Hi.

I recently decided to compose another song for Nexuiz. Posting here to see if people like it, opinions and criticism is welcome as always.

First new song (source)
Second new song (source)
Third new song (source)

I declare the song under the GPL2 license, it's in OGG format and mastered to -0.5db (to avoid clipping on some players). It has vorbis replay gain tagged on it. If people are happy with it, it's essentially all good and ready to be put into the game, and if that's the case I'll upload the master files for it.

They were made in Renoise tracker, using the (free) Oatmeal VST for almost everything.

blkrbt

Wow, this is excellent!

I think this is exactly the kind of music Nexuiz needs more of. Clear, futuristic, slighltly mysterious electronic. The pace is a perfect fit too.

I have no suggestions, except maybe lowering the beat volume relative to the other elements by a small amount like 10%.

Flying Steel wrote:Wow, this is excellent!

I think this is exactly the kind of music Nexuiz needs more of. Clear, futuristic, slighltly mysterious electronic. The pace is a perfect fit too.

I have no suggestions, except maybe lowering the beat volume relative to the other elements by a small amount like 10%.

I was debating with myself about that exact same thing. I was expecting that I'd probably need to do some tweaks, since I didn't leave a few day gap before uploading to have another listen with fresh ears.

I'll reupload after I've done some tweaks, which will probably be after a few days, i was going for quite a vivid beat, which after it's kicked in I think works better, but like you said, it might be a little too much.

Thanks for listening, and the feedback. I'll link to the other one when I've finished it up.

If anyone else listens to it, any feedback is welcome, preferably the useful kind.

This is definitely a good refreshing change from your usual orchestra sounding stuff. Kind of reminds me of a mix of old-school 16 bit (in an awesome way) and early CD console music that you would hear on a Genesis or PS1 game. Easily one of the best tracks made for this game.

I agree with Lee_Stricklin, this a good refreshing change from usual sound! I've only two suggestions: the first, that Flying Steel already said, is to lowering a bit drum basses, because they rasp a bit, and second, IMHO this song should start with a volume fade in because I noticed that it ends with a fade out.
However, great work, compliments!

Reuploaded to the same place. I lowered the drums very slightly. I feel dropping them too much would would completely detract from the "power" of the track. I also added a very small build at the beginning of the track, but this isn't very long. You need something that kicks in pretty quickly else people will be left thinking "didn't this game used to have music?" for the first 20seconds of gameplay.

I think the whole ensemble works in it's current state, try playing a few matches with it going in the background. I hope people find this is alright, too. Making changes is a bit of a hassle, since I have to play the whole thing through twice in real time after making any adjustments (as well as the .5db amplification drop) , then bounce to WAV, convert to OGG and run replay gain on it.

I've uploaded the Renoise project file, aswell. It was made in version 2.1, and should play fine on the demo. You will need the oatmeal VST plugin installed properly and setup in renoise for it to play, but it's free, so if anyone wants to have their way with the song, work a remix etc. be my guest. be warned the tracker notes look a bit bare since I stuck all the rhythmic patterns for the melodic instruments into oatmeal's arpeggiator.

Perfect.

Lowering the beat volume this much seems to help all the other cool things like pitch bends to come through which is very good, but you haven't lowered it so much that the theme would start to lose its direction or energy.

Can't wait to hear that next track.

Great music, please make more of those!

I like the trancey beat and forward driving athmosphere. Despite the simplicity inherent in 4/4 beats (which I like!) this song to me is very interesting rhythmically because of the bassline and that percussive organlike sound. And then there are those interesting harmonies teasing the ear with minor and major chords where you won't quite expect them but which still fit perfectly.

Great work, thanks for sharing!

cool stuff blkrbt =)

Finished up the second song, actually, re-did the second song from the start.

Critisism & opinion welcome, I'll stick the source up when I'm sure I won't do any more tweaks, pretty much everything from the last one still applies, same software etc.

Nice work man! I like this bright, kind, happy, soft energetic, forward drive - feeling you have going there.

is there anyway to add these to the list of songs nexuiz selects randomly to play at the start of a game? would just adding it to the music folder work?

Listening to the re-released Quiet and Traveler. I like what you did with Quiet and Traveler just sounds kick ass. Just like most of your work these are two really awesome tracks 5 out of 5 I really love how it sounds like early CD gaming (think old school WipeOut and other old electronic gaming music) stuff.

Cool, moar moar.

Lee_Stricklin wrote:...I really love how it sounds like early CD gaming (think old school WipeOut and other old electronic gaming music) stuff.

Glad you heard the wipeout inspiration in there. I always liked the wipeout soundtracks, there was something so futuristic about the music they used, which really made me think "If it was 2097, this is the music I'd be listening to".

blkrbt wrote:

Lee_Stricklin wrote:...I really love how it sounds like early CD gaming (think old school WipeOut and other old electronic gaming music) stuff.

