FreeOrion

Hm... Somehow, I get the feeling of an edge of sarcasm in there.



I thought I'd said it was a minor problem... If that. I guess I forgot that disclaimer. My mistake.

_________________
There are 10 types of people in the world;

Those who understand binary and those that don't.

Time once again to throw fish to the hungry dolphins standing half out of the water... <ahem>

Artificial Intelligence -- ding, ding, we have a winner. Seriously, I love this one. For once the existing material is pretty much final and the only changes later will be additions. Galaxy map main race theme. Targetted at something cybernetic, with a neutral or evil disposition... was definitely thinking Cynoids when I wrote this (my favorite MOO3 race). Unfortunately Tyreth tells me no such race exists yet in FO, so we'll just have to see. (Also done from scratch in the last couple days; most of the others so far have used either themes and motives or entire sections that I wrote much longer ago, so this is good for my confidence. :)

Collision -- this is the aforementioned other normal combat track I was working on. Oy what a headache this piece has been... I like the first part a lot, but everything after 2:18 is still *very* subject to change. I wanted to post it though so you all could see what I'm up to (unlike certain other devs, <cough>, I actually like keeping everyone updated :). Having thought about it some more, however, I'm going to stand by my original usage recommendations... Story Battle for special fights, Only One for massive normal battles (where "massive" is determined arbitrarily based on galaxy size and maybe some other things), Collision for most other normal battles, and one I haven't written yet that will be called Encounter, for small normal battles (say, I dunno, less than 10 ships on one or both sides). To bolster this position, I would point out that Only One and Collision are thematically related in a couple ways, and as such they just "sound" like they go together well.

On another note, lol Ron, edge of sarcasm indeed... note to PowerCrazy: be very careful with ambiguous antecedents. <grin>

Btw Ron, your comments are definitely helpful and I do appreciate them (if I didn't make that clear yet), so please keep them coming.

Finally, I would like to point out that SimCity 4's Rush Hour expansion comes out on Monday (also Civ3's second expansion, Conquests, comes out at the end of October), so I'm trying to make a big push now in case I don't have much time to work on this stuff the next couple weeks. :p

Collision:

Its a good piece, but a little... Bland. For "non-important" battles it'd be good. The buildup from 2:30 to 2:44 was nice.

I hate to say it, but its the parts early on I don't like - the later on parts sound good, if a little rough at times. Exact opposite of you... (Without someone else coming along and saying something, don't change it. I'm not perfect, and I only just got up so I may be a little off).

AI:

Its too quiet. I had to turn up my volume to clearly hear it...

Otherwise, it sounds OK (Up to 1:22 at this point). I like the way the background is building up -- I don't know what the instrument is, but its not the piano. Actually... Somehow, and I don't know how, you've created a piece that seems to be all background. Nice effect -- especially for theme music! 2:20 or so sounds nice, with the loud chords and moaning wind effect. Nice and creepy without being... overdone.

_________________
There are 10 types of people in the world;

Those who understand binary and those that don't.

Finally a bit more to post. I know it's been three weeks, sorry about that.

Collision v2 -- Improved the slow ascending brass line starting at 1:30. Reworked the fast string chords starting at 2:30 for better effect. New sections starting at 3:02, took quite a while to devise and very fond of them. (Especially the final string/brass combo chords starting at 4:02, I hate mucking with chords to that level of finesse but oh well hehe.)

Legend v1 -- Essentially an old piece (and pretty much the last one I had left to dredge up), but with a change of instrumentation and some minor modifications. Obviously not really finished. Thematically it's related to Collision very closely, and Only One more distantly. I am not completely sure this fits anywhere, but it seemed to me like it had promise for end credits music, or possibly victory screen music before the credits, so I'm posting it in case anyone else wants to weigh in.

Oooh! I get to feel usefull again! Much needed now -- my term paper, on which I have been working for two weeks, was just corrupted. ARG! And I was going to update my week-old backup (e. g. the backup from after I'd gathered my sources and made an outline) today... And turn it in tommorrow. Well, I need a break from (re)writing that before my brain fries.

Legend: Nice intro. The drums at :30 were a good choice... I like the part a 1:00! Same goes for 1:10... They were well done sections. Hm... Seems like you've gotten the rules for "good" music down. Too bad I don't know how to help you go from "good" to "great". By 2:30, this song seems to me to be pretty much past me. Any improvements past here will need anothers aid. The only real flaw seems to be the ending, which just... trails off. If its "credits" music it should build up to a conclusion. Good piece...

Collision: Definitly a differen't feel from the original. You've cleaned out the intro a lot... (In v1 there was some background sounds, possibly "noise"). I like the theme at 0:35.




This entire post seems to be junk... I'm going to come back tommorow, when I will (hopefully) be in a better mood and a little better rested. But it definatly seems you've found the keys to writing "good" music... And I don't know how to knickpit past your current level since I've never seen / heard anyone do it.

