Music in Games - What are the Red Flags?

[Grapz]

I have never and probably wont ever produce music. But I do wanna be able to know what'd make a good Game Track and what wont.

So - Game Devs who make music, what red flags should we be looking out for?

 

[Dragonite]

I don't know a whole lot about music but these are two things that I notice from time to time:

- as with color palettes, the set of instruments you use should look moderately nice alongside each other. Please do not compose classical music with a random square wave in it.
- if my windows start vibrating when I unplug my headphones your bass is probably a wee bit high.

 

[Rhyden]

Oh look, a thread about something I actually do. Well, as with everything, making an OST has its dos and don'ts.

• Consistency in the instrumentation is crucial. If you're working with a soundfont or a certain plugin, you should make sure most of your songs are using the same one. I've found that it's been ok to use two different sets of those if one is for overworld music and one is for battle music, but that's about as far as you should branch out unless you're including an easter egg with some other game's soundfont.
• For the most part, when it comes to mimicking the style of actual Pokémon music, you should emphasize the bass in battle themes and keep it more mellow when you're not in a battle. Bass lines and chords usually define the intensity of a situation, so you don't want a heavy bass song to be blaring when you're just walking through tall grass or through a city. This includes low-pitched instruments like cellos and tubas and not just actual basses.
• Try not to have songs that just switch the entire instrumentation around right after a measure. If you want to add in another instrument to a song, you can usually get away with adding some pickup notes in the previous measure. It's like cars merging on a freeway. If cars just suddenly appeared next to you without the entrance ramp, there would be a lot of problems. This applies particularly to instruments that make up the melody and in most cases it's ok to have harmony lines and background phrases coming in from nowhere.
• Please make sure your lines are all in keys that actually go together, especially if you're like me and forget to change the bass line so that it stands out when the whole song already changed keys and it's still there pumping out the same exact dissonant pitches lel.
• If you're not having fun making a song, then don't make it. There's no point in making a song that you won't like. I learned this the hard way. If you're not liking what you're hearing then try to use different instruments or a different style / genre all together.
• I have to constantly tell myself this one. If you think your music is bad because you hear other people's work that sounds "better," don't let that stop you from composing. That applies to everything in life really, so keep trying and know that you will always have some songs you don't like that much and some that could very well become your all-time favorites.

 

[Jayrodd]

I think the hardest part about music in games, or in general really, is that there is no one size fits all knowledge set to how something is supposed to work. There are limitless combos of how a piece can be put together from a lot of perspectives, and even after that a lot of it will come down to taste. One thing I think is hard to nail in video game music particularly is that you have to weight that the music is not the talking point 99% of the time in a game. It's almost always background and needs to not be intrusive. Player experience can be benefited from having tasteful music, and ruined by over bearing or unfitting tracks.

 

[Roenais]

Kind of tangential to the topic, but I'm not sure where to ask, does anyone have any soundfont/vst reccomendations for creating music for a fangame? The instruments seem to really make the game, but finding ones that work together and fit the Pokemon aesthetic can be tricky.

 

[Rhyden]

Kind of tangential to the topic, but I'm not sure where to ask, does anyone have any soundfont/vst reccomendations for creating music for a fangame? The instruments seem to really make the game, but finding ones that work together and fit the Pokemon aesthetic can be tricky.

It all really depends on the generation you're basing your game off of, in which case I'd recommend using the GBA soundfont if you're working with 3rd gen since it's a distinct soundfont that was built around the 3rd gen games.
However, anything that looks newer than 3rd could use the 4th or 5th gen soundfonts, or if you're still looking for something authentic yet free, I'd recommend a soundfont called SGM, which can be found here:
https://osdn.net/projects/sfnet_androidframe/downloads/soundfonts/SGM-V2.01.sf2/

I use this soundfont a lot because it really does sound fantastic in most areas. With a small amount of reverb, notes sound like they're from real instruments and keep the music flowing.
Here are some of my pieces that use this soundfont if you'd like to get a feel for it.

Spoiler

 

[Djaco75]

I'm not a composer, but I do know a few things about music and how it works in fan games.

Firstly, keep the music consistent in regards to sound fronts. It looks horrible to have a GBA soundtrack clashing with a Gen 6 one.

Secondly, make sure the music is relevant to the area where it is playing. I can't stand music that doesn't suit an area well.

Thirdly, avoid having silence in a map. There are some instances where it is good - as in important moments, but try to have music playing to engage the player. Roxie's Gym in Black and White 2 had such a great theme, but the music vanished as soon as you beat her!

Those are just a couple of things. I'm sure there's so much more too, though.

 

[Lunavis]

I've been thinking of making an ost for my fangame but also putting in songs from other pkmn games. But the composing an ost part is really intimidating for me considering i've never composed anything in my life. How can i make this more easier and less stressful for me?

