Scoring questions

1. Recommended/required file type(s)/size for a piece of music or sound effect?

2. Any other pointers in regards to scoring for games? I'm already a musician, I'm really asking about concerns and conventions specific to scoring games and OHR in particular. Almost all game music is looped, so how long do these loops tend to last? Too short of a theme repeating could get obnoxious, but how long does a single piece really need to be? Games tend to use music of different intensity to relax or irritate the player. Obviously soft music for sleep or healing situations, energetic music for battles... What else do I need to know about effective use of dynamics in scoring?

Thanx!!!

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Cody Gaisser

For music:

.ogg (supported natively)
.mp3 (converted to ogg when you import)
.mid/.midi (suported natively)
.bam (converted to midi when played)
.mod/.xm/s3m and other tracker formats (supported natively)

Filesize recommendations are pretty subjective, but usually people try to keep things small when possible.

For sound effects:

.ogg (supported natively)
.mp3 (convert to ogg when you import)
.wav (convert to ogg when you import)

I suggest using ogg quality level 2 or smaller (for my own games I often use quality level 1 or 0)



This is very subjective, and I am not a musician, but I tend to like my songs to be in the range of 1 minute up to 2 and a half minutes. If you go too much longer than that, and I think players will not often hear the end of the song... unless we are talking about music for a specific cutscene and you know how long it is likely to be.

I am sure other people will have better and more useful input about music length than I do. I am no expert.

I use Finale Notepad to score music, and my technique is basically to just keep making tracks. Have a keyboard nearby and just come up with a cool melody, and then put some harmonies, bass lines, and beats around it.

There's no right or wrong way to write music, but there is a way to test if it's usable. Basically, after you've written a track, put it on loop while you do other work, whether it be on your game or otherwise, preferably for a very extended period of time. If after a long time the song is starting to get irritating, don't use it. Don't throw it away, necessarily, it could be used for something else, but the difficulty of video game music is that it has to be looped for an unknown period of time. This technique I read I believe from Koji Kondo, composer for the first Mario game, who said he listened to the Mario overworld theme for hours on end.

Another technique is to write a main theme for your game, and then alter it in different ways for different scenarios. For example, your main theme, played in the title screen, could be mellowed down and had some orchestral parts added to make it the overworld theme. Then later you can take the same melody, add a guitar, some rock drums, and a heavy bass, then bump up the tempo and have a battle theme. This helps tie your game together and makes each track more memorable, and therefore add to the aesthetic of the game.

Hope some of that helps.

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My pronouns are they/them
Ps. I love my wife

Thanks for helping me get going in the right direction.

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Cody Gaisser