote keys during the composition that would be their perogative.. but in order for the composition to properly loop or jump into the next piece the keys would need to be reasonably related... Restricting the overall key of the composition to one of 6 choices and allowing modulation to any key inside the composition doesn't really limit things very much.
klauss wrote:Also, I would point out (if y'all agree), that the point about the overall color guidelines (instrument percentages) should be a very general guideline, to be taken very lightly. It's true that excessive disparity would break coherency, but excessive coherency turns easily into monotony.
I was thinking largely along the lines of standard orchestral palette (strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, piano) with largely minimal synth sounds, or synth sounds that can be easily downloaded by any person working on the music for free, it will help to ensure that the different compositions go together. Some composers for the game have used mostly synth sounds while others have used mostly orchestral, all to represent the same race or faction, resulting in music that doesn't match up properly..
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Re: red

Post by chuck_starchaser »

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Re: PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by Turbo »

I don't recall ever hearing a song cut short so another could start unless the situation changed (like an attack, launch from space dock, reading news on a station, reload the game, or a few other things) or I hit the SHIFT-S or whatever to advance to the next track (and even then it doesn't work every time). Even jumping to a new system or docking will not interrupt the song that was playing -- when it finishes, the music appropriate to the new location begins.

We previously discussed DJ-style intro/outro for the music as a way of crediting composers. While I have no issue with it, most did not think it a good idea. But it begs the question the devs never answered in the "completely different" thread and its offshoots -- what is the purpose of the music? Is it intended to enhance the players' mood according to the situation/location, or is it intended to suggest the 32d century equivalent of listening to the radio while you drive? Either purpose could be considered an enhancement to game immersion, but otherwise the direction to the composers is quite different.
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Re: PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by klauss »

Turbo wrote:what is the purpose of the music? Is it intended to enhance the players' mood according to the situation/location, or is it intended to suggest the 32d century equivalent of listening to the radio while you drive? Either purpose could be considered an enhancement to game immersion, but otherwise the direction to the composers is quite different.
I don't think the second option is a practicable one. You can never convey 32d centry radio without alienating the player's environment, and thus making the game uncomfortable to him.

I've always thought the music should be 21st centry with only a tiny grain of 32nd century "spicing", and intended to enhance the emotional immersiveness (ie: first option).
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Re: PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by Turbo »

I'm not sure what to say here. First Chuck stated his violent opposition to advertising in that thread, and now Klauss disagrees with intellectual immersion (in-cockpit news et. al.) in favor of emotional immersion (music only). I'm surprised, because we have been talking about inserting both advertising and news since July. I know you have been busy (Chuck with graphics and Klauss rewriting the sound system), but to paraphrase from The Wedding Singer, "I could have used this information 6 months ago."

But to make sure I understand your point of view, I would appreciate a clarification of "alienating the player's environment." When I was testing this up to a week ago (I installed Win7 last weekend and SVN crashes ever since, probably need to recompile), I could fly around and, when at peace, hear music with an occasional news bulletin or sponsorhip announcement (we don't have any full-length commercials yet). It was very much like listening to the radio in my car, except of course the VS music changes according to location and peace/threat/war.

The feature of music fitting the situation is definitely an "emotional immersion" feature, but I had rather hoped we weren't locked into all the old paradigms, even if some are unavoidable.
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Re: PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by klauss »

Turbo wrote:I'm not sure what to say here. First Chuck stated his violent opposition to advertising in that thread, and now Klauss disagrees with intellectual immersion (in-cockpit news et. al.)
It's not a disagreement in principle, It's more disbelief in the viability of such an implementation.
In essence, what I believe, is if you manage to create truly 32nd-century-like music, it won't be pretty. And it will be like living in a foreign country and eating foreign food: you can cope with it for a few days, but in a while you get sick of it.
Modern life is immersed in music, which means people is really attached to their music styles, they won't take completely alien styles kindly.

