I had a spare day so I decided to make another song for Nexuiz.

I was going for less electronicy this time. Tell me what you think.

File is here

Thanks

edit: And another song I made for Nexuiz

edit#2: And on and on..

edit#3: And on and on and on...

edit#4 And [url=http://blkrbt.googlepages.com/ninesix.ogg[/url]on and on and on and on....[/url]

Thats absolutely awesome.

Sepelio wrote:Thats absolutely awesome.

Thank you

I was just having another listen to the OGG, and it sounds like it has clipping on it. I don't know if this is a problem with the OGG format, the way I encoded it, or just my media player (winamp). It sounds fine as a wav, mp3 and in the DAW. If no one else notices it, it's probably just my media player being dodgy, but if it is noticeable then I'll do some googling and re-render it.

Well, this was totally unexpected, and AWESOME!

It seems like you really took to heart the critique for the last song, because this one is in a whole different direction, and it's clear now that you are quite talented

Some things to consider (mind you, I don't compose music myself, so this is a layman's opinion):

• In the song, I feel like some of the balance between instruments could be tweaked and improved. The bass is kind of tinny to me, (which might be intentional, I don't know), but tinny base like that doesn't fully complement the strings. Since you have strings in there, I wonder if more orchestral-oriented percussion would be more suited (the actual base line is fine though).

• The song sounds a bit rough overall, I'm not sure if this is because of the encoding, or just a quick mixing job. The different instruments jumble together a little at times. Also, I think the guitar is over-distorted.

• The little touches, like the keyboard riff, etc, are cool

That's about it, really. It's definitely great. Hopefully we will hear some more music from you in the future . I think it would be a great thing if we start to see music that goes beyond synths and techno/electro, where artists try out more varied instruments, different moods, and interesting melodies. This is surely the start


Oh, and some notes-

Something James Bond-y about this one

Also,
To have your songs included in the official release, they MUST be licensed GPL2, or a compatible license (MIT, etc).

@torus

Hey, Thank you for the reply.

I'm gonna try and not sound bitchy or rude here, but I tend to come off that way, so just excuse me.. haha.

I'm not sure what you were referring to when you mentioned about the bass being tinny, the only bass instrument there is a sampled cello, unless you meant the bass in general being tinny.. which dosen't make sense... You'll have to explain it better.

The mix is very very bad and very rough, and it's literally just been a day project, I thought I'd see if there was interest before finishing a final mix, I would of done a less-quick-mix, but the software wasn't playing nice with me. I will go for a better mix now there's been positive feedback.

Thank you for the positive feedback! I was originally aiming for something very string & sampled drum based, but it ended up feeling like it needed guitar in it, and you really think it's over distorted? I'll try tweaking around with it and see if I can get a better sound, I record my guitars through DI and the amp emulation is done with software, so it's easy to change

How do I go about the licencing?

Cheers

Hmm, I meant that the drum kit seems like it's dominated by the higher-register snare drum (or whatever that is). I mean, it certainly sounds just like a guy playing a drum set, but I feel like more booming, orchestral drums might be better suited for the song. Dunno, I could be completely wrong there.

But yea, I do think the guitar's distortion should be turned down some.

torus wrote:Hmm, I meant that the drum kit seems like it's dominated by the higher-register snare drum (or whatever that is). I mean, it certainly sounds just like a guy playing a drum set, but I feel like more booming, orchestral drums might be better suited for the song. Dunno, I could be completely wrong there.

But yea, I do think the guitar's distortion should be turned down some.

Ohhhh. Right, sorry.

Yeah, I was having a little debating among myself about the drums. It's quite over-compressed, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep it that way (due to it being ever so punchy) or change it (because it felt a bit... too punchy), but it is taken into consideration and should sound better in the latter mix. I might do something with the kick drum.

I might experiment with adding some more orchestral drums, but I'm quite happy with the drums, apart from my previous mentioned points.

Thanks for the feedback.

ZOMG PWNZ0R!!!11

I listened to this while playing for a while, and overall it seems very fitting. This is definitely Nexuiz music. Great work!

K, Mixed it a little better and uploaded in place of the original (same link at the top). It now has a gong and orchestra bass drum in places, as well as being levelled a lot nicer, and feel less messy over all. When I wake up tomorrow, if I'm happy with this mix, I'll consider it the final, unless someone makes a good suggestion for a change.

