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+--- Thread: Rhythm Game Sound Submission (/thread-27432.html)
Rhythm Game Sound Submission - puggsoy - 07-10-2015
I'm wondering what the policy is in terms of submitting sound effects from rhythm games. For example, some games like Sequence just use music tracks for the rhythmic sections, which is simple and shouldn't be included. However, other games like BIT.TRIP RUNNER and 140 construct their music using sound effects within the gameplay. The thing is, it isn't exactly like a MIDI sequence that just uses instruments.
For instance, in RUNNER (and its sequel) the level has a background beat, and it plays a note whenever you jump over, slide under, or kick an obstacle. However the note is often random, and you can sometimes take different paths in the same level that would have different obstacles and hence different notes. Therefore, even though the game does have "songs", they aren't really concrete and the soundtrack doesn't include them (although the soundtrack does include songs made using those instruments). I'm not sure about 140 since I haven't played it but I think it has a similar situation.
So, what do? Should the instruments in these kind of games be allowed on TSoR or not?
RE: Rhythm Game Sound Submission - Petie - 07-11-2015
That's tricky, especially in the case of something like BIT.TRIP RUNNER. As much as I enjoy the sounds in those games, I'm inclined to say that they wouldn't be allowed. Despite the fact that they're not "songs", per se, the randomness of the notes and obstacles doesn't really differentiate well enough between options to avoid nearly reproducing a usable piece from the soundtrack. I'm open to other opinions on this though.
And that being said, the individual sound effects themselves should be fine - just not the arranged pieces.
RE: Rhythm Game Sound Submission - Kosheh - 07-11-2015
(07-11-2015, 12:59 AM)Petie Wrote: That's tricky, especially in the case of something like BIT.TRIP RUNNER. As much as I enjoy the sounds in those games, I'm inclined to say that they wouldn't be allowed. Despite the fact that they're not "songs", per se, the randomness of the notes and obstacles doesn't really differentiate well enough between options to avoid nearly reproducing a usable piece from the soundtrack. I'm open to other opinions on this though.
And that being said, the individual sound effects themselves should be fine - just not the arranged pieces.
When it comes to instrument samples, I'd say that more fits into something like the "soundfont" of a game, which I don't entirely see a problem with personally. I'm not staff anymore and I'm not part of the VGR legal team so I don't know what weight my opinion holds, but I do recall Dazz or other staff in the past having issues with it though.
Like, in the example of BIT.TRIP RUNNER I don't see what's wrong with sharing little bonks and quirky tones that happen when you slide and jump.
I mean, we have users on here who compose chiptune using a board that supplies all those notes and samples. It'd be pretty much the same thing IMO, except a stricter "library" would be in place, so you could compose "chiptune" music in that style and have it sound authentic to the source material (OK - basically, imagine if I gave you the Banjo-Kazooie soundfont, and you created music using the instrument samples from that game, so you can create authentic-sounding, golden-age-of-Rare sounding music in something like FL Studio. It's up to you to pitch-shift and whatever though to get it to sound legit)
Stuff like that would be actually fucking amazing.
I don't know the exact legal issues, but as long as you're not supplying the actual music samples (like, I believe Bemani songs are added to the game in segments. You shouldn't be able to share those segments) or the means to arrange the song to reproduce it yourself (like, don't supply MIDIs and provide instructions on how to reproduce the song yourself by listing the assigned layers that the samples belong on) I feel like it should be okay.
tl;dr
IMO
DO share the guitar riff and cymbal clash samples that make up the songs
DON'T share the "sheet music" or pre-recorded, composed music samples
I'd like to see what staff has to say about the issue, though :/
RE: Rhythm Game Sound Submission - Garamonde - 07-11-2015
I'm not Dazz but I'd say don't include any of the samples that are used in songs and that's it (assuming they're unique to the songs)
RE: Rhythm Game Sound Submission - Kosheh - 07-12-2015
Uh, to follow up on "Oh, y'know, soundfont submissions would be awesome, 'cause then we could make music that homages to different games"
I'm referring to stuff like in this guy's Soundcloud. Using it, he can make things like this:
It's for some DKC fangame being worked on over at DKC Atlas, but the fact he's able to create entirely new songs out of samples from the older DKC games and have them sound so legit is just mindblowing.
RE: Rhythm Game Sound Submission - puggsoy - 07-13-2015
(07-11-2015, 01:34 PM)Mighty Jetters Wrote: I'm not Dazz but I'd say don't include any of the samples that are used in songs and that's it (assuming they're unique to the songs)
That's the thing though, in this specific case there aren't really "songs", just music-ish compositions that depend on the gameplay. And yeah they're definitely not unique to any songs or levels, every level (or other level) in a world uses the same tones.
As Petie said you may be able to somewhat reproduce parts of the soundtrack (the OST songs are actually specific songs but tend to use the same tones and sound effects). At the same time though, they technically are sound effects since they're sounds you here upon the player's actions.
Kosheh's idea seems cool, although it's generally always been a rule that we don't accept instruments, so yeah. That's why I'm not sure, these kind of sit on the line between sound effects and instruments.