The mentality that encourages originality

Oh dear, I started this.

I'm going to admit this: Getting good music is difficult. You either need to use the stock OHR public domain songs, which are easily recognizable by the community.

You can make your own, which is highly encouraged, not often practiced. Some can't get a program, some are tone deaf like me and can't put together a good track, and others are probably lazy. Good luck requesting, look at Willy's thread as an example.

You can use other sources like I do, but unfortunately, the community apparently does not like this f it's a blatant rip. Illusions is full of songs from other things, and I can list them.

1. Lilium Music Box, which plays on Terra Island, is from the anime Elfen Lied.
2. The death theme is a song from Asking Alexandria, a band.
3. The themes for Igneous Island Dungeon and a bunch of other planned themes are from Gothic Music.
4. The theme for the new game plus dungeon is a short excerpt from Raise Your Weapon, Deadmau5. I was considering to changing that to something else.
5. I was considering making the battle theme for the boss of the new game plus dungeon Otherworldly Foe from the Earthbound soundtrack.

I use other songs from other OHR games as well, like Vikings Of Midgards public domain songs. I reference all songs I've taken from other sources.

Hello. Since this is all related to my original thread, let me drop in and aggravate this further. Let's argue instead about what constitutes original and non-original music.

For instance, for The Black Heart of Exile, I wrote the soundtrack by taking musical pieces I liked, layering them atop one another, effecting them, and the running them in reverse. Is that original music or not?

The soundtrack contains rather lengthy sections of music by Praga Khan, Konono No. 1, Gerry Mulligan, Manhattan Transfer, Tangerine Dream, and others.

In this specific instance, I'd question whether that constitutes music or not. I'd like to hear a sample, because I'm having a really hard time imagining it as anything other than awkward-sounding.

Remixes and resampling are a really debatable matter when it comes to originality. There are some really bare-boned remixes and medleys I've heard from VGMusic regulars that I would hardly call original, but then there's some groups like Kong in Concert that take the source material and re-imagine it in ways I never thought possible. They expand on it so much that I find it difficult to spot the original melodies. This is the kind of iron-forged original work that I enjoy and respect very much.

EDIT: At this point I feel like it's okay to openly discuss music that has nothing at all to do with OHR games.

Alright, let's try a new example.

Who here has played Earthbound? Did you like that game? Did you know it used unoriginal music? It used songs from some bands like The Beatles, some legally, some not. Did that make you enjoy the game less?

Earthbound is an interesting case. I can only guess why it ripped off resampled popular Western music, but I'd like to imagine that it was a deliberate effort to make the game's world, Eagleland, feel more like America in the 90s with the intention of immersing Japanese gamers. If a Japanese gamer was into Western pop culture and recognized the Beatles and Blues Brothers references, all the better. This is an effect that would have been lost if the composers made new songs from scratch or deviated too much from the source material. I do not believe they ripped borrowed from these songs because of time restraints or a low budget or laziness or anything like that.

I liked Earthbound. I later discovered that it used un- less-than-original music. The more I discovered about the references to Western pop culture (such as the somewhat subtle Yellow Submarine and Sky Runner), the more interested and immersed I became in the game's world. I'm glad you brought it up, K, because this is a rare instance where I feel like the ripped borrowed music had a purpose and actually enhanced the experience of playing the game rather than distracting from it.

The legality of the Earthbound's music is another kettle of fish I'd rather not touch. I don't know much about American copyright laws, and I don't know anything at all about Japanese copyright laws, though I hear they're very different from each other.

They resampled it, though. Very little, if any, of Earthbound's music was directly taken from the original source. Kinda like how Puffy turned an old Sting song into a tribute to Tupac (Or was it Biggy?) and Will Smith turned an older song into the chart-topping theme song to Men In Black. I don't see anything wrong with that, so long as you credit the proper sources and obey the applicable laws, and most importantly it sounds good

EDIT: Which admittedly Earthbound didn't do, but I still think they did a decent enough job of disguising it and reworking that they could be considered legally distinct.

The Mother Series is reputed for it's famously amazing soundtrack, and have known to reuse and remake their original songs, making them either more improved (Snowman, Eight Melodies and Pollyanna), cheerful (Mom's Hometown), or tragic (The Love Theme, a remix of Mom's Hometown, and it's even more tragic remix, It Is Finished, a very decayed Love Theme). SSMB furthered this by taking some of their songs into even more remixes. Now, the song is altered completely, yet retains the original sound and charm.

Many people tend to not notice the unoriginal songs. Although, the fight music against Mr/Lord Passion in Mother 3 was pretty blatant, yet completely fitting.

Concerning Earthbound's use of unoriginal music: I think it's great to appropriate existing music for use in your game, as long as it is done with clear intention. However, often you can't find the perfect piece of existing music, then you need to write your own.



Who can say what constitutes music? It has rhythm, melody, and intention, so I suppose that's musical enough. Although, for the record, most people seemed to hate The Black Heart of Exile's soundtrack. The way I see it, if you can't be great, you might as well be lousy.

If you are interested in hearing it, you may download the game here: http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=4615

It's not passworded, in case you want to open the .RPG file and listen to the music from there.

I can't believe this even needs to be said but cover songs and using samples is so totally different from just saying "I need music, I'll rip the MP3s from a popular game so people will like it" it's not even funny. Creating a new sound derivative of an old one is not even remotely the same as just taking an existing soundtrack and plugging it in.

And when done right, there's nothing wrong with that either. Village People: The Videogame would not work if it didn't have Village People songs. What works in one place doesn't work in another. Music has to complement the game/movie/whatever it accompanies. Not knowing a thing about Willy's game and saying "use the soundtrack to Mother 3" is useless. I'm not sure why Smash Brothers is even brought up because Nintendo artists making remixes of Nintendo music isn't even remotely similar to any of these discussions either.

I still seriously don't see the point of this discussion. "This works sometimes, this works other times" is literally the only thing there is to say.

Edit: This is also getting dangerously close to "What is art?" territory and there's absolutely no discussion less useful.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

Link to the old ART TALK thread. I haven't re-read the whole thing, but I am pretty sure my conclusion was that Art = Chili

No, the real point of the old Art Talk thread (and James' chili definition) was to reach the point where we could discuss different beers.

Which is really fitting because I usually don't like beer at all, but I found a wonderful beer not long ago. It's a really dark beer called a 'trappiste' or something like that. Apparently these beers are brewed by monks in a handful of monasteries throughout Europe (or maybe just one area of Europe? a friend told me, and I can't remember). I couldn't believe how good it was! Also the alcohol content was like 11 or 12%, but the alcohol did not dominate the taste at all.

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I am Srime

If this thread has taught me one thing, it's that monks love beer.

The rest of the thread was not particularly instructive.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Monk appreciation station

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

That is not true. I did not say to use the entire soundtrack, I merely meant that I knew a song or two he might like. Nowhere did I state to use the soundtrack for himself. He asked for a retro sounding song for a battle, and I knew one, which was the eight bit intro that plays in the final bosses battle theme. With some editing to cut out the punk rock that ensues afterwards, it could become a legitimate stand alone track.

I've done it in cases where I have cut songs up and used different parts to my liking, not taking original credit.

So what's better, this one or this one?

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition