Mindblight soundtrack

I'm writing music for a game called "mindblight." It's a RPG game, in a current urban area. The character you run is an amnesiac, trying to find out what happened to him. Throughout the game, the amnesiac runs into shadows and combats the creatures in them in his mind.

For this music, I decided that none of the music would be in a major key, nor in minor keys. I used modes, or slightly altered versions of modes. One of my alterations for example would be phrygian with a raised 4th. I also used modes from the melodic and harmonic minor. I did this to create a sense of nonsolidity (real word? probably not), seeing as the main character is potentially insane (he does start in the mental hospital).

I also used other effects to match the surrounding. I'll explain one, the greenhouse. In the greenhouse, the plants have overgrown the place and they've become hostile. The main theme of this place was, "growth as a form of decay, decay as a form of growth. Death and life entwined." So to match that, I have a lot of suspensions to match decay and retardations to match growth. I also took on the fact that plants grow relatively slowly and made the song push and pull slowly.

I did little things like that in each of my songs, except the battle themes. They are battle themes. Realize when you listen to the battle themes, that combat is turn-based. If it were real-time, I probably would have made it a lot more active like most other game battle music, but this was a chance to tone it down a little and make it feel a little more epic.

Here is a quick description of the first 15 songs I've written so far on my fan page on facebook.

Music of Daniel Nash: Mindblight 1-15 | Facebook

Here is a link that will send you to the homepage of the fan page, which has a music player on the bottom left side with my music. The first songs there are the songs for mindblight. The rest of it is other stuff I've written.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Music-of-Daniel-Nash/108680641175 <---------------LINK TO MUSIC

I finished 17 songs so far, but I've still got some 15 or so songs to write, when I write more I'll let you know. You can also give suggestions on some of the future writing if you want.

Please listen and give me feedback. If you have any question, feel free to ask. Thanks!

add song "City Park - Night" today.

Added "Battle Theme 7." It'll probably be one of the boss themes.

"Battle Theme 8" and "Battle Theme 9" finished, and added to the list.

"Battle Theme 10" done, and the street theme is coming up.

"Street Theme - Night" finished

Hey.

First of all, a basic thing, and that's the volume. It seems really inconsistent on the FB page you linked to. The first piece I happened to click was "Battle Theme 9" and I could barely here it at all. So I turned my speakers right up. Then because of that the next one I clicked took my head off! So it would probably be a good idea to make sure they're all about the same.

OK, here are a few I listened to and picked out.

Factory: A nice piece, very relaxing, good ambient music. What sort of factory is it though? If it's a toy factory, then the piece works well. If it's a machine gun factory, then not so much! The piece itself is good, reminds me of Yoko Shimomura in style, but I can't comment about how it works in context without knowing more.

Battle 6: A bit too thin and repetitive for my liking. It brought forth more feelings of suspense then anything else, what kind of battle would that be used in? A bit of percussion or some off beat brass every now and again might make it feel more...fighty.

01 - Dark Ember: I like this one a lot. Quite dark, really fits the title. Your style isn't one I generally go for - I'm a sucker for a catchy melody myself - but this had me picturing various scenes in my head as it went along, so pretty good.

Street Theme - Night: Very nice, well suited, pretty memorable this one as well I thought. This one could perhaps do with a bit more time on the mix, some of the instruments do seem to bleed into each other more than one might like, and the violin could do with some tweaking. At the moment it's just a bit too sudden, it doesn't fade in and out as a real player would.

City Park - Day: Very nice! Perfect ambient music for this sort of scenario. The only thing I'd point out here is the...harpsichord(?)... at the beginning seems a tad loud and overpowering, but nto by much.

Sorry I don't have time to go into everything you have up there, but overall some pretty solid stuff, good ambient music for a game.

Fox

I listened to the first few pieces on your site and I have to say they are very minimalistic. Not to say that is necessarily a bad thing, it sounds similar to Philip Glass, but in minimalistic pieces- dynamics, tempo changes, and atmospheric/emotional expressions are really crucial and need to be heavily developed.

Conceptually all these pieces will work in a game, but I would like to see you work more on the presentation of the arrangement.

A lesson in sound mixing would probably do you good in this department. Perhaps you should look into minimalistic music similar to your own and pick up techniques as well.

Again, I don't necessarily think that your music is bad, I just know that you can improve it and produce a very sentimental sound.

Keep it up! ;)

Also, I'm not sure if it's just me, but it appears that I am only able to listen to the pieces in a certain order instead of being able to select which I would like to listen too. If it isn't just me, than I would suggest using a different host such as soundclick or box.net.

Hey.

First of all, a basic thing, and that's the volume. It seems really inconsistent on the FB page you linked to. The first piece I happened to click was "Battle Theme 9" and I could barely here it at all. So I turned my speakers right up. Then because of that the next one I clicked took my head off! So it would probably be a good idea to make sure they're all about the same.

