@2{How to get Music and Sound Effects for your Games @4 Many AMOS users are unable to provide their own sound and music for games. This article is aimed at those `sound-less' users. I will cover getting samples and music from the public domain, and getting a dedicated musician to write the musical score for your game. @3 Sound Effects ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @5A game without sound effects is like boiled eggs without soldiers, like a programmer without AMOS, like an Amiga user with an ST... ALL games can be enhanced by good sound effects - who wants to play a beat `em up without a sound when you hit somebody? Who wants to play a shoot `em up where the baddies explode silently? There are many ways to get hold of sound effects from your games, which are outlined below... @3The Public Domain ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @4All good PD libraries have disks full of PD sound effects that you can use in your game for free. Why not get a few disks. The better disks are based around a theme - for example you might get a disk full of animal sounds. If you are just starting to collect sound effects, I recommend you get hold of a few general disks. @3Sample your own ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @5To do this you need a sampler, a sound source and a bit of practise. Very few people are going to buy a sampler for one sound, and there is not much chance of sampling some sounds if you are a home user. Unless you have a good microphone and live next to an airport you can`t get an aeroplane sound, and I wouldn't fancy holding a microphone next to a building as it is demolished for that authentic explosion sound. it is also possible to buy CDs of samples that you can record yourself but I have never tried these. The BBC made a CD of Doctor Who sound effects, but they are copyrighted so you can't use them. Hmmmmmmmm.... @1 Once you have got samples, you can put them in a sample bank for use within your game. I am not going to tell you how to use the sample bank editor, because it is pretty much straightforward (this is AMOS Pro I am talking about, I wouldn't touch the old sample bank editor with a bargepole!!). @4 Anyway, as soon as you have got all your samples together, you load them into your game and... You have about 3k of memory for your graphics! @3 1. Think "do I _really_ need a 30 second sample of birds tweeting in the background?". If not, get rid of it. @32. Do you need eighteen different explosions? Perhaps you could use one or two and play them at different speeds (i.e. different pitches) 3. Consider reducing the sample rate, which means cutting down the quality of the sample, thereby the size. I will explain how to do this... @4 You need a sample editor. The best one in the PD is SuperSound version 3 (which was incidently coded in AMOS). I have included this on "No Sampler? Utilities disk 3" (available from all good PD libraries including F1 and it's on AZ Supplement Disk 2) There is a CLR licenceware version, too which is better but not too important for our needs. (Oi, don't mention them!.. Steve) @1 So, load in a sample, and play it at it`s default rate which is usually either 16000 to 17000 or about 8000. If it sounds best at 8000 then you can't really cut it down any more. It it is best at 16000 then use the sample editor's OCTAVE UP feature to increase it's pitch by an octave. This will take a short time to complete. Now try playing it at a rate of 8000. if it sounds virtually the same as it used to then save it back to disk. You will find it has reduced in size by about 50%. You will need to use the AMOS sample bank editor to change its default pitch to 8000ish. Try this on all of the samples. Some will sound distorted, leave these at 16000 samples per second. @4This applies to sounds with lots of high frequencies in them (Hihats etc.). the best results are obtained from explosions and similar sounds. @3 Music ~~~~~ @5This is not as important as sound effects, as it is normally only used on the title screen and perhaps on a high score table. In-game music could be used but can cause problems with sound effects (they stop the music on the channel they are using until they have finished playing, causing `Crazy Comets Syndrome' (firing your gun on this brilliant C64 game caused one track of the music to stop, thereby destroying the melody. So you could listen to the music or shoot) Firstly, forget about using MED modules. This is hard for me to say as I am an experienced MED user, a writer for the MED Users Group Diskmag, a massive MED enthusiast and basically in love with the program. To use MED modules in anything but PD programs requires a special licence. They also cause AMOS a lot of problems and are generally not as flexible within the AMOS environment, even though there is a much greater range of effects available and they can use more smples etc. (Well said Mike, Steve) @4Protracker is the one to go for when using modules. You can either @3 1. Write your own. If you aren't a musician they could well turn out to sound, errr...crap! 2. Get some PD modules (they can't usually be used in commercial programs, though, because they normally retain their copyright) 3. Get some modules from F1 Licenceware there are two or three disks of modules you can use in your own program. The only problem being that there could be dozens of other games using the same modules. 