AGS Music 1.0

InCreator · Sat 26/05/2007 03:23:05

I just finished hosting a tune contest and came onto a strange idea...

The truth is there is loads of good musicians among AGSers. And I don't mean garage-rock-band ones.
Just listen at some entries from various tune contests, there's some brilliant music out there.
The main strong genres seem to be ambient and chillout type of music.

So, how about compiling a disk? Like, some musicians donate some of tracks (according to disk overall genre) and we compile them into something that can be sold, online for example? I know that every (hobbyist) musician has lots of good tracks just wasting hard disk space...

Wouldn't it generate some money?

And then we could give money to CJ or starving children or something.
Not that I really had any connections or possibilites for music distribution, but I'm sure some of AGSers have.

It's just an idea that's bugging me few last days. Would it work?

Steel Drummer · Sat 26/05/2007 03:29:49

Well in my opinion, an ambient disc wouldn't sell so well. I know I wouldn't buy something like that. Perhaps music with more 'character', eg: with themes and such?

Or maybe a disc with mixed genres? I know that some AGSers specialize in certain types of music, so maybe people could collaborate or something?

Distribution: Geoffkhan has released a few CDs I believe, so he'd probably have some know-how about distribution.

InCreator · Sat 26/05/2007 03:37:05

I didn't mean ambient neccessarily. It could be any disk, as long as there's enough contributions of this any genre to fill a disk. Multigenre disk? I'm not so sure about that, maybe a wide genre then... Or a disk with a theme indeed. Even a name could set alot (thinking about Jesper Kyd's work). He has so many different stuff, music for games and such, and there's no specific genre. But it all fits together!

Gregjazz · Sat 26/05/2007 07:35:19

I think I know what you're talking about... more like a CD of just a bunch of tunes from various AGS members, generating some cash for CJ or donated, etc. I've seen other forums (usually music-related though) do this sort of thing.

Nikolas · Sat 26/05/2007 07:44:52

I don't think it's a bad idea...

The selling is always an issue, the quality and mastering are also an issue.

Additionally as far as I remember CJ always says no to such ideas... $:-\$ Still donating the money to starving children or something seems a better idea.

Gregjazz · Sat 26/05/2007 07:48:08

Quote from: Nikolas on Sat 26/05/2007 07:44:52
Additionally as far as I remember CJ always says no to such ideas... $:-\$ Still donating the money to starving children or something seems a better idea.

Donating would be nice. It's then more of an issue of... do you think people (in the AGS community, at least) would purchase the CD, for it to be worth the effort of organizing contracts and whatnot for such a collaborative (in a sense) CD?

Nikolas · Sat 26/05/2007 07:55:06

$:-\$

difficult to tell.

In reality I doubt the contracts should be something TOO difficult to do. I mean, there IS trust in this community... If you tell me, Greg, that you got the money (for example) and donated them to oxfam, or unicef or whatever, I believe you, no doubt. After all I know where you live

Contracts should be something simple.

1. all copyrights remain to the composers
2. All royalties remain to the composers
3. All expenses (pressing, leaflets, distribution possibly), are handled equality by the members taking part. (for example 12 tracks? All expenses/12 and so on)

One question is this. For a CD version I would imagine CDBaby?
For digital version is it iTunes and the rest, right?
(I can research on both of these and let you know a bit further, although I've not gone that way yet. If anyone else already's done that, please let us know)

What I find a bit more dangerous is what the CD will include. If you will exclude something (possibly), or how would a CD with 1 orchestral track from me (for example) sound, along with a track from Helm... Though I can really see it working tbh...

Gregjazz · Sat 26/05/2007 08:06:21

Quote from: Nikolas on Sat 26/05/2007 07:55:06
In reality I doubt the contracts should be something TOO difficult to do. I mean, there IS trust in this community... If you tell me, Greg, that you got the money (for example) and donated them to oxfam, or unicef or whatever, I believe you, no doubt. After all I know where you live

Hahahah, this is true.

Well, it's more about someone organizing the whole thing...

Nikolas · Sat 26/05/2007 08:44:57

Well, first thing should be to check if other people are interested.

So far the only ones that've shown any interest are:
Geoffkhan
Increator
Nikolas
Steal Drummer (??)

Let's see who would like to enter and everything else will come into place in this thread...

But do share your knowledge of distribution please.

