ZEITGEIST Ever thought of getting Battlebards or Syrinscape to produce soundscapes for Zeitgeist?

I've tried some with Syrinscape, and toying with the idea of trying out Battlebards, and was curious whether anyone else has used either with Zeitgeist and what you put together. Also curious if the EnWorld team ever thought of trying to get an "official" soundtrack put together. Many of the encounters are so incredibly atmospheric, music and appropriate sFX seem like a perfect fit.

We're playing digging for lies right now, and I've home-mixed mood music and sounds using Roll20 and Syrinscape for several encounters -- the two most memorable have been the ziggurats of Apet and Mavisha, both of which are incredibly well suited to atmosphere (Mavisha in particular benefited from Syrinscapes underwater sound fx and music).
 

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I never really put much thought into it. One of my players complains that music and his ADD don't go well together, and whenever I had background music it would distract him. So I have no idea how much commissioning a soundtrack would cost or how much people would consider paying.

Then again, when I ran a Bloodborne-inspired Halloween game in 2015 I used its soundtrack with some adjustments, and it really set the mood. But that player wasn't in that game.
 


efreund

Explorer
I use this song as Rock Rackus's themesong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic32fCzyqJ0
(I haven't told my players what the base song is, since I don't want them to have the association, and they haven't picked up on it, so we're all good.)
In my mind, I imagine that the "heys" starting around 0:59 are Rock himself shouting to amp up the audience.

I play it to announce whenever he's about to "make an entrance" (his music always precedes him) and stays on loop until he's "off stage" ... so, for example, since you're in Digging for Lies, this played during the entire Natural History Museum battle.

Actually, speaking of Digging for Lies, I also used this song for the climactic battle in RHC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zZ0GnSZqKg
I dialed up the volume during the "transparent" rounds (e.g. 3, 8, 13, etc), often jumping the timestamp of 4:19 (or 4:51) when needed. They *did* recognize the music pretty much right away, but in this case, the association with the source material was thematically useful, so we're all good. I kept the volume pretty low during the "shoulder" rounds (e.g. 2, 4, 7, 9, etc.) and turned the music off entirely during the "opaque" rounds (e.g. 5, 6, 10, 11, etc.).
 


mdusty

Explorer
I can't help but think that the soundtrack for the old CRPG Arcanum might be appropriate.

http://www.terra-arcanum.com/downloads/ (in the "Arcanum" category).

I use these tracks quite frequently when they are in Danor or dealing with any Danorans, along with other types of old chamber music. It feels more 'French'. While in Risur or Flint, I run the standard RPG music like Skyrim and Morrowind and Witcher 3 or Assassin's Creed soundtracks along with the Sherlock Holmes soundracks. I usually play some kind of Russian themed music while dealing with Drakrans like Heid or Kvartiy - like Hunt for Red October or variations of Kalinka, and Spanish guitar music with Berans, like the Grientos or Harkover. I always play the Godfather soundtrack when they talk to Cippiano or have any dealings with the Family. With Clergy, I run The Divinci Code and Angels & Demons soundtracks. Any dungeons or 'scary' moments, I have a Cthulu soundtrack I run. During 'Always on Time' I always had 1920's jazz piano music playing while they were on the train.
Since they've discovered the Obscurati, I use Dark Souls and Bloodborne. And when theres anything to do with the Unseen Court, I play Lord of the Rings or any Irish/Celtic music I can find.

I have had my players recently though ask that I stop using YouTube to play music, since there are now soooooo many commercials after every piece and sometimes even in the middle of them, that it's becoming really distracting. So I have to find another program to use, probably Amazon or Spotify.
 

benjamin

Explorer
Here's some really exciting news.
[video=youtube;tX4OOvihb8k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX4OOvihb8k[/video]

This opens up the way for using Syrinscape for remote play hassle free, and even better being able to control Syrinscape on a tablet and put it in the background without the sound stopping! Very happy with the dev team right now.
 

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