zircon

Hey guys. It's been about 8 months since I last posted here, but I think I've had a long enough break.

Just a heads up that I'll be continuing my job as a moderator here. In addition, I will be continuing my services as a composer and sound designer for serious projects (eg. ones with a significant amount of progress and an established team already).

As I am interested in going into the field of game audio as a living, I feel it only makes sense for me to offer my services here in order to practice, build up my portfolio, and perhaps earn some money on the side. Allow me to explain what I am offering.

I will write professional, commercial-quality music for your game based on guidelines that you give me. I can write in virtually any style, from 'techno', to rock, to acoustic, to jazz, to full-blown film score orchestral. Simply give me as many details as you possibly can and I guarantee I will come up with something that you will enjoy - and it will be completely original, written exclusively for you. Also, if you are in need of sound effects, I can do my best to create/record some, but you must understand that this is a new field for me. For this reason, I do not offer any professional services in the field of sound design, but I can give it my best shot if you request it anyway.

Please note that I will not write music in MIDI form for free. I prefer submitting music in MP3 and OGG formats, and I am experienced in compressing audio, so I can do my best to adjust the file size (and quality) based on what you need. At this time, I do not write music in MOD, IT, S3M, XM, or any other format. If you need CD-quality music, I can give you unaltered WAV audio, but please note that this will take far longer due to the massive size of uncompressed audio.

However, as you may imagine, there is a catch: if you don't plan on offering some compensation for my services (and my prices are extremely low, starting at $10 per song), you MUST prove that you are making a game worthy of my time and effort. You can do this with screenshots, a website, a mature and professional attitude, proper grammar and spelling, and an original concept. If you aren't taking your game seriously, I won't take your game seriously. But if you really are planning on making a good game and are willing to invest your time into it, I will be just as committed to its success as you.

A portfolio of some of my previous works can be found at http://www.zirconstudios.com/ , but I assure you, I can write far better music today, especially if there is money involved. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to post here or contact me via PM. I will finish by saying that I know the concept of signing a contract and paying for music for your game might be intimidating, but I assure you that it is well worth it - you will get FAR more than your money's worth.

Thank you for reading, and I look forward to working with you in the future.
-Andrew Aversa

This topic is a continually growing base of knowledge on sound & music. It is also a collective effort, so if you feel you have anything to add, go right ahead and post- if it's relevant, I'll add it here. hope it helps.

Q. Is it legal for me to take MIDIs on vgmusic.com (or a similar site) and use it in my game? Is it legal for me to rip songs off popular CDs and use those in my game? Is it legal for me to take the original songs (not MIDI format) from games like Mario or Metroid and use them in my game? What if I don't sell my game?

A. No to ALL of that. While ripping music for a GM game is not a major legal infraction, and the chances are slim to none that you will ever come under legal scrutiny for doing so, it IS illegal based on US and international copyright law to use music other people have written without their permission in your game. So I suggest you don't rip music. Permission should be obtained in contract form, also, as oral agreements are shaky at best in court. Whether or not you sell the game is irrelevant, though the chances of you getting in trouble raise exponentially if you sell the game while it has copyrighted music in it (that you or your staff did not write).

Q. What music program should I use to make MIDIs?
A. Check the Resource List under the "Tools" section. Unlike audio sequencing, MIDI sequencing and creation is easier and requires less features to do effectively. My personal suggestion is FLStudio, as it also has a wealth of other features, but Anvil Studio will do the job if you absolutely must have free software. You might consider Finale Notepad if you're used to reading/writing traditional sheet music.

Q. How do I convert MP3/WAV to MIDI?
A. The only reliable way is to transcribe the notes yourself (as in, listen to the song and write the notes down manually). MP3 (compressed audio) and MIDI (notation format) are two completely different formats, and there is no technology right now that allows for any accurate conversion from MP3 to MIDI. There ARE programs that attempt to do it, but they only work on single-instrument, monophonic recordings, and are still very inaccurate.

Q. Will my sound be higher quality if I turn my MIDIs to WAVs or my MP3s to WAVs?
A. No. Converting any audio format to WAV does not alter the quality unless you set it to. It is completely useless.

Q. Can I use a midi version of some music from an artist like Green day if the author of the midi allows it? And if I can, who do I give credit to?
A. No. Even though a third party may have sequenced the MIDI of the popular song, the song itself is still owned by Green Day (or whomever).

Q. Is it OK for me to use MP3s? Is it legal?
A. Sort of. It's fine until your game is generating a LOT of money (I'm talking tens of thousands of dollars). Until then, you have nothing to worry about.

Q. What is a synthesizer?
A. A synthesizer is a device, either hardware of software, that generates sound based on user-set parameters (there are also presets, of course). Do not confuse this with a standard keyboard, which contains samples, but does not allow you to actually generate your own sound by combining waveforms etc.

Q. What's the best music making program?
A. As you might imagine, there's no one answer here. For high level professional work, Pro Tools is the industry standard. Next in line comes things like Samplitude, Nuendo, and Logic. The third tier includes software such as Soundforge, Cubase SX, Reason 2.5, FLStudio, and Cakewalk Sonar. The fourth tier, which includes the cheapest programs (and usually lowest quality) contains things like Anvil Studio, eJay, magix Music Maker 2004, and Krystal.

