Docking music for Pioneer

[emajogi]

Here's a complete version of the docking music I posted a couple of months ago. Although it vaguely resembles the Blue Danube waltz, It is mostly original. (Any bits which sound exactly the same are therefore just a quirk of your imagination.)I think it would also make some nice background music for the Pioneer menu. Alpha 10 uses a rotating ship with no music, but it would be great to see a video using Pioneer's own graphics engine (just like Frontier Elite) with some music like this playing alongside it. My graphics card is far too slow for playing Pioneer in anything other than low quality mode, so I couldn't produce a video myself. Instead, here's a proof of concept: two videos you may recognise with my music playing in the background. The same music, only in several formats. The .sib file is the original score which can be opened with Sibelius.[url]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27128646/Emajogi%20Waltz%20v3b/Emajogi%20v3b%20no%20trem.mp3[/url]

[ollobrain]

docking music is a good idea

[Marcel]

Yes it is, ollobrain. My hope is that Pioneer will eventually be able to use music in a manner similar to FFED3D or Ad-Astra, that is, music in separate folders for docking, combat, etc. My first thought on this was, "Why not use the whole original Blue Danube? It's well out of copyright." but in FFED3D I used several files chosen at random. I don't want to have to play the same docking music every time. As to your piece, emajogi, I find it to be quite charming, if somewhat derivative. There are places where you quote Strauss note for note and I expect the piece to continue as Strauss, but it doesn't, which I find a bit jarring, but you have a nice theme and nice waltz. The synth tonalities remind me of an old calliope or merry-go-round. I'm putting this in my Pioneer music folder, where I currently play music in Media Player in the background. You're doing good work here, I'm humming the theme and everything. Thanks!

[robn]

emajogi, thanks for your contribution. I've a large pile of contributed music for Pioneer to listen to today while I'm at work, and yours is on the list. Fyi, we're now starting to thinking about both music choices and how music generally will be implemented. You might be interested in issue #171 where this is being discussed.

[s2odan]

This is a nice continuation of your previous work, well done I second what Rob has said about you visiting the issues page, where we have an ongoing discussion about music in Pioneer.

[Marcel]

Thanks for the link, robn. I'll check out your music selections. I think I have some of them already. As for the discussion, I have nothing to contribute. You folks have already discussed everything I have in mind. It's good to see that we're all on the same 'track' on this issue.

[emajogi]

Marcel wrote:
As to your piece, emajogi, I find it to be quite charming, if somewhat derivative. There are places where you quote Strauss note for note and I expect the piece to continue as Strauss, but it doesn't, which I find a bit jarring, but you have a nice theme and nice waltz. The synth tonalities remind me of an old calliope or merry-go-round.
Guilty as charged! I was trying to produce something that everyone could recognise as a rip-off of the Blue Danube, but which was still original work - better, I thought, for a game to have its own tunes, however derivative, than using exactly the same pieces that dozens of games have already used.I've heard it so often, now, that my ears don't notice the moments that would give everyone else a headache . The painful bits could be easily be rewritten, if anyone thought it was worth it.By the way, the synth tonalities you mention are there because Sibelius uses a crappy sound (sample) set. There are much better sound sets available, so it's not necessary to put up with something that sounds like one of those Yamaha keyboards you can buy from Toys'R'Us. I wouldn't go out and purchase one, though, until I was sure I was going to need it. (By the way - computer music sounds rubbish on a laptop. It needs to be heard on headphones, or with proper amplifiers.)