Give me input for IndieGameMusic.com improvements

[mr_lou]

Hy all

It's time to implement an improvement for IndieGameMusic.com. I want to add tags to the files there, and I need your suggestions to what tags there should be.

Currently, a musician can add a track. This track can be available in multiple fileformats, such as MIDI, MOD and/or MP3. See an example here.
The track itself is marked with a genre and some mood tags. This genre and the mood tags are therefor put on all files for the track also.
Now, what I want to do is to add additional tags for each file, and I've come up with the following suggestions so far:

"Chip music"
I want to remove "Chip tune" from the Genre box in the search form, and add this tag for each file instead. In the above example, only the XM and MP3 file is actual chip music, while MIDI and SMAF obviously can't be chip music.

"Optimized for filesize and compability on the JavaME platform"
One that would be really useful for JavaME developers. Used to only show MIDI files that are infact deliberately optimized for the JavaME platform. Other MIDI files may also work on the JavaME platform, but most likely wasn't intended to by the musician.

"Loop"
Tells whether the track loops or not. Useful for Flash developers who always wants mp3 files that does a smooth loop. Also useful when in search of MOD or XM files that loops infinitely. This tag will replace "Loop part" in the category box (which isn't visible at the moment because no musician has added a loop part).

Some other suggestions for tags:
"4-chan Protracker compatible MOD"
"Has vocals / lyrics"
"Instrumental"
"Acoustic music"

That's what I have so far. I'm very much interested in hearing from you game-developers what would be useful for you to search for. What do you think of the above suggestions? Useful or not? Do you have other suggestions for tags that'll make life easier for you when searching for music for your game?

Thanks for any input.

[EldKatt]

Be aware that I'm approaching this as a musician rather than a developer, but OK. I think your list of genres seems quite arbitrary and limited. Some of them are very specific, others are exceedingly generic, and some are ill-defined or obscure. If I had to categorize all imaginable game music into just 21 discreet fields, you wouldn't see "Christmas" or "post-industrial" in there, nor would you see "popular music", which could semantically overlap with (or contain) quite a few of the other categories. I'd like to see a more thought-through and systematic method for this categorization.

You're absolutely right to move chiptune from genre to tag, but I think you might actually benefit from turning all of these into tags, simply because no matter how much you improve on your choices (which you can and should do in any case), there will always be room for plenty of overlap. OK, so there's a bunch of music that falls squarely into "blues", but a game developer clicking "blues" probably doesn't care whether or not it has twelve bars and goes to the subdominant on the fifth bar, or if it has narrative lyrics in three-line stanzas where the first two lines are identical. He'll want a "bluesy" feel, and there's nothing to say a "Ballad" can't be bluesy. Or a piece of "Popular music". Is "My Funny Valentine" a "Ballad" or is it "Jazz"? Of course, it might seem that all I'm doing is pointing out weaknesses in the current selection of genres, but such problems of categorization will always exist, and by admitting right away that you can't ever think up a perfect set of genre categories and just turning them into tags, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble.

OK, another area. I think you'd have a lot to gain from having a set of tags that describes "instrumentation". For any music made for a particular set of instruments (whether recorded or synthesized), it's very helpful to be able to search by such criteria. Tags for particular instruments, for particular types of instrument groupings, or a combination, I'm not so sure. Maybe discussion will ensue and forum magic fix the problem.

Regarding the other suggestions you mention:

• Looping is obviously quite necessary. Good.
• The JavaME MIDI thing and Protracker-compatible are both technical stuff that I have little insight into, but sure--and I'm sure there are plenty of other aspects of the format that could use further classification, although in some cases that might be better accomplished with something other than tags.
• "Has vocals" and "Instrumental" seem obviously mutually exclusive. "Instrumental" might be better served by searching for "NOT 'has vocals'", in which case there is no need to tag the probably vast majority of instrumental ones particularly.
• "Acoustic music" I assume means recorded with real instruments, as opposed to pure computer or synthesized music? If so, there are probably better ways to put it. If you apply it literally, a recorded jazz piano trio would go as "acoustic", but if you add a guitar, or the bassist switches to electric bass, it's not. I do not see the need for such a distinction.

OK, that's all.

[mr_lou]

Thanks for your reply EldKatt. Much appreciated.

I think your list of genres seems quite arbitrary and limited. Some of them are very specific, others are exceedingly generic, and some are ill-defined or obscure. If I had to categorize all imaginable game music into just 21 discreet fields, you wouldn't see "Christmas" or "post-industrial" in there, nor would you see "popular music", which could semantically overlap with (or contain) quite a few of the other categories. I'd like to see a more thought-through and systematic method for this categorization.

