Xonotic Title Theme Concept

Soooo. Finally I have decided the assorted set of sounds I put together is now in an acceptable arrangement. For all of you who dare to expose yourself to my creation, use this link:

http://soundcloud.com/halogene/title-not-included

The song is intended to loop nicely from end to second 42.5 or so, if a feature like this will be supported by Xonotic. I can also try to make a proper ending if wished. I guess that I'll need to tweak a lot of it anyhow. If anyone likes it at all, that is.

Note that the style changes a bit throughout the song, I always like diversity. Or maybe I just can't stick to something. Anyhow I noticed I am far away from any of the styles listed in the wiki. I don't know if it would fit for a map sound track, but I figure it could fit for the title theme.

The song has been made entirely from scratch by me, no third party loops or anything.

DISCLAIMER: Listen to this song at your own risk. This song may not be to your liking. Please consider that

1. this is my first try with a music production software,
   
2. I was limited to using Garageband since I wasn't able to set up JACK properly,
   
3. I may have a totally weird taste,
   
4. the song comes without a title which might have made it better, and
   
5. for licensing reasons and because I am absolutely unexperienced and maybe also lazy I didn't use any external samples except analogue recordings from my stage piano.
   

You have been warned!


I have nothing against the GPL v2 and would release the song under it if there's an intention or interest to include this or a later version of this in Xonotic.

Edit: Typos

Altough I like it very much...

Yay for '90 midi music!

What? You listened to this already? Man, you are fast! :o)

Edit: actually, I replaced everything that i could with analogue recordings. Not much midi left in this... well okay the "guitar" and the beat. I could do the beat as analogue, but that's a really tough thing without proper sound hardware (got a lot of latency).

Sure I have listened, this is a very active forum, don't you think?
Anyway, as for the guitar riffs and the beat, please do so, or at least try to fins something non midi, as this sounds like as if it has been created for DooM (no offense, I like that very much, but we're in 2010 now ).

Sure, but the response time still surprised me. I mean, the song is some 5 or 6 minutes and you posted like 4 minutes after my post... :oP

I need to get different hardware and/or software for that... I sure have a very clear idea about how the guitar should sound in my head, but sadly I have no electric guitar and also no proper guitar sound banks. Maybe I need to get myself an electric guitar? That'd be cool. I'll take a look at my budget.

* Halogene takes a look

Nope :o/ let's see how other people like the song. If people pick up on it, then maybe someone might want to do the guitar riff with a real guitar...?

I'll try to think about something, too. I already had a very hard time picking the garageband "guitar" as a lead instrument, since my options are so limited.

Anyway thanks for your opinion! Any feedback is appreciated.

Wow another good theme. I like it a lot. Between this and what SC0RP's made, we have really good pieces of music that would work well for a title theme.

Thanks! It's always good to read that someone likes what you put quite a lot of effort into :o)

It's not the final version, though. There are certain parts where I am not too much content with (like the first part where the midi guitar gets faster) and I need to think of something to replace the midi parts with. Might also be better software instruments. I have to admit I was surprised how bland the midi drums sound... but playing the drums on my stage piano is kinda difficult, especially with that latency of my MacBook.

If anyone has an idea for a good guitar sound bank that is available freely and compliant with GPL v2, then please point me to it.

How do other music artists approach this kind of problems? What do they use for making music? I am new to all this stuff. Would be interesting to know.

Get Native Instruments Plugins.

I make songs with garageband too, It sounds unprofessional but It's great.
Just use good plugins.

I use Massive and Absynth from Native Instruments. (and yes also guitars)

Halogene: take a look at my youtube account here you can see what you can do with it.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSubNdub

Ahaaa... now we're getting somewhere. Thanks for the tip - I will have a look at the plugins. 200 Bucks is quite a lot of money, but maybe I can buy a serial from ebay for less. I guess since Native Instruments also support VST, I also should be able to use them with other software. Thanks, kay!

Another question that has been bothering me... do I need to get a keyboard with aftertouch? Because my stage piano aims at reproducing authentic grand piano feeling and sound and therefore aftertouch doesn't fit into its concept. If I should get one, does anyone have suggestions for a cheap solution (since I would be using third party plugins for the sound and the keyboard of my stage piano is already very good, so I won't need another 88key thingy for playing).

And another question. Sorry, I am totally new to all this (have I mentioned that already? doh). I really like cool guitar riffs and authentic sounds of guitars. Would I have to buy an electric guitar (I can play acoustic guitar a bit, so I will get by with that too, I suppose) or can I do already a lot of things with keyboard plugins?

I really want to dig into this, it's always been kind of a dream of me to start making music beyond improvising on my piano.

Ahaaa... now we're getting somewhere. Thanks for the tip - I will have a look at the plugins. 200 Bucks is quite a lot of money, but maybe I can buy a serial from ebay for less. I guess since Native Instruments also support VST, I also should be able to use them with other software. Thanks, kay!

