Frogatto Soundtrack

#61

New theme. Feel good stuff, minimalism + some dark stuff. This piece would work great for when frogatto is climbing a mountain range. It’s kind of a soaring sky theme type of deal.

#62

Yeah, this is another great one. Your mixes/instrumentation are getting so clean these days.
This gets really good about 1/2-2/3 of the way in. :slight_smile:

Anyways, this baby’s uploaded. :-*

#63

Yea dude. :smiley: I am Getting really happy b/c I am to the point where I feel that I am able to put together cohesive templates and having these defined from the beginning is making it a lot easier to pick up ideas and run with them from day to day. I am not spending nearly as much time as I used to simply dicking around with individual samples and other aspects of writing that weren’t streamlined just trying to get something to sound good. It wasn’t a very efficient way for me to work. Things are changing. :slight_smile: What’s sweet about these templates is that it’s going to make all soundtrack work sound smoother, better defined, more professional and more cohesive from track to track b/c the standards for each piece are not only higher, but they just overall more solid. Exciting!

#64

What exactly are these “templates”? I don’t know what that means in an audio sense.

#65

Templates are go-tos for composers on the go. They can often take hundreds of hours to set up. They are essentially walls of sound constructed from the bottom up and out.

Different templates have different aims. Some are orchestral in nature and thus will require each branch of the symphonic repertoire to be amply represented down to the most minute detail in the virtual arena. Each setting of every instrument of the orchestra in this setting will be measured decisively in this arena. Every timbre of every octave will be perfect with each grouping of instruments so that rain or shine, one knows that they can draw upon this template to get the job done and to sound and behave like an orchestra when called upon to do so. And one can go back to the template and add new instruments to add further mastery.

The template that I am working on is a combination of 16 bit synths, orchestral synths, 8 bit synths and electronic sounds. It’s growing a little bit every day. :slight_smile:

#66

Whoa… the way you describe this, this sounds like you’re basically programming an adaptable set of “backup instruments”. Programming using an audio app, but programming nonetheless. I’m reminded of an older app called “band in a box”, where if you needed some backup for a certain chord signature, in a certain style, you could just select it from a menu and bam - out came a full set of midi instrumentation doing that.

Am I on the right track, here? It sounds like after you’ve programmed a template, you can play a melody, and the template follows along, “playing backup” to the melody? Or maybe “follows along, playing something where the lead instrument in the backup is defined by the melody you’re playing”?

#67

… band in a box? No it’s nothing like that at all. I am actually not aware of any program that does what you are describing.

I am making presets, which are instrument groups or ‘back up instruments’. The template I am using currently is just a group of instruments that all work well together in a certain environment towards a particular end. It takes a lot of time to get these presets to sound good. The template itself is used to allow one to create music more quickly but only b/c one doesn’t have to spend all their time making organized sound from scratch… which is a very arduous, time consuming process.

#68

New Cave theme.

http://soundcloud.com/frogattosound/themecaveness

#69

Marcos uploaded it (thanks, mate). Your string samples are light-years ahead of the stuff you used to have. Also, the melody gets really nice near the end.

#70

Still working on this piece. I am thinking about taking all these places and applying them sequentially. I think it could create a very nice sense of continuity and quality to use all these themes for in a coordinated area. Still thinking about how best to apply this.

#71

Here’s the final version. Thanks for all the help with the upload guys!

#72

Uploaded. Man those flutes are pure win.

#73

[quote=“RyanReilly, post:53, topic:114”]I want to possibly make this the main stage theme. I wanted to remix the original but it made sense to just go for something better.
http://soundcloud.com/frogattosound/wellputfinal[/quote]

One ground rule we ought to lay out is … if you ever want me to replace a specific song, you’ve gotta point out that song by name. General terms like “the main stage” theme don’t work because there are several valid interpretations of “the main stage”. Could be the titlescreen? Could be the first level? Could be the first level where you really get into the action? Who knows.

In this case I replaced “frogattoHouse” with “WellPut”, and even stretched it out to also play on the tutorial level too. I’m open to doing something else, but it seemed appropriate since it sounded like a replacement for that in particular.

