Description

M.O.G. "My Own Game" Multipart Event - Music Creation


In this event we will attempt create a soundtrack for a game. No prior experience is expected!

The intent is to get people out of their comfort zones and attempt the different aspects of game creation. The M.O.G. initiative be a 3-part event, with each event focusing on a different aspect - soundtrack, graphics, and game creation. This event will focus on the music (and soundeffects). The graphics event will be running in parallel and will focus on tilesets, charsets, and battlers and the like. The final event will be game creation, wherein we create a game but only using resources created in the previous two events (+ general public resources, like RTP, to fill gaps)!

This is a pretty ambitious undertaking, but it sounds pretty satisfying, too!

The more forward-thinking among you might even plan a game now, and then build your resources around that idea, and make your OWN game with your OWN resources.



Submit either individual tracks, or partial or complete soundtrack packages. Share them in posts on the event profile and upload them to the official event page. Feel free to also submit them as a Resource to RMN's resource section (they are still subject to RMN's quality guidelines).

Your songs CAN SUCK HARD. They can have crappy sound quality. But as long as they are YOURS they will still be accepted to the event!

THIS IS NOT A COMPETITION



For a soundtrack, what would the expected "core" tracks be? For a fantasy setting, perhaps:

-Intro theme
-Village
-Castle
-Dungeon
-Field
-Battle
-Inn

..and these are a little less "core" but still common:
-Airship
-Boat
-Boss Battle
-Tower
-City
-Shop
-Ending theme
...and themes like "Sad theme", "Action theme", "Goofy theme" etc...

Your soundtrack should be comprehensive enough to supply most of a game's music, in my opinion.

What about remixes? Sure, that's okay. A reimagining of an existing song will suffice for this event.

Sound Effects
This is a bit of a side-event, but I would encourage you to attempt to make your own suite of sound effects for your resource pack. These are a bit trickier in many ways to make, but we should attempt it in the spirit of the event!

Legacy Works
You are free to submit custom legacy works of yours to this event. They are still subject to the "Free" caveats below.



We are doing this for the betterment of our game development skills. Familiarization with other aspects of game development, even if we never develop the expertise to be proficient in it, is still very valuable. That being said, I will be giving out achievements for:

-Complete Soundtrack
-Individual Songs

...this includes achievements for the individual songs within a soundtrack (so, if you submitted a soundtrack with 10 songs, you'd get 11 achievements in the end).

-Sound Effects pack

...a sizable sound effects pack is worth a bonus achievement!

-Legacy Works

...a single Legacy achievement will be given out if you submit any number of legacy works.



Works submitted to this event are expected to be public domain. You can place restrictions on their use on a per works basis (but please specify this in the upload and in a post on the event page). They can be share-alike, or creative commons, or free to use with credit to the author, or GPL, or free to use for non-commercial games, or just completely free, or something along those lines. Just make sure it is clear (and free)!

While the event is very RPG-centric (hey, we are RPG Maker Network afterall!), feel free to create a soundtrack or song for any genre of your choice.



It is my sincere hope that those of us here who are qualified musicians and composers might share with us their expertise and learning. Either by helping out individuals in the comments section, offering advice, or posting links to useful resources, or even as far as writing tutorials of their own.

Members who take it upon themselves to be super-helpful in this event will receive a special achievement!



When you guys share good links to tutorials, resources, music programs, soundfonts, or the like, I will update this section.

How Music Works
http://www.howmusicworks.org
How Music Works is a comprehensive suite of multimedia tutorials which explain music in clear, simple language you can relate to.

Creative Commons licenses
<Sailerius> I would suggest you only allow Creative Commons licenses. There's one to cover about every use case: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

MuseScore
MuseScore is an open-source notation software. Its kind of incomplete (some of the dynamics markers don't affect playback at all), but has most of the basics.

Sekaiju
Sekaiju is another open-source program, but this one is a MIDI editor. While not quite as good for making sheet music (it does still have a staff view), it allows for more control over the actual MIDI data. This might also make it more intimidating for the uninitiated...

