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StarCraft Custom Music

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 11:35 pm
by Enkidu
What software do you use when you guys want to create custom music for your campaigns? I know I've heard them in the "Life of a Marine" campaign and possibly a few more. Also, how exactly do you make them?

Re: StarCraft Custom Music

Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 9:44 pm
by IskatuMesk
Almost all campaigns use third party music. I think only a handful of people, most notably Joel, made their own music. I used some of my own music in Heidomus Kaladonmus.

As for how it's made, I can't say about modern times, but I used Modplug Tracker and then Cakewalk/Gigastudio for my music. Kontakt, Cubase, Sonar (basically recolored Cakewalk) are more modern alternatives, as Gigastudio required hardware GSIF support. You'll need a Sampler and a Sequencer, with the sampler being responsible for generating the sound of the instruments and the sequencer being responsible for making the actual music. Again, newer programs probably merge the responsibilities of these things together, but it's literally been a decade since I last looked at music. I use a midi keyboard to make my last tracks. I gave up because 5 years in and I couldn't make anything bearable to my ears. Of course, you'll need quite a few instrument libraries to make your music with. If you have a few thousand dollars on hand you can probably legally obtain some decent libraries, else you'll need to hound the extremely bare and lacking black sea which dried up in the soundfont harbor years ago.

I can't remember precisely what Gemini used to make his music, but on some occasions he had me run it through Gigastudio for a better sound, so at the time it clearly wasn't quite up to his expectations.

Once you've gone through the years of learning necessary to make acceptable pieces, you have the option of either downsampling the track to 22khz .wav for a direct replacement or you can use Thundergraft to import an mp3. I was told that Thundergraft automatically downsamples mp3s to 128kbps in sc1, but my music worked fine at any bitrate so long as it was CBR.

Re: StarCraft Custom Music

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 10:03 am
by Enkidu
I see... Well thanks for your insight IskatuMesk.