More Soundtracks?

[smiluu]

Dropping in once more and wondering what are the devs thoughts about engaging this side project into progress. Me and my friend set up a little two men instrumental band few years back, mainly focused on Thrash-, Melodeath- and Industrial metal styles. For reviewing pleasure, I upped two old samples used for a game project of my own, found below in the attachments. First one has techno generated beats and second with electro drums played by me, riffs entirely done by my friend Jarmo 'MrSocialdisease'. If you find our style sufficient for Soldat and this idea is accepted or at the least supported we can try and come up with something. If there's other artists/bands in this forum I highly recommend you to show us your work as well so that we can brainstorm with more variety of styles.

[L[0ne]R]

Really nice tracks, though somehow they feel like they're better off as stand-alone tracks, not a soundtrack to a game. This is just my opinion though, I'm not a music composer, and music taste overall is a very subjective topic. Anyway, my opinion on the tracks:

PMFM v2 - I find this one a bit slow for Soldat. It doesn't really match the pace and flow of the game. Also there's quite a few different samples and transitions throughout the track that change rather frequently, which makes it a good standalone track, but somewhat distracting and inconsistent as a soundtrack for a competitive shooter. It has some nice motifs though. Consider making a faster and more consistent version of this track, because aside from pace and consistency it has potential of becoming a really nice piece for Soldat.

Stalker Kinkki - Now this one is nice and fast and matches Soldat's pace really well. The "calm" transition at 1:02 - 1:07 sounds really good and adds a nice bit of variety while preserving the tempo, I really think you should expand it from a short transition to a full-fledged long piece of the track. Extend this part to at least 15-20 seconds if not more, and then maybe gradually work your way back to the loud and fast style that you hear at the beginning.

Also, I don't know if it's just me, but both tracks feel a little bit flat. It feels like mono, not stereo. Lack of ambience and bass could be part of the reason. I like the overall style though and it matches Soldat rather well in my opinion (although I definitely wouldn't mind some electronica in there too, like in "Payday: The Heist"). To sum it up, they're really good and unique-sounding tracks, they just need more consistency/repetition, a bit more depth, and maybe a bit more variation between loud & calm parts at least in a few tracks.



Check these game soundtracks for some examples/inspiration:
- Sledgehammer: https://soundcloud.com/nothanxband/nothanx-sync-start
- Payday The Heist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrZYgYqddb4
- Painkiller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUTtd8ewPE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t49DwCiwVqs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eDOQju4lHU

[smiluu]

We had some issues with the recording of the riffs in the past, always getting in some unwanted noise which was hard to blend out with mastering, resulting with soft sound for the guitars. Though by now our gear has improved a lot. Those links you post describes quite well what you prefer and we definitely have a different goal. I'm not musically really that very inclined myself to tell what it is exactly, but would you understand if I said we want our songs to be kinda like "theme songs", instead of simple thumping?

Here's what I would have suggested for inspiration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgkxSkF7QOU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN71aABBtt0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0cz65hA-50

We have two main sides for our soundtrack, one being oldschoolish melodic metal and another hard/progressive electronica. We don't really entirely mix these two genres together, because it's harder than what you would expect. I'll drop in another two samples, of both of our selected genres. First one is meant for a menu and second for ingame, from which the second one is done (unfinished) entirely by me.

[L[0ne]R]

I'm not musically really that very inclined myself to tell what it is exactly, but would you understand if I said we want our songs to be kinda like "theme songs", instead of simple thumping?

If I understand you correctly, you mean kind of the opposite of what I said - a more detailed and less repetitive track that sounds good and interesting even outside of the game? Nothing wrong with that, and indeed the examples I posted (especially Painkiller ones) are a bit extreme in terms of repetition. I just wanted to highlight the direction in which the tracks should be moving in terms of consistency, but I didn't mean they should be exactly like that. And again, it's only my opinion, it's really hard to talk facts when it comes to music. I'm listening to all of the tracks again and right now they seem just fine to me (aside from some 'flattness' that I mentioned earlier), so maybe I was just being picky yesterday.

One thing I can say for sure though is that I'm not a huge fan of the genre, and yet I actually enjoy listening these tracks. All four of them sound unique and memorable. Also the first time I heard the first two tracks - I instantly thought of Quake. That's a nice piece of nostalgia and should definitely make Soldat's soundtrack stand out. Keep up the awesome work.


A bit of an opinion on the new tracks:

Toilethole - this sounds like a good gameplay track, it would be kind of a waste to use it for just menu. IMHO a menu track should be a bit slower and less intense, like Morbid orgasm.