Q. What is a tracker? What is MOD music, and should I use it?
A. A tracker is an old form of music software based entirely on the use of samples. Note input is done using a regular typing keyboard, where certain keys are assigned to certain notes. Trackers and tracked music formats such as NSF/SPC were used for years in console games, and are still used today in GBA games. MOD is a common tracker format. It is a hybrid of audio and MIDI; the file contains a notation form as well as the audio samples, and the song itself is put together by each user's computer/console, essentially. While interesting, I would not advise using it in your game as it limits the quality of music samples that can be used.

Q. How do I learn to make music? Where?
A. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this question. My best advice is to first learn music theory. If you've ever played an instrument, you've learned at least rudimentary music theory. Being a pianist myself, I am a bit biased, but I cannot help but recommend piano lessons for any aspiring musicians. It is very difficult to write quality music without knowledge of music theory, and learning the piano is the best way to do this. However, if you are not able to do so, invest in a cheap keyboard, and scour the internet and your local library for piano resources, as this will also teach you limited theory.

Q. What music format is ideal for my game? MP3, WAV, MIDI?
A. As S-Chuck has pointed out, this is subjective. My personal recommendation is a compressed audio format, such as MP3 or OGG. NEVER use WAV-format music, as it is needlessly high-quality, making each individual song utterly massive. MIDI-format music is still used, but you must take into consideration that it uses computer resources to play and thus can disrupt gameplay (or vice versa), making the music sound poor quality. Due to a GM bug, when a MIDI loops, games freeze for a moment. In addition, many people have very poor MIDI samples on their computer, making the music sound bad. Compressed audio is fairly small (the average background track might not even be 3 mb, and with ogg could be as low as 1mb) and is high quality enough to fool the average user that no compression was used. But again, the choice is yours.

Q. Where do I get music to use? Should I write my own?
A. Another somewhat subjective question, though I cannot stress enough how ridiculously lame and unprofessional it is to rip music from other games. Soundtempest.net is a site dedicated to providing original video game music for the use in free, and sometimes commercial games, and there are plenty of composers there (and here, in fact) that would be more than willing to write something for you. Generally, I do not suggest you write your own music unless you are a fairly experienced composer, and/or know a good amount about arrangement, production, and so forth.

Q. I am making a fan game and/or I want to use music from other video games. How do I do that?
http://www.vgmusic.com/ is the biggest source of video game MIDIs on the web.
If you can't find what you want there, chances are, you won't find it anywhere else either. If you want the original game audio, head over to http://www.zophar.net/ to the game music section and download the original soundtrack files. They come in formats like .NSF (for NES game soundtracks), .RSN or .SPC (for SNES game soundtracks), and .GYM (for Genesis game soundtracks). These files can be played with the correct Winamp plugins or separate media players, also available at Zophar. If you want to play the files in-game, you can convert them to MP3 or WAV using the MIDI -> WAV method a few questions down.

Q: Is there a way to play music formats like ogg, nsf, and spc in gm? If so, how?
A: DLLs have been developed that you can use to play most music formats in gm that gm doesn't normally support. Most often used is the SXMS dll by Shaltif.

Q: How do I convert MIDIs into MP3s or wavs?
A.
1) Open windows volume controls.
2) From the menu, drop down into options.
3) Select properties.
4) Select the "Recording" radio button to adjust the volume for recording.
5) Click OK.
6) Select "Wave Out Mix" (or Stereo Mix depending on your soundcard).
7) Open a sound player to play the MIDI. (Windows Media Player;Quicktime)
8) Open a sound recorder. (Windows Sound Recorder;Audacity)
9) Start recording.
10) Start playing the MIDI.
11) When the MIDI is finished playing, stop the recorder.

Alternatively, download Modplug (it's free). While a MOD generating program, it can also import and export to and from MIDI/WAV/MP3, thus, you can load your midi and export it as a WAV or MP3. (exporting WAV first, then loading the wav and exporting the MP3 is best otherwise it will be too quiet sometimes.)

Q. How do I make sound effects? Where do I get them?
A. Sound effects can come from many sources. Often times, sound effects like footsteps, guns firing, swords swinging, etc. are actually recorded and NOT synthesized electronically. Even normally electronic-sounding effects, like lasers firing, can be replicated by recording and distorting various ambient sounds in the real world, such as metal wires vibrating. However, nowadays, electronic effects like clicks, blips, and bleeps are often generated with a synthesizer. There is no easy way to do this unless you already have one (software or otherwise) and some way to record and/or export it. My recommendation is to go to www.kvr-vst.com, pick up a good subtractive synth, get FLStudio, then use that to make sound effects.

Alternatively, you can get a sound effects library. These are usually very expensive, ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars, but you get TONS of sound effects for your money. I recommend the Best Service "Blue Box" 16 CD set or the Best Service "Red Box" 20 CD set, both of which have effects from a number of categories, and are about $300 each. Of course, in the resources list you should be able to find databases of lower-quality sound effects without much effort, though those may or may not be free for use..