BASSMIDI Driver
BASSMIDI Driver is a Windows-only program that adds a SoundFont player to your list of MIDI playback devices (most soundcards only have "Microsoft Wavetable GS"), allowing programs like Sekaiju, Windows Media Player, or RPG Maker 2003 and other older game programs to use SoundFonts. Playback quality depends heavily on your system's specs, though. My computer is pretty old, so it skips a little every once in a while.

If you write something in MIDI and want an audio file of the SoundFont output, you can probably use Audacity for that.

SoundFonts
As for obtaining free SoundFonts, its not something I've tried for a while. HammerSound is the only place I really remember.

I personally recommend GeneralUser soundfont, which can be found on that site and also here.
You really have to be careful with SoundFonts. Not only is malware rampant on many of these sites, some of the 'Fonts themselves are badly programmed, and might be excessively loud or even crash your computer on occasion.

Viena
http://www.synthfont.com/Viena_news.html
Viena is a free SoundFont editor (not to be confused with one other editor called "Vienna"). Viena can be used on any MS Windows computer independently of audio card installed (as opposed to the "Vienna" software).

artofcomposing
While by no means a complete course (its mostly just a sampler), the mini-courses available on this YouTube channel seemed pretty decent to me. I'd specifically highlight the "Functional Harmony" video.

Making a looping OGG
http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/10987-make-looping-bgm-part-1-ogg-vorbis/

RPG music for beginner
Schematist has a bunch of tutorials specifically for making RPG music for beginners. They sound like they'd be useful here:


LMMS
Here's LMMS, an useful program to create music. It's basically a freeware, open source version of FL Studio.

I've been using this basic LMMS tutorial here.

FamiTracker
FamiTracker.

DefleMask
DefleMask is a fairly new tracker that emulates NES, GameBoy, PC-Engine/TurboGrafix, Sega Genesis/MegaDrive and Master System, and the Commodore64. Its still got a few bugs, but it seems usable.

Tablatures
I've made music before using tablatures, converted to MIDI. I'm sure most of you are familiar with them but in case you aren't, here's an example of a (crappy) tab I made up:



The lower the number, the lower the pitch, and vice versa obviously (note you can go above 9, if two 1s are next to each other it counts as an 11, if you want two actual 1s separately then you need that dash between them). And the higher up the lines, the higher the pitch for that, and vice versa too. Should be six separate lines stacked above each other, no more or less, at least with the site I use. And this needs to be done on Notepad.

Then go this site: http://www.8notes.com/tab/new_tab.asp and upload your text document (or write it out there on the spot). I have to stress on this site it'll only be able to read out basic tabs, as in, just the numbers and their spacing and placement. No way to replicate, like, slides with them or anything.

Then you'll have a small selection of instrumental sounds to choose from, what tempo you want it at, and if you want the music to play as is notated or to ignore the spaces and place at one steady rhythm.

You now have a MIDI file!

MIDI
In addition to BassMidi there's its offshoot Virtualmidisynth, which allows you to choose your midi output and soundfonts; i use it quite often when playing Rm2k/3 games. As for soundfonts, if you're on Hammersound you might want to check out the Junk Soundfont; it's very interesting. i know of some other resources that are free; William Kage has aggregated and created soundfonts from several existing video games, Wooly's has some resources, ther's Arachno Soundfont; darkesword's site has links to many good ones, including Johannes Russel's. SF2midi has become more restrictive, but i have some of their fonts from before then if anyone wishes them. Other options are Ethan's soundfonts (original ones like the turtle drum) and you can grab the first anomaly set if you want. lots of optionsif you know where to look.

Here's where I went to both convert my files to mp3 and also embellish it further to make it sound, well, less MIDI-like: http://solmire.com/

As you can see you can choose the soundfront, quality, effect (reverb, echo, etc.) and even adjust the tempo further if you want.

I still have the mp3s of the two songs I did, but they are too long and repetitive. Unfortunately I can't find the actual text files with the tabs I made on them to edit them down to size, and I'm not good enough with music editing software like Audacity to edit them to where they wouldn't sound sloppy. Oh well.

