S.M.O.M is a complete overhaul of the music in Stonehearth.
The mod came to fruition when I discovered the game and approached the developers offering my services as a composer and producer. Unfortunately, the developers already had musicians in mind.
I took it upon myself to simply write the music regardless and create a mod for it. So in a way this mod is for my own personal satisfaction, but I sincerely hope that others like it too.
I plan to compose approximately three tracks per biome so that things don’t get too monotonous.
Below are some previews of tracks that I have composed already and blank spaces for intented pieces to come:
Great idea and we already know that it will be rather easy to mod in at least a music player. The first piece makes me curious to hear the others… nice and calm song.
Very, very nice. Lovely and gentle. I like the melody too, and hope there’ll be an overall theme that runs through the tracks and not just 14 or so different pieces with not much relation between them. Very much eager to hear more.
@Smokestacks Well the title theme employs a melody on the pentatonic scale so that should be very easy to implement into other songs. I’ve made plenty of notes as to how I’m going to write the pieces and yes they will all fit together.
I wrote the title piece in a style that could either be used as a piece with a beginning and an end, or looped infinitely.
Grasslands biome will sound similar to the title theme but with different instrumentation.
I will also compose a short symphony that incorporates all the different tracks to make for a “listening” experience.
Thank you all for your kind words. I can’t wait to carry on with the project.
Thank you very much! I’m going to begin the grasslands biome piece tomorrow. It will sound very similar to the title theme but I think it’s important to get that same feeling right as I suspect a majority of new players will be embarking on grasslands to begin with.
Stay tuned, I’ll bump the thread with every new edit to the main post.
Loving the idea, and am loving what you’ve shared with us!
Am really looking forward to how this progresses!
Edit: @tyrcian I know this might seem a bit picky, but, would you mind if we altered the title to just Stonehearth Music Mod? Just because we haven’t heard anything of the game music yet, and so there’s nothing to overhaul?
Created a preview of the grasslands track I am currently focusing on. You can listen to it here: http://snd.sc/1hR3mvk
as well as through the link in the main thread.
Sorry for the lack of widget but these forums don’t seem to support the soundcloud widget.
Suggestions are welcome. I am just taking a break from the piece today. It will hopefully be done by the end of the week.
No, the widget doesn’t show, I’ll try inserting it anyway just in case it’s my browser.
Edit: @Geoffers747 We can sure, but all external content will still be named as SMOM because I intend to replace the music regardless of what it sounds like.
@SteveAdamo Put the widget in the main thread, can you see it?
Hm… I know it is work in progress but I like the first song more. It has more of this unexpected / suprising moments. The biome piece is more predictable.
You’re right. Mind you this is just four hours of work and it probably does sound a bit more predictable as it sounds similar to my title theme. However, I was bearing in mind the fact that the player will have a lot to focus on with this playing in the background so I don’t want the music to change too much, but also at this point it may seem a little stagnant. To avoid this problem I intend to introduce another theme to break up the track’s structure a little.
Oh to own Cubase…they have it at school but that’s at school…stuck with free Finale Notepad for home, which is really good for the fact that it’s free, but most of the instruments don’t sound great and there’s so little you can do with things like dynamics…leaving me only able to write rather crappy little pieces (and yes, that’s entirely Notepad’s fault).
I quite like the piece. I imagine a really small, peaceful village when I hear it, bunnies poking around and not too much going on. I think it works really well for background music if I’m honest. Although maybe a little more variation would be good, if we consider the fact that this should be a fairly common piece, no?
How are you going to do music? Are you going to constantly loop it and have it in the background? Maybe small pauses in between, or just straight back into the track? Or are you going to go for a kind of Minecraft way of doing it, playing it every once in a while? (I always felt it was a bit skimpy, MC’s music, not much of it and not commonly played (excluding CDs)) Or are you going to wait for the game and see how Radiant do it?
Are you currently in a musical school? You can get educational discount on many products such as Cubase and Sibelius, as well as a multitude of sample libraries.
Upon having a few hours to mull the piece over in my head I know that it definitely needs some more variation, but not too much. A bit more melodic and harmonic developement and I’d like to try and introduce some brass and percussion, but this is difficult to do on a “calm” piece without it sounding like all military if you understand me?
As I reiterate this is just a draft, sometimes it’s better to focus on the process of writing the music, rather than the end product. This helps getting you off to a start on the piece rather than sitting at a blank project window like “WHERE DO I START!?”
I think from now on I’ll finish the piece and then make adjustments based on comments if necessary.
As for my approach to the music I think it’s likely the developers will either have constant track to track music or short gaps of silence. It’s probably difficult to get the balance right, and obvisouly a continuous loop of music can get annoying. In relation to this I wrote the title theme in a way that could either be played as written or I can edit it to loop infinitely, but this begs the question: “Will a player spend more than 2-3 minutes on the title screen?”
In practice I’m just going to have to wait and see what radiant actually do with their music system, and work from there.
Not the title screen, (which I have sat on of certain games for like 10 minutes as I was doing other things) but in Binding of Isaac, I would deliberately sit in the shop and go do something else just so the track would play whilst I checked the forums. I really enjoyed it.
I’m not in a musical school (although we claim to be specialised in performing arts apparently), however I am taking a GCSE (if your not English, basically like a 2 year course) in music and we do have Cubase and Sibelius in school and I savoured every moment when we got to compose on Sibelius. I think the discount applies to me, although I can probably just ask in school. I am currently skint, however, so I’m probably looking at Christmas.
As for your approach, that sounds sensible. After all, the comments might be rendered invalid when you’re finished. Good luck on the brass part. I know I definitely couldn’t pull it off.
A game that comes to mind is Anno 2070, the title screen music was dramatic and the pause music was very chilled. I wonder if I can implement a similar approach.
