Chris' Music Showcase

[Chrisk]

I am currently working on a filmscore for a private film project created by a friend of mine. It's a short piece for a 4 minute movie, just wanted some feedback

http://soundcloud.com/chriskoebke/coinman-wip-v2

 

[Cervator]

I like it

If I should look for something to comment on then the transition between 0:05 to 0:24 and 0:59 to 1:17 seem a bit drawn out and overly empty to me - but then with it being a film score that might be appropriate for the content

What's the unusual instrument that kicks in at 1:45? Sounds very distinct but no clue what it is or would even be similar to.

 

[Chrisk]

+
http://soundcloud.com/chriskoebke/coinman-wip-v2

You have to actually start both at the same time. Notice that the film and filmscore are work in progress versions and it's not completed yet

The unusual instrument is a pitched and very distorted electric guitar, that was plugged in into my audio input.

 

[Cervator]

Wow, that's really nice. Well done. I think I got the movie and music lined up right and yeah it fits well, seems to capture the mood just right

Beautiful slow-mo coin scenes. I have a co-worker who does short movies like this too, along with a few other locals, and I know it is a lot of work - but the results can be quite satisfying!

 

[Chrisk]

http://soundcloud.com/chriskoebke/fairytale-gone-bad

A small cover sung by a friend of mine

 

[Cervator]

Nice Adrian seems a pretty good singer.

 

[Chrisk]

Hey.
I tried different piano samples this time and I'm not really happy how it turned out.

http://soundcloud.com/chriskoebke/terasology-snowflakes

I wasn't creative enough to figure out a fitting name for that piece of music, if you got any ideas tell me I would also like to see some suggestions about some negative aspects, because I just cannot figure out whats wrong with that piece ;3

Edit: Named it snowflakes, because they were my inspiration today. I hope it fits.

 

[Cervator]

"Snowflakes" fits great - I think it has a certain melancholy to it from time to time that would fit great in a setting with gentle snowfall.

I like the piece just fine, it doesn't stick out to me vs. other pieces. If I should strain to look for possible negatives then it seemed like the volume occasionally varied oddly (mainly for the piano?) during the stretches between 07 - 1:11 and 20 - 3:05. The end was also a little more abrupt than usual, seemed like the very final note was either off slightly or needed one or two subdued somethings shortly after?

 

[Esereja]

chriss could you make two more creepy tracks for sunset,midnight or morning night. they are played when you go at low altitude 50< in soundtrack mod. thank you

and that snowfall tracks last note is causing it to feel as endind in midle, as that note is higer than previous. I would cut it away and it would sound nice.
Your tracks are realy good as always.

and if we get ingame jucebox we need definedly low-pas track in it

 

[Cervator]

FYI - with the pull request from Esereja low-quality versions of all the music is in-game now (along with a couple new pieces that should probably be considered placeholders - since they're freely available pieces that don't necessarily follow our core style set by Chrisk ). Full quality would make the downloadable too big, need to do the music as mod split soon, but closing in on 2 am already

Full quality should make a return soon enough, in the meantime there are more pieces hooked up to the time events - now also based on the players height.

 

[Chrisk]

I'm working on a small sideproject for terasology now. The goal is to create an ambience soundtrack that contains around 50-60 songs and fits with the rest of my work. I'm planning to release them all at once, so it'll probably take a while to create them.

I also try to figure out a good way to combine ambient and situational music so the background music sounds like an inifinite, non-repeating piece of music that fits the situation just perfect.

 

[Esereja]

that is huge ammount. we willllllll neeeeeeed moding for soundtracks fooooooooooooooor sure. It is like 150 mbs. .

But one thing for sure they will work in awesome way. Just make lot diversity please(scary/horor/romantic/chillout/Dubstep/jazz/classic/native/electro as example) (I think skyrim gives nice ideas)
for diferent sitsuations,

like 3 for each biome:
mountains
plains
desert
forest
tundra

cities

for actions:
under attack, after it, swimming, flying

for places:
tunnels, dangerous areas...

you get idea.(I think you have lot clearer idea than me anyway).
And I will be happy to hear what you will make.

(is there ambient dubstep?)

 

[Cervator]

For some reason I had never quite connected Dubstep and Terasology before. That would be a hilarious combination, especially with a Gooey thrown into the mix

 

[Chrisk]

The first 8 ambient soundtracks are finished. I worked about 5-6 hours on them and finally got a good way to create musical transitions, I'll post a concept paper during the next days how you could implement them.

https://soundcloud.com/chriskoebke/terasology-ice-ambience

They are all ice-related and you could create an endless soundtrack out of them easily, I hope you like it

Note: The 8 tracks are just rendered into one track, my idea was not to fade them in and out like this ingame. It's more or less just a preview of the 8 tracks

Much love.

 

[metouto]

Boy o boy that was great to listen to Chrisk

 

[Skaldarnar]

These are 8 really nice tracks... and all the others as well of course, listening to your music while I do my homework for university now

 

[Cervator]

Great stuff as usual, and in such nice quantity despite keeping quality up

I still don't quite feel right commenting with details, as I really don't consider myself artistic, but I try to provide constructive feedback anyway so feel free to take the following with a grain of salt

• track 1 is wonderful, seems even more snowflakey than Snowflakes somehow
• track 2 wind instrument may stick out a bit, especially since the piece is so brief / condensed? Nice violin though
• track 3 is nice, doesn't feel very icy to me though and almost seems like it could end at 3:15 / rest be something else or a "bridge" piece that may or may not follow in that spot?
• track 4 really like the piano and the wind instrument (I think?) fits in
• track 5 like it
• track 6 like it, wind instrument almost gets drowned a bit after 6:45ish?
• track 7 nice and subtle, like the piano
• track 8 like it, especially the ... choir type undertones? Works to a slight icy effect

The start always being the same sneaky intro seems clever, that does become that "thread" that links them all together and probably makes it harder to notice a pattern

Tinkling is a direct hit on any sort of icy atmosphere, works well.

Also argh on Soundcloud's set display, want the old one piece per line back

 

[Chrisk]

Thanks for the constructive feedback, really appreciate it I hope I'll get more creative phases like yesterday in the future, just got so many ideas and emotions out of myself

I posted my suggestion for music transitions btw (http://forum.movingblocks.net/threads/ambient-music-transitions.663/)

I thought it would be a great idea if there is a small random chance, that a song that is not included into the ambience soundtrack starts to play. Let's say you are listening around 15 minutes to the ambient soundtrack and the game decides to just fade it out completely and starts playing "Snowflakes". That would be nice

 

[Chrisk]

I started working on the overworld ambient soundtrack today and finished some themes Thought about 30-40 minutes of music, would that be enough?

I planned to create ambient soundtracks for following situations:
- Icy moutains
- Overworld (forests, plains, mountains...)
- Desert
- Caves / underground
- Some combat themes
- Cities
- Random soundtracks, that start playing randomly

I also thought about the file size problem without decreasing the sound quality... Would it be possible to implement an mp3 player for terasology? That would drastically lower the file size without losing the quality

 

[Cervator]

Just from the top of my head I think the problem with MP3 is that we cannot include the codec in the code without having to go through some paperwork/legal hoops, pay for it, or something. That's why everybody goes with .ogg since it is completely free and available.

I think we should aim to bundle the majority of music separately and auto-download it when the game launcher runs for the first time, in the background in a low priority thread, if the user OKs it