OH, yes, I just wanted to say, to the head admin people of this, disregard my last post, please. I figured the problem out. For 8notes.com, if you keep getting sent to a media player that won't save your file, like the free version of QuickTime, then you need to do a fresh install of whatever media player you know of that can play MIDI files. This is what I used, simply called Soundfont Media Player: http://soundfont-midi-player.en.softonic.com/


BFXR (sound effects)
Another useful link: Bfxr, an app that gives you a bunch of sliders that allow you to create NES style sound effects.

Details

  • 08/15/2014 12:00 AM
  • 12/02/2014 05:59 PM
  • kentona

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Participants Entries
kentona
GreatRedSpirit
Happy
Fomar0153
JosephSeraph
outcry312
BurningTyger
TheNecromancer
Spanish-Omelette
Shensetta
Seiromem
Gourd_Clae
TheoAllen
Isrieri
Kunsel
Someoneman
AestheticGamer
mjshi
SunflowerGames
MajoracanKing
Jalex
FangStiltzskin
Raze
Ralphrius
TungerManU
KoopaKush
CashmereCat
pianotm
TheRealDMac
GoatBoy
zoviet_francis
Trass
chenbaiwan
Illy
OtkauVerst
Anime
Shoko
Kylaila
Cap_H
afroincorporated
Bonne95
Ebeth
Sk0l
KevinZvilt
The_Dark_One
ResidentEcruteak
Zoroarkofthenight
cdhines1234567
plantyby
Entry Status Key
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  • - Accepted
  • - Rejected

Posts

author=kentona
author=Cecil_Beoulve
I've always wanted to learn how to digitally create music, but I just don't know what program to use that would be beginner friendly. I've half a mind to use Mario Paint Composer - wait, would that work?
Most certainly!

http://rpgmaker.net/games/4818/media/817/
http://rpgmaker.net/games/4818/media/1964/

Secret of Battle (battle music - shamelessly "inspired" by Secret of Mana)


This is the only way I know how to make music. But it's not efficient, nor does it result in good music, so I wouldn't recommend it. It is really easy to do, though...

I could write a tutorial I guess, but like I said, I wouldn't recommend it as a serious way to develop music.


I am so going to make a soundtrack this way. Is Viena still what you'd recommend for editing or would there be a better free program out there for it?
author=turkeyDawg
author=Raze
Mine is usually a 1/4 - 2/4 time signature, which I believe might have contributed to the dark melody. I might try a 3/4 or 4/4 for something happier sounding I guess.
author=Merlandese
1/4 time? I don't think songs are written in that time signature.

...
A time signature doesn't directly affect the music, but merely reflects the established pattern of the rhythm and organizes the writing/reading of it, usually so that the strongest beat is at the beginning of each measure.


Yeah, definitely. That's why I said it's not written in 1/4 time. I guess I was a little brief. XD

I don't think time signatures have much value in music composition, but they are important for music communication. If I have to express ideas to you in words, it's more clear if we both agree on the "language" of music. Otherwise, it's useless knowledge. That said, I can't read musical notation for the life of me... :(
This is quite interesting. I wonder if I should do something too...
author=Cecil_Beoulve
author=kentona
author=Cecil_Beoulve
I've always wanted to learn how to digitally create music, but I just don't know what program to use that would be beginner friendly. I've half a mind to use Mario Paint Composer - wait, would that work?
Most certainly!

http://rpgmaker.net/games/4818/media/817/
http://rpgmaker.net/games/4818/media/1964/

Secret of Battle (battle music - shamelessly "inspired" by Secret of Mana)


This is the only way I know how to make music. But it's not efficient, nor does it result in good music, so I wouldn't recommend it. It is really easy to do, though...

