Thread: How do you create music for use in game?

This is something I've thought about posting before, as I'm curious about how folks other than myself do it, and because I get asked sometimes how I do it. And the final instigator was a post on this thread asking what fun there was in using someone else's MIDI as a starting point on a tune.

I'll start out by saying I am NOT a musician in real life. Unfortunately, I stopped taking lessons in junior high and never really picked up playing again. I do have a good ear, though, good sense of pitch, and a love of music.

I first hunt for a midi of the tune I want to make--some tunes get dumped at this point if I can't find a suitable midi. Some of the cruel things people do to helpless tunes is worse than any of the torments of the Enemy! Anyway...
Once I have a midi (sometimes 2 or 3, if I'm not sure which one to go with), I'll load them up in the midi editor (I use Anvil Studio) and play it through. Multiple times. I'll mute tracks, listen to one solo, etc, trying to get a handle on how the midi is arranged, relative volumes, important parts, etc. This is another point where many a tune meets its end.
When I've settled on the midi and have the relevant information and a feel for where I'm going, I'll do initial editing. I'll drop parts, merge them, change instruments, do some initial dynamic work and tag parts for merger in the final ABC. At this point, I save the newly edited midi into my active folder (I use subfolders in /Music in order to manage my playlist).
Now that I have a midi ready, I'll load it into LOTRO MIDI Player and take a look at what I have for out of range notes. I'll also export the percussion at this point. Some tunes die at this point if it's got much too wide an octave range to realistically squeeze into the range allowed in game. Assuming that's not the case, I'll go part by part and adjust the track in the midi up/down (increments of 12) to fit it into range. This can take multiple iterations. When I have it pretty close, I'll give it a play through in LOTRO MIDI and listen for transpositions that stick out. Those most often are in clarinet and flute, occasionally horn or lute. I may then do smaller (2-3, up to 6) transpositions on export from lotromidi, and export the tracks to ABC format.
Now--here's where Digero's ABC player made my life much happier. Previously, I'd then go into the game and play each track one at a time to catch any additional issues with transpositions, bad notes, pitch issues, etc. Barring those, I'd do some very rough dynamic tweaks to the parts, and then upload the parts for test at our next band session.
With ABC Player.... I no longer do the separate part test in game (exception is with bagpipes--they tend to clip in game but not in the player). Instead, I do the initial dynamic settings, bundle the parts into a multifile, and play it in ABC Player. I'll go back in and make more adjustments to dynamics, perhaps change the instrument used for a part, occasionally go back and edit the midi again if there's a range problem that had been missed or a part is just too high/too low, lather, rinse, repeat. Once I'm good with it, I then upload it for test with the band in game.
In the end, there's still a LOT to be done, even when one starts with a Midi!

So.... what's your method?

People all have their preferences. Actual song writers are going to usually favor writing it themselves. Actual musicians are going usually favor playing it themselves instead of using ABC files. Everyone else will vary based on preference with most taking the easy way of converting a MIDI file and them playing it as an ABC in the game. No way is wrong.

I started out writing the ABCs by hand, but quickly got tired of that. It was just way more work than I have time to spend doing. Now, I'll take a MIDI file that I like, toss it into LOTRO Midi Player and choose the tracks I want for each instrument, adjust them as needed, and so on and then save as ABC. I'll then listen to it in the game and make sure it sounds good. I wasn't happy with the differences in sound in the LOTRO ABC Player, so I don't use that for anything anymore. If I think the song needs adjusting, then I'll work on it manually. In many cases, it sounds good as-is, though.

Do either of you use premade ABC files and how do those usually work out? I've noticed there's quite a bit of folk and traditional music out there in various ABC libraries online. What would the process look like for working with those?

To just play? I do have some solo ones I've grabbed from Fatlute. As for the ones form other sites, they're generally melody line only, with no ornamentation.
Which leads me to the other use--as a starting point to develop for use in game. And for that, no--I am pretty terrible at coming up with harmonies/counterpoint/etc to turn it into something more than just the melody.

I've yet to use someone else's ABC. Though when the ABC system first came out, I couldn't go anywhere without people playing one of two (or both) of the ABCs I arranged

(Those ABCs no longer work in the new system. Given the enhancements, I might redo one of them. The other was just for kicks and grins.)

I would never say that the MIDI-to-ABC route is quick or easy. Yet, I have difficulty coming in after someone else to work on something. I don't know how they did things, and I have my own methods to keep me organized. I also prefer the challenge of that extra step for the original arranging.

Musically inclined? Me? I dunno. I'm rather good at scripting stuff to solve problems (as part of my job). I see this more as a puzzle to solve within a set of criteria, partially my criteria and partially the constraints of the system.

