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?
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.
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 (http://www.jesperkyd.com/) work). He has so many different stuff, music for games and such, and there's no specific genre. But it all fits together!
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.
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.
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?
:-\
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 ;D
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...
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 ;D
Hahahah, this is true. :)
Well, it's more about someone organizing the whole thing...
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. :)
This reminds me: I need to buy Selected Ambient Works II by Aphex Twin at some point.
This sounds like a good idea anyway.
I think this is a cool idea and I would gladly donate a track (or more)!
I hope this works out...
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 :D)
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? :P Something else? Get a dedicated server for AGS for the next x years or something?
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.
How about a "Tune Contest" entries database? Similar to MAGS one?
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.
Id be up for it...
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 :)
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 :)
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.
I support the idea with both hands! Ok, maybe ambient doesn't sell so well, but lets just call it chillout. Remember, original ambient music has zero beat anyway, so... A nice name would be "Adventure moods" or "Music for the adventurer".
And if selling doesn't work, we could put it on a freeware music netlabel which guarantees downloads and fame for the best musicians!
Some netlabels for free and commercial music:
REALAUDIO (http://www.realaudio.ch/index1.html)
PHONICA (http://www.phonicarecords.co.uk/default.aspx8)
OBSCURE (http://www.obscure.ch/)
STADTGRUENEN (http://www.stadtgruenlabel.net/)
And one from my own homeland: KOHVIRECORDS (http://www.kohvirecords.ee)
TOTAL LIST OF NETLABELS (http://www.phlow.de/netlabels/index.php/Special:Categories)
And ofcopurse dmusic (http://www.dmusic.com/services/)
I agree with Nik. Let's NOT sell it but offer it for free. Decent quality MP3's for download. There's nothing we could use the money on which would benefit AGS directly (unless CJ suddenly finds a medicine for donation allergies ;)).
I'm a metal/rock/punk/pop kinda guy, in case we're listing genres which we can write for already ;)
How about a collaberation thingy? Like me and Haddas have been (slowly) working on a song! Very slowly because I take ages to find time.. sigh! But still! An album of songs that were made in collaberation!
Or you lot make songs and I sing all over them! :=
KIDDING! Geeze!
I have a couple of songs I want vocals for - what kind of 'vocalists' do we have here? I'd love to have some vocals on these tracks (some are 2 years old and I can't, really cannot, sing them myself)
Quote from: ManicMatt on Sat 26/05/2007 20:12:23
How about a collaberation thingy? Like me and Haddas have been (slowly) working on a song! Very slowly because I take ages to find time.. sigh! But still! An album of songs that were made in collaberation!
That's a good idea. I've been doing that with Nick Dangerous on a game, and it's been a very fast process.
Quote
I have a couple of songs I want vocals for - what kind of 'vocalists' do we have here? I'd love to have some vocals on these tracks (some are 2 years old and I can't, really cannot, sing them myself)
Cameron has pretty good vocals.
Hey... why not have him and his band contribute a few tracks to this album?
I can donate a track. probably a Jazz/big band or 50's Horror movie tune.
btw i also could give a hand converting midis to nice sounding mp3/wav
Quote from: voh
I agree with Nik. Let's NOT sell it but offer it for free. Decent quality MP3's for download.
Something else we could do would be to have a 'database' of free AGSer music, where you could add to it whenever you wanted to. The music could be used by people in their games/movies/whatever else, but people would have to pay royalties to the song's creator (or they could pay a royalty that went into a giant 'AGS fund'.
Quote from: voh
There's nothing we could use the money on which would benefit AGS directly (unless CJ suddenly finds a medicine for donation allergies Wink).
We might be able to use the money to help sponsor AGS games to be published... Just a thought.
I'm not a big fan of money. I need it, sure, but I'm not a "I WANNA BE RICH" kind of guy.
If I ever do finish a game, it'll be free. I've only taken donations from people I host when they made it clear they'd kick my face in rather than not donate.