Barring any future moves, this is where all our songs are kept (and thus where their “canonical” names are):
https://github.com/frogatto/frogatto/tree/master/modules/frogatto/music

[quote=“RyanReilly, post:48, topic:114”]More stuff.

http://soundcloud.com/frogattosound/alienjamyes[/quote]

I’ve been listening to this song over and over again… jesus christ this is good. This feels more like a late-game piece, but I’m almost tempted to replace the song we use between splash-hop and descent-to-town (FrogattoStage1) with this. I don’t know. That one is really good too (the mix on FrogattoStage1 is a little wall-of-sound-ish, but it’s still a great song).

#74

A good notion. Thanks. The soundtrack is being reworked. Those other old tracks I tried cleaning up and inserting into the game after getting my new computer are hogwash. They just sound awful. Unless I am able to get all that midi data back, I might need to scrap plans for those tracks to be in game ATM, minus a few special circumstances.

#75

I’m still prognosticating on that point - I don’t ever just drop in a song. If I put a song on a level, I always test if it works in terms of its place in the game and its place relative to other songs - i.e. I start the game a few levels before, and play to and onto the level it’s on, and then “feel out” how well the song works there.

I need to try that there with a few different pieces.

As an aside, if you’d like my candid opinion on which songs in the game get annoying, the only two that really bug my ears are “dungeon.ogg”, and “FrogForest.ogg”. Both of which are older than sin. Dungeon.ogg can just go, you’ve grown since then. FrogForest is a shame because there are some genuinely kickass sections in there; roughly from 0:50-3:18 (sans the string bit in the middle) is great. The oboes are brilliant (I have a thing for woodwinds, which has crept up on me), and the whatever-it-is (choir-ish swooshing thing?) at 2:37 is similarly great. It’s just the heavy string sections that hurt.

Other than that we’re pretty well-off and nothing actually “bothers” me. There are one or two songs with mushy “wall-of-sound” mixing that get a little busy, like “FrogattoStage1” or “FrogTech.ogg” but they’re not poorly instrumented afaict and they have good melodies, they’re just maxing the knob out at 10 ad nauseum and maybe don’t have enough amplitude dynamics.

#76

Even a great arrangement, melody will get lost behind a bad mix. And the mix is what people notice as much, if not more, than anything else. So It has to be pleasing to the ear to be effective and I feel like very few of those pieces from earlier versions of the soundtrack are going to make the cut unless I can do some massive miracles with my tools.

Listening to some of those mixes, I think some of them are workable. Give me a few days. I’ll be moving and won’t have access to my computer. I need to look over things and make necessary changes. And some of these songs are going to have to be rewritten. Going to be laborious as all the musical information is on my other computer, but we’ll see what happens.

#77

After going through the playlist, I’ve gotten rid of filler and made some changes.

All of these will be rewritten with new samples at some point.

Tea for two
Frog tech
Milgrams themes (character and boss battle)

These themes will be mastered, if I can manage

Point break
frogatto new cut final
frog forest
And possibly: Frogatto Title copy.

The rest we’re keeping as is, are as follows

GunCetera, FrogUnderwater, DrumbeatFrogatto, Frogatto8bitfinal, Dumdeedum, Frogatto stage 1,2

There are quite a few other pieces that need work but those pieces are not as integral to the game so I won’t focus on them quite so much.

A few notes on the different modules

Cave - a lot of this is okay, but pep up.ogg is just too much for a cave. THe feeling needs to be more mysterious and foreboding and I don’t feel it, Gunslinger also
These are just too upbeat. So please excise those from this area theme scheme thingamajig.

Dungeon - The reggae piece needs to go. It doesn’t fit at all in this environment. Jetrel remember when I made that mock up orchestral sample for that other game you were developing a while back? Could we insert that instead? (you remember which piece right?) Good thing I can’t remember what I name my own pieces, huh. :-[

Forest - This set is looking pretty good so far. :slight_smile: Nice implementation here!

General - I am thinking Wellput.ogg should become the first theme the gamer hears. It’s more upbeat, it’s less annoying in its timbres and it is a great way to start the game without wearing out its welcome… whereas the current FrogattoTitle mix just doesn’t cut it. It was an interesting little tune to develop but it’s not working. So please replace FrogattoTitle.ogg with Wellput.ogg. Thank you

I also would like to find a way to implement both wellput.ogg and whynotsad.ogg themes (is it uploaded?) to run side by side throughout the game b/c they both use similar musical structures and they would build well off each other in terms of contrast as stages progress while keeping the tension building and keeping a similar schematic. I would like for these themes to play at fairly regular intervals side by side, area to area, throughout the game as ‘calming, friendly themes’ to keep the game feeling light and crisp. The game should feel a little lighter and less stoic than it currently does. We might even opt to use these more than necessary, particularly in areas of open space where we have darker themes in place. ANd cave themes, and dungeons should be reserved for darker music as a general rule of thumb. Tell me what you guys think of this.

