Castle Paradox

[Narkotix Team]

About how long should a song be for each of these.

Battle Music, General Maps, character theme songs, ect.

Whatever you can tell me would be a big help, since we have started to make out own music.

Is there anything really good to use to make music easy? I have been using Garage Band, for Mac, but I don't have access to it all the time.

[Artimus Bena]

For OHR games, the best format to go with is MIDI.
edit: it's the best format to go with because it's the best quality you can achieve without adding very much to the overall filesize of the game.

As for the length of the song, it can be any length at all, but generally your answer will range from 1 minute to 3 and a half minutes. In my own opinion, it really depends on the level of battle it is. If it's background music needed for beating small enemies, then the battle's general length will be short. Therefore, the music doesn't need to be too elaborate or too long. However, if it's a "boss" battle, a longer song will be more appropriate.

Generally though, 3 and a half minutes is the longest it *needs* to be.

The same principle applies to other parts of the game. If the player is going to be spending a lot of time in one place, or a lot of time battling something, it's probably better to go with longer tracks, while of course making sure they still loop nicely.


As for MIDI composition, the best (in my experience) is noteworthy, if you can find the first version (as opposed to version 2.0 which the designers limited severely for those who won't buy the full version.) Anvil studio is great for transferring notes from keyboard or guitar, as it has graphical interfaces, but for the actual composition, noteworthy takes the cake.
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[LongeBane]

Noteworthy doesn't make music easy, because you usually have to KNOW what you're doing, as opposed to garage band, where you just couple loops together.

[Narkotix Team]

Anything LIKE garage band, that doesn't suck?

[jabbercat]

A piece of music is as long as it needs to be, simple.

For a midi program, I recommend anvil studio. Quick and dirty - it does the job.
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[LongeBane]

The closest you're going get to a dumbed-down streamlined DAW like garageband is fruity loops. Midi programs are completely different from garageband, in fact I hear Garageband has extremely limited midi capabilities.

So you won't find yourself familiar with programs such as anvil or noteworthy unless you already knew notation and staff.