So what I think is that you could end up working a lot only to realize it wasn't such a good idea.

But this pertains to music style, not news stuff.
Turbo wrote:in favor of emotional immersion (music only).
Nono... emotional immersion means the whole shebang: music, special effects, ambience. News would be ambience.
Turbo wrote:I'm surprised, because we have been talking about inserting both advertising and news since July. I know you have been busy (Chuck with graphics and Klauss rewriting the sound system), but to paraphrase from The Wedding Singer, "I could have used this information 6 months ago."
I haven't even been reading the forums until pretty recently, and not even all the forums, only the ones that catch my eye. Not enough time to read it all.
Turbo wrote:But to make sure I understand your point of view, I would appreciate a clarification of "alienating the player's environment."
What I said before: people are heavily accustomed to their music styles, the most common being pop/rock music and the like.
Even though classical music is wonderful to my ears, I see rejection on other people 99% of the time. (the other 1% is because hollywood music resembles a kind of classical music).
Turbo wrote:The feature of music fitting the situation is definitely an "emotional immersion" feature, but I had rather hoped we weren't locked into all the old paradigms, even if some are unavoidable.
Actually, I favor more subtle methods. Changing the music when a battle ensues is too obvious and rather kills immersion a bit, and also becomes exploitable as a heads up, your about to be attacked.
To me, it is better to make the effect subtle... for instance, setting the mood of the music according to pottential yet not imminent threats. Like, if you get into aeran space and the aera are your enemies as opposed to your friends.
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Re: PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by Turbo »

OK then...I misunderstood. Sorry about that. We'll continue our work on the news recordings, and delay any further advertising work pending the outcome of the discussion in the "commercial" thread.

Now that I understand your points, I agree that subtle changes would be great, and warning the player of danger via a music change is bad. When I tried VS with music turned off, it seemed weird and less interesting.
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Re: PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by chuck_starchaser »

klauss wrote:
Turbo wrote:I'm not sure what to say here. First Chuck stated his violent opposition to advertising in that thread, and now Klauss disagrees with intellectual immersion (in-cockpit news et. al.)
It's not a disagreement in principle, It's more disbelief in the viability of such an implementation.
In essence, what I believe, is if you manage to create truly 32nd-century-like music, it won't be pretty. And it will be like living in a foreign country and eating foreign food: you can cope with it for a few days, but in a while you get sick of it.
Modern life is immersed in music, which means people is really attached to their music styles, they won't take completely alien styles kindly.
This is completely strange coming from you, Klauss. How do you know that if we heard 32nd Century music now it wouldn't be pretty? It might be the most beautiful music imaginable, or NOT-imaginable, for all we know.
You seem to be espousing the popular fallacy that we like music BECAUSE it sounds familiar, as if there was NOTHING deeper to musicality than familiarity. You are dead wrong, if that's what you believe.
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Re: PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by Neskiairti »

speaking purely from my own perspective.. I can appreciate all forms of music, thats not to say I like everything, infact I hate most music i hear :P just because alot of bands out there are really really really lazy and bad at playing XD

If the music has emotion to it, if the person playing it, feels it, and puts themselves in to it, I can usually appreciate it. if music in the 32nd century is just electronic background noise picked up by antennas and spliced together by computers for "pleasing" notes, I'll probably find it pretty crappy and annoying. If however the artist put his heart in to his art, I'm sure I'll be able to appreciate the alien nature of it.
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Re: PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Framing it:

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Neskiairti wrote:speaking purely from my own perspective.. I can appreciate all forms of music, thats not to say I like everything, infact I hate most music i hear :P just because alot of bands out there are really really really lazy and bad at playing XD

If the music has emotion to it, if the person playing it, feels it, and puts themselves in to it, I can usually appreciate it. if music in the 32nd century is just electronic background noise picked up by antennas and spliced together by computers for "pleasing" notes, I'll probably find it pretty crappy and annoying. If however the artist put his heart in to his art, I'm sure I'll be able to appreciate the alien nature of it.

