Is This a Thing?

AH_ImADot

AH_ImADot
Procedural Music

I think it would be kind of cool to go along with the procedural galaxy, to have procedural music. It takes time and effort to compose the music used, and as nice as it is, it gets to the point where the volume gets turned down. I'm not asking for cheesy or crazy music, but if there's such a thing as musical algorithms to create certain musical themes, I think it would be yet another reason for exploring the Elite galaxy...a huge, ever-changing library of musical scores.
 

Iridium Nova

Iridium Nova
Procedural music in games has a spotty history. I've never seen it done successfully outside of background ambience, and there it usually lacks character. Spore was one of the few games to do it reasonably well, but even with its "infinite variety", it would still get samey-sounding after a while.

If anything, I would say Frontier could probably do it well if they wanted to, but this is a really new area of musical endeavor and thusly very easy to do badly. I suppose innovation has to come from somewhere though.
 

Iridium Nova

Iridium Nova
Mr_Blastman said:
Yes it is. Enjoy.

http://www.abundant-music.com
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I like this stuff from a technical standpoint. I started following fractal music a long time ago, and it was pretty terrible back then but I liked the mathematics of it. It has come a long way but I'm not sure if any computer generated artform can ever really compete with human composers. At least, not until we have competent AI, and when that day comes our world will be a very different place.
 

Ah Clem

Ah Clem
I've recently started substituting my own playlist for the stock ED music. I just go into options and mute or turn off all the music. Then I run Spotify in the background with playlists that I create. Works great.

Tonight I've been listening to Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited. I've got about 4 hours of music by them. You'd be surprised how often it seems to sync up with the action. They've got a very 60's kind of Gerry Anderson / Barry Gray sound. Love it!
 

smiths121

S
Iridium Nova said:
If anything, I would say Frontier could probably do it well if they wanted to, but this is a really new area of musical endeavor and thusly very easy to do badly. I suppose innovation has to come from somewhere though.
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You say that, I bet if FD did it there would be loads of posts wanting more immersion, linked tracked, themed albums with a clear narrative, better in game tools to control your music, more variety and the ability to force other people to her you music in open, and a lot of moaning about how it is easier to control your procedural music in private or solo.

Hmm, the above adds nothing to the thread. Great idea, I plan to listen to the link above at work for a bit of background.

Simon
 

Lianachan

Lianachan
iMUSE springs to mind. More specifically, the way in-flight music was handled in the X-Wing series of games would work really well in Elite.
 
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Shadowdancer

Shadowdancer
I'd personally rather have a reactive background track with precomposed "snippets" that are blended appropriately to the situation. My favourite example is still Wing Commander (1) which had a good library of strong motifs, and hearing the fanfare for defeating the last enemy in an encounter or the sad melody when losing a wingman are still present memories even after over 15 years. Add new parts to the library now and then and things remain interesting.

Today's pop music landscape is probably an example of "procedural music" ;)
 
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Yodafone

Yodafone
Shadowdancer said:
Today's pop music landscape is probably an example of "procedural music" ;)
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So true, so true. I also appreciate procedurally generated music from a technical standpoint but it lacks artistry and character even if it sits as a composition. Some of Erasmus' scores seem simple but they are far from it, even if you created something similar in a "make a musical composition" program I would treat any procedurally generated music with trepidation as it would undoubtedly turn out to be a poor interpretation of the music we have in Elite.
 

CariadocThorne

C
Shadowdancer said:
I'd personally rather have a reactive background track with precomposed "snippets" that are blended appropriately to the situation. My favourite example is still Wing Commander (1) which had a good library of strong motifs, and hearing the fanfare for defeating the last enemy in an encounter or the sad melody when losing a wingman are still present memories even after over 15 years. Add new parts to the library now and then and things remain interesting.

Today's pop music landscape is probably an example of "procedural music" ;)
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I made my own.

When I give voice attack the command to deploy weapons and adjust power to my usual combat configuration, it also starts my "combat music" spotify playlist in shuffle. The command for engaging FSD starts my "cruise music" playlist in shuffle. I also have a command for after docking, which enters the hanger and opens starport services, and also starts a looped track of annoying "elevator music" which amuses me even though it is annoying.
 
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