Music [partly in upstream]

[aakburns]

Virus TI - Reason - Maryo? Whynot.

Some songs, made with some different tools.

http://www.arikburns.com/music/r/170jam.mp3

http://www.arikburns.com/music/smc/arik1.mp3

An intro of sorts? http://www.arikburns.com/music/r/maximie.mp3

And your wondrous snow level. My remake of 'Carol of The Bells' http://www.arikburns.com/music/r/carolo ... kburns.mp3

Enjoy
-Arik

[FluXy]

WOW that sounds great

170jam :
Would fit for most harder action levels.
Try to make at least 2:00 minutes long ( It ends at 1:35 ).

arik1 :
Fits for a Cloud or Underground level ?

maximie :
Would fit nicely for a hard underground level
But it should be at least 2:00 minutes long.

carolofthebells-aakburns :
Perfect

For inclusion into SMC please check that they loop nicely and upload them as ogg at Quality 8 of 10.
You can create ogg easily f.e. from .wav with oggdropXPd

Send me the project files if you want the possibility that the music is maintained (extended, optimized or reused for a new track).
I would recommend that as all the new data is completely open source.

[Yoshis_Fan]

Very nice. The last one is just GREAT! But the other aren't bad, too
Well done!

[Guest_xD]

1st: Very very nice.
2nd: Nice, too.
3rd: Great for hard levels, loops well so I think the length doesn't really matter. But anyway it would be great if it would become longer.
4th: AWESOME!

[Tester]

Very nice but a bit short (too short because I love it all). :°

Please make it in OGGs. Mp3 is like the Dark Side.

[aakburns]

Well thanks gents. I try hard.

I could take some time to make them longer.

I'll do that.

[vencabot_teppoo]

Excellent. All of the tracks are great. Maximie is sufficiently evil, although I wish it were longer. You've probably thought about extending it, but you must have your reasons for keeping it at 'intro' length. It was probably my favorite.

Also, nice domain name.

Mind if I ask what sort of tools you use, and what your creative process is like? I'm an amateur all-digital composer, and this sort of solo work (I assume it's solo) is right up my alley of interest.

-David

[Guest_xD]

Converted them to ogg (360 KB/s).
Please tell me the Bitrate i should use and i will re-convert them to it.
Here are the ogg files with 360 KB/s (~20 MB)
aakburns Music
I will re-convert the changes which are made in the music.

[FluXy]

If you did convert it from the mp3 it only lowers the quality (same with jpg images).
You need to create the ogg from a lossless format to get the good quality.

[aakburns]

Excellent. All of the tracks are great. Maximie is sufficiently evil, although I wish it were longer. You've probably thought about extending it, but you must have your reasons for keeping it at 'intro' length. It was probably my favorite.

Also, nice domain name.

Mind if I ask what sort of tools you use, and what your creative process is like? I'm an amateur all-digital composer, and this sort of solo work (I assume it's solo) is right up my alley of interest.

-David

Hi David, Among my many 12 years or so of experience, I find I don't always go for a theme or anything exact most of the time. I just making things as i play them.

I usually just get a 4/4 beat going to keep on the timing. In recent days I sequence much more. I used to play live on the keyboard and then quantize everything.Thats mostly in the past for me. I sequence everything for the most part now.

My suggestion. Setup a simple 4/4 drum beat to keep you on time. Then pick a key for your song. I use C minor alot. I'm addicted to it. Now look at that key and know what notes work together, you'll find if you know this, you can make any sequence sound cool almost every time no matter what. The best thing about midi is that once you've made a part you can go back and change the sound. Sometimes I'll sequence a pattern, then i find I hate it. So then I'll choose another sound, perhaps go from a low grumbly synth to some bells? Sometimes it's a glorious fix to a terrible time.

Just keep building from there.

I use Reason 4.0 and the Access virus. Controlled all with Ableton live.

Reason is obviously a computer software and so is Ableton live, but the Access Virus is a hardware synth. You can control it on the computer though and it has a plugin so you can use 16 sounds and sequence and change then however you like using and computer interface.