I could write a tutorial I guess, but like I said, I wouldn't recommend it as a serious way to develop music.
I am so going to make a soundtrack this way. Is Viena still what you'd recommend for editing or would there be a better free program out there for it?
tbh, Viena is the only one I know about, but it filled all of my needs.
http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/7289/locker/A_Lonely_Island.wav
A Lonely Island
It's the beginnings of either a field theme or an intro theme. I'm leaning towards intro, but I meant for field. What configurations would make it be a better field theme? Hmmm... tell me what you guys think. I played around with Musescore to make this.
BurningTyger
Hm i Wonder if i can pul somethi goff here/
1289
Count me in. *Enters* In addition to BassMidi there's its offshoot Virtualmidisynth, which allows you to choose your midi output and soundfonts; i use it quite often when playing Rm2k/3 games. As for soundfonts, if you're on Hammersound you might want to check out the Junk Soundfont; it's very interesting. i know of some other resources that are free; William Kage has aggregated and created soundfonts from several existing video games, Wooly's has some resources, ther's Arachno Soundfont; darkesword's site has links to many good ones, including Johannes Russel's. SF2midi has become more restrictive, but i have some of their fonts from before then if anyone wishes them. Other options are Ethan's soundfonts (original ones like the turtle drum) and you can grab the first anomaly set if you want. lots of optionsif you know where to look.
Ebeth
always up for cute art and spicy gay romance
4390
author=outcry312
http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/7289/locker/A_Lonely_Island.wavIt's the beginnings of either a field theme or an intro theme. I'm leaning towards intro, but I meant for field. What configurations would make it be a better field theme? Hmmm... tell me what you guys think.

It's very pretty but I think it's a little too melancholic to be a field theme. I think making it into an intro theme would work better.

-------------------------------------------------------------

I've been using this basic LMMS tutorial here.

But it's really bare bones and I was wondering if anyone knew of a more comprehensive and detailed LMMS tutorial. I haven't been able to find anything. (A couple sites even just linked back to the tutorial I was already using-).

Anyway here are my attempts at creating music.

Ambient Space

A Yume Nikki and space inspired background musical noise thing.

Celestial Orbs

I'm kinda going for a space theme here... Feedback is appreciated!

edit: reworked the second song
author=Ebeth
It's very pretty but I think it's a little too melancholic to be a field theme. I think making it into an intro theme would work better.

Yeah, it sounds more like an intro theme. I'm going for an overall melancholic feel almost, so the field theme wouldn't be too far off from melancholic, but still, I agree. Thanks for listening to it.
If its intended to be a field theme on loop, then you'll definitely want to add a few more instruments, even if its just some pizzicato bass hits or whatevs.
Also, a minor point, but around the 51 second mark, there needs to be a bit of a pause or some other transition between all the instruments playing and just the flute playing. Its too much of a dynamics shift to have the flute just keep trucking along like nothing happened.


author=Ebeth
I've been using this basic LMMS tutorial here.

But it's really bare bones and I was wondering if anyone knew of a more comprehensive and detailed LMMS tutorial. I haven't been able to find anything. (A couple sites even just linked back to the tutorial I was already using-).


I don't know of any, but I do have this program installed on my computer, so I might be able to help you with some things. Granted, I've barely used this thing, but stuff I've learned in some other programs will probably transfer to this in some way.
mjshi
Jack of Most Trades
6414
author=Event creator (kentona?)
These are a bit trickier in many ways to make, but we should attempt it in the spirit of the event!

The creator of this event doesn't seem to think so...
BurningTyger
Hm i Wonder if i can pul somethi goff here/
1289
author=mjshi
author=Event creator (kentona?)
These are a bit trickier in many ways to make, but we should attempt it in the spirit of the event!
The creator of this event doesn't seem to think so...
BTW if we use soundfonts do trhye all have to be CC as well or may we use other ones? (I also have some bent duck sampes if anyon needs them..
Erase what I said about 8notes. It seems they've got their mouth clearly wrapped around the balls of Apple now. I tried to save a MIDI file recently and only ShitTime works with them now. And I can't save a file in MIDI unless I upgrade to SHITTIME PRO BRO! Otherwise all I can save it as is a pathetic .pl file which is useless as a used piece of toilet paper. This makes me very angry that they've sold themselves out like this to such a shitty company and a shitty media player, and that I can no longer directly save a file in MIDI anymore. Fuck 8notes.com, fuck Apple, and fuck ShitTime (Pro).