I also mastered to -0.6db ceiling instead of 0.0, due to the ogg clipping, although that might of just been my decoder, but it's no real noticeable harm anyway.

Can someone help me out with what I do about the licensing?

Thanks.

As I understand it, you just need to declare it to be GPL2, by including the GPL licensing gpl.txt file. Also, make the source available (the Audition project file, or whatever you used).

Also, one thing people like to do for ingame music (although it's not required by any means) is to have the song be able to loop smoothly. Something to consider for future stuff. :->

Oh, and the second mix is FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC.

I love it

Please, please make more music for Nexuiz- we need people like you.

(Ps- a sort of funny, probably unintended side-effect of your second mix-job is that the drum kit at the beginning sounds a bit like someone beat-boxing . Not a bad thing though.)

torus wrote:As I understand it, you just need to declare it to be GPL2, by including the GPL licensing gpl.txt file. Also, make the source available (the Audition project file, or whatever you used).

Hm, I thought I could declare it under a license but wouldn't have to make the project file available(I think it was ruled out as the source somewhere, I did read about this ages ago). I just bring this up because the project file is over 150MB (which is a lot considering I have 0.2mpbs upstream) and requires proprietary plug ins, unless I rendered the entire multi-track separately, which would push the project file into the 600MB region at least, which I can't really upload.

Can anyone who knows for sure tell me what license this should be under, or what to do?

Hmm, there is no rule. You could search for the discussion about it in one of the threads, AFAIK, Tenshinhan's failed accusal by leileilol. For me, the source, which requires proprietary app to render it, is not a source, cause it requires having that app. Anyway, there are no sources of elysis works or meoblast one in svn.

In your case, I would release the wav (maybe compressed in flac to save space) and ogg.
Wav for being able to recompress between various formats without losing fidelity.

BTW, the song is awesome.

the beginning of the song reminds me of Lux Aeterna , i don't know..
and the hole song reminds me of Perfect Dark (on N64 of course)

good one! better than the 1st

First of, really good one. How come I haven't heard about you before? I'm usually the only one listening to songs new to Nexuiz. I've gotta remember you, got more songs? This one is superb, and I'm not saying that lightly ^_^

One issue that you did bring is up is that it is clipping. I could hear it throughout the entire song on my headphones (Media-tech headphones, dunno the version but they are really old so I figured new ones should pick this up better).
The first instrument you hear is good, you could hear it start a little with the background instruments that comes to life then definitely at 0.43 sec and throughout the whole thing.

I read that you fixed the clipping but there just seems to be a lot left. Later today I will take a listen with other headphones and without to see if I hear that. Maybe these headphones are broken somehow. I'm also gonna check my settings to see if they are correct, turning down my volume does help a bit, but I still hear some.
If you're trying to turn the decibel down on the whole thing then that might not work as some individual instrument can clip by themselves, so this would only result in lowering the volume on the whole thing. I don't really know if Audition can see the volume of each individual instrument (haven't been playing with it that much), I know Sound Booth have a spectral view from maybe one can tweak it there. Anyway, I don't really know how to go about fixing this. I hope to learn more if I get a midi keyboard and can start making music myself.

You definitely heard it, but perhaps forgot.

I'm looking forward to div's decision about including or not.

Alien wrote:You definitely heard it, but perhaps forgot.

Quite possibly, my memory sucks, but I think I would remember something like this. I dunno, I _think_ I remember a very short sample that was really good. Could have been this.

Alien wrote:Hmm, there is no rule. You could search for the discussion about it in one of the threads, AFAIK, Tenshinhan's failed accusal by leileilol. For me, the source, which requires proprietary app to render it, is not a source, cause it requires having that app. Anyway, there are no sources of elysis works or meoblast one in svn.

This means that once Id Software or some other company threatens to sue us, we'll have the remove the music.

This is a legal grey zone that has not been ruled in any court yet, and it would be great if NEW content could FINALLY come with at least something CLOSE to actual source code - like this Audition project. Even if it requires a commercial app.

Currently, the source would be mainly useful for legal clearance (like, to check if sounds that have been used were licensed in a GPL compatible manner).

torus wrote:Also, one thing people like to do for ingame music (although it's not required by any means) is to have the song be able to loop smoothly. Something to consider for future stuff. :->

Well, there's a yet undocumented feature of the engine For ogg, you can add a special tag LOOP_START :

How to calculate the value of the Loop Point

The Loop Point is measured in wave size. Multiply the position you wish for the track to loop to (in seconds) by the wavelength of the music file. Remember that if you wish to use an OGG file in SRB2, the wavelength must be 44,100 Hz.

