hmmmm...... does any one have a musical bone in their body?

I could do some. It would be coolest if we could do it orchestrally, with different people recording their instrument's part and someone putting them all togather in Adobe Audition or something. The best soundtracks IMO are fully orchestrated.

i can only play violin, and that is minimally.... don't have enough talent to make a video game song, unless my part is REALLY simple.

I can do piano/keyboarding. I also own Mixcraft 5. It's like Garageband except for Windows and has way more features. For the sound in-game format, I suggest FLAC.

Sure, if there's an easy codec. Otherwise OGG b/c it's lossless.

OGG isn't lossless. It loses quality in compression, less than mp3s, but it still does. FLAC is 100% lossless. It doesn't lose the quality you would lose when compressing an OGG, but its filesize is almost twice as big as a result. There are CODECS I can get for either. Decide, my children.

Ok the two people I will list are pretty friendly and would probably help if we had a finished product (with no music) or a good, promising start on things like a playable version. They have done that for other people as well:

1) Jay B (hamstercake)
examples:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/412396
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/421265
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/408995

2) Waterflame (helped with Castle Crashers music)
examples:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/446010
my favorite http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/91476

3) Newgrounds (in general)
go look for yourself

great unknown artists who would gladly help.

Before starting this thread, I actually looked around myself a bit. indiegamemusic.com is mainly not free. Also, other people aren't usually interested in freeware...

Heh, the third one reminds me of Lord of the Rings.

You can't get Newgrounds Music from the first few pages. Go back at least 30 pages or so. Those artists will probably be more open to not getting paid.

Isn't any music on Newgrounds CC non-commercial share-alike attribution?

Although I don't think we want that license, it limits what we do with our game.

I think we should compose music ourselves or get someone to compose usic for us, so that it's original and hasn't been used before.

I suck at music. All I have to add is that if we want the game to be modder-friendly, we should probably use a moderately popular file format, such as OGG or maybe just MP3. I've never heard of FLAC.

Guys those newgrounds artists make music for non-commercial games quite a bit

We shouldn't worry about music so much right now

Its very easy to get people to compose music if we have something to show them

So lets focus on actually getting something together before we add any sound/music

How about including FLAC, MP3, OGG, and WAV codecs, then just including the extension in the resource list?

And I'll try to write some cave-ambience-music for now.

Newgrounds licenses specifies that you can contact the user directly to work out other licensing terms. If at some point we actually go commercial, we don't have to do this, but I PM'd Chronamut and he gladly offered his music forward under the condition we credit him. His music on his profile is all the way down. He has some tracks in the top 30 pages of the "Video Game" music section of the audio portal. Some are really cool, mainly medieval, though. He did say he doesn't want to compose anything new, but if we show him something cool in the future (like a copy of our game) he may do something. Let me know if you disagree with the idea of using his songs.

Which leaves us with sounds. AP, cave ambiance is a great start.

Exactly. We need something to show, not just pictures or a website.

No, he said we could use his songs. Read the post again.

I also checked out a free sound source with license that is okay for commercial as well as free usage. The website is the same one that Notch took sounds from for his first build of Minecraft Beta ("ooh" damaged noise comes from there).

COOL! Which one?

Forgot. It's in my history. Too lazy to check. From there, I've converted (through Mixcraft, so it's lossless) a waterfall on rocks sound, a water dripping ambiance sound, a stream on rocks sound, and I think a "lonely" windy type of noise.

Please send me the link! I've been looking for a site like that for ages!

www.freesound.org

Most of it is .wav format, some is in .flac, .ogg, and .mp3

If you want the licensing terms of the sound, there's usually a link on the sound's main page. It'll link to Creative Commons. That license is usually on every one of the user's sounds.

I know. I was looking forever for something like this too.

EXACTLY what I was looking for! Thanks!

don't go crazy with the sound yet. its not 'required' to get a game going

Nothing is 'required,' we're just doing it at our own pace. If you saw the other threads, you can see that pace is fast.

WAAAAYYY faster than wog2. we are getting music, sounds, art, a name, files, etc. I don't think we are going slow.

Coming in a little late here, but here goes:
FLAC or OGG would be good for music. OGG has more than one codec, some are lossless, some are lossy. FLAC is probably a good choice for music, and I would recommend OGG for sounds. Lossy OGG if you don't care a lot, and lossless if you're after high quality. FLAC sounds would be strange, and WAV sounds would be terrible, as filesizes on uncompressed music add up quickly.

MP3 is a big whole other can of worms. The codecs it uses are copyrighted, and SDL 'includes' support for it anyway, but if you read through the docs, it's all very carefully worded, and relies on external programs to do the whole copyright-infringement part. For an open-source game, using any MP3 music or sounds is a really bad idea, as it opens you up to lawsuits that you don't have money to pay for.

But other than this, I'd opt for FLAC music and OGG sounds, to be on everybody's safe side. You can add support for other formats, like WAV and MP3, but just don't have any MP3s in the final game itself to stay on the safe side of the law, and don't have WAVs either, as the filesize is just too stinking huge. Compression is a good thing.

You might want to research OpenAL, RedTheGreen. It includes methods of playing directional sounds. You know how some sounds occur off to the left in a game if the objects making the sounds are off to the left? OpenAL can do that and more. Even some fully-3D and surround-sound effects, which is pretty neat. It may not be worth the time for this project; it depends on where you guys are going with the game; but it's something worth looking into if you're interested.

Any thoughts/comments on directional sounds?

I've been converting a lot of music resources to OGG format, but it's mainly for scenic things like water dripping or distant waterfalls. I plan on using FLAC for music, if I can find a good codec for Mixcraft, else just OGG. I would never ever dare or want to use MP3s in a game. That format is amazingly shitty/lossy. Try listening to an OGG sometime and then listening to the same music in MP3; you shall notice the difference.

I've already been looking at OpenAL. I approve of it, but I'm also trying to decide whether or not to use something a little more documented like irrKlang. (which is what WoG uses) The defect with using irrKlang is that if we do anything even remotely commercial (publishing on Steam may violate this agreement) we can be sued, or we pay several hundred euros for a commercial license for our project. I've been meaning to try out OpenAL anyway.

Your posting like this sounds like you're assuming I have no idea what I'm doing. It's true, I'm clueless always.

If you need to convert formats, I can do it for almost any format that ever existed in Adobe Audition. It's pretty much the only thing I know how to do with it.

I prefer Mixcraft. I think it's a bigger program, but it doesn't support FLAC. Otherwise, I can adjust 3D-panning, volume adjustments at certain points, etc.

I'm not assuming anything here; just making sure you're on the right track. I'm not trying to be offensive by explaining obvious things, sorry.

Sir, I am offended!

Meh it just seemed a little like that.

Howitz,did you contact them?