Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Toben the Many" data-source="post: 4844111" data-attributes="member: 19273">The advice here is so good, I don't have too much to add, so I'll just reflect a little bit and throw in some advice as it comes. Back in the day, I used a lot of music on cassette tapes. I'd carry around a boom box and play stuff that I had set up on mix tapes or even just pop out a movie score on tape and then put in another one.This was very challenging because alot of the music that I wanted to use would often be in the middle of a tape. So, at a very young age, I started to learn DJ skills. I got to a point where I could tell, just by how long my tape player had rewound or fast-forwarded if I was at the right song or not. Back in those days, I learned something that I learned now which is this - beware of overkill in music. You only have to play a particular track once or twice to for everyone to get the idea. When CDs came out, they were a godsend. I could skip to the right song that I wanted and I got so good with CDs, that I could switch them out and key it up to the right song without looking. I'd always have about 5 to 7 CDs out in front of me. It was also great because before, if you bought a movie score on cassette, you really had to listen to the whole tape to see if anything was usable for your game. With CDs, it was easy to browse. For long, long time, I kept using CDs as my main vehicle for music, because it was easier for me to pick out a CD, put it in, and key it up to the right song than it was to scroll through an iPod and get to the right track. Now, with playlists, I no longer have that problem. With playlists, I have whole playlists of creepy music, battle music, suspense music, background music, etc. One thing I've found that is helpful, keep tracks from the same composer and from the same album together. It's jarring if you go from Conan combat music to the soundtrack to The Rock and then back to Conan. My advice here would be to set it up on your iPod or laptop or whatever - to just play one time. Play the one song and after that - have your media player cut off. That way, you don't have to think about it. I'll repeat - don't overkill it with the music. Play your tracks one or two times and then let it fade out into silence. As far as the OP goes - having some good DJ skills does help if you want to punctuate your DMing with music. If you know a song really, really well, you can probably tell when the music is going to reach a climatic point. Wait for that moment in the song then really play up the moment you are describing - that will get your players really well.</blockquote>

Verification