An example calculation of a Loop Point: to loop a file with a wavelength of 44,100 Hz to a position of 30 seconds: 30 * 44100 = 1323000. So you would insert LOOPPOINT=1323000 in the Comment field.

From http://wiki.srb2.org/wiki/Sound_and_Mus ... Loop_Point
, but Nexuiz uses LOOP_START
Also, the music is awesome, I think It's perfect for Killall Organic

C.Brutail wrote:

torus wrote:Also, one thing people like to do for ingame music (although it's not required by any means) is to have the song be able to loop smoothly. Something to consider for future stuff. :->

Well, there's a yet undocumented feature of the engine For ogg, you can add a special tag LOOP_START :

It's undocumented, because it is taken from another program.

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_ur ... =Translate

Back when I implemented that, SRB2's website wasn't exactly easy to find.

Anyway, SVN engines also support SRB2's format, as well as the loop start/length tags of RPGMaker.

divVerent wrote:

Alien wrote:Hmm, there is no rule. You could search for the discussion about it in one of the threads, AFAIK, Tenshinhan's failed accusal by leileilol. For me, the source, which requires proprietary app to render it, is not a source, cause it requires having that app. Anyway, there are no sources of elysis works or meoblast one in svn.

This means that once Id Software or some other company threatens to sue us, we'll have the remove the music.

Do you really think this argument is reasonable? Like ID would want to be notorious for releasing the source and then destroying open source project built on that source? And nobody said they would win the court in the first case. Firstly, GPL wasn't tested in the court yet as a really working license (Cisco vs FSF case is still going on, mplayer devs even haven't gone to sue the KISS tech for breaching the mplayer GPL license). Therefore, having no proof that GPL works there is even less proof that GPL would work for sound or any other thing it wasn't meant for.

Hi

Thanks for all the replies. Everyone keeps mentioning Audition, I used Reaper to track and mix this.

Firstly, @ai, I think it might be your decoder, or your headphones. Listening to the mix through Seinnheiser HD201s it sounds fine. I know what clipping sounds like, there was also no visual identification of clipping, the individual instrument tracks do not peak, nor does the master track. I'm using a multi band compressor and hard limiter over the entire thing, and the end result of that is the -0.6db ceiling I set. I will upload in a different format, though.

Releasing the project file introduces new problems. Not only the size, but when the plugins save their current state to the project file, that data might be considered part of the plugins's proprietary code. If I render each track of the multi-track to a wav files, it'll end up being far far too big for me to upload.

As for the OGG looping, I'm quite confused on that. Since there's only a “loop start”, would that mean the end of the song would need to cut off where I want it to start looping? For the most part, when you're actually playing, even without a seamless loop it's usually not entirely noticeable that it's repeating itself.

I've rendered the track to a flac file (18mb), but someone is going to have to point me in the right direction of where I can upload it, also, still not sure what license I should declare this under and how to do it. If someone can just tell me the license of the rest of the music, so I can just use that license, or we can assume it's under that license.

Thanks

Alien wrote:Do you really think this argument is reasonable? Like ID would want to be notorious for releasing the source and then destroying open source project built on that source?

Only if you really believe that a project without source is "open source". Be sure that ID would, in such a case, make a press release where they clearly state and prove that the game whose authors they sued does violate the license (by them not providing source for some binary).

And nobody said they would win the court in the first case. Firstly, GPL wasn't tested in the court yet as a really working license (Cisco vs FSF case is still going on, mplayer devs even haven't gone to sue the KISS tech for breaching the mplayer GPL license). Therefore, having no proof that GPL works there is even less proof that GPL would work for sound or any other thing it wasn't meant for.

Well.

If the GPL does NOT apply, due to whatever reasons, it means that there is NO license to distribute anything. In case it does NOT apply, any copying is a copyright violation. It certainly would NOT render the content public domain.

So in case the GPL is not valid, there is no question left to answer - any distribution would be ILLEGAL.

However, the GPL requires "linked" content to be under the GPL too, which includes sounds that are specially linked to the code, or the model. What constitutes such linkage is unclear, but syncing an animation to a sound would be very likely linkage. Distributing it together as a single work (like Nexuiz) would, of course, make a derived work of everything, so it is ONE work, and must have ONE license. Thus, the sounds and music must be under the GPL, or the whole thing is illegal to distribute.