It's all about taking your time and taking the time. I get writers block all the time. Thats why maximie is a loop. I have nowhere to go with that, but I still try sometimes.

Here are some pictures of the tools.

Ableton Live

Reason 4.0

Access Virus (sorry for the poor quality image)

[vencabot_teppoo]

Arik,

Thanks for the gracious rundown of your creative process; actually, it's a lot like the one that I use. I set-up a simple rhythm in a drum machine and then play a keyboard over it to find a chord progression that I like. After that, I sequence a harmony in Rosegarden (a popular Linux midi sequencer), apply soundfonts or synths, record the output and then mix and apply affects in an open-source DAW called Ardour. Obviously, I hear a lot of great things about Ableton Live, and if they had a Linux version, I'd definitely check it out... I really wonder what sort of great tricks it could have to streamline the process.

I've only been in this game for about a year, and I was hoping that you would tell me a simple trick for making great-sounding electronic tunes, but it becomes increasingly clear that there are no such tricks, and that what I really need is more experience. Maybe you feel that way sometimes, too, or maybe not.

Anyway, thanks again for the detailed explanation. Usually, people just ignore me when I ask such questions. I admire your work, and I hope that, someday, I have the skill and musical confidence that you do.

Good luck with your future projects and I hope that you see increasing amounts of success as time goes on.

-David

PS: That "Access Virus" controller creeps me out, and I like it. It, too, appears to be sufficiently evil. Is that keyboard built right into it?

[FluXy]

carolofthebells-aakburns is now on SVN 1465 and will be in the next music pack update

[datahead]

170 jam - good, except for the long pause at the end. It can probably still be committed to git (see comment at the bottom below).
arik1 - the link is dead, so we can't listen to it
maximie - it blares a bit too much as it is - maybe it could be toned down in audacity or another tool?
Carol of the Bells - this is already in git and is used in the game

I was just thinking - we could probably go ahead and commit songs that have a little bit of a pause at the end with a note in the commit log saying we need to go back and trim it later. It's better to get good songs committed than risk losing them due to dead links.

[Quintus]

• 170jam: The song is good, but the pause is way to long. It must be cut off before we can commit that to git; short pauses at the end are OK, but not extremely long ones.
• arik1: see datahead’s comment
• maximie: Added to SMC with commit bcf0fb89bda1fafd94b64bf1d8e62eba35ecf0a8.
• Carol of the bells: see datahead’s comment

I was just thinking - we could probably go ahead and commit songs that have a little bit of a pause at the end with a note in the commit log saying we need to go back and trim it later. It's better to get good songs committed than risk losing them due to dead links.

Everything in Git should at least be usable. It doesn’t have to be perfect as all artistic work in the game can always later be improved. However, adding 170jam will convey the impression SMC’s music system crashed/hangs, hence we can’t add that to Git before the long pause at the end has been cut off.

Valete,
Quintus

[datahead]

Dark Ace Z - do you think you might be able to trim the 170 jam song? We desperately need more music.

[datahead]

I reached aakburns, and he said he can edit the "170 Jam" track. He also has more music (below). Finally, he said he is interested in composing new music for us.

Here's the music he sent me:

https://soundcloud.com/aakburns/roydub

https://soundcloud.com/aakburns/downgoesthebubblegum

https://soundcloud.com/aakburns/roy-has ... n-the-name

https://soundcloud.com/aakburns/roy-goes-to-the-club

https://soundcloud.com/aakburns/roys-flight-to-space

https://soundcloud.com/aakburns/roys-incredible-journey

https://soundcloud.com/aakburns/virus

https://soundcloud.com/aakburns/rethink-life (I'd have to make this one have louder output volume)

https://soundcloud.com/aakburns/new-format

https://soundcloud.com/aakburns/03-08-2014 (not finished)

[-DarkAceZ-]

Dark Ace Z - do you think you might be able to trim the 170 jam song? We desperately need more music.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/228 ... %20cut.mp3

Or did you mean a seamless loop? Because I'm not sure that's possible with this song (at least not without the original mashup... and even then I would have to learn how to use the program aakburns used to create it).