Gibbo's Musical Creations

Gibbo

Hey guys,

Finally got round to signing up for Soundcloud and start uploading some music there - will keep this thread (and post) updated as new pieces go in there. Have a listen, and if you have a Soundcloud account let me know so I can add you to the watchlist! :)

*Aim for the Stars (Cottonstar theme) - Post-apocalyptic piratey theme with a South African vibe
*Breathless - Chilled ambient thing
* Resonance - Epic rock/orchestral piece focusing on strings and drums
*Critical Space (theme) - Spacey
*Dog Days of Summer - Inspired by the warmth and laziness of mid-Summer
*Lurker (Theme) - Survival-horror vibes
*Petulant Coyote - Chilled country-folk-rock i.e. banjos 'n stuff
*King's Quest V Theme (remake) - Regal and nostalgic
*Iona (cover) - Celtic ambient
*Maharaja Ambient (Theme) - Indian ambient
*Discworld II Menu Theme (remake) - Suitable for wizzards
*Super Wolfenstein HD - Mein Leben - Oktoberfest!
*Super Wolfenstein HD - Menu Theme - Blaupunkt!
*Cottonstar - The Voyage - More post-apocalyptic piratey action
*Nearer My God To Thee - The sound of inevitability
*Dreams to Dream (instrumental) - Without a tiny singing mouse
*Never To Return - Violins work better with distortion
*The Catalyst Theme - First short film soundtrack piece
*The Catalyst Outro/Credits - Piano-based
*OCD