Music

Create music and sound effects for mainline or user-made content.

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ZhayTee
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Music

Post by ZhayTee »

Hi there.

I'm ZhayTee. I wrote the original two tunes for Wesnoth back in the day. (That is, wesnoth-1.ogg, and wesnoth-2.ogg.)

Wesnoth has grown! It's now quite amazing, and I'm happy to see that custom "3rd party" content is being created for the engine.

I'm wondering what people are looking for re: Wesnoth music. There are, as far as I can tell, two general options:

1) A large collection of tunes, one for each possible mood... but all unified by an underlying structure and theme. Every campaign designer will use songs from this large collection in order to put music into his or her campaign.

Or,

2) Specific pieces of music custom-written for each unique campaign.

I'd like to hear your opinions on the matter. If I see a general need for #1, I would be happy to develop a suite of songs for Wesnoth which complement the already-existing tunes, while adding many more choices in terms of mood.

If #2, I would also be happy to produce custom music for a specific campaign.

Keep up the good work, everyone.

--JT
http://zhaymusic.com/
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

Or option 3, which is general chunks of "mood" music that can be used across multiple campaigns.


We almost completely lack any music for non-fighting, storyline sequences. In turn, this really makes such sequences suck. Right now, our selection of music is great for all of the fighting, and active gameplay (which is a first priority), but is largely useless for, say, a love scene between Konrad and Li'sar.

I'm only touching the tip of the iceberg here; this kind of stuff would be very useful, and once we have a general base to build on, we could branch out into campaign-specific stuff - ideally, campaigns might use mostly their own library, but because of the reality of supply and demand, we'd have a global set for those campaigns unlucky enough to have their own dedicated composer (e.g. 90% of them).
torangan
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Post by torangan »

I think the best solution is 1) + 3). Have a set of general tracks which can be used in many situations and authors choose the right subset for their scenarios. Then there should be a set of smaller pieces which can be used for special situations in a campaign before it goes back to the usual music set.
In other words: background music (more general then themed) + event music (specific situation).
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Eleazar
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Post by Eleazar »

Jetryl wrote:Or option 3, which is general chunks of "mood" music that can be used across multiple campaigns.


We almost completely lack any music for non-fighting, storyline sequences. In turn, this really makes such sequences suck. Right now, our selection of music is great for all of the fighting, and active gameplay (which is a first priority), but is largely useless for, say, a love scene between Konrad and Li'sar.
When i was assigning on music for The South Guard, that's the kind of stuff i felt the need for— relatively short pieces of music that could break in at key points in the story-line to support the mood.


And ever since playing star-control i've loved the idea of faction-specific victory music, something to play at the end of an MP game, and in Campaigns if desired.
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ZhayTee
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Post by ZhayTee »

Hi guys,

Thanks for your replies. I gather that there are some gaps in the Wesnoth music pool; specifically, softer/emotional pieces of music.

Keep watching this tread: I'll announce when I've completed a tune.

Thanks,

--JT
http://zhaymusic.com/
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esr
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I'm also in favor of 1 + 3

Post by esr »

I'm also in favor of 1+3, Zhaytee.

I think the different gameplay tracks should be like like elements of a sound palette that scenario designers can sequence for the emotional/thematic effect they want.
ZhayTee
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Post by ZhayTee »

I've written a song for Wesnoth called "Tragedy". It is meant to be used for scenes which include somber, sad dialogue. Hopefully this will fill one of the gaps in Wesnoth's musical palette! You may download it from the following URL.

http://zhaymusic.com/music/vorbis/gpl/z ... ragedy.ogg

Thanks,

--JT
http://zhaymusic.com/
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esr
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I would replace West's "Sad" with this.

Post by esr »

If it were up to me, I would replace West's "Sad" with this in Northern Rebirth. But that is more Taurus's call than mine.
ZhayTee
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Post by ZhayTee »

Hi again,

I mentioned this on the dev list, but I forgot to mention it here:

I've written a tune for Wesnoth which is meant to serve as the musical backdrop for a more tender love-related scene. The lead melody is "sweet", and it's played on a soft bed of strings.

As usual, you are free to use it in your campaigns. You can download it from the following URL.

http://zhaymusic.com/music/vorbis/gpl/z ... etheme.ogg

Thanks,

--JT
http://zhaymusic.com/
joshj
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Music for Wesnoth

Post by joshj »

I would very much like to compose music for wesnoth,

check my showreel here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NJqQxK8R0M

email me - josh@joshjameson.com

josh
TimothyP
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Post by TimothyP »

Josh, you could have started your own thread, which would have been a better place for us to find it.

Your style/sound does not fit what we are doing with Wesnoth, but you are welcome to look around for custom campaign designers and see if they like your music for their campaigns.

I am not going to go into details because this topic has been discussed in several threads.

--Timothy
ZhayTee
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Post by ZhayTee »

As requested by Mattias:

BUMP!

My recent Wesnoth tunes can be found here, in MP3 format: http://zhaymusic.com/music/mp3/gpl/

--JT
http://www.virheroicus.com/
http://zhaymusic.com/
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West
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Post by West »

Hi ZhayTee!

First of all I have to ask you: do you consider these songs finished or are you willing to keep working on them? The reason I'm asking is that they're not really of an orchestral nature, and might require some rearranging and other tweaks to fit the Wesnoth style.

As for the songs, my personal favorites are New Truths and Fanfare. New Truths has a mysterious, dreamy quality and Fanfare is noble and has the most interesting and mature arrangement of the four. Love Theme on the other hand sounds very empty and unfinished and could use some fleshing out -- more instruments, changes in dynamcis etc. Tragedy is... well, not tragic enough IMO. It has potential, but I don't see it being used as a tragedy theme to tell you the truth. Like Love Theme it could also use a more varied instrumentation. This, in fact goes for New Truths as well. However, I will not go into more detail before I know if you want to keep working on the songs.

Now, your samples are of varied quality. Some sound very nice (the staccato brass in Fanfare) while others are oddly synthetic (the Love theme flute) and will need to be replaced. What equipment are you using? One thing is for certain though: we can't accept any of your songs as long as they have synth pads in them. :)
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Sapient
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Post by Sapient »

at first new truths was my favorite, but I have to say fanfare is really growing on me... dang, it's catchy 8)
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yobbo
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Post by yobbo »

Hi, I'd just like to say that I like your work :).

I always liked your previous tracks for wesnoth, and musically I enjoy these as well.

I hope you can take West's criticisms into account and improve these pieces. After listening to some of your other music on your website I'm sure these pieces can get better.

I actually quite like Tragedy. Although it seems more like an impending tragedy, or one that's remembered from the distant past. It feels... hopeful.

Aside from modifying the tracks to fit into Wesnoth more, unless they are intended solely as story music (for while the player is reading the story, not playing) they could all do with being significantly longer :).
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