In the games I've made so far, there has always been a big missing piece: Music. I've tried to add creative commons works in the past but it's not easy to find something good and fitting, and I'd prefer to have something original and exclusive anyway.

I've decided to do something about that. I've never been a very musical person, so I had to start from basics. I bought a keyboard and took some piano lessons, for about a year now.

I'm ready to try something. Do you have some tips on what would be a good way to get started? What software to use? I've dabbled with milkytracker and Bruce Perry pointed me to Noteworthy composer, although I'm not really proficient enough with sheet music to make it work well. What about synthesizers? What should I know about music theory and where do you learn that? Do you know any online tutorials?

I personally use Fl Studio. There are tons of free VSTs out there, but sifting through them is such a chore.

I'm so tempted to just invest in Native Instruments Komplete in a few years.

But back to music theory. To me at least, music isn't easy. I power through in some passionate bursts but I can't normally just sit down and churn out some music that fits. If you are getting into music, you'd be best to restrict yourself to simpler instruments (either a physical one, or simple MIDI-like instruments like a virtual piano sound) so you can really grasp what's going on and separate it from the flashiness and special effects that only really work when the fundamental beat, notes, structure and pacing are sound. (no pun intended.) The way a brilliant composer can make the cheapest instrument sound amazing, but an amazing instrument will still be unlistenable when played by a novice. It comes from understanding the essence of what's going on.

That's not to deter you. But my point is, music is practically limitless in potential complexity and scope, so make sure to restrain yourself as a beginner so you can focus learning the ebb and flow of music creation instead of getting distracted by the flashy bits that are to be used sparingly to "fill in" or "spice up" a song.

FL Studio is a great piece of software.

This is also very true.

on a different note, I'm trying to figure out how to effectively incorporate music that is not pre-rendered. E.g. (WAV, MP3, OGG). Music files can get pretty big, but doing it the 'right' way might be better. SoundFonts/MIDI would be good, but Allegro dropped those in Allegro 5.

Maybe I should add that... *thinking*...

I second DUMB. If you're worried about space, there's no better format than modules. They still show up in things like mobile consoles where space is scare. (Gameboy Advance / DS / etc)

Only problem there is not everyone's got a sound device which supports Soundfonts, especially nowadays where the only people with dedicated audio cards are those who need superb sound mixing and quality.

In terms of making music, I still use Impulse Tracker, running it through DOSBox with the DOSBox settings tweaked extremely tight. Probably not the best option to go with nowadays, but I know how to use it which is why I stick with it.

In terms of just making GOOD music though... this is not something you'll learn overnight, or even in a few months. It's a journey; A journey which will almost certainly take YEARS before you're confident in the quality of your work to put it in your own game projects.

The way I learned how to make music was to create my own remixes of existing music. This kind of forces you to listen to all the little intricacies going on if you want to replicate an existing tune as accurately as possible, and as you're doing this, you'll slowly learn why those things make a song sound the way it does. I still make remixes every now and then just to test how far along my skills have come. In fact, sometimes I go the opposite direction for a challenge, taking a more modern-sounding tune and making it sound less modern like something from an NES or Gameboy or such, or I go the other way too, doing an old retro tune in my own style and seeing what I end up with.

But yeah, making your own music is not a skill you'll figure out quickly at all, so in the interim, your best bet for including music in your games is to either commission others, find people looking merely to be credited, or find existing music which fits and see if the authors are willing to allow you to use it, either for free or for a fee.

The point of these files was to be standalone, but these file formats allow you to make a single file contain several sub-songs, each one with an optional intro followed by a looping part. Sound samples are only needed once.
I even remember one of the Amiga trackers could store music as "song", where the samples are not in the file, they will be loaded by filename. An incredible number of musics were written using just the "stock" sample disk ST-01, this is exactly the kind of sound font you're talking about.

I see what you did there

Well I started learning the Piano at 35 - I never expected to be proficient in just a couple of years. I can deal with long term projects.

Thanks for the tip, I think I'll give it a try. Learning a new tool might help me formulate the right questions.

I suppose I'm at a loss where to get started though. Some good books perhaps? I asked my piano teacher but he recommended some dense academic works. I suspect he's not really a person who learns from books - to him all books are equally boring.

I might try that as well. Part of the reason I want to do it myself is that I feel squeamish about asking somebody else to invest time in my crappy games, without anything in return.

I would have limited faith in music theory books and much more faith in experimentation and experience. Study works by the great composers. As you learn to play them, you will notice things they do that make them work. A good piano teacher can also help you with this. Experiment with improvisation too, and see for yourself what works and what doesn't. Like this you will develop your own style and compose stuff you can feel, rather than just trying to comply with rules and ending up with something that sounds autistic.

All that said, a limited amount of reading in companion to the above won't hurt at all and can be quite useful, but you can do that later when you have a better idea of how to choose such a book.

Sorry Mark, couldn't stop myself from asking, but is that guy a relative of yours?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRYFKcMa_Ek