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Indeed.
One of the side-effects of this social disease we call "civilization" is the demonizing of subjectivity and of all human involvement.
We invented "laws" because we don't trust human judgement (often with good reasons); but in doing so we've been "objectivizing" The Good, which ends up being a complete reversal: The Good is something we humans feel. It can't be made objective.
Same thing applies to art, with art critics being the Supreme Executioner of all that we humans have regarded as Art throughout the ages. "If you think this IS beautiful, prove it to me. You can't? Then don't interfere with my expert job as art critic." And all "form" is suspect, and subject to criticism; so we end up with random paintings, and noise as music; as art critics then have the least straws to grasp in trying to cknock it down.
And by art critics I don't mean only professional art critics, I mean society in general.
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Re: PROPOSED MUSIC RECLASSIFICATION

Post by klauss »

chuck_starchaser wrote:
klauss wrote:
Turbo wrote:I'm not sure what to say here. First Chuck stated his violent opposition to advertising in that thread, and now Klauss disagrees with intellectual immersion (in-cockpit news et. al.)
It's not a disagreement in principle, It's more disbelief in the viability of such an implementation.
In essence, what I believe, is if you manage to create truly 32nd-century-like music, it won't be pretty. And it will be like living in a foreign country and eating foreign food: you can cope with it for a few days, but in a while you get sick of it.
Modern life is immersed in music, which means people is really attached to their music styles, they won't take completely alien styles kindly.
This is completely strange coming from you, Klauss. How do you know that if we heard 32nd Century music now it wouldn't be pretty? It might be the most beautiful music imaginable, or NOT-imaginable, for all we know.
You seem to be espousing the popular fallacy that we like music BECAUSE it sounds familiar, as if there was NOTHING deeper to musicality than familiarity. You are dead wrong, if that's what you believe.
I don't believe familiarity is all, but it is indeed a strong factor.

But, mostly so, my point is that if you make "rlaan music", it will appeal to the invented rlaan aesthetics, which will probably not match human aesthetics. In essence, rlaan music will appeal to the fictional rlaan sensitivity, and not the the human player of the game.

So even alien music has to be alien only "up to a point".

I've long been lectured by my dad on the wonderful canon with 32, 64, 200 voices made by one of the sch guys (I always mix schöemberg, shostakovich and all the s(c)h-s). Thing is, I've heard it multiple times and I can't appreciate it... it's too complex. I've been used to "simple" music all my life, I grew fond of it. I find pleasure in the simplest music detailed to perfection, where a simple theme carries a lot of emotion or form. I just can't rejoice on huge complexities, it sounds like noise to me - because I got used to simplicity for long enough to now like it, above complexity.

I've seen similar phenomena on others, people used to pop music just expect the "beating drums", or whatever constant they're used to hearing. When they don't, immediately, their likelihood of finding a piece likable drops. It's not certainty, sometimes they'll like it, sometimes they don't, but unfamiliar things certainly play against it, and not for it.

Rlaan, going back to the 200-voice canon, have a documented tendency to immense multitasking, and their music has been documented to be that complex at least. With multiple independent voices and whatnot. That will sound like noise to me, and I'm used to a lot more complexity than the average joe just by being used to listening to classical music.

It's not an attack on popular music, classical pieces take years of composition, sometimes a life, while popular ones take months, perhaps a year instead, and it results in a level of refinement, attention to detail, and sometimes complexity that is, in average, a lot more than in popular music. Furthermore, popular music is restricted by the structure of rock/pop/jazz/whatever bands, with only a handful of instruments, whereas classical masterpieces are free sometimes to require an orchestra of 60, perhaps 100 players. Still, 32 voice canon is strange to me - you can bet the average joe will listen to it like he was listening to static noise.

And if you follow the canon on rlaan music, you will most likely end up with that kind of "noise music". Which won't be good.

So that's my point.
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