I will play up the "classic" nature of it and have a professional artist create the sprites and backgrounds. I'm thinking that it needs to be either 8-bit or 16-bit, depending on your comfort with one or the other.
Cerkit,
If you've got a good artist working on the game, I'm assuming it won't be a strict 8-bit style. And if that's the case, it doesn't seem that classical NES music would fit the visuals and you'd come out with an awkward product.
I was thinking that myself. I ran a test on the game last night with some 8-bit music and it just didn't fit right. I suppose I am in the wrong place, after all since this site is all about the NES sound system.
gyms wrote:
Have you hit up the forums at 8bc.com or chipmusic.com? I'm sure you'd get more responses there and from people who specialize in different areas as well. Not to say that we don't have people that specialize in different areas, but the focus here is making music under faithful restrictions of the NES hardware.
I haven't posted there. I just learned about them yesterday. The main reason I'm posting to these sites is because I don't know if a "traditional" musician can understand the sound I'm looking for.
gyms wrote:
Another thing to consider is loop-able music that works with the program you're writing instead of just looping an mp3. Pxtone is the only generalized musician-friendly program I know of that supports this. And again, you might have better results at other forums.
I had not considered the true nature of a looping soundtrack. Thanks for the tip.
gyms wrote:
Good Luck,
Thanks.
_______________________
Michael Earls
http://michaelearls.me/
http://michaelearls.me/techblog/
I'm pretty sure it's illegal to make money from this program in the first place.
Then you're "pretty sure" of an idea that's utterly absurd. FamiTracker is under the GNU GPL. Such a restriction would fly in the face of the spirit of the GPL. It would be like saying you couldn't use the GIMP to make images for commercial use, or OpenOffice to write a novel you intend to sell. The GPL means you can use a program for any purpose you want, so long as you distribute the source code along with the binaries.
It also wouldn't be illegal just because it's a simulation of the 2A03; you can't copyright, patent, or trademark a general sound. You could patent the 2A03 chip, or copyright software used to play music on that chip, but neither comes into play here since we're not using an actual 2A03 chip and we're not using software written by Nintendo or any other such company.
If I thought I could make money by selling my NES work, I would be all over that idea. I really would like to do it for a living or at least a few extra bucks. The only problem is there's no demand for my work.
Anyway, I too am baffled by IroncladPhazon and TechEmporium jumping down this guy's throat. Giving him the copyright is the only thing that makes business sense; not doing so can cause all sorts of problems. So long as he pays you for your work, what's the big deal?
That's true. But I still have my doubts as to the viability of the proposal (& for that matter, the approach that was taken to present it, which I feel decreases the amount of trust/faith I can put into this).
By the way, IroncladPhazon wasn't anywhere near as harsh as I was; I technically was the only one who jumped down the guy's throat (& I acknowledge my harsh overtone). Even though I do regret the offense that was taken, I still stand by my negative view.
As for the GPL matter, IroncladPhazon must have forgotten that it only protects the software & not the files that you created with it. In other words, he didn't realize that you can still license/sell music made with FamiTracker, as long as you don't actually relicense/resell copies of FamiTracker itself.
_______________________
Technology: the one thing that's hated & cursed at by all engineers, technologists, scientists & technicians!
When I was approached to write a soundtrack for a game, it was on AIM. It was just some guy saying that he'd give me $x per song (we agreed on a number) and we wrote up a contract. I'm paid per song for the same reason - if the game is never released or does poorly, I don't suffer for it. The only difference is that I was able to retain the rights to my music, and he holds the right to exclusively use it in a video game.
Still I don't think that this is some kind of con. Worst case scenario, you write a kickass piece of music for this guy, don't get paid for it, and then ... you've written a kickass piece of music and that's that. Several freelance artists give up the rights to their own music (and I know a couple people who are sitting on some amazing releases because they do not have the right/authorization to distribute it).
But I still have my doubts as to the viability of the proposal (& for that matter, the approach that was taken to present it, which I feel decreases the amount of trust/faith I can put into this).
While I respect your right to opinion, these threads don't happen very often, so in my mind it's much more productive to encourage or ignore them than to openly speculate on their legitimacy.
) 