By the way, there HAVE been cases in court where the GPL has been enforced. One of them was D-Link getting sued for GPL violations on the Linux kernel:

http://www.linux.com/articles/57353

However, the court has not decided whether the GPL is a valid license at all. It simply ruled: EITHER the GPL is not a valid license, then D-Link had no right to distribute the kernel, and thus it violated the copyright... OR the GPL is valid, then D-Link did not follow its terms, thus had the rights the GPL grants can't apply, and violated the copyright too.

The one reason why the GPL _could_ be an invalid license is its language. Most countries require legal documents in their own language, or they aren't enforcable. If a German software author licenses his software under the English GPL, he might later retract the licensing by claiming that there was never a license at all - he did not understand the license, thus no contract was formed between him and people who downloaded the software. How a court would decide such a case is unclear, as the other side is that the internet is a quite international medium, and he would be expected to know English.

Good job!

divVerent wrote:Only if you really believe that a project without source is "open source". Be sure that ID would, in such a case, make a press release where they clearly state and prove that the game whose authors they sued does violate the license (by them not providing source for some binary).

Depends on what the source is. Nobody defined what the source of the sound file is. A project file is only interpretation, what the source could be. It has no legal background to prove if the GPL is really applicable to soundl.

divVerent wrote:Well.

If the GPL does NOT apply, due to whatever reasons, it means that there is NO license to distribute anything. In case it does NOT apply, any copying is a copyright violation. It certainly would NOT render the content public domain.

So in case the GPL is not valid, there is no question left to answer - any distribution would be ILLEGAL.

However, the GPL requires "linked" content to be under the GPL too, which includes sounds that are specially linked to the code, or the model. What constitutes such linkage is unclear, but syncing an animation to a sound would be very likely linkage. Distributing it together as a single work (like Nexuiz) would, of course, make a derived work of everything, so it is ONE work, and must have ONE license. Thus, the sounds and music must be under the GPL, or the whole thing is illegal to distribute.

By the way, there HAVE been cases in court where the GPL has been enforced. One of them was D-Link getting sued for GPL violations on the Linux kernel:

http://www.linux.com/articles/57353

However, the court has not decided whether the GPL is a valid license at all. It simply ruled: EITHER the GPL is not a valid license, then D-Link had no right to distribute the kernel, and thus it violated the copyright... OR the GPL is valid, then D-Link did not follow its terms, thus had the rights the GPL grants can't apply, and violated the copyright too.

The one reason why the GPL _could_ be an invalid license is its language. Most countries require legal documents in their own language, or they aren't enforcable. If a German software author licenses his software under the English GPL, he might later retract the licensing by claiming that there was never a license at all - he did not understand the license, thus no contract was formed between him and people who downloaded the software. How a court would decide such a case is unclear, as the other side is that the internet is a quite international medium, and he would be expected to know English.

It could be the same thing as with the Creative Commons non-commercial use with no real definition of what actually source code (non-commercial use) is.

Woah, that's an impressive song, nice one!

Alien wrote:

divVerent wrote:Only if you really believe that a project without source is "open source". Be sure that ID would, in such a case, make a press release where they clearly state and prove that the game whose authors they sued does violate the license (by them not providing source for some binary).

Depends on what the source is. Nobody defined what the source of the sound file is. A project file is only interpretation, what the source could be. It has no legal background to prove if the GPL is really applicable to soundl

If it is NOT applicable to sound, this whole thing is moot, as it would be entirely impossible to use ANY sound in a game that's under the GPL.

Also, source code IS defined by the GPL:

GPL v2 wrote:The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it.

GPLv3 has this same definition, but clarifies further:

GPL v3 wrote:The Corresponding Source for a work in source code form is that same work.

Now, normally, the ogg or wav file is NOT the "preferred form of the work for making modifications to it". However, depending on how it was created, it may be it anyway.

For example, if you make an image, and have to apply some filter to the result of merging the layers, and this filter is NOT linear (be it resynthesizing, gamma correction, or a median filter), you can't work around it by applying the filter to each layer separately. This means you have to flatten the image, to merge all layers into one. All the layer information is lost here, and then, the XCF/PSD file would be no gain over the resulting TGA file. In this case, the texture TGA file basically "is" the source code - simply because it's the only editable form at all that is complete.