4. If you are writing a game for commercial release the software house might have an in-house musician who will do the music for you. 5. Get hold of a musician. There are several ways to go about this, you could ask for one through the pages of Amoszine or some other mag, release a soundless demo version with a request for a musician (but you could wait for a long time before you got one), you could ask me to do it ;-), or you could get hold of Total Irrelevance from Seasoft Computing and ask about placing an advert for a Protracker-using musician (asking for a Protracker using musician in the pages of the Official MED Users Group disk magazine?) The problems with getting a musician are .......... @4a) All musicians are money grabbing cut-throats. No, not really, but if you are releasing a Licenceware of commercial game you aren't going to get the services of a top musician for nothing (unless it is a kind-hearted musician) it is well known in the computer industry that musicians often get ripped off by software companies (getting paid about 10p for the full musical score for a top-selling game), so it is tempting to musicians if a solo programmer is willing to pay them to write freelance music. @1b) Don't expect CD quality music - in a game it is rare to have very much space available. Anything less than 50k and it is short or low quality samples. For example, the title music for Zool takes up abput 130k. You are unlikely to have this much space in the AMOS environment so forget a remake of Tubular Bells as the title screen. @5 If you decide to get a musician, don't just blindly accept the first one to offer his services, unless you are really impressed with the music produced by this person. It is best to shop around a bit. And don't trust somebody who won't send you a demo disk. personally, I always send a demo disk so the programmer can decide if he likes my music or not. @4Once you have decided on a musician, you can't expect to just leave him to it and expect him to write a superb piece of music straight away that is guaranteed to fit into your game. Nor can you expect a brilliant piece of music in about a week. You will have to supply the musician with as much information as possible. How much RAM he will have to write each module in (always tell him he has about 10k less than you can spare so the size can spill over slightly), a list of EXACTLY what is required, the length of each piece and an idea of the general feel. if possible, send a demo of the game to him so he can get an idea of the mood. Now leave him to it for a bit. Ask for regular updates to the music, so you can oversee its development and ensure it is going in the right direction. Make sure you constructively criticize the music - after all, when all is said and done it is your game and it is up to you what the music should be like. There is no point in getting a rave soundtrack for your new Sim-City clone. Don't be scared to tell the musician if he is doing the music wrong. Believe me, if a musician wants a good reputation he will be prepared to change his music. Word gets around if a game gets a good rating for sound in the magazines. Look at, for example, Richard Joseph. He produced some of the best soundtracks in Amiga games (all the Bitmap Brothers games) and now he is doing the music for nearly every game that is released. The same for Allister Brimble, he now does the music for Team 17 after producing some brilliant PD demo disks. If you don't like the music after several attempts, get a new musician. It's as simple as that. @4It is a good idea, if you are having in-game music, to get the programmer to use a `multi-module'. This lets you have several smaller tunes as well as as main tune (this is the technique used in Pinball Fantasies). @1 To do this, you get the programmer to write a main tune, that loops at the end, then add on extra bits to the playing sequence, at the end, with the sub songs. So you might have a 10 pattern main track, followed by a one pattern game over tune. To trigger this you use @5 Track play For the main music, and Track play ,11 For the game over music. @4 It cuts down on loading time (you don't have to load in a new tune whenever the player dies. It cuts down on disk space (one module is replacing 2) and because all songs in the multi-module use the same set of samples memory is saved. The disadvantage is that the musician has to write several songs with the same set of samples but a good musician can get around this (usually). Remember, the less space you give the musician, the lower the quality of the sound (although the actual TUNE itself will still be the same, the INSTRUMENTS will be of a lower quality). To do a module in anything less than 100k, the musician will have to use 4-6 samples only. This is only a problem for musicians who like doing big modules with loads of instruments (I use few instruments anyway, some musicians regularly produce 200k modules). @4Finally, find out if the musician can do your Sound FX for you. If he has a sampler, he might record some sound effects for you (but you will have to provide a tape containing the effects you want if you are asking for a sample of something he can't get hold of). A lot of musicians also have a disk or two of Sound FX (I have a disk comtaining sounds ranging from a slamming door to a dog barking, for example.) @1 I hope you found this article useful if you are writing a game, if you want any more information or if you want any music for your next blockbuster game, contact me at... @5 Mike Richmond, 86, Station Road, Hessle, North Humberside, HU13 OBG. @1 End.