Play That Funky Music, Geek Boy

To obtain music for their games, game developers usually either find royalty-free music or make their own. It may be surprising, but both of these options work well even for game developers who are not professional-level musicians.

Finding Music

As with sound effects, it's easy to find music on the Web. And like sound effects, much of the music floating around the Internet is illegal. Game developers should avoid illegal music like the plague. Using it can get them sued into oblivion. It's far better to find one of the many Web sites selling royalty-free music instead. To find collections of music, search the Web using phases such as "royalty free music" and "music for games".

Note

This is a shameless bit of self-promotion, but you can find a growing collection of music for games at my Web site, screamingllamasoftware.com. All of it is royalty free and available for commercial use in your games.

As with sound effects, music collections are sometimes royalty free but not licensed for commercial use. Make sure that any music collection that you buy is both royalty free and can be used in commercial applications such as games.

Making Your Own Music

There are a variety of ways to produce music for your games. Some require advanced musicianship while others are accessible to nonmusicians. Let's examine each of them, from easiest to hardest.

Band-in-a-Box Programs

For nonmusicians, the easiest way to create original music for games is to use a music-generation program. These so-called band-in-a-box programs can completely generate original music for you while requiring you to do little more than point and click with your mouse. If you know what type of music you want in your game, you can create it with a music-generation program.

Several music generation programs are on the market. The most popular is actually named Band In A Box; it's produced by PG Music (www.pgmusic.com) and costs about $90.

Music-generation programs work by following a set of rules for music composition that actual composers use. They apply these rules to a style, such as reggae or heavy metal, using a particular band. A band is defined as a collection of instruments.

Most band-in-a-box programs generate the music as a set of MIDI commands, which you can play and edit. Some use sampled sounds. Programs that generate MIDI commands are more flexible in the way they create music. Keep in mind, though, that they are limited by the quality of your sound card. A good sound card produces more realistic and professional-sounding music.

On the other hand, some music-generation programs use small samples of digitized sound to make the instrument sounds. Sampled instruments sound much more realistic. However, programs that use sampled sounds are often less flexible than those that use MIDI commands to produce instrument sounds.

Tip

Whether your music-generation program uses MIDI commands or digital samples to generate music, you should digitally record the final song as an MP3 file.

Which type of music-generation program you use depends on your personal preferences and the quality of your hardware. If your sound card isn't that great, it's probably better to use sampled instrument sounds. If your sound card is one of the best, a MIDI-based program will provide you with the best options for music generation.

Loop-Based Programs

Perhaps you know the basics of music production because you play the piano or guitar. If so, you should consider using a loop-based music-generation program. Loop-based programs enable you to define repeating patterns of music and use them throughout a song. You build entire songs from collections of repeating patterns of sound.

If you think about it, most songs are built from repeating patterns. In particular, the drums repeat a rhythmic pattern throughout most of a song. The bass, which is often used to reinforce the rhythm of a song, is played essentially the same way. Throughout a song, the bass plays a few repeating rhythmic patterns. Rhythm or background guitars also play their chord progressions in repeating patterns. In fact, most songs are built from 3 to 4 repeating patterns for each instrument.

Loop-based software enables you to exploit the repeating patterns of music by defining the patterns, selecting a song's instruments, and creating patterns for each of them. You then loop the patterns by specifying how many times the pattern repeats before the instrument either goes quiet or another pattern starts. Most of them let you enter the music pattern with an electronic musical keyboard. If you don't have one connected to your computer, you can also use your regular keyboard and mouse.

Probably the best loop-based music-generation program I've found is FruityLoops, by Image-Line Software (www.flstudio.com). At the entry level, they offer Fruity Loops Express for about $50. Their top-of-the-line product is called FL Studio. I've provided a demo version of FL Studio for you on the CD; you'll find it in the folder Tools\FLStudio.

The nice thing about loop-based programs such as FL Studio is that they offer more than just loop-based music creation. They are more like a PC-based music studio that can be used for generating, recording, mixing, and mastering both music and sound effects. Programs such as FL Studio support both sampled and MIDI instrument sounds, and enable you to save your work as either WAV or MP3 files.

MIDI Instruments

If you're proficient on electronic music keyboards, you can move up a step in music creation. Most music keyboards can connect to a computer through a MIDI port. Increasingly, they simulate a MIDI connection through a universal serial bus (USB) port. Either way, they can send MIDI commands to your computer.

With MIDI instruments, you can make your instrument sound like anything you have a MIDI definition for. In other words, your MIDI keyboard can sound like a rock organ, guitar, drum set, or choir. It all depends on what instrument sound you select. The standard MIDI set that accompanies all MIDI devices contains sound definitions for many common musical instruments. Good keyboards often contain extended MIDI definitions, called patches, that provide you with a much wider range of instrument sounds than the standard MIDI set. The software that comes with MIDI keyboards generally enables you to select additional custom patches.

Note

There are some programs around that convert a digital recording of one guitar at a time into MIDI commands. I haven't found one that works very well.

Guitarists often ask if there's a MIDI option for them as well. There are actually two options. The first is to buy a MIDI pickup that mounts on your guitar and an accompanying synthesizer. Look to spend at least $1,000 for a decent pickup and synthesizer.

The second, less expensive option for guitarists wanting to do MIDI music is very hard to find these days. In the mid-1990s a company called GVOX made a special pickup for guitars. You could attach the GVOX pickup bar on your guitar to connect your guitar to a serial port. The software enabled you to convert the music you played into MIDI commands. It was a very good solution for guitarists on a shoestring budget as it only cost $100 originally. Unfortunately, GVOX stopped producing hardware in the late 1990s. Nowadays, it only makes software. If you can find the increasingly rare GVOX hardware, you may be able to do MIDI with your guitar very inexpensively.

Tip

If you do manage to find GVOX hardware, you'll see that it does great when you're just starting out. However, its limitations mean that you will probably have to invest in a MIDI pickup/synthesizer set eventually.

Drummers can also get into the MIDI act fairly inexpensively. Starter MIDI drum pads can sell for as little as $70. Of course, you'll want to invest in better equipment as your games begin to sell.

Other Instruments and Tools

You do not have to use MIDI instruments to record your music. If you have an electric guitar, you can connect its output directly to the input of your computer's sound card. The same is true for electronic music keyboards and electric bases.

For other instruments, and for voice input, you can buy an adapter that enables you to connect a microphone to your sound card. Note that I am not talking about the cheap microphones that often ship with computers; you need a microphone designed for use by musicians. Good starter microphones cost around $100. You can get better sound by moving up to more expensive mics.

If you're recording music and sound effects, then I strongly recommend you check out professional music studio software. The industry standard is a program called Pro Tools by Digidesign (www.digidesign.com). The Digidesign Web site provides a free, scaled-down version of its software at www.digidesign.com/ptfree/.

Pro Tools basically does everything. You can use it as an audio editor, loop-based music generator, or sound effects generator. It is a professional-level tool for recording, mixing, and mastering music.