Who wants to make blip blip MIDI music with free software??

Discussion in 'Make It So' started by leitstern, Jul 25, 2019.

  1. leitstern

    leitstern 6756 Shatter Every Sword Break Down Every Door

    https://boscaceoil.net/

    Bosca Ceoil is completely free, impressively easy-to-use music-making software intended for making midi music files similar to the tracks used in classic 16-bit games. The sound banks are large, the system is pretty well streamlined, the power is yours, PLAY WITH MEEEE.

    Here's a track I spent an hour or two tooling around with this morning to give you an impression of what I've figured out so far.
    It's a potential theme for a character of mine and nowhere near done but I'm just excited ha ha ha.

    The differences between the .mid and the .wav export files are actually massive, which is the nature of .mid files; I uploaded the .wav file because it's how it sounds in the program anyway and it's easier to make the internet take it. I like the sound bank for the flutes on the .mid file more but it didn't take the drums right weirdly, I'll have to look into that.

    Edit::: Here's the same track, but finished, because I focused weirdly hard on this. Not a masterpiece but like. Fun.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2019
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  2. Toby Fox better watch out!
     
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  3. Alexand

    Alexand Rhymes with &

    Damn, making blip blip MIDI music is extremely fun actually.

    Here's an attempt I made. I made it pretty short because I didn't have the stamina to make a longer thing...just these 48 seconds of audio* took me like, two hours to set up. Plus my computer was starting to struggle a little...maybe it's better to use the desktop client if you're going to use more than a couple of instruments...? Maybe using the online client is a type of hubris...

    I'd like to come back and make something less aggressive next time. Maybe using the sitar or the koto...I really enjoy those old-school low-bit plucked string sounds.

    (*Speaking of which, this 48-second audio file is nearly 9 MB on my computer...a-are WAV files always that big??)
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2019
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  4. leitstern

    leitstern 6756 Shatter Every Sword Break Down Every Door

    Wonderful!! That would be just perfect for a gimmicky dungeon or a haunted mansion or something. Quirky level. Rhythm is great, melody is catchy, very clean!

    That’s been my experience too. It takes a long time to make something but I just lose that time bc I’m so absorbed.

    Edit: and yes I’ve been using the downloaded desktop version and it only lags if I have a lot of stuff happening on my comp. I didn’t try the online client so I’m not sure how it runs but desktop runs fine for me! So maybe yea
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2019
  5. Maya

    Maya smug_anime_girl.jpg

    I don't really know the first thing about composing an actual song, I'mma play with this more later because it's super fun and stupidly easy, but for now here's an attempt at a cover of Midna's Lament (apologies that it abruptly cuts off, I got tired :P)
     
  6. leitstern

    leitstern 6756 Shatter Every Sword Break Down Every Door

    That’s one of the coolest things about this software; you can make a pattern that visually looks good and half of the time it will sound good, give or take adjusting some pitches. I have a lot of things in my head that I know I can’t do with Bosca but then it’s just adjusting to a medium to my mind, ha ha. Like a new music variety.

    I don’t know Zelda (I think?) tracks very well but I can tell you you made something both listenable and pleasant to listen to and it clearly took some time and work to make! Good job.

    I’ve been kicking around a few more tracks too but just had some busy days, imma post more when I have a bit of sit around time to finish the track for the paladin.
     
  7. Maya

    Maya smug_anime_girl.jpg

  8. leitstern

    leitstern 6756 Shatter Every Sword Break Down Every Door

    Because it helps my brain let me make a post with things I made and then make replies in another post.

    You know what? I'm really fond of both of these things I made over the past few days. They always seem to suck when I play them from someone else but listening to them myself I'm like, dang, I like this.

    Royal Kilkreath is a city in the D&D 'campaign' (it's more like a dating sim with combatants) that my wife and I run. It used to be a cool place but it's been ruled by an asshole elf for about 500 yrs now and he JUST won't die. Not because he's full of demonic power or something, he's just a stubborn asshole. This theme uses 'cello,' 'fiddle,' and 'church bell 2.' I was playing with a minor key and sour notes to give an unsettling but not, you know, Final Evil Dungeon impression.