Solmire should be fine though, if you have a MIDI file already available. So I'd rewrite what I have up there:

"Here's where I went to both convert my MIDI files to mp3 and also embellish it further to make it sound, well, less MIDI-like: http://solmire.com/

As you can see you can choose the soundfont, quality, effect (reverb, echo, etc.) and even adjust the tempo further if you want."

Now I need to find another website that can convert tablatuures to MIDIs. Zero luck so far. I could stab something in the head with multiple sharp objects right now.


See my post a little further below.
BurningTyger
Hm i Wonder if i can pul somethi goff here/
1289
i Stil prefer Synthfont; it's pretty much opreatinal /nagware unles you buy alicense, but it works quite well.
I've tried a number of programs, most of them give me a hard time, and very few I find worth the investment (the one exception so far has been Cakewalk's Music Creator 6, which is complex and filled with options without being unintuitive - I don't have a USB keyboard right now though so I don't use it music, making music with a computer keyboard and mouse doesn't quite feel right and oh speak of the devil the damn thing is on sale on Steam right now 75% off along with its numerous instrument expansions if you want those).

OH, yes, I just wanted to say, to the head admin people of this, disregard my last post, please. I figured the problem out. For 8notes.com, if you keep getting sent to a media player that won't save your file, like the free version of QuickTime, then you need to do a fresh install of whatever media player you know of that can play MIDI files. This is what I used, simply called Soundfont Media Player: http://soundfont-midi-player.en.softonic.com/

The player by itself kind of sucks but for playing MIDI files you've already made it gets the job done, and that's pretty much all that it can do from all my fiddling with it. But my post was about converting the files to mp3 so I'm not too concerned about that point. But anyway, yes, if you save your file via the MIDI player it will actually be playable as a MIDI file, unlike with my problems with QuickTime, and therefore be able to use solmire to convert and alter the file.
author=Ebeth
Anyway here are my attempts at creating music.

Ambient Space


A Yume Nikki and space inspired background musical noise thing.

Celestial Orbs


I'm kinda going for a space theme here... Feedback is appreciated!

edit: reworked the second song

I really like Ambient Space! It's oddly relaxing. Celestial Orbs sounds a bit too unfocused to me, but maybe that's what you're going for? Anyway, keep it up!
Okay, I submitted my entry. I don't think it's all that good but here it is anyway.

http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/44861/locker/battle_theme.ogg

I don't think I'll be making anything else after this... unless people really want it. I'd be honored enough if someone would choose to use it in their game later at the end of the event xD
Ebeth
always up for cute art and spicy gay romance
4390
author=turkeyDawg
I don't know of any, but I do have this program installed on my computer, so I might be able to help you with some things. Granted, I've barely used this thing, but stuff I've learned in some other programs will probably transfer to this in some way.


Thanks! I don't have any concrete questions right now but I I come across any I'll be sure to ask you :)

author=Healy
I really like Ambient Space! It's oddly relaxing. Celestial Orbs sounds a bit too unfocused to me, but maybe that's what you're going for? Anyway, keep it up!


Thanks for the feedback! I think if I take one of the chorus tracks out it might help Celestial Orbs. Hmmmm...

author=Trass
Okay, I submitted my entry. I don't think it's all that good but here it is anyway.

http://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/44861/locker/battle_theme.ogg

I don't think I'll be making anything else after this... unless people really want it. I'd be honored enough if someone would choose to use it in their game later at the end of the event xD


Trass it sounds great! Would you mind if I used it in a game outside of the mog event?
author=Trass
I don't think it's all that good


Haha, are you teasing us? It's brilliant compared to most of our noob creations.
author=Ebeth
Trass it sounds great! Would you mind if I used it in a game outside of the mog event?

Well, I wouldn't really mind as long as proper credit is given, but is that really okay by the contest's rules? Wouldn't you have to probably wait until the event is over before you can use it on something else?