I'm doing a little test, and i want you to be with me on this one. Imagine you're playing this really really great athmospheric Action RPG, similar to Half-Life 2 But with the dense situations of Unreal 1, with the RPG elements of..say Fallout, or Final Fantasy, whichever you wish.. Then you finish the game, and the emotions when the credits roll comes is that you don't want it to end, you want to play more! Then you imagine the credits roll come, with this emotion clinging.. And listen to this track. http://shiro.loffel.org/Files/Music/shiro-fictionalstalkercredits_v3.mp3 (This is a fictional S.T.A.L.K.E.R Credits roll i made based on these statements) Now, what i want you to do(This should be fun!) is to write something like this, perhaps with another setting, maybe you want to make an Action-only game credits roll? The main point is to elaborate how you thought and what you want to create with your song. This is how i imagine mediocre/great music makes a game more alive. Go ahead and try it out!

...you're a bunch of chipmunks, all of you! I never get any replies :'(

Kind of repetetive. =P Seems more like something you'd hear at a turning point in a game. (For example, when things start getting really tense near the end of Half-Life 2)

Sorry if you didn't want feedback. I don't have the time to spare at the moment, or I'd come up with a track myself. Maybe later. =) Good job though, and interesting idea. Musicians need to network more like this.

A reply!
Feedback : Ok, well it's in the eye of the beholder i guess~

Yeah, people need to start doing stuff together :/

i feel like the main melody should be reverbed up and placed more in the background, maybe phased in and out. The individual notes stand out too much. I agree it's a little repetitive, but I really enjoyed it! Given the scenario you described I would definitely rock out to this if I'd just beaten a good game. Especially if the credits rolling by were of clouds or a seascape, for some reason. It could also finish off a megaman game.

Hey, linkify your links! Not telling you what to do really, just a suggestion. People are lazy. I'm sure you would have gotten a quicker response if you had.

To the track!

I didn't have a problem with the digital melody line playing over and over....until near the end when I realized that IT wasn't going to do anything else. Consider 4 bars where it stops and just the synth string pads swell in the back. Sure you can mess around with HP/LP filters, delays and verbs and that might make it breathe, but with this kind of piece you want most of your variety to come from your harmony actually! Those pads in the back seemed to be doing a lot of different things musically, perhaps they could change it up a bit structurally. The more variation you have from the harmony the more it would seem like the sound is growing, more alive.

Thematically, for ending credits type music it may want to start slower...well subtler actually. I think it ramps up nicely towards the end as more instruments begin to stack up, but perhaps it (melody, rhythm, whatever you want) needs to hesitate a bit more in the beginning to seem more tentative at first. Play only fragments with some delay, drop the drums and let a few instruments swell, that kind of thing. Then allow things to naturally pick up pace and the player is sucked in, playing off their emotions to encapsulate the game they just played.

Or something like that.

I'd write something to contribute to this idea, but I have consistently found myself without the time to do one properly. Who knows...?

Tony

Okay, thanks for the good feedback! I'll start evolving the track a bit soon.. Oh my, all these replies.. it surely IS christmas!

Shiro - Credits v.2

I just listened to V2 (the first version's link is dead). I happened to have listend to many of the songs in this forum tonight, so I can compare.

It is obvious you've put a lot of hard work into this songs, and trying to create something that is going for an adrenaline/emotional ending to a game. I appreciate that, and more over I can really hear it.

Criticisms:
- I hate the drum only into... not for ending credits. Jump right in there! Or vary the drums or something.
- The song is repetitive, but that's not a bad thing. Lot's of really good songs are repetitive, but your brain doesn't register the repetition. I registered the repetition. There are points where it is the lead, some drums, and even though you are changing notes the rhythm is the same. Try varying the rhythm at those points more. I think the precussion is the big contributor to the repetitiveness feeling. There are points where you change the precussion and the song becomes exciting. So more of that might help.
- There is something wrong with the mix (I am terrible at mixing, and all my music is poorly mixed). It sounds like the drums and everything else are seperate. I think the drums sound fine, but some of the other instruments need to be seperated from each other by a filter.

Happy thoughts:
- I love when the first time the snare come in. That part is exciting, and the excitement keeps building for 10-20 seconds. I like how everything ends after that, and it goes into a more chill point. Good composistion there.
- When the piano comes in again after the chill out part, and the lead is at its highest octave, it creates a great sense of anticipation.
- I normally hate fade outs, but in your case I would actually extend yours another 4 or 8 measures.

Good job,
Danny

Awesome! I might actually start working on a v.3 now.. and i'll upload v.1 for you if it would be interesting :o

Thanks for the C&C!