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Back to Music and Sound FX

Any advice for Ludum Dare music generation

Music and Sound FX Audio

Started by Glass_Knife March 24, 2015 05:11 PM

5 comments, last by Charliea 9 years, 3 months ago

Glass_Knife

8,637

Author

March 24, 2015 05:11 PM

So I'm doing the next Ludum Dare. They have a list of software to use to make music.

http://ludumdare.com/compo/tools/

Does anyone have any experience with these or others?

Before you ask, I've been playing piano for 30 years and was a professional musician for 10, so no worries about that stuff.

I think, therefore I am. I think? - "George Carlin"
My Website: Indie Game Programming

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/indieprogram

My Book: http://amzn.com/1305076532

CCH Audio

1,769

March 24, 2015 06:35 PM

They have Audacity listed which is an alright DAW.

CCH Audio
http://www.cchaudio.com
http://www.soundcloud.com/cch-audio

Kryzon

4,684

March 25, 2015 02:45 AM

With MilkyTracker (http://milkytracker.org/), a standard module tracker. You can sequence your music with this, especially if you connect your MIDI controller so it's easier to record.

This guy here is famous for his module tracks made in under 60 minutes (from an internet competition):
- http://coda.s3m.us
- http://coda.s3m.us/about/
He uses OpenMPT (http://openmpt.org/), which you could also give a try.

Then you can finalise your module tracks by rendering them to PCM (wav or mp3) and importing to LMMS (https://lmms.io/showcase/) as "Sample Tracks". Here you can use automation and further editing.
You can also sweeten \ edit sound effects with LMMS, but this would take more time than just using those chiptune sound-effect generators that are common in these speed competitions.

Valoon

824

March 25, 2015 08:28 AM

sfxr/bfxr are really good to do super cheap 8 bits sounding sfx which is basically 90% of the kind of sfx used in LD.

The rest I don't know them except Audacity which I don't really like. I'd suggest getting Reaper, you can have it for free for a trial of one month or something and then it's like 50 box.

Glass_Knife

8,637

Author

March 25, 2015 02:19 PM

With MilkyTracker (http://milkytracker.org/), a standard module tracker. You can sequence your music with this, especially if you connect your MIDI controller so it's easier to record.

This guy here is famous for his module tracks made in under 60 minutes (from an internet competition):
- http://coda.s3m.us
- http://coda.s3m.us/about/
He uses OpenMPT (http://openmpt.org/), which you could also give a try.

Then you can finalise your module tracks by rendering them to PCM (wav or mp3) and importing to LMMS (https://lmms.io/showcase/) as "Sample Tracks". Here you can use automation and further editing.
You can also sweeten \ edit sound effects with LMMS, but this would take more time than just using those chiptune sound-effect generators that are common in these speed competitions.

This is what I was looking for. I'm doing three games a week as a warmup. I'll try them out.

Thanks!

I think, therefore I am. I think? - "George Carlin"
My Website: Indie Game Programming

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/indieprogram

My Book: http://amzn.com/1305076532

Kryzon

4,684

March 26, 2015 12:31 AM

Between those two trackers, OpenMPT seems to have more features than Milky, but it's Windows only.
http://openmpt.org/features

Make sure to build a sample library to use with your module tracker. Imagine yourself wanting to write something and having to go hunt for samples instead.
OpenMPT can load not only individual audio files for samples, but it can also load entire SF2 soundfont banks. This means that you can keep a couple of General MIDI soundfonts at hand and you're set for all the MIDI samples.

You can find GM soundfonts here:
- http://soundfonts.homemusician.net/collections_soundfonts/fluid_release_3.html
- http://www.ntonyx.com/sf_f.htm
- http://www.synthfont.com/links_to_soundfonts.html
- http://www.dskmusic.com/high-quality-instruments/ (Costs USD 25 if you're willing to invest)
- https://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/soundfont_products (Commercial, but these guys are the original engineers behind several famous sound modules)

You should also download module music and open the files with OpenMPT or MilkyTracker to see the notes and see the tricks that artists use, such as module effects and commands to get particular sounds like echoes and fades:
http://modarchive.org/