Glad you heard the wipeout inspiration in there. I always liked the wipeout soundtracks, there was something so futuristic about the music they used, which really made me think "If it was 2097, this is the music I'd be listening to".

Yeeeah Good old WipeOut and WipeOut XL (2097 in Europe), those were some of the earliest PS1 games I ever played, those games had a hell of a soundtrack and that was actually what made me want the games, which is kind of crazy because I played mostly action games at that time and absolutely sucked at racing games. I actually have the soundtrack they released for XL.

Lee_Stricklin wrote:

blkrbt wrote:

Lee_Stricklin wrote:...I really love how it sounds like early CD gaming (think old school WipeOut and other old electronic gaming music) stuff.

Glad you heard the wipeout inspiration in there. I always liked the wipeout soundtracks, there was something so futuristic about the music they used, which really made me think "If it was 2097, this is the music I'd be listening to".

Yeeeah Good old WipeOut and WipeOut XL (2097 in Europe), those were some of the earliest PS1 games I ever played, those games had a hell of a soundtrack and that was actually what made me want the games, which is kind of crazy because I played mostly action games at that time and absolutely sucked at racing games. I actually have the soundtrack they released for XL.

I'm really off my own topic here, bah-- I ripped the soundtrack from the 2097 CD to Mp3, did they release it seperatly? Wipeout Pulse and Pure on PSP have astounding soundtracks, but I think it's silly to buy the game's sound track once I've already bought the game.

Back on topic: Uploaded the source file for traveler (linked to on original post), again, I encourage remixes if anyone wants to make on (it's GPLed, so you don't need my encouragement, or my permission), and you'll need the oatmeal vst installed and setup in renoise. I use some Wave plugins on the master section, but they're just to even out the dynamics.

This second track sounds perfect, excellent work.

blkrbt wrote:

Lee_Stricklin wrote:

blkrbt wrote:

Lee_Stricklin wrote:...I really love how it sounds like early CD gaming (think old school WipeOut and other old electronic gaming music) stuff.

Glad you heard the wipeout inspiration in there. I always liked the wipeout soundtracks, there was something so futuristic about the music they used, which really made me think "If it was 2097, this is the music I'd be listening to".

Yeeeah Good old WipeOut and WipeOut XL (2097 in Europe), those were some of the earliest PS1 games I ever played, those games had a hell of a soundtrack and that was actually what made me want the games, which is kind of crazy because I played mostly action games at that time and absolutely sucked at racing games. I actually have the soundtrack they released for XL.

Have you folks seen this:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tZork3k#p/u/4/c876vZ8vamA

It appears to be built into 2.5.2 but I'm not sure how to access it in game. It looks like it'll be an official mutator/map feature in a future release, maybe 2.5.5 or 2.6 I hope, along with the spiderbot.

Good point Lee. Let's try to keep it together now shall we?

Hehe, about the sound tracks. They are both great tunes, they're very relaxing actually (the Traveler sound track a bit more so), quite the opposite of Nexuiz gameplay. This doesn't make it bad though, it can in fact bring out the intensity of it.

However, they are more of the generic type. Beside the main melody there's really nothing that makes them stand out that much, which in the end might end up forgotten. And if there's many of these then they'll just blend in together till you won't know the difference.
But if people like and want this style then I won't stop them. I always believe the music adds at least half of the experience to the game. I for one would want a memorable experience, even if it's just an intense deathmatch fragfest.
Which is why I believe music like Desert, Broken Light, Stairs and the other adds more to it.

But in the end I suppose it comes down to the individual taste.
Good tunes though!

I think blkrbt should do whatever style he feels like. He's done a good job on pretty much everything he released and like I said it mostly depends on a maps look and feel what track should be used. Personally I think Traveler is probably his best one.

Whoa! he did another song, listening to it now. Sounds amazing, kind of like something that's inspired by both early CD games and 16 bit (think Sega Genesis) games. The only thing I can think of that could be improved on the third track is for the end to be trimmed off a little bit so that it loops better.

Bumping this thread to point out that blkrbt has released a third track called Variable.

Wow, now that style is more my kind. I like it, the only thing I doubt is the drum pretty much in the end. I actually don't know if I like it or not. The reason is that such drums should be used carefully, it can sound cliche and bad if not done properly. So I really don't know if I like it.
However, if unsure then I think it's better to leave it out/switch it out.

Really good track though.

I like those tracks. Especially the 2nd one.

The first two tracks are still my favorites, but this new one is also very good.

I hope you keep up the great work!

fantastic musics, keep up the good work I think the first one, "quiet" is even better than the current menu theme, I could imagine it in combination with "welcome to Nexuiz"

Love them, very nice I'm glad to hear more dynamic music for Nexuiz, I believe it needs that a lot. My personal fave from the three is Variable... I think Traveler would fit Toxic and / or the Slimepit series nicely.

Have these themes been added to the SVN yet?

Flying Steel wrote:Have these themes been added to the SVN yet?

Seems not... hope they will be.

Just had a listen, I think this is known as ear-pwnage.