Actually, the real ones are kind on inconsistent too...that is because my computer does not have the memory to make them as loud as they need to be without clipping them. I'll be borrowing another computer soon, so I can actually have some better quality recordings. I thought most of them were quiet, sorry about the one that blasted your head off.

OK, here are a few I listened to and picked out.

Factory: A nice piece, very relaxing, good ambient music. What sort of factory is it though? If it's a toy factory, then the piece works well. If it's a machine gun factory, then not so much! The piece itself is good, reminds me of Yoko Shimomura in style, but I can't comment about how it works in context without knowing more.

It's actually a computer factory, it's supposed to have a sense of surrealness to it. A somewhat "dreams coming true" or a sort of "mirage" effect. It's a run down, and broken factory, but in the night after everything is turned on, then it appears as if it's in great working order, and tomorrow the workers will just come in and start working again. I'm assuming you listened to the nighttime theme, since you didn't specify day.

Battle 6: A bit too thin and repetitive for my liking. It brought forth more feelings of suspense then anything else, what kind of battle would that be used in? A bit of percussion or some off beat brass every now and again might make it feel more...fighty.

We are trying to decide if it's really going to fit in a battle actually, but it probably be...a...I don't think this one will make it in as a battle theme. We're thinking of putting in the one of the other locations. This one does need more percussion to be in battle, but I did make another version that is a bit cooler, that just has 3 of these going one after the other. Which means the harmony was a bit too loose for my liking, but it does make a cool effect when they are all stacked. I would like to use brass, but I really don't like the garritan brass sounds (which is what I have to work with...I wish I had something a bit more pricy, but not yet)

01 - Dark Ember: I like this one a lot. Quite dark, really fits the title. Your style isn't one I generally go for - I'm a sucker for a catchy melody myself - but this had me picturing various scenes in my head as it went along, so pretty good.

This one goes to the game Dark Ember, but yeah, it is a bit more scenic than some.

Street Theme - Night: Very nice, well suited, pretty memorable this one as well I thought. This one could perhaps do with a bit more time on the mix, some of the instruments do seem to bleed into each other more than one might like, and the violin could do with some tweaking. At the moment it's just a bit too sudden, it doesn't fade in and out as a real player would.

City Park - Day: Very nice! Perfect ambient music for this sort of scenario. The only thing I'd point out here is the...harpsichord(?)... at the beginning seems a tad loud and overpowering, but nto by much.

Thanks for the tips on both of these. I'll be tweaking plenty of stuff after I create all the songs. I'm sadly going to be unable to work on these some date soon (October earliest) so I want to atleast get all of them done, then I'll prioritize for tweaking right after I'm done. I actually disagree with you on the harpsichord, I think it's really loud and overpowering.

Sorry I don't have time to go into everything you have up there, but overall some pretty solid stuff, good ambient music for a game.

Fox

Thanks, and no worries, I don't expect people to listen to 2 hours of game music, and whatever other random music I put there. I hope for people to listen to a couple of songs. You were definitely helpful and encouraging, thanks again.

I listened to the first few pieces on your site and I have to say they are very minimalistic. Not to say that is necessarily a bad thing, it sounds similar to Philip Glass, but in minimalistic pieces- dynamics, tempo changes, and atmospheric/emotional expressions are really crucial and need to be heavily developed.

Conceptually all these pieces will work in a game, but I would like to see you work more on the presentation of the arrangement.

A lesson in sound mixing would probably do you good in this department. Perhaps you should look into minimalistic music similar to your own and pick up techniques as well.

Again, I don't necessarily think that your music is bad, I just know that you can improve it and produce a very sentimental sound.

Keep it up! ;)

Also, I'm not sure if it's just me, but it appears that I am only able to listen to the pieces in a certain order instead of being able to select which I would like to listen too. If it isn't just me, than I would suggest using a different host such as soundclick or box.net.

Thanks for listening! I really appreciate it.

I usually try to be a bit less minimalist, but not in my game music. In my game music, I don't want it to overpower the situation, so I have it hide a bit more by not doing too much with it. I even got a speech on how the music is the mustard and ketchup of the burger...I disagree in theory, but in practice I'm kind of in the position to comply.

What kind of stuff would you like me to do with the presentation?

I agree with the whole training in soundmixing. I also need a soundmixing program...I'm using finale 2009 at the moment actually. Doing the best I can with what I got, but I'll get to some good stuff eventually. And there is always room for improvement, why do you think I posted this? Obviously I'm kind of just starting in the business too, so no worries. I will keep it up :thumbsup:

Sometimes facebook is a bit wierd about that, I can pick my song probably a bit more than half the time, but I should probably work with one of the sites you just mentioned.

Thanks again.