_________________
There are 10 types of people in the world;

Those who understand binary and those that don't.

I never said I was a "great" composer Ron, and I doubt I ever will be, but I am trying hehe. Anyway, submitted for your enthusiastic approval or casual indifference, whichever the case may be, is Encounter v1. Sorry I only have one new piece to post for you this time, but coming off a D2 1.10 slash DAoC ToA slash SC4 RH high and having to finish some upgrades to the LW synth dialog and then catalog all dozen or so banks in my new Yamaha module and Roland exp card, not to mention various time consuming issues related to the nearing-completion basement renovations here, well, I haven't had much time to write anything hehe.

Anyway, this one is a little shorter than the others atm, it can loop in its current state but I will probably give it some more attention later. Only 3 lines, all using the new SRX card. Am curious to see whether you like the timpani roll section. Intended use is for space combat, small engagements. More to follow reasonably soon this time, I hope. :)

Felt a little bad about only posting one new track before, so here's another. :p Presenting... Living Crystal v0. Another simple one, only 3 lines again, but all using the Yamaha module this time which I've now got mostly catalogued. Even shorter than Encounter since there's only just an A section atm, hence the v0 designation. There's a faint light noise/hiss in the background in some sections which I apologize for, you may or may not be able to hear it, anyway I'll try tweaking the instrument responsible when we need a final recording but for now this will do. Intended use galaxy map main race theme, something Silicoid-ish. I know, I know, we don't have a Silicoid-ish race yet... I don't care. :)

Anyway, stop being so lazy, comments people comments! You too Aquitaine. :p

Encounter v2 posted. Lowered slow strings an octave in 2:26-2:44 section. Significant amount of new material added. This is definitely vying for favorites status now hehe. Probably still not done with it yet though. Anyway hope you all had a good holiday, those of you that celebrate it.

Sorry I haven't been by alot. Whenever I try to get on, the forum seems to go on a break or something. Really frustrating.

_________________
There are 10 types of people in the world;

Those who understand binary and those that don't.

Christmas present for you guys... new mp3 posted, and a special one at that. :) Yeah, so, a week or two ago I was randomly poking around the Free Orion website and stumbled on three midi files I didn't know about, that Mejoff (my predecessor) wrote and put up back in March. The battle one sounded promising, and today I finally got around to working on it some. I tried emailing him to get permission to post my version of it, but his inbox was full, so I'm just going to go ahead, and if you have any objections Mejoff please let me know and I'll take it down asap.

Mejoff's Battle v0 -- Adjusted tempo from 135 to 120. Eliminated orch hit accent line, possible use later on instead. After much wasting of time finally realized HornExpans was the natural choice for the brass line, and lowered it two octaves to go with it. Changed taiko orchestration to low timpani. Removed numerous unnecessary duration reductions, and a few second-intervals, from the drum line. Reduced string line chorus mirror to just its baseline, and raised it by a third in the first section only. Added mongoose-signature key rotation to the repeat sections, in a C/G/C# pattern I'd never used before (delta 1, delta 6) which came out really well. This track is now one of my favorites, and I hope to add a worthy continuation but we'll see how that goes. Feel free to compare this with the midi file on the web site guys, and as always feedback is appreciated, though since no one seems to post comments anymore I guess I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. Happy holidays.

New piece to work with? Kool!

The volume seems a little low... (may just be my system, as usual, with its cuddy 10$ speaker set...)

Only thing I can come up with is the steady drums towards the end (started maybe about halfway through) is a little monotonous. Try adding a little rhythm in there instead of constant eights (quarters?)... What did you say that speed was?

Other than that, seems good. I like the way it ends, I think it'll loop well... unfortunatly, as I've mentioned, I can't hear looping right (Stupid Windows Media Player...). Heck, does anyone know a better (free) MP3 player?

_________________
There are 10 types of people in the world;

Those who understand binary and those that don't.

I really like this. The only thing I can think of to suggest (and this is a stretch) is that the percussion is a little indistinct - it's hard to describe it, it's not the rhythm, it's the synth used for it. I think I'd go for something sharper, but that's a quibble at best.

nice work.

-Aq

_________________
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

Was going to wait for the Free Orion 0.1 release before diving into composition work again, but I figured I owe you guys something new by now hehe.

Mejoff's Battle v1 -- Minor change to early low string line, barely noticeable. Large new sections added. Certain aspects of this piece are still subject to revision but overall I think it's coming along nicely.

Ummm... winamp?? (here's the website)

Feeling somewhat humbled by Gui's semi-recent post (though I'm still anxiously awaiting the rest of your files dude), I took this opportunity to clear out some of the lesser mp3s from my site in the name of consolidation. Also have a new one for you...

Sword of Stars v1 -- I was a little worried the background string pattern sounded like it'd been pirated from an older FF game, but I still can't place what I was thinking of and the rest is definitely different so I think it'll be okay. This is my long overdue ship design screen theme, though it could probably also work as a small-scale battle track if necessary. Hope you like it.