Hammerite · Sat 26/05/2007 10:11:31

This reminds me: I need to buy Selected Ambient Works II by Aphex Twin at some point.

This sounds like a good idea anyway.

He-Man · Sat 26/05/2007 12:58:03

I think this is a cool idea and I would gladly donate a track (or more)!
I hope this works out...

voh · Sat 26/05/2007 13:06:08

I think CJ is allergic to donations.

But it sounds like a good idea, and I'd gladly donate a new track (since I've just set up my new 16-track mixer + new Line 6 UX + new dedicated recording station

)

Nikolas · Sat 26/05/2007 13:43:26

In which case, the question turns to this then:

What should, the members who take part, do with the money? Donate them to an organisation? make money for themselves?

Something else? Get a dedicated server for AGS for the next x years or something?

Nick Dangerous · Sat 26/05/2007 13:48:47

I would be interested to contribute to (almost) any compilation but I would say that there aren't many people that would buy it. I'd say it should be downloadeable for free and only sell the tracks on CD with cover and maybe some gimmicks to those who want to support. This way people know what they would get.

Damien · Sat 26/05/2007 14:02:50

How about a "Tune Contest" entries database? Similar to MAGS one?

Vel · Sat 26/05/2007 14:15:31

Why sell it? Dealing with money would bring up numerous other difficulties. Why not just compile the better musical pieces and release them online as a compilation just for fun?

And Damien's idea also seems good, with a basic rating system and a genre classification it could turn out just fine.

Peder 🚀 · Sat 26/05/2007 14:56:20

Id be up for it...

m0ds · Sat 26/05/2007 15:13:24

Nice idea! A compilation CD of music from AGS games would be phat, and would more than likely appeal to a lot of people outside the community. Plus, not all tunes are that long, some game themes are only 30 seconds to a minute, so you could easily pack a CD full of 30 mp3s or so. 30 composers willing to contribute can easily be found, and with any luck the majority of them would be happy not to see a penny from it.

Personally I think a CD would be great, it'd be something I'd definitely love to own. As for selling, I can see it might not be a popular choice, but there's been occasional chit-chat of publishing an AGS cd-rom (in a box, with a manual) which I think might also happen one day. But that would really only be to support the community, go into a pot which pays for the net hosting, forums, that kind of thing. It'd be good if a compilation CD went into something like that. Obviously, someone would have to make the CD's, but there's plenty of people on here capable of doing that (except me! :p) So, the money could go into an AGS pot and when the compilation is ready CJ would simply pay someone, like Matt G, to print 30 CD's and make 30 covers. There is a question of distribution but we haven't got that far yet.

Besides the music that is already cd audio quality, I think we'd need one person to deal with turning some MIDI tracks into nice sounding MP3s, because I don't think midi should be excluded from the compilation.

Similarly, an online free compilation would still be cool. But I'm all for hard copies of things

dasjoe · Sat 26/05/2007 15:16:35

Quote from: Nikolas on Sat 26/05/2007 13:43:26
Get a dedicated server for AGS for the next x years or something?

what, another one? http://americangirlscouts.org/agswiki/American_Girl_Scouts

http://americangirlscouts.org accepted donations before

Steel Drummer · Sat 26/05/2007 16:41:13

I have a bunch of unused tracks from a GiP (unused because they don't fit with the game's style) which I could give to this CD (depending on how good they are).

I think we could release a bunch of compilation CDs, each with a different musical style. For example (this would probably be very interesting), we could have a CD of cover songs.

Quote from: Nick Dangerous on Sat 26/05/2007 13:48:47
I would be interested to contribute to (almost) any compilation but I would say that there aren't many people that would buy it. I'd say it should be downloadeable for free and only sell the tracks on CD with cover and maybe some gimmicks to those who want to support. This way people know what they would get.

Would you be willing to collaborate, as we had done on JBurger's game?

Quote from: m0ds
Besides the music that is already cd audio quality, I think we'd need one person to deal with turning some MIDI tracks into nice sounding MP3s, because I don't think midi should be excluded from the compilation.

I think Nick Dangerous (and probably many others) could probably do this. Nick and I have a great system going for a game that we're composing music for: I made a MIDI, he changed it to mp3, added some extra things to spruce the track up, and it was ready to be used. Of course, some AGSers are superb at sequencing MIDI, and getting it to sound like an MP3.