Description

Official album artwork commissioned from Yaichino. (Facebook | Instagram | Deviantart







All composers and game developers ahoy! For the following next few months we'll be collaborating to create a collection of at least 60 tracks of original, royalty free video game music for game developers to use in their video game projects and other media.

RMN Music Pack 2 will follow in the footsteps of the first pack's concept, aiming to provide game developers loop-able background themes for various game instances, mainly focusing on the JRPG genre, but possibly including some tracks that can also work in other media types as well.

The first music pack release has been well regarded and widely utilized, and RMN Music Pack 2 has been long awaited. Now we can switch the gears and begin realizing this great sequel.





This time around we'd prefer having the development and discussion of the album be more open and interactive. Join our discord channel at https://discord.gg/2YfdJNg to request music or instant feedback for your track. The goal is for everyone to work together in their best ability to bring the quality of the final collection as high as possible. If you are able to give feedback and pointers, you're definitely recommended to do so.

  • Game developers: now is a good chance to leave some requests for themes and styles you'd like to hear. There can be various game scenarios that might not all occur to a singular composer at the first thought, and even more to choose from where it comes to stylistic perspectives to approach the themes from.


  • Composers: first things first; the first music pack had certain standards, compositionally and mix-wise, for the submitted tracks to meet to be included in the final collection. Same applies this time around, though this time we will also have an additional release available on the RMN Music Pack 2 page, that will contain all the event submissions that didn't make the cut to the final collection, though did still fit in the event concept criteria.

    You will benefit of having a versatile digital audio workstation, rights to licensed libraries of virtual instruments, several years of experience under your belt, and the know-how of composing loop-able video game music. All the submission guidelines can be found further on.

    You'll also agree to the terms that anyone can use your music for free in their non-commercial purposes under creative commons by-nc 4.0 license as long as they credit you in the process. If any of the submitted music is requested to be used in commercial purposes, it can be done only by asking permission directly from you, the original author.

    The final collection will be made publicly available for download on multiple social and media online fronts utilizing the community's connections and channels, and it will be available for free in its entirety as a lossless collection, as well as alternate versions. The event will run for a few months, until we have 60 finalized and accepted tracks or more. (Room to flex up to 75 or so, if needed.)



  • Create a piece of music that can be used as a background track in video game, preferably in J-RPG genre. Instrumentation, style, and intended in-game use are at the discretion of the composer, but you can see to what members of the community are requesting and where the submissions so far are lacking.


  • The track has to be entirely your own work. It may not use unlicensed libraries and it can't lift thematic motifs from works of others. You can make tracks in collaboration with others, though this does not mean simply remixing previously distributed material.


  • The track has to be previously undistributed. You can submit material that you have been working on prior to this event, but which hasn't been made publicly available in its complete form before.


  • You agree to withhold from releasing your submitted tracks outside of RMN Music Pack 2 in their complete form before the music pack is complete and available for download.


  • The track shouldn't be a "fixed time track." Eg. it shouldn't ask for the listener's attention constantly by introducing too many major changes in terms of tempo, melody, or overarching scales, overall choice of instrumentation and whatnot. This doesn't mean your track can't be lively and varied - just keep the progressiveness and inclusion of themes in check and focus on establishing mainly a single theme per track.


  • The track has to meet certain standards where it comes to structure, tonality and balance of the mix. Make your instruments audible, yet contributing to a balanced space in soundscape. Make the leading voices clear, and ensure the mix has presence. You can listen to any current gen. professional soundtracks for mix reference, or if needed, ask help in Discord at https://discord.gg/2YfdJNg .

    You can also check the quality of the previous RMN Music Pack here to see which tracks were accepted in the end. We're of course looking to improve and bring up the over all mix quality even more where possible, but it should still give you a fair idea.


  • Your track has to loop - it has to return to a previously occurred section. After all the new compositional material has been introduced in your track it has to return to a previously occurred section from where it can start playing again. To demonstrate this in the song, you need to include the re-occurring sections from where the song starts playing from again, to the end of your pattern for at least 15 seconds or so, excluding any fade-out. Any fade-outs, software coded loop-points for game engines to utilize, and etc. will be added in the post processing of the album by the judge and event manager.


  • Render and submit your track as a .wav file. If possible, with 32 bit output and with the highest choice of re-sampling available to you. You can upload it to the event page and ask for feedback here, or as preferred, post it in our Discord channel at https://discord.gg/2YfdJNg .


  • You agree that anyone can use your music for free in their non-commercial purposes under creative commons by-nc 4.0 license as long as they credit you in the process. If any of the submitted music is requested to be used in commercial purposes, it can be done only by asking permission directly from you, the original author.


  • Open communication is recommended! When you're starting a specific type of theme, it may be a good idea to give a heads up to the other participants so that we know something of the specific type is already in the works! You can also introduce yourself here and let us know your preferred genre or choice of instrumentation, if any.