… thanks for all the help. I should probably learn how to do this pretty soon so I don’t come across as the ‘mean music man’ barking off orders. :-X Haha MINIONS DO My BIDDING. That probably would get pretty annoying. :confused:

Btw World Map sucks,ogg. I need to rework it big time with my new samples and standards.

Other than that, ‘General’ section looks pretty good for now. :smiley:

[i]I appreciate all your help guys. +10 INTERNET POINTS!! [/i]

#78

alien jam yes.ogg and, alienformnew.ogg should be accomplices in crime much in the same way stayput.ogg and whynotsad.ogg are to be implemented b/c they are thematically connected. I was thinking alienformnew.ogg might work as a stage theme … well where can it go. Hmmm. I think it could work for a cave/open sky area. And Alienformnew.ogg… hmmm I’m not sure where this would fit. But I like how it gets to the point a little quicker than it’s larger siamese twin. :smiley:
Hmmm.

The ThemeOfCavenessFinal.ogg might work well in some of the caves… (well duh) And of course the music might change and get darker as one journeys further into the caves. We can brainstorm a little with that. There needs to be more mood music in this game. No theme music, just raw emotion and orchestration to pound it out!

#79

Nail on head… /booooshhhhhh

For a lot of my mixes I was using high velocities for my note input. We’re talking between 75 -120 in terms of the velocity scale, constantly. And it really does grow old. And this is why people would say that mixes sounded ‘loud’ without actually being loud. Now I tend to mix velocities quiet for note input and it’s really doing a world of good. :D)

#80
Cave - a lot of this is okay, but pep up.ogg is just too much for a cave. [b]THe feeling needs to be more mysterious and foreboding[/b] and I don't feel it, Gunslinger also These are just too upbeat. So please excise those from this area theme scheme thingamajig.

Dungeon - The reggae piece needs to go. It doesn’t fit at all in this environment.

No. What I’ve bolded is the mistaken intent. Our caves and our dungeons are NOT these monotonous “grimdark doomfactories”.

Look at castlevania - seemingly dark gothic settings don’t mandate a wall of dark, gothic music. Most of castlevania’s music was pretty upbeat and funky, and the game was much better for it. That is what you’ve made - be proud of it, and know that there are tons of classic 16-bit games that followed the same mentality.

There will be sections which “go dark”, but we have the livelier pieces in there for emotional pacing and relief. I’ve put a lot of work into matching these to emotional lighting - like, I made a palette specifically for the reggae song in the dungeon. It starts playing when you hit this rooftop section: http://www.frogatto.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/dungeon-showcase2.png

It sets the stage for an emotional drop when you get into this section: http://www.frogatto.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/dungeon-showcase3.png TerrestrialFortitude starts playing, shit gets creepy, and it has emotional effect precisely BECAUSE we were just playing a lighthearted piece. You have to have the highs to have the lows, if there are no hills, there’s no rollercoaster.

Castlevania does this very similarly - you look at the final level in CV4, stages A and B right before the final boss run, everything’s pretty upbeat (in fact the treasury theme is almost kind of hilarious in how funky it is), but then suddenly, when you hit the “chamber of close associates” after climbing that one tower with the “wheel of death” that chases you, the music just -drops-. It suddenly starts playing this epic boss music, and it has the emotional effect it does because the music before was fairly light.

I would like for these themes to play at fairly regular intervals side by side, area to area, throughout the game as 'calming, friendly themes' to keep the game feeling light and crisp. The game should feel a little lighter and less stoic than it currently does. We might even opt to use these more than necessary, particularly in areas of open space where we have darker themes in place. ANd cave themes, and dungeons should be reserved for darker music as a general rule of thumb. Tell me what you guys think of this.

Because caves, dungeons and forests are the vast majority of our game, they can’t be reserved for “dark themes” - they are exactly what must “go lighter and less stoic” if our game is to do so.

That’s why we have those upbeat songs in the dungeon and cave folders.