Katawa Shoujo Forums

EvilDragon wrote:OK, then I will be anxiously waiting for the response!

Btw, "fiddling around with the midi files"? You don't use them when writing stuff for KS, or something like that? ...

What I had in mind is - the track is done, the MIDI is sent, the sounds wanted are told, I find those sounds and make individual tracks per MIDI channel, then send them to you for final mixdown. I can also make my version of mix if the need be.


EDIT: for posting the sound example, here's something little that I have done some time ago, my first try with atmospheric electronica...

http://www.box.net/shared/2sdoiiakho

Bass can be tamed down if necessary, but I think it's the perfect kinda-spooky background, let's say something Hanako-related maybe

In essence this is just a mild example of the quality of sound that can be had, this was made in 45 minutes really...

I like this - you seem to have a good idea how music and atmosphere should relate.
Care to do a happier or neutral background tune? Maybe they would let you onto the team if you impressed them, I dont know?

EvilDragon wrote: For the record, here's the virtual instruments that I have worked hard for, and that can be of great use to you:

Pianoteq 3
EastWest Symphonic Orchestra Gold XP
EastWest Colossus
Best Service Ethno World 4 (ethnic instruments from around the world)
Native Instruments Absynth 4 (great for atmospheres and SFX)
Native Instruments B4-II (Hammond organ)
Native Instruments Pro-53
Native Instruments FM-8
Cakewalk Dimension Pro
Cakewalk Rapture
Toontrack EZdrummer (with DFH and Latin Percussion add-ons)
XLN Audio Addictive Drums
VAZ Modular 3
Korg Legacy Collection Digital (loads of bells and whistles, legendary synths)
GForce impOSCar
GForce Minimonsta
GForce M-Tron

Wow. Just wow.

I could donate the use of my Symphonic Cube Standard to clean up any classical sounds in the music.

i think the music is fine,it adds a nice backround music to help add to the modes of the current thing going on,good,bad,happy,sad ect,also to be honnest most of the time,i get so into reading it i cant even hear the music much anymore

Piano wrote:

BcDed wrote:I think I know what you guys want.
You want professional quality music. Well maybe your right it would be cooll of them to license songs.
How epic would it be to have a presex scene play along exactly to Paradise by the Dashboard Lights.
On a more serious note I think they did a good job as far as composing go's and you may be right about technical issues but in the end I think many of the songs are good considering that they aren't meant to be standalone but to simply set the tone.

I do not want the game to be good.
I want it to be so great that it blows people away.. thinking "what the hell, that was surprisingly awesome".
I dont get that feeling from the demo. Thats why I am here expressing my opinion, to hopefully get enough attention for the music to be changed and blow people away.

Just thought id point out, this is a demo. It is the game in its infancy. For a demo i found the music quite good. Second, its an independent communal project. it does not have the backing of a major studio, as far as i know. Its done by a group of people dissatisfied with the gamesout there and wanting to make something different. They have a good idea and the music supports it.
Now, could it be improved? Yes. Will it be improved? Most likely. I think its pretty good but my music experience is the mandatory classes in elementary and middle school.
Also, if you think it could be done better offer your services as a musician and fix it.

Piano wrote:

mallory wrote:I happen to quite like the pitch shift in Daylight... ಠ_ಠ

When it happened the first time, I thought it was some sort of event in the game...

And then it kept going.
It was that out of place.

The funny part is this made me realize exactly what song you're talking about, and I had the same reaction, mainly because it happened at an appropriate time (I'd just pressed the button to go to the next bit of dialogue and it happened to be an awkward moment). It was only a little jarring for me after that, but I agree it's out of place.

Other than that though, I really like this game's music.

Pokemaster222 wrote:

Piano wrote:

BcDed wrote:I think I know what you guys want.
You want professional quality music. Well maybe your right it would be cooll of them to license songs.
How epic would it be to have a presex scene play along exactly to Paradise by the Dashboard Lights.
On a more serious note I think they did a good job as far as composing go's and you may be right about technical issues but in the end I think many of the songs are good considering that they aren't meant to be standalone but to simply set the tone.

I do not want the game to be good.
I want it to be so great that it blows people away.. thinking "what the hell, that was surprisingly awesome".
I dont get that feeling from the demo. Thats why I am here expressing my opinion, to hopefully get enough attention for the music to be changed and blow people away.