  • Once you have submitted a track to the event page it will be checked by the event manager: Happy, who will then provide feedback if necessary and proceeds to check the track as validated once it meets the submission standards.




Making a complete collection of great video game music is an award itself, but as a bonus there's also some additional prizes up for grabs. Prize amounts may increase if we receive additional monetary support!

  • Top contributor, community's choice: 125$ to the top contributor, chosen by community vote after the event.

  • Top contributor, judge's choice: 100$ to a different top contributor than community's choice, chosen by the event manager: Happy.

  • Luck of the draw: 75$ to a randomly selected participant with an accepted submission to the event.






The support of RMN's music events have been great so far. With our combined efforts we have so far managed to put together the funds for the artwork of both albums and generated some participation prizes for the entrants.

If you'd like to show further support to our music events, you can do so by donating with this link and your donation will be directed to increase the lucrativeness of RMN Music Pack 2, and in turn, generate more quality music. All support is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Details

  • 07/01/2019 12:01 AM
  • 12/31/2019 11:59 PM
  • 2
  • Happy

Achievements

Registration

You must be logged in to sign up for RMN Music Pack 2.

Teams Members Entry
Mankai
Psycom Sound Team jdk
The Spoony Bard
Sibelius Take The Wheel
JP Soundworks
You'll like these
Team Who Let this Goddamn Furry in Here
Team Why am I even here
Xcalnarok
Auron_Silverburgh's Team
The Magic of Hazelsoft
Dark Rukkurt
Denn
Fanta
Chronicle of Tales
Joel Steudler Music
T. Fairchild Musick
Sensemayá
Magically Musical
World On Pixels
Team I Don't Have Time For This Right Now But Hope Y'all Have Fun
Virtuoso Ultima
JStewartMusic
guess i'll try something even though i'm not great at music
QZ Productions
I'm PROBABLY going to solo this
Brown Note
uhhh frostix :)
djRyoji
letsDOit
Slaleky
ENDgames
VGMMarkH
All Ideas No Time
Entry Status Key
  • - Pending
  • - Validating
  • - Accepted
  • - Rejected

Posts

Happy
Devil's in the details
5367
Nice to see more familiar faces! We've still got plenty lurkers too, so it'll definitely be interesting to see the turn out later.

A heads up for anyone who wants to take advantage of the opportunity:

I'll be posting a preview of the tracks we've been working on so far on Monday, 15th of July to several places where we've advertised the event, to showcase what we've got going on so far.

If you are able to polish something up for that date, then there's a bit of a soft deadline for you there. I'll try and post these updates at least bi-weekly if possible, so there will be more chances later as well.
Tragedy
- Death of a loved one
- Home town destroyed

-- In Memoriam (Cornflake)
Hi, I'm new here but I'd like to participate! Thanks to Shade_Hunter for sharing that this project existed, it's a very interesting opportunity. Just created an account here for this.

Before registering though, I'd like to ask if there is a specific date deadline for inscriptions beyond reaching 60-75 submissions. I already have an idea in mind but I want to at least have something done before committing. Also, just hypothetically and hopefully not, but if you end up not having time to finish the song/s you started and submitted, are there any repercussions? Once that is sorted out, I'll register.

I'd like to do an upbeat Volcano/fiery mountain/temple stage theme if that's ok. At least only 1 song for now. Thanks =)
Happy
Devil's in the details
5367
author=djRyoji
Hi, I'm new here but I'd like to participate! Thanks to...

Hey! Welcome aboard! There's hasn't been a specific deadline, but the event has been estimated to last up to 3 months at least, if not slightly more, so if you need a deadline, you could treat the 1st of October as such though the event itself is listed to end even a month later. It's all still an estimation.

As for repercussions of not submitting something you've signed down: let's say you're going to wait until the very last moment with your submission that you've promised to deliver. Since you've reserved a specific type of theme, it is possible no one else has covered this particular type of theme, or will have time to do so anymore after we find out you aren't able to deliver it.

As a result we'll possibly just end up not having that specific type of theme.
Ok then! Just registered. Thanks for the reply!
Temple
- Neutral, religious -- Meditation (Cornflake)
Happy
Devil's in the details
5367
Hey everyone! I postponed the posting of the demo of our current WIPs for a bit. If you have WIP versions of any of your songs in .wav format, send me a link here or in our Discord channel.

We were also thinking of creating a master thread for composing and mixing practices, where we can make a list of the most pressing questions concerning these topics, and where we could then ask some of our top dogs to share their methods at!

If you have any questions concerning composing or mixing methods, then let's hear them and I'll compile a list of them later.
Playful salsa battle theme -- The Clave (Cornflake)
Happy
Devil's in the details
5367
Hey, here's a progress reel of some of our current themes so far. I will be creating new showcases as more submissions near completion!