But that's my personal opinion and I can't (and won't) persuade anyone any one way.
I love how this community works, where when one gives to it, one receives from it. I wouldn't like to lose that, or the creativity, just because there's some ultimate goal to reach.
The goal should be the travel itself.
I'm so philosophical at 6:30 in the morn.
I'd love to collaborate, but it's pretty much how much carage style do we want, or brilliant sample music, or just midi ramblings? Because yeah. But anyway, I don't like the money idea, but of course, you could put a donation thing there which goes straight to UNICEF or something similar. Like some gay choir singing on behalf of the children, and reading the text files that come along, you start to feel bad for not paying ;)
I like the money part. Especially donating, though I don't trust charity organizations. How about AGS server rent or something useful like this? And first, the project should pay for its own expenses. There's loads of people with money and no idea where to put it. Why not reap profit where it just lies unused? Voluntary donations don't really work. But we don't have to charge much, especially since this will be alternative and somewhat amateur music, right? People even pay for crappy christian-themed games, why not for nice music?
Even better part is... well, I've made music whole my life, but never released anything in wide public (I mean, other places than online forum/competition) and nothing has ever made much further from my hard disk. Project like this would release people's works into public, which many, I believe - haven't officially released anything aswell.
Also, using profit (if there will be any) for good reasons, would make the project more important, as well as participating in it.
Hmm, AGS foundation which raises its funds every now and then?
Well, one problem with money, as I see it, is that you can't control what people contribute and the ways they want to get credited.
Let's say a person decides to "borrow" someone else's work or use non royalty-free samples and no one notices at first. If it's sold - too late. However, if it's in a free database, I'm guessing it wouldn't be that big of a deal and could be removed without too much problems.
Gay. Well, there's going to be a huge money debate, one which I certainly won't get involved with. Basically, if there's a CD edition, I'll help out. If its going to be an online thingy then any old person can do it. I'd only be interested in a CD edition personally, because to be fair, it's not that hard to ask composers for their soundtracks, and IMO owning the MP3's on my PC is nothing special.
Quote from: m0ds on Mon 28/05/2007 02:00:22
I'd only be interested in a CD edition personally, because to be fair, it's not that hard to ask composers for their soundtracks, and IMO owning the MP3's on my PC is nothing special.
I saw you saying something including "game soundtracks" before and brushed it off, but it was never said in the original post that it was about soundtracks. AFAIK the idea was to compile an unset amount of tracks composed and performed (or recorded, anyway) by people from the AGS boards.
If it's just a soundtrack CD, count me out, because my music is hardly fit for that unless it's the soundtrack to a Streets of Rage kinda game :D
If it's about writing songs and putting them together with the lot of you without it having to be fit as game music, I'm in.
Weeeellllll.... Unless it's going to be sold for money, because (and this I do agree with m0ds on) I do NOT want to be a part of the inevitable money tug-of-war.
Ahh okay I see. Well, I'd only really be interested in a CD/compilation that is made up of tracks from AGS games. If its a CD just showcasing AGSers talents as composers, and the tracks are not realted to adventure game music, I'm not that interested myself. No offence, I'm sure people make great music for outside of the community. But hey. I'm engaging IN the community here but moreso what it is this community does. Which is why I'd love a soundtrack CD.
And Voh, essentially, I'd hope, any music would be okay - streets of rage style or not, so long as it was related to an AGS game :) If the CD had 3 tracks from games I'd heard of and 27 I hadn't...I'd still buy it!
/me raises arm in a whopping 1 frame
I think this is a really great idea personally. I think it might be difficult to get the CD off the ground right away, perhaps it could start as a website attached to AGS featuring highlights from game soundtracks and contests and such donated by the composers, and then once that picks up some popularity, it would be a simpler matter to start compiling and promoting a CD.
As for the money, I'm not really into that either. I think free mp3 releases are the way to go. However, if the organizers are dead set on money, it should all go to AGS server rent. Nothing against OxFam or anything, but it just makes the most since, as AGS is what brought this all together.