Just thought id point out, this is a demo. It is the game in its infancy. For a demo i found the music quite good. Second, its an independent communal project. it does not have the backing of a major studio, as far as i know. Its done by a group of people dissatisfied with the gamesout there and wanting to make something different. They have a good idea and the music supports it.
Now, could it be improved? Yes. Will it be improved? Most likely. I think its pretty good but my music experience is the mandatory classes in elementary and middle school.
Also, if you think it could be done better offer your services as a musician and fix it.

The person who was composing the music has left 4LS.

Still, Nicol could have passed on the MIDI files to Blue123, and he could produce them with better software, to sound better. For example, acoustic guitars sound like a joke (NHF), plus on some tracks piano is so muffled it borders with a toy sound :/ It can all be produced WAY better, and judging by the Blue123's teaser (Moonlight), which sounds VASTLY better, it doesn't take too much logic to decide to rerecord the demo music with better software!

@The Chemist - VSL is quite nice, yes But I feel EWQL is more "immediate", it has orchestral samples with reverb included, so little to no additional processing is needed. I like that, because it makes for some quick and good tracks.

@Piano - you have two of my other tracks here. One is original, the other is a classical recording.

@Pokemaster - it doesn't take a major studio to make quality sounding music tracks anymore. Look at the list of software I have at my disposal, most of it even the major studios use. So yeah, 4LS can have professional-sounding OST, if they make the right choice. I would be more than happy to collaborate with Blue123 in rerecording and producing better quality tracks!


EDIT: for my own homework, I'm gonna listen to EVERY track currently in the demo, and will later open a topic with my comments. Not about composition, because the music is very well thought-out, it's just some things regarding the feel, the quality of the sound, and some stuff that doesn't really sound right.

Finally, the point of what I want to say with all this, and I have mentioned it more than once already: the music is composed brilliantly, it just can sound better!

Hey Dragon, where'd you find the EW? I've looked for AGES.

The first time I heard the pitch shift in Daylight I exclaimed "Holy Shit"
but after it played for a few times I started to wait for it

Anyway being a guitarist(who is barely a musician), I will say there is a lot of room for improvement in the sound tracks. A good game should have any necessary ends met... but some of the tracks in the game are just awful to hear.

And yes, to sound better doesn't require too much resources, just a couple of good softwares and good manipulator. Do you really think the OST from the games you've played all these years are recorded in studio? I doubt it.

I generally love the music in KS, in fact, it's one of my favourite parts of it. Most VNs have really shitty music that sounds like a poor man's version of 80s Sega arcade music or like the audio equivalent of clip art; super-generic, cheap-sounding shit. But yeah, some of the KS music seems pretty weird or has some parts that don't work.

Daylight's non-lead parts sound really discordant. There's almost a crunchy sound to it and it sounds a little like there's one guy playing a nice melody on a guitar while some other guy strums a detuned bass in the background.

Out of the Loop's only problem for me is that the right-speaker-only stuff is quite harsh. Personally, I'd put it like 70% right and 30% left, or something like that. Also, in the main lead melody there's a bit where a note seems to be crammed in there. It's really hard to point out where it is exactly, but it just sounds like someone accidentally pressed a key while going between two legitimate notes. Well, there's also the awkward way in which it loops.

Those are the only ones that come to mind now. Generally I really like the music. The only song I can hear the Chopin influence in is Nocturne - a lot of the other tracks actually remind me of Haibane Renmei.

Teclo wrote:Well, there's also the awkward way in which it loops.

Going by the song title that seems appropriate.

mallory wrote:Am I the only one who likes the pitch shift... D:?

No. At first I thought it felt out of place, but the more and more I listen to it, the more and more I like it. It breaks up the song nicely, in my opinion.

The music is fine. If you want to remix and re-tune it to your heart's content, that is quite alright.

Daylight's pitch-shift really needs to be changed. The role of music in this game is simply to provide some ambiance to help set the mood. A really jarring change like in Daylight takes it out of the background, where it should be, into the foreground. It's something distracting that shouldn't be, not unless it was to signify something that was going to happen in the story like some people thought it was.

But, I'm no musician. I can't really say how to improve on the already-existing music other than Daylight.

I like every single thing about all the music in this thing. Except the pitch bend in Daylight. It's too dramatic and it doesn't play nice with loops. I'd cut it off the end and fade the last two or three seconds preceding the cut.

Everything else, I wouldn't change a fricking note. I respect the opinions of professional musicians in this thread who feel otherwise, but as a layperson it's pretty damned good. I could care less if the guitars don't sound like actual guitars.