And welp, it seems I will still be remixing my submissions until the very last moment before the deadline.
Respite theme -- Be At Ease (Spanish-Omelette)
Working on Town Theme - Town of Memories and Event Theme - There Will Be A Hope, I hope it can be good addition for the pack. ^_^

If those theme works, I'll try to seek some other theme that hasn't been made here.

- JP Soundworks
Underwater/Aquatic Dungeon theme -- Shimmering Grotto (Spanish-Omelette)
Yup, I finally rise from the grave. Sorry I'm hopping on a little late - I've had a busy month.

I've also noticed something lacking: pressing Ctrl+F on either page of this thread and typing in "folk" yields zero results. I guess I've found a niche to slip something into.

For starters, there's a track I've had knocking about in my head for a long time that I started hashing out a rough doodle of recently. I envision it working well for a floating sky city or fortress or somesuch, in a fantasy setting, though it could just as easily work for a mountaintop town of dragon-riding knights or a completely terrestrial city ruled by magi; regardless, it has an air of fantasy to it. Though my brother (quite justifiably) commented that in its current form, it sounds a lot like Age of Empires. That might give you an idea of its flavour.

I also have a suggestion for Happy: we could have a selection of generic track themes, such as "town," "battle," "dungeon," "church," "minigame," "story: upbeat," "story: slow," etc, much like how RPG Maker splits up its factory tracks, and keep a count of how many accepted tracks currently fit into each; possibly another list for how many of each are in the works, too. This'd give an at-a-glance view of the current balance of the project across the board.
Happy
Devil's in the details
5367
author=Snowy_Fox
I also have a suggestion for Happy: we could have a selection of generic track themes, such as "town," "battle," "dungeon," "church," "minigame," "story: upbeat," "story: slow," etc, much like how RPG Maker splits up its factory tracks, and keep a count of how many accepted tracks currently fit into each; possibly another list for how many of each are in the works, too. This'd give an at-a-glance view of the current balance of the project across the board.

Do you mean something much different from what we already have in the opening post? I could arrange them at least theme-wise, like that, but I wonder if we have a need for more specific quotas?

I think keeping it a bit open ended is also a good idea, so we may also get some inspired themes for instances that aren't necessarily common or always covered with the resources currently available there.

In other words, I'll try to order them better, to make tracking progress easier, but I would try to avoid having too strict guideline for specific themes, though we can still at least coordinate a bit and see what we're missing so far!

Well... cock. It's looking like I'm going to be away from the studio for another month. I'm really starting to feel tired of how full-on this year has been for me. All I want to do is be able to sit still for more than a few weeks and get settled into a routine.

Hopefully I'll be able to get some music made in late September.
Happy
Devil's in the details
5367
Hey everyone! I'd like to ask and encourage people to give some updates on their progress! The event deadline is set on 1st of November, but the idea is to conclude the event once we have at least 60 accepted tracks.

Now, tracking the progress is a bit tricky when many of us like to hold onto our WIPs until further polish, but I thought it might be good idea to try and open the situation a bit more, so we know where we're going with the progress.

I'll post WIPs of my personal works soon, but here's notes on my current progress:



- Dungeon theme, modern facility infiltration -- (Tech Base) - Happy
Composition 100% done. Re-mixing done about 95%

- Semi-orchestral Mountain traversal area -- (King of All Mountains)
Composition about 98% done. Mixing done about 60%

- Up-beat character / event theme with piano - Happy
Composition about 98% done. Mixing done about 60%

- Melancholic character theme with acoustic guitar -- (Ghosts of the Past) - Happy
Composition about 90% done. Mixing done about 60%

- Sakimoto-esque Underground passage dungeon -- (Passage) - Happy
Composition about 30% done.

- Just reserving one ninja battle / character theme for me as well, sorry. (I've probably got enough WIPs as of now.) -- (A Friendly Shinobi) - Happy
Composition about 30% done.

- Mechanical special boss battle theme -- (Exoskeleton) - Happy
Composition about 25% done.

- Ominous desert crossing theme -- (Dynasty's Deathbed) - Happy
Composition about 15% done.

- Choral Mystery event theme - Happy
Composition about 10% done.

I only have one track in the works for now, a forest exploration/town theme with melancholic/fantasy vibes to it. The composition is nearly done, but I still have to work a bit on the orchestration before starting the mixing process.
Hey Happy, so I've almost finished composing my submission and I've shown it to a friend for some feedback. However, thing is he quite likes it and would be interested in including it in a game he's currently developing. I explained that it was for this project and he told me that I could do as I preferred, he wouldn't mind if I keep it.

I've been thinking and in the end I decided that I'm going to withdraw my current submission, knowing that if we have a deal it's already going to be featured in a videogame. I may still do something for this though! Sorry for the trouble and thanks for your understanding!
Hello Happy and others! Made a witch castle track that I will be adding here soon.
Added a midi early version of witch castle, better version is coming