I've played piano (1st and still playing), keyboards (yes, it's different from piano), tuba, sousaphone (yes, there's a difference), tenor euphonium (like a mangled trombone with valves), valved trombone (like a trombone with valves, but easier to play), trumpet, tenor sax (and yes, different ranges of sax are different to play), double-bass (as an upright bass, no bowing), recorder (the whistle kind), and currently learning violin. Things still on my list: guitar and bagpipes. (If the neighbors survive the violin, I figure they'll be better prepared for the bagpipes... but nobody is really prepared for bagpipes... just better prepared.)

I used to sing Tenor. Then when my voice started changing, the instructor kept trying to force me to stay a Tenor. It actually became painful. So that's a loooong time gone. I've wondered about picking it up again, but my range is so limited now.

Does this qualify as musically inclined? Maybe.

Does any of this help me arrange ABC for LotRO? Barely. The instruments in LotRO are rather unique and present their own challenges through odd limitations that one might not find elsewhere. (I still find the C, and ^C, and _D, issue to be really annoying.)

Would using a MIDI file help? I doubt it. I'd rather start cooking a meal myself than having to redo someone else's cooking to my tastes. Since I expect so many differences to work through, I might as well throw it out and start over... or rather, just start from scratch and not bother with someone else's stuff.

This is my preference. I find no fun in "completing" (or fixing) someone else's work.

EDIT: I'm not a musician by trade. I make no public performances of any kind. It has been that way for 8 years now. By that, I'm not a musician. I was terrible in classes. I wanted to do my own thing my own way, tradition be darned. (Theory was just dumb to me. "I'll figure it out by listening. I don't care how many kids Beethoven had." I still don't know how many he had, and I'm not interested in looking it up.) I would get into arguments with the piano teachers over "fingerings". They would insist that the way written on the page was the only way anyone should play it when I could demonstrate something else that was easier on me to play the same thing. (I still ignore the fingerings and just figure out what works for me.) I would dare-say that I'm significantly self-taught. (That's something that the band instructors liked. They handed me an instrument, and I learned it without taking months of lessons.) I do not consider myself to be a 'musician'. I'm a hobbyist.

For me, I try and keep the songs our kinship place unique to us, so I don't post many online.
And tend to use ones that only our kin and members make.
Its nice to hear a musician's song and style, in the files they make I think

I also am not a real musician, I have composed a few things, using Babyalogic, but not all are great hehe.
I have several programs I use, for making abc files:

One program requires registration fee of 25 dollars, but darned worth it you can find other programs for free to edit midis but, I found Melody Assistant to be the best for it ( at least for me ) .
http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/melody.htm

If you already have a program that can make, or edit midis then you are good on that part.
What I do With Melody Assistant, is I find a midi I like ( and even some I do not hehe ) then I make sure the notes are within the 3 octaves used by Lotro, a c6 and a c3 range ( in ABC notation that is c' and C, ) Anything within that range works.
Then, After I get my midi sounding like it should,
I look at my parts, listen to them and sorta evaluate with what instruments we have where they are best suited.
Electric Guitar sustains, and so does strings, so I usually stick those on the Horn. ( some cases Bagpipes )
Bass on Therobo, normal guitars pianos etc on guitar, Lead voice on Flute.
If I have say like too many staves in a song, say 8ish and I know our band numbers usually consist of 2 or 3 I combine staves too.

So say, I have 16 Staves total, I know I have Lute Therobo Harp Flute Clarinet Horn Bagpipes Drums and Cowbell to work with.
Cowbell is mono-toned, so its good for rhythm instrument only. I go through find ones that work together ( and do not conflict the melody ) I make new blank staves, ( a clean treble stave ) and label them all lute therobo harp flute ( etc ) then I combine my 16 staves into those clean staves. Now they are all piano, but they are for a reason, they are all within exact range of each other as long as they are within c6 and c3.
Next when you have your staves in order, export as midi1

Download Lotro Midi http://code.google.com/p/lotromidiplayer/ Load your midi file,
( I used to manually export to abc each stave of the midi with melody assistant but that requires hours and hours of extra work and then timing gets off some times so I do it this way now and it only takes minutes )
So your midi is now in lotro midi, you will see your staves that you labeled lute therobo etc.

Now say you have Lute Therobo Flute Horn and Drums for your song, first thing I do, is I select all but drums, and then look at what is the suggested number they have on the octave. You want your octaves on 0, -12, -24, -36 or 12 24 36 12 keeps them in the same key. This program tells you how many notes are out of range and so on also.
So, export all them Say the song is Neil Young's Trasher export as "trasher" then uncheck, all but lute, export that as lute, same with therobo flute and horn and drum.
Now, as it is I am building this song now, and it shows a transpose of -2 as suggested, with 0 notes out of range.

If I move this to 0, on this particular song, I have 24 notes out of range, but if I move it to -12 I have still a 0 notes out of range.
I want to ignore the suggestion of -2, and stick with the 0 12 etc thing, because it keeps it based on the key the song is in on the midi. If I did it on -2 it would change my key.
So now, I have Trasher.abc lute.abc therobo.abc .flute.abc horn.abc ( this song doesn’t have drum but for the sake of this note here I'll say we do have it hehe ) drum.abc Now, I check Therobo and Lute, and export this as strings.abc and I select Flute and Horn and export this as wind.abc
All parts as long as I keep them in the transposed range of 0, 12, etc will play together in a fellowship. Strings and Winds ( and drum ) make the complete song so it is much easier to play when you have low numbers in your group.

Now for your drum, export this at 0 always at 0 no matter how many it says are out of range ( lotro doesn’t have drums set properly as a standard midi set so we have to work around that ) here: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=320073
talks about the drum problems, and a small program can be used here to fix your drum staves, Read this post, and get both the drum note replacer and its config.cfg

Now you have your files, and you need to edit them!
download http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
it is a great editing tool, you can open up all the staves at once and edit them because you will be putting them into one file.
open first your solo version "trasher" then open lute, therobo, flute, horn, drums, strings and wind.
You'll have them all in a row across the top so it is easy to work with.

Now there is some text here:

X: 1
T: Neil Young Trasher (4:46)
Z: Transcribed by LotRO MIDI Player: http://lotro.acasylum.com/midi
% Original file: Neil Young Trasher.mid
% Transpose: -12
L: 1/4
Q: 110
K: C

the X: line, is your number, it is really important in a batch file we are making for the song.
Any number here will work but I sorta set up a forumla so our kinship can take any file and just go from there without needing to look it up with a /playlist trasher* type command in the game.

MY forumla is like this:
% Hoppa's numeric instruments
% Pertaining to the x: line, here are some
% ideas I use for making a music file for multi-play.
% Lutes are 2 12 22 32 42 52 and so on
% Therobo/bass are 3 13 23 33 43 53 and so on
% Harps are 4 14 24 34 44 54 and so on
% Flutes are 5 15 25 35 45 55 and so on
% Clarinets are 6 16 26 36 46 56 and so on
% Horns are 7 17 27 37 47 57 and so on
% Pipes are 8 18 28 38 48 58 and so on
% Drums are 9 19 29 39 49 59 and so on
% Bells are 10 20 30 40 50 60 and so on
% 1 100 200 300 and so on are for Solo play ( different versions of same song etc. )
% Mulitple versions of the same song in multiplay, will follow same rules;
% For instance, lute of the same song, but different versions
% would be at x:2 and x:102 and so forth.
% Transcribed by (name here ) Written by (name here )
%

So for solo, I have x:1 for lute, I have 2, and for my string and wind I always do 102 for string and 105 for wind.

The T: line is also important, I always edit this to show which part it is helps us know when someone is ready and if they are on the right part.
T: Neil Young Trasher (4:46) becomes for my solo part: T: Neil Young Trasher ( Solo 4:46)

the Z: line is garbage and can be deleted.

anything after % is a note and ignored by the program so it is great to leave other people notes with it when they are looking at your song files.


So my
X: 1
T: Neil Young Trasher (4:46)
Z: Transcribed by LotRO MIDI Player: http://lotro.acasylum.com/midi
% Original file: Neil Young Trasher.mid
% Transpose: -12
L: 1/4
Q: 110
K: C

for my solo piece will look like :
X: 1
T: Neil Young Trasher ( Solo 4:46)
L: 1/4
Q: 110
K: C
+mp+

Notice the +mp+ above? that is the volume control it is a lotro only command, so we can adjust volumes on instruments.

Typically Horns are too loud and drums are too lout and lute is. horn and lute set well at +mp+ and drum at a +p+
The Volume range is
+ppp+
+pp+
+p+
+mp+
+mf+ ( which is default voume, but best to set it if you are using volume changes in other staves )
+f+
+ff+
+fff+

P is the lowest/softest and FFF is the loudest.


Now go through, and edit the headers of all your staves, then save all, (mainly because it just helps so much easier and less hassle with the program ) then copy each stave, and paste it after your text in your solo stave "trasher.abc"

Now, you can combine all these into one file.
I usually, use my solo file, ( for example trasher.abc is the solo file )
so the sets would be X:1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 102 and 105 all in one file set.

You can use Digero's ABC player to test make sure you uncheck the 102 and 105 ( or the other parts ) to hear it as you'd like to play in the game.

As long as you follow a method like this, you can play the full song, solo, duo, or any combination of it by adding parts as you have players. The song will all be within range and should sound good together!