 

[Falcon]

I've been thinking of making an ost for my fangame but also putting in songs from other pkmn games. But the composing an ost part is really intimidating for me considering i've never composed anything in my life. How can i make this more easier and less stressful for me?

Having a musical background or experience is extremely helpful. If you play an instrument and understand how to read music it shouldn't be too difficult. I was intimidated starting as well, but I jumped in since I've been playing music since I was eight. So here are my steps :)

• Learn how to read and write music. This includes both Treble, Bass, and extra credit for Alto and Tenor. As well as learn and understand the different keys of certain instruments (Ex: Flute, Tuba, and Trombone are all concert pitch <C> while French Horn is in F). While you may not run into transposition problems with most softwares being used, this is still super helpful information to learn regardless.
• Learn about all the types of chords, whole steps, etc. This is important enough to have its own section as it gives your music effect and background. Plus I'm tired of hearing half steps rubbing against each other in pieces.
• Remix your favorite themes. Feel free to use online sheet music for this one. I always wrote it out and then changed it up some. Anything as long as you're getting used to making music whether it be yours or not.
• Decide what you want to make. Is it a battle theme, an overworld theme, or even a trainer encounter theme? These all have drastically different tones. Battle is more fast pace and has a lot going on while overworld is calmer and gives off the emotion of the map you're in. This will also determine what instruments you want to use. Personally, for battle I want a sharp, punchy, and high trumpet to pierce through what's happening, while in overworlds I can still use a trumpet but it'll be lower and softer.
• Start small. Don't jump into writing music for a symphonic band. Start with a melody and a bass line. It doesn't have to be six minutes long, just write it out. I can guarantee what you just wrote won't appear in your game and that's perfectly fine, I've gone through eight different variations of a battle theme and I still don't have on for my game!
• Grow a little more. Once you have a melody and bass line that you like, add in some long tones or a counter melody to play behind it to give it some depth. Add some chords that blend well into it. This is usually the longest part of the process in my opinion.
• Balance the different lines out. Let the bass line and melody be heard and the others 'hidden' in the middle.
• Save it, close it, and start over. As I mentioned before, like anything, it won't be the best the first time. Change it up. Change where the melody is throughout the piece. Have the trumpets have it at one point, then the strings, and then the tuba. Change the bass line to be more complex than quarter notes. Make the background figures have more interesting parts than the melody so it catches the ear more (if that's what's intended).
• Don't give up. As cliché as it sounds it's important. When I started I just wanted to give up. It's a lot of work and a lot of thinking. You typically have to do it in silence and it just can get boring. But you won't get better that way. If you want an OST that kicks brass and will be listened to while players do other things or even make remixes of, you gotta have confidence in yourself. This is a tight community and everyone listens to music so we can all give feedback. Some may be more educated than others but still.

I may have skipped some parts as they didn't come to me while writing this or I just didn't have the same composition experience as others so I may change this up some in the future but I hope it helps!

 

[Darius_Oak]

Some tips I have about musical placement, as someone who's been producing:

• Sometimes silence is golden. When something is so emotional or shocking that you have no words for it, sometimes having no music emphasizes this beautifully. Try to avoid having maps with no music, though. The real Pokemon games have a grand total of two completely silent maps, both of which were done beautifully. Sometimes having a map that's only background noise also works, as with the Unknown Dungeon in Kalos. And occasionally it's good to have silent or almost-silent moments in a song for ambiance, as with this song in the Generation V games. And freaking Mt. Coronet!
• A total stylistic shift is appropriate if done correctly, and this is not an easy thing to do. The easiest context is when dealing with a character that is off-the-walls insane. For example, an old game idea of mine was going to have mostly XY quality music like this. Then you battle the villain, who is quite clearly insane, and this happens. It's meant to throw the player off guard and make them nervous. Often you don't even need to create a dissonant song to highlight an insane character; just changing the style is enough to make a player quite uncomfortable. This even works with art style. I don't want to invoke Undertale, but it speaks for itself.
• Musical placement and relative volume is just as important as the music itself. It's important to distinguish between what makes a good piece of music and what makes a good background track; the two are not mutually exclusive, but are certainly different. Uranium, as cool as it was, did a disastrous job of placement in a few places. Ethereal Gates (as of the demo) did a much better job of it, but suffered from music overshadowing sound effects (which Uranium also had, but to a lesser degree). Just to provide some examples.
  • Note: I always thought that music and SFX volume sliders would be a good thing to put in the Options menu. However, the fact remains that the volume of music in your game should cap at a consistent, middling volume and only go down in specific situations. Never up, unless you want your players to soil themselves.

 

[Radical Raptr]

I'm terrible when it comes to music, but one thing you want to do is make sure the music not only fits the game you're making, and the scene you are using it for - but isn't clashing with the style - ie, having dubstep in a gen 1 style game.

When I make a game, I use rips from other games, I look specifically for the gen I'm working on (usually gba or gameboy) and find other games from that console and take music from there - one really good one I found for gba was drill dozer, that music is great