    Fen is a paladin who come from Kilkreath but hasn't been there in a long ass time because he highly disagrees with internal politics. With his theme (which I haven't finished yet) I have been asking myself two questions: how can I use elements from the Kilkreath theme strategically in a very different theme so that they make an influence on this new theme but aren't very obvious, and how metal can I force Bosca Ceoil to be?

    Answer: not very. It's a pretty soft metal but I'm doing alright. I do fucking love what I've forced it to do so far, but it's been a lot of effort for 30 seconds of music and I'm going to top that one off laaaaaater. It has about six or seven instrumental layers at any time (which, as anecdata, has been the forced time I've watched the desktop client of Bosca lag a little bit, and I also want to mention that most of those instruments are playing a couple notes at once too) and I have to go to WORK.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2019
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  9. leitstern

    leitstern 6756 Shatter Every Sword Break Down Every Door

    This sounds very Secret of Mana to me. It feels like a forest theme or a little magical level with lots of fairies, and it functions perfectly well as a whole theme. You could loop that on the map for quite a while without annoying anyone. Which instruments did you end up using? I feel like I've played with most of them but can't remember which that bright sort of bell-like one going up high is and I'd like to play with it more.
     
  10. leitstern

    leitstern 6756 Shatter Every Sword Break Down Every Door

    It seems to depend on length. My 30 second file is about 4.5 MB and the three and a half minute file is over twenty fucking seven, SO. Yeah. I guess wav files are that big. The reason the mid file reigned in a lot of early games is that they're TINY, they pull from tiny sound banks and distort noise to make an itty bitty file that can fit into a small memory well. Wav files are actually saving and accurately representing everything you did and that is, apparently, very hard. OuO I was surprised by how big they are too!!
     
  11. IvyLB

    IvyLB Hardcore Vigilante Gay Chicken Facilitator

    yea wav is humongous, that's why mp3 took over, the difference is that mp3 only takes snapshots of the audio at certain intevals and flattens out the bits inbetween for a sort of "stairway" effect iirc. Dramatically reduces filesize, almost impossible to hear for most people.
    eta: I'm gonna start messing with this once I'm caught up on everything else, I'm very :swoon:
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2019
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  12. Saro

    Saro Where is wizard hut

    I wanna try this program and also show it to my husband to play with, he's much more musically inclined than me.

    Also @IvyLB that's super interesting, I didn't know that about mp3s
     
  13. Maya

    Maya smug_anime_girl.jpg

    I really like this one!! I love the way it starts with the bells, building up the atmosphere right off the bat that gives the whole thing that exact unsettling vibe you were going for. It feels like there's a rich, vibrant, maybe even happy history to this place, but it's been lost to time and only the distorted echoes of that history remain, making you feel nostalgic for that once bright time and yet turned off for looking for it too hard, lest you find something you didn't want to find lurking in the shadows.

    Your other one has a bit too high of notes for me, but I'm very impressed by how you were able to push the program like that!!

    Thank you so much!! I feel like I could have made it a little more consistent though -- I was just messing with instruments the entire time so I didn't really think about the overall composition, how it looped, and things like that. Oh well, learning experience! As for the instruments I used, they were wood block for the main "base", the bell one you're speaking of is Koto I think(?), and the others are Halo Pad, Sweep Pad, Echoes, and Rain!
     
  14. Hawkeguy

    Hawkeguy struggling to complete this thought

    [quiet yelling] this is so much fun to play with!! and the small bits of adjusting you can do with the instruments!!
    i never had the focus to get into more complicated computery-musicy-program things, but this. this is rad.
    been experimenting since yesterday and made a little victory fanfare for the DnD game i'm in 8DDD

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ct16ljMYsGvw85ZeNJ6Su800u4nzGtx5/view
     
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