CREATING Game Music

An odd subject, but I'm looking for ways to -create- some game music.

I was thinking of some creepy movies and the use of music in them, like Mothman Prophecies, Fallen, and Jeepers Creepers ...

Mothman in particular ... where, faintly, in the background, the same song is playing again and again in every scene ... so light you can barely hear it sometimes, but there.

I'm trying to figure out what the song is in Mothman, but if you watch the movie and listen, you'll hear it.

So I'm trying to figure out how I can do that same thing for my own games ... just use an instrumental score of a song and copy it again and again and again to a burn CD ... changing it slightly in places, overlaying it with some static, underlaying it with cthonic chants and whispering voices ...

Stuff like that. That I can put in the CD player and just let play, soft, so people forget it's there, until they realize ... "I've heard this song over and over ... it's in my head ... wait ... I hear ... voices?" Needless to say, I'm doing this for a CoC game.

I guess I'd need some sort of sound editing toolkit ... anybody use anything like this before? Know of any good products out there?

--fje

I take it you would NOT prefer to have to spend money on this?

Depends on how much money.

I have a sinking feeling the technology to do this is one of those "Proffessional" things that cost 300-1000 dollars.

I could see my way to 20-50.

--fje

Try www.goldwave.com - I think it runs about 40 dollars and there is a demo available.

Beyond that you are looking at pretty big bucks.

With all due respect to previous posters, I disagree that this type of thing will cost you "big bucks". As an electronic studio musician who has basically scrounged my stuff together from scratch while paying for grad school, I have a couple of recommendations:

1. Cool Edit Pro was (I believe) a shareware 64 track studio featuring track editing and sequencing. I use an older version of it and it is highly intuitive, versitile and extremely fun. A way you can produce the sounds you want is to obtain a copy of "Audiograbber" (another freeware program) which allows you to take commercial CDs, turn them into easy-to-manipulate formats, and then copy them, distort them, rip them apart into samples or whatever. Once you have lifted what you want, you can drop it into Cool Edit and mess with it however you want. Its quite easy. I'm sure an older version of Cool Edit can be had for very little money off of Ebay.

2. The program "Fruity Loops" is often used to create electronica and euro-trance music. Don't be fooled by this reputation: it is actually a very powerful and easy to use sampler and studio. I've found its (also very) easy to use step-sequencing capabilities to be extraordinarily fun and cool. This program comes with *thousands* of pre-recorded samples as well as original sound generating soft[ware] synthesizers: in other words, it will keep you happily creative for years without being frustrating. I use it to make standard blues and country music as often as electronica, and it can certainly do the wierd atmospherics you're looking for. It costs $99 or so.

3. For atmospherics I reccomend Native Instrument's "Absynth". I can't get the thing to make a simple tuba or piano sound, but it can produce some of the scariest, trippiest, eeriest, and most unusual synth stuff around.

4. I am an ignoramus when it comes to my equipment. I hate endlessly fighting technology to make sound, so if I was you I'd forego complexity and "professional" anything in favor of ease. Fruity Loops and Cool Edit are about as easy as it gets and they can produce outstanding sound if you've got a good soundcard.

5. I cannot in good conscience recommend that you do what 99% of electronic musicians do when they start: obtain pirated copies of their software. That would be immoral and would deprive the good code-crunchers of the world their well-deserved salaries.

(I can blab endlessly about this stuff, so if you find yourself needing more advice, just holler. )

Very cool.

Thanks for the input, it's got me looking into directions.



I too am paying for grad school, so fun and easy and cheap is what I'm looking for.

With my obsessive personality, I'm probably going to spend the next year or two creating Cthulhu Ambient Electronica.

--fje

I agree completely with Verdigris. I too, make electronic music. Cool Edit Pro can be bought pretty cheaply, and has a demo. I haven't tried Absynth, but it's pretty expensive.

I use Propellerhead's Reason, which somewhere between 100 and 200 dollars., but it's a great program. If you went this route, you'd want to learn as much as possible about the 2 samplers that come with the program.

Another idea is Sound Forge's Acid. It is a program that allows you to set up wave files as loops which, I believe, you can "Acidize" which means you can make it so the file retains the same pitch no matter what tempo you run it. It might work for you.

Ah, yes. "Reason" is a fantastic studio program and since there is "Reason II" out there, obtaining the original for cheap should be no sweat.

Although it is more information than you probably need, one of Reason's limitations is that you can't incorporate outside "plugins" into it, which means that if you (someday) buy an independent synthesizer program or some cool effect from a different vendor, it can't be directly integrated into Reason. There are often workarounds for this sort of problem, but its a good enough program that not having plugins will probably not hinder you initially at all. FYI, Reason's interface is essentially a virtual representation of a classic analog studio, replete with wiring and traditional mixing consoles. Very beautiful.

If you *do* suspect that Reason is for you (i.e. that you like its style and its "feel" versus other program) also consider Cakewalk's brand new program "Project 5" which is essentially the same thing as Reason II with souped-up capabilities and plugin support. Its a couple of hundred bucks, though.

Acid Pro is often compared to Fruity Loops and although I have not used it myself, I suspect based on its extreme popularity that it is very good as well.

Regardless of what you use to get there, the world *really* needs Cthulu ambient electronica.

Good luck and keep us aprised of your progress.

You might also look at Soundtrack

I am a musician too, and here are two little midi files I created a long time ago.

I'm sure you will recognise them