Morbid orgasm - the (0:00 - 0:50) segment works really well as a menu theme since it's slower and less intense, especially if more detail and variation is added. The rest of the track is.. odd. Aside from a few dark-themed maps (like DC's Kampf and Voland remakes) I can't think of where it would fit in gameplay. It's certainly not something that would fit ctf_Ash for example, and is a bit too eerie for menu theme in my opinion.

[shay]

Hi
My favorite
Only this: CLICK HERE

[smiluu]

Hi
Only this: CLICK HERE

Hi, what's this comment all about? Is this your favorite band or are you absolutely positively a member in this band? I myself prefer Chaos AD over this album, I just don't find the composition appealing or original at all here.

[GhostRiderSwiss]

My 2 cents 
i dont know, but for me it seems that these new sounds will never be played by anyone... ROCK? METAL? were in 2013, the average of soldats player is defenetly not 30 years old^^

Maybe you guys should consider to add to soldat for each genre a small soundtrack? (propably not for each, but atleast Main-Genres like, Rock, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Metal, House etc..)

It would attract the average way more like this i think, then adding just rock or metal (AGAIN) to soldat... Look on titles like COD, they added to a map ("Five" in Black Ops1) the Eminem and Pink track. to another map they added a Heavy Metal track and again another one has a Drum n Base beat... so why soldat couldnt add such stuff? (not exact eminem and nothing that mainstream ofc...) just some variety would be nice i think...

[smiluu]

My 2 cents 
i dont know, but for me it seems that these new sounds will never be played by anyone...

Yes they won't because they're not made for Soldat.

Maybe you guys should consider to add to soldat for each genre a small soundtrack? (propably not for each, but atleast Main-Genres like, Rock, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Metal, House etc..)

There just simply isn't a music genre which everyone likes as well as there ain't people who just simply love listening to EVERYTHING... Trying to fight the nature itself with idea like this for the sake of attraction is just silly and delusional. Do we want vocals/lyrics in the soundtracks? If not then not all of these listed "main-genres" are even really that strong in the instrumental side. Do we want music which calms you down? Do we want music which makes you want to dance? Or do we want music which makes you want to kill people? Music is an expression of feeling which is doable by any genre as plausibly and not knowing of this while saying "metal, AGAIN?" like that just shows how little you know and care about music. My proposition for the genre is of course.. metal, because Soldat started with it which past these 10 years has been tainted as Soldat's audio orientation. It's only logical to improvise and proceed with it.

It would attract the average way more like this i think, then adding just rock or metal (AGAIN) to soldat... Look on titles like COD, they added to a map ("Five" in Black Ops1) the Eminem and Pink track. to another map they added a Heavy Metal track and again another one has a Drum n Base beat... so why soldat couldnt add such stuff? (not exact eminem and nothing that mainstream ofc...) just some variety would be nice i think...

I'm going to murder you if you mention COD franchise in this thread one more time. Maybe you should educate yourself with real game titles like Quake or Unreal which has REAL, original and memorable soundtracks embedded deeply into the g-spots of our nostalgia. Just like Soldat. That's what we're going for. Also we're in 2013, so what the fuck.. Eminem, Pink?

[DarkCrusade]

/bla bla bla

You got devastated and you deserved it..

Dropping in once more [...]

You should drop in more often. That stuff is great!

[shay]

Hi
Only this: CLICK HERE

Hi, what's this comment all about? Is this your favorite band or are you absolutely positively a member in this band? I myself prefer Chaos AD over this album, I just don't find the composition appealing or original at all here.

Sorry,corrected.

Yes!!! Chaos A.D. too like!
I like all albums!

[GhostRiderSwiss]

i didnt say that i like eminem or pink alot... i also didnt say that metal is bad at all, all i wanted to say is actualy that variety is nothing bad, aswell in soldat... and for COD that was just an example.... (im playing only with friends sometimes the zombie mode) cauze they dont like soldat 

anyway, running a music software isnt hard in background...so implement whatever you wanna 

[paintZoom]

nice tunes over there
but i think the music should go with the aspect of the game so lady gaga themes doesnt fit with soldat at all
so the game should stick with the metal thing for the bgm
although i would like to hear some crazy dnb? in the background like in quake 3 or in some warsow themes but that doesnt fit too much

here almost an hour of warsow's sountracks if you curious
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBu-R1rbVYE
check the 4:10 or whatever

[darDar]

@smiluu
I really like those tracks they are really soldat like.
Stalker Kinkki may be work with an intro pretty well.

I have to admit that I have never used the mp3 option in Soldat and I will never do.
Maybe once there´s time for it there might be the option to control common music players like iTunes, Media Player, foobar2000 ingame instead of having a mp3 folder. This shouldn´t be so much of work imo (am I wrong?) and would add some really nice feature to the game.