If, on the other hand, your image editing application allows non-destructive editing even in such cases, and can preserve the input even after flattening (e.g. because it stores the whole "undo history" with its project files), its project files WOULD be the only source, as it is fully editable and nothing else would be.

Now in image editing, we are simply not that far yet in "widespread" applications. There once WAS such an app for Windows 3.1 that could do this (and also work on very large images by actually working on a small preview, and applying all the edits to the large source images on request), but neither this app nor its methods ever caught on.

In video editing, on the other hand, we ARE that far. Non-destructive video editing is the standard.

As for music, I simply don't know what apps store as project format. Also, not all people make music the same way. E.g. if it is a live recording, the recording obviously IS the preferred form for editing - while, on the other hand, the POSSIBLE editing is very limited.

If your app however stores a project format and allows later edits with it, it most likely IS the source code. And as you have even publicly stated to possess such a source, you cannot later claim the wav is the preferred form for editing. Thus, these project files would be required.

You do not have to give us these files now, but you have to keep them and give them out to anyone who requests them. Obviously, it'd be better if you'd store them at a public location instead, just to get that problem out of your way.

To conclude: do you prefer editing your music in wav form and throw that project file away, or do you prefer editing that project file? Do you think anyone would believe you if you told him you always edit the wav file as that's easier (assuming you're not talking about a live recording)?

Hi.

Thanks for the lengthy response. I think I get it now.

Unfortunately, if the multi-track project file, being what would be used if I were to make modifications is considered the source under GPL, I won't be able to distribute this under GPL. I used a lot of proprietary software, and the data they save of their current state inside the project file might not be something I'm licensed to distribute. The project file also weighs around 100MB, which is quite large considering my net speed.

Alternately I attempted to render the multi-track project file to stem tracks (so each instrument's channel would be a separate wave file) which is considered a viable way for modification to be done, but unfortunately this results in 1.05GBs of data, which is far too large and troublesome for me to distribute.

Is there any way around this? I could distribute the song as a lossless wave, or in it's unmastered form, but neither of them would strictly constitute as it's source.

I don't think this is going to be able to be GPLed, unless there is some way around this.. hmm. Are all the other songs on Nexuiz GPLed with their available multi-track project files?

Thanks anyway.

divVerent wrote:If it is NOT applicable to sound, this whole thing is moot, as it would be entirely impossible to use ANY sound in a game that's under the GPL.

What? Somehow Space Trader is using id Tech 3 (GPL'ed) with proprietary art and music. CC is incompatible with GPL and used in wsw.

divVerent wrote:Also, source code IS defined by the GPL:

GPL v2 wrote:

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it.


GPLv3 has this same definition, but clarifies further:

GPL v3 wrote:

The Corresponding Source for a work in source code form is that same work.

GPL v2 - one could argue that his preferred form is working with binary data. Or is there universally defined thing as preferred form? I doubt so.

GPL v3 - The Corresponding Source for a work in source code form is that same work.
??? The Corresponding Source for a binary blob in source code form is that same binary blob. Sounds illogical. Maybe work has a special definition here.

Continuing about music. Musician's DAW usually has projects, but what if you produce several separate wavs and mix them using e.g. reaper. What would you define as source? If you get project files, you will still need to mix. If you get reaper project, you still need original wav files. In that case, it seems you need to put out all projects of all music apps you used to create that piece of sound which sounds ridiculous, cause not the material is GPL'ed but the whole process, which is way different. Giving is the source in any of the programming languages does not mean you need to give ide project files or makefiles or anything else.

Same goes to image editing. One could argue that he is very talented pixel artist and created that and that using paint equivalent. What would be the proof that he didn't? His post at forum claiming he has a psd file. Nobody would take it serious at any case.

Therefore all lossless things should be considered as source, cause they are the solo things which do not differ what artist has rendered/produced at his studio.

Anyway, I could find Stallman's post where he mentions that it's better to use CC instead of GPL because GPL was meant neither for music nor art.

blkrbt wrote:I don't think this is going to be able to be GPLed, unless there is some way around this.. hmm. Are all the other songs on Nexuiz GPLed with their available multi-track project files?.

IF they are available (big question mark), definitely not svn.

So am I good to just declare it under the CC license instead?

In the mean time I've made another song along the same theme, linked to in the original post.