Am I the only one troubled with music in game development?

So I'm making a minigame shooter in Construct and so far all is near completion (which is really just coding and graphics) except for one thing... Music! Am I the only one that considers this the biggest hurdle, greater than creating the actual game? Graphics are easy to design and, thanks to Construct, so are the games, but when it comes to sound effects and music tracks, I'm stumped.

When you're creating a game, do you rip music from another? Compose your own? Won't it be illegal to use or modify a licensed music track? So many questions, so few answers...

I don't know about you, but the music stage in game development seems to be the toughest, at least for me... Any advice?

making music or even choosing music is always hard, i mean you can allways load some britney spears or mettalica tune to your game but they can sound a bit odd

You need to remember what kind of music you're after - obviously for dark and gloomy games you need something that sounds diffrent then for funny colourfull "bunny adventures" game. lol

rip music? you can always rip music (but rip carrefully)

compose? sure. more experience you have better music will be.

licensed track are always trouble - you can try to ask that music track owner if you could use his song in your game (it's free game, non profit etc.)

but what i recomend is to try compose something by yourself - internet if full of free and good music software - and it's not that hard really.

sometimes only few sound in background fit perfectly to game.

If you want to give a shot at composing stuff yourself, you might want to check out this site:

http://www.warbeats.com/Forums/tabid/59 ... fault.aspx

The threads there have video tutorials posted in each one. They helped me a bunch. I didn't have a clue about music theory before watching them and now at least I have a rudimentary understanding.

You should probably watch them in this order: Notes and Tones, Scales, Chords, Melody

it's good to know some theory but it's not necessary, when you start playing around with drums, piano etc, it will all came to you sooner or later

Didn't expect anyone to have replied yet. Thanks for the answers shinkan!

I'll be sure to check out that link in the morning, deadeye (though I really should be concentrating on beginning year 12...).

you can try Rebirth for begining - gives you an idea how sequencer and drum-machines work

it' very easy soft and fun to use. - i spend many many night's using it few years ago

(until they reallesed Reason)

http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/ - heh they givin' it for free now.

If you never played any instrrument it might be hard to compose something decent. No knowladge is above expirience.

Music is tough, sound effects are not so tough. Try The Freesound Project.

...

Actually come to think of it, at the Freesound Project homepage they link to ccMixterwhich is a database of CC liscensed music. I guess music is not as hard as I thought.

music is annoying at times, but it shouldnt be too hard to make your own, it seems complex but you can start making decent songs after a few hours of practice. you dont really even need real good music, you can just use a few synths playing together in a simple song.

[quote:36jkxo4f]Music is tough, sound effects are not so tough

it' depends what you after, you can always download samples for sound effects, but if you need speciffic sound sometimes you need to make it by your own.

I remember doing some lightning effect where i used about 15 diffrent tracks, too many effects and processors...as i remember i took me about 4 hours to make 4 seconds sound

Thanks for the advice everyone. I looked at another topic and found a useful 8-bit sound effects program called sfxr. After that I decided I wanted my game to have 8-bit music! So I googled and after a while and found a program called FamiTracker. Took a while to get used to but I ended up making some average (okay, mediocre...) tunes as placeholders for my game! There's just this charm to 8bit music which I love

you can try Rebirth for begining - gives you an idea how sequencer and drum-machines work

it' very easy soft and fun to use. - i spend many many night's using it few years ago

(until they reallesed Reason)

http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/ - heh they givin' it for free now.

Downloaded it and made something, but it'll take me a while to know what I'm actually doing. So many nobs...

If you never played any instrrument it might be hard to compose something decent. No knowladge is above expirience.

I was thinking of getting a guitar but I'll have to wait until after I finish school. I was never a big fan of music (though I love Michael Jackson) but I've always wanted an instrument.

The guy that made sfxr also made a nice little tracker called musagi.

http://www.cyd.liu.se/~tompe573/hp/project_musagi.html

There is an option nobody's mentioned yet - if you're lucky, you might be able to find someone with experience who can do the music specifically for your game. I guess the problem with doing games solo is that there's no way to do top-notch work on everything at once, unless you spend a few years learning about music, a few years on art, and then make the thing.

The Spirit Engine 2 has some of the best music I've heard in a game, and that was a one-man project - well, one guy working in MMF, and someone else doing the soundtrack.

(Some of those songs are online - check out 'A lost dream': http://www.syntesis.org/node/65)

um, but do a better job at riping Sqaresoft tho....

Some upcoming composers are willing for their compositions to get used anywhere they can just to spread their work around and improve their portfolio. You could try finding a composer with some tracks online, and just ask them if you can use their work in your game with credits. (Make sure you tell them if it's a free project, or offer them royalties otherwise)