Hey everyone. I’ve composed some battle music for Project Aqua last weekend. Its 1 minute 6 seconds long, and its loopable. Check it out and tell me what you think
Chances are I will extend it to 1.5 to 2 minutes long. That seems to be the average time for Final Fantasy battle music. Many underestimate the quality of midi for some reason. I’ve been listening to FF midi music, and most of it sounds just like the in-game music, if not exactly similar. I wouldn’t be surprised if games like FF7 and FF8 were made using midi.
It’s true that the FF7/8 midis sound great, and some music is better than its PSX version (I have both midis and ps1 music from both games), but you can add voice using a format like .IT (via samples) and add several effects which are not possible with midi.
By the way, how does this sound? (use “save target as” and a player that supports the format)
I actually liked the beginning and end the most. Parts of the middle grate a little bit. But this is still excellent, excellent, excellent!
Edit: Never mind… I listened to it again and the problems must have been in the original short version. This is truly amazing. It had a similar effect on me as a couple of the lesser songs in Chrono Trigger
Thanks for the comments guys. For those who can’t seem to play midi music, will AIF work? I’d be willing to PM you a link to an AIF file after I export it as one (to conserve bandwidth).
Anyways… how to make this. First off, you need to have a midi composer of some kind. Since I’m on a mac, I use a program called EasyBeat (quite expensive, but works very well). I’m not sure if its for PC or not (doubt it), but its at www.macility.com . I do think there are some good free midi composers for PC, you just have to search around.
Second step… go get a load of midi music, and I suggest Final Fantasy music (http://www.zellfantasy.it/download/music.htm). Take a look at how the music is composed, and pick up some ideas. Then start composing!
Of course, you can’t expect yourself to create a masterpiece right off the bat. It helps if you’ve had music experience (for me, over 10 years).
Thanks for the comments everyone! Take care!
Ernest Liu, Art Director of Project Aqua Project Aqua
As a “battle music” it fits in the console shooter style music… The music is not bad for a start… you should seek a more dramatic motive and try to fiddle with it a little more, as right now the music seems very fragmented
2) Harmony: I was pleased with the opening mediant jump, and some interesting (and apropriate) motives(harmonically) but there was nothing afterwards: you melted the rest (from the 0:40(the .it version) approx)in the “amiga/dance” style, which I hate
3) A distinguishable bass melody would help to provide some monumental sound, if you’d ask me
4) Instruments used are (as I said before) making and impression of cheap shooter style console game… maybe more eh… classical touch?
It’s hard for me to fetch some more crits and suggestions right now… I hope the crits above will help
