soundtracks

[Testament]

If you're running anything Middle Eastern, then I highly reccomend tracking down Karl Sanders' "Saurian Meditation". Lots of Baglama-Saz, pipes and ambience, with some tracks on there that can be used for just about anything. The Elder God Shrine is just a kicking track that begs to be used in a finale somewhere.

 

[tennyson]

Most of it has a "modern" feel to it, but there are a lot of good tracks to be had at Bill Brown's site (Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, etc). All free, too!

http://billbrownmusic.com/

 

[tennyson]

Dead link.

Hmmmm, that's strange. I tried searching for it on 2K Games' "Cult of Rapture" site, but can't seem to find it either. I know it's still out there - I'm sure a Google search would offer some positive results.

 

[Toben the Many]

I just picked up the Lair video game soundtrack and it rocks all the way around. Great for combat.

Another very good soundtrack is the score to Transformers. It's really epic and heroic.

Also, I would highly recommend Ars Aranca. What's good about that soundtrack is that it's the music you hear in al ot of movie trailers. The music is very dramatic like you would hear in in video games, buuuut Ars Arcana is done with a full orchestra. So you get really good sound out of it.

As for old standbys, yes Conan the Barbarian is a good call. But there are other standbys.

I would never be anywhere without my David Lynch's Dune soundtrack. Not the latest Dune movie, but the old 80's movie. It's very hard to find, but if you can find it, the entire soundtrack can be used for gaming which I can't say for many other soundtracks.

Another great soundtrack is First Knight, a 90's movie with Sean Connery. Really good for combat.

Second only to Conan in combat I would say is Total Recall which is chock-full of really good dramatic combat music.

 

[Mark]

This thread has been added to the collection here -

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=174448

 

[Toben the Many]

Here's a link to the Diablo II soundtrack. Despite the site saying that it is Kingdom Hearts Insider, it has a whole lot of video game soundtracks.

Video game soundtracks I recommend:

Diablo I and II,
Warcraft III, World of Warcraft
Planescape:Torment

Great link! Thank you!

 

[Thurbane]

~ Classical compilations, especially ones themed by mood (i.e. power, scary etc.)

~ Movie scores (some personal faves are Alien & Aliens, by James Horner, and the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack)

~ Black Aria by Danzig...kicks butt for D&D music

~ Period music, like chanting monks or lute music

~ Video game soundtracks (again, some personal faves: ToEE, Dungeon Keeper, Heretic)

...I generally find stuff with lyrics a bit distracting during play...

 

[Ulrick]

Here's my list of Soundtracks/Music that I use fairly regularly for my D&D sessions:


Battlestar Galactica Seasons 1 & 2
Silence of the Lambs
Diablo I & II
Gladiator
Tool--A lot their music is appropriate because the main bad guy is an Arch-Necromancer

Rammstein--yes, I play a lot of Rammstein in my games. A lot of it perfect for combat because it gets the blood pumping.

----

Some other selections include:
Unbreakable
Conan the Barbarian
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Lord of the Rings.

----

I guess it really depends on what kind of campaign/game I want to run. Lord of the Rings and Conan the Barbarian are great soundtracks, but they don't have the "feel" that I want to portray in my dark fantasy campaign.

 

[mutant]

Soundtrack music is great for any game. There is a whole genre of music that exists that goes perfect. Here are some examples:
Delerium (already mentioned): stay with Spiritual Archives, Morpheus, Stone Tower.
Danzig: Black Aria is awesome choice, other Danzig... not so good.
Lustmord: THE master of dark ambient. HIGHLY RECOMENDED.
Raison d' etre: close second
Robert Rich: very atmospheric
Arcana: very medieval sounding
In Slaughter Natives: Bombastic and orchesteral
Protagonist: A lot of spoken poetry over orchesteral pieces
Sephiroth: Great battle music
Muslimgauze: perfect for desert setting
Dead Can Dance: earlier stuff very medieval
Desidereii Marginnis:
COIL: Hellraiser themes and some other
Yen Pox: Blood Music & New Dark Age


This is also what I pretty much listen to outside of gaming as well.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Whether or not I use music depends upon the group and the genre of RPG. Some groups like music, others want silence, others want the "big game" on in the background. Still others have zero preference.

A sampling of what I have used includes:

Singing Bowl gamelons

Anything by Kodo (a modern take on Japanese Tycho drumming)

The western jazz/traditional arabic music fusion of Rabih Abou Khalil

Stuff by Rick Wakeman (keyboardist for Yes), Phillip Glass, Vangelis (esp. "Soil Festivities" and his stuff with Aphrodite's Child), Andreas Vollenvieder.

Assorted hard rock/metal albums

Stuff by Tangerine Dream- esp. the early psychedelic stuff like "Atem"

Instrumental work by Glen Branca, Bill Laswell (also see Material, Death Cube K, and more), Buckethead, Jonas Hellborg and others.

Soundtracks to "Conan", "LotR", "1984", "Legend", "Blade Runner", "2001: A Space Odyssey". "The Last Temptation of Christ", "Koyaanisqatsi", "Clan of the Cave Bear", "The Hunted" and others.

Classical guitar by the Romero Brothers

Classical music like Holsts' "The Planets" or Rimsy-Korsikov's "Firebird Suite"