The daily "what software do I use for music?" topic

[georgethecow]

Hello,

I've had this awesome pet project going on for a series of non-RPG games that I flipping love (what series? Well...it's kind early to spoil that!) and now that I finally have a break from school I've been able to make some real progress on it. I have the scenario more or less written down as well as other details like characters and rough map sketches and stuff, and the actual graphics are coming along quite well so far. But I figure it's time to actually get down to the music.

The thing is, I'm not really looking for some high-end fancy compostion tool. All the music here is going to be remixes of the actual games' songs. I'm kind of wanting to go down the route of more "video-gamey" music like in Mario or Sonic rather than the epic orchestra feel. What do you all suggest I use? I have Finale Notepad which was free, but it seems to be more focused on actual instruments rather than an electronic feel. I actually do have one of those keyboards (and I know how to play it) that can play a bajillion different sounds, so maybe I should just try that instead?

Thanks,

georgethecow

 

[Quigon]

Regardless of how orchestral you do or don't want your songs to sound, it's still worthwhile investing in a half decent DAW so that you have enough features to fiddle around with. If you're wanting to make more retro-sounding music then I suggest looking up some Soundfonts that replicate that feel - I don't know many VSTs that would do that.

 

[diamond16]

It depends how retro you want to go but these free VSTs emulate the old NES and SNES sounds and are a lot of fun to play around with

http://tweakbench.com/

 

[Archeia]

Reason, Reaper and FL Studio are some of the popular choices from what I heard. Most of the time, I heard some composers don't stick to one. There's also another piano one but I can't remember the name.

 

[Andar]

All the music here is going to be remixes of the actual games' songs.

Please be careful with remixes and don't do them if you don't have the licence to use the original songs in your remixes (I don't know what licence the original game is under).

There was a topic not long ago where someone considered doing the same, and one of the answers was a post on how the music industry handles remixes and remix licences from a composer who had seen similiar cases - usually ending in the remixer paying for the licence (less if he asked before remixing, more and with added court fees if he didn't ask before).

Search for "remix" on the forum, that should allow you to find that topic and see if your case would be one of the few special cases where remixing is allowed and free.