The genres are supposed to be main genres, as in very wide and open - not detailed restricted ones. They are mainly copied from other soundbank sites and picked from Wikipedia. It's quite possible that it needs to be revised, since I'm no expert at all in that area, and I'm very open to suggestions about how the list of genres should be like in your opinion. So please do mail me such a suggestion to mr_lou@vip.cybercity.dk
I was puzzled by that "Popular music" myself, but included it because it was listed on other similar sites.

I see the "Christmas" of course has to be removed as well, and replaced by a mood tag I think.

You're absolutely right to move chiptune from genre to tag, but I think you might actually benefit from turning all of these into tags, simply because no matter how much you improve on your choices (which you can and should do in any case), there will always be room for plenty of overlap. Of course, it might seem that all I'm doing is pointing out weaknesses in the current selection of genres, but such problems of categorization will always exist, and by admitting right away that you can't ever think up a perfect set of genre categories and just turning them into tags, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble.

It's never easy for the musician to put his/her music into a genre. That's also why I want the genres to be very main, as in the higher level. And it's also easier for the game-developer to search. Most people doesn't know half the genres that exists anyway and wouldn't know what to search for.
So, main genres only, and the rest is done by searching by mood tags (and later possibly also game-style).

OK, another area. I think you'd have a lot to gain from having a set of tags that describes "instrumentation". For any music made for a particular set of instruments (whether recorded or synthesized), it's very helpful to be able to search by such criteria. Tags for particular instruments, for particular types of instrument groupings, or a combination, I'm not so sure. Maybe discussion will ensue and forum magic fix the problem.

Tags for instruments might be implemented next time. For now I think it'll be too big considering the small size of the site, and I'd like to focus on the genres, moods and additional new file tags this time.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

A profile option to turn off email notices would be nice.

[mr_lou]

A profile option to turn off email notices would be nice.

Do you mean newsletters, or when game-developers wants to request a track?

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Both . 

[mr_lou]

Both . 

Hmm, I get the newsletter part, and I'll add that, but if game-developers can't request a track, then how can they use it? Even for freeware, most artists prefer to be asked, e.g. to avoid their music in ethically / politically wrong productions. Therefor it's a general rule of IGM.

You'd like to be able to give anyone permission to just download and use your track regardless of the production, and without contacting you at all?

A game-developer recently asked me to do a more general contact form, instead of having to request a track in order to reach the artist. You would also like to be able to turn such a contact-form off?

[m0ds]

I noticed there is no "forgot password" option on the login page...took me ages to remember my login details!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Well, I think being able to mark some music as completely freeware so they don't need to contact you would be nice.  I was more interested in being able to stop the newsletter since I tend to check sites regularly and don't like notices .

[mr_lou]

I noticed there is no "forgot password" option on the login page...took me ages to remember my login details!

It's on my todo-list.

Well, I think being able to mark some music as completely freeware so they don't need to contact you would be nice.  I was more interested in being able to stop the newsletter since I tend to check sites regularly and don't like notices .

How about you type it in your profile or in the note field of the track (or file if you prefer), and I change the red text to "...must contact author, unless otherwise stated in artist profile or track info"?

[Inkoddi]

"Loop"
Tells whether the track loops or not. Useful for Flash developers who always wants mp3 files that does a smooth loop.

It is probably a good idea to remove MP3 as an allowed format for this bit, since there are no looping MP3 files. Mpeg layer-3 compression has the peculiarity of adding a tiny bit of silence at both the beginning and the end of the file, which will produce a very distinctive hiccup whenever it loops. Yes.

[EldKatt]

Really? In the files? I always assumed that was a decoder/application issue of some sort. Particularly seeing as how I can listen to mp3 playlists without being bothered by gaps. Or is that actually active compensation on behalf of the program?

Yes, I could research this myself, but why should I? I have a right to know! And I'm lazy.

[mr_lou]

It is probably a good idea to remove MP3 as an allowed format for this bit, since there are no looping MP3 files. Mpeg layer-3 compression has the peculiarity of adding a tiny bit of silence at both the beginning and the end of the file, which will produce a very distinctive hiccup whenever it loops. Yes.

Well, although there might be a small hiccup like that when dealing with mp3 files, I'm sure developers are aware of it. But the "Music loops" bit is more a way of telling that the rhythm matches.

A good example of this is with MIDI music for JavaME. Very few mobile phones are capable of performing a smooth loop. So a MIDI that loops isn't actually loopable on a mobile phone. Therefor artists use "tricks" to make this non-smooth loop less apparent - and these tricks = "Music loops" + "Optimized for JavaME" in my opinion.

Examples:
Mobile game with music that tries to loop, but has this rather big hiccup because the phone can't do it.
vs
Mobil game with music that uses this flaw to add a break in the music that sounds like it's supposed to be there.

So tell me, which one of those could be marked as "Music loops"? 


Anyway, I do see your point with the mp3 files. I can easily hear where the music loops in most Flash games, but it's the best Flash can do, so we live with it. What about players? Can't these players take care of this issue?