Your welcome

Another question that has been bothering me... do I need to get a keyboard with aftertouch?

No, I use a Korg Padkontrol for it. It has 16 pads and lots of effects.
You can set each pad, and then just record it while playing.

And another question. Sorry, I am totally new to all this (have I mentioned that already? doh). I really like cool guitar riffs and authentic sounds of guitars. Would I have to buy an electric guitar (I can play acoustic guitar a bit, so I will get by with that too, I suppose) or can I do already a lot of things with keyboard plugins?

You don't need a real guitar also just plugins, I would like to suggest to buy Absynth, it has everything also guitar. But you even have a whole plugin for guitars from Guitar Rig: http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/p.../?page=679

I really want to dig into this, it's always been kind of a dream of me to start making music beyond improvising on my piano.

Just try, I also am a beginner. You don't need expensive software to make good music just be creative.

.ti DAOLNWOD tsuj ti yub ot deen t'nod uoY

Thanks again for the helpful information. I will check that Absynth out. I am currently saving for a new PC because my old one from 2006 is crashing all the time (hardware problems), maybe I'll postpone that PC upgrade a bit and get myself some good sounds instead and install Nexuiz/Xonotic on my Mac.

IIRC I've read there's a trial version for download, I go for that one first. If it works and I find I can do stuff with it, then I'll plan the next steps, including purchase of the software. I won't download the full version, though :o)

Yes you can use the trial forever only it mutes after 1/2 hour

Got it now. I'll experiment a bit with it and see if it is worth the investment.

A pad control would be great too, but I wonder if a keyboard with aftertouch wouldn't be more feasible? What do you think?

If you do upgrade to a PC, you can use LMMS but as I am not an audio artist, I can't say much for its quality (I have seen several people using it though).

Or if you happen to have a windows disk lying around you can dual-boot (maybe also doable with linux?).

"upgrade to a PC"? You mean because I am using a Mac?

No, I have a PC too, it already runs a dual boot of Ubuntu Studio and Windows. But somehow my hardware is old/broken (from 2006, some bad condenser or smth). And somehow it wasn't compatible with the Jack Audio thingy. Then I have a MacBook Pro, which I used now for making this. In the meantime I set up jack on my MacBook, hadn't thought of that before. Ardour is running nicely now there, all I need is high quality sound input :o)

I did try LMMS too, but the software instruments that come with it didn't sound very good. Plus it is a midi-only solution as far as I can tell and that doesn't go with my desire to have high quality piano sounds from my stage piano in my music...

Hey this an excellent composition, great work!

I too hear a little of a 'midi' like sound in the beginning, but once that is sorted out I'd really like to see (hear) this added to an official CTF map.

Thanks for the praise! The parts that are mostly recorded with analogue instruments (whenever the piano is in the foreground) are also my favorite ones. But I will rework the song as soon as I find some spare time lying around in a corner again. Might take some time (I am soooo busy you know) but I WILL DO IT. ;o) Maybe with the help of some expensive tools... /me runs off to work to earn money

Is there anyway to import your own instrument samples into garage band? Maybe someone with an e-guitar could give you such a recording then, as a cheaper solution than having to wait and save up the hundreds for an expansion kit.

Well, I suppose I could use Jack to route playback from VLC or similar to the audio input of Garageband. But I am still experimenting with Absynth, and will see what I can come up with. Don't worry if you don't hear anything from me for a while, I have very limited spare time and WILL attend to this song as soon as possible. :o)

This is really great. Better than the current Xonotic one. But worse than the current Nexuiz's. Anyway it is very good!

Thx! It is still WIP, so it might get better still. Dunno if I can reach Sc0rp's quality level, though. Let's see.

Anyhow as for the Absynth thing, I am totally disappointed about the quality of the instruments in terms of replacement for analogue instruments (such as the e-guitar). I had expected far better instrument quality. The Grand Piano of Absynth is a laugh, really, it is more like one of those old desk horns you get for 2 bucks on the flea market.

That being said (enuff ranting), Absynth offers an amazing scope of sound manipulation and creation possibilities, where you can really make a lot of high quality OMFG effects and background/ambience things. I guess, that's what a synthesizer is all about, so Absynth is doing a really good job for what it is intended for.

That still leaves me without a proper lead instrument, though. I'll check if other Native Instruments' products might offer me interesting alternatives.

I like this composition. It sounds really good. I don't consider myself a musician or audio production expert by any stretch of the imagination but if you could add some chorus or reverberation and play around with some stereo separation it might help to get rid of some of that "midi sound." I process midi files through timidity++ with the eawpats and wowpats patch sets and with just the right amount of reverberation and chorus, you can't even tell that it was originally a midi. Also, looking into Debian's packages I see a piece of software called Fluidsynth. Perhaps that could be of some use.

Thanks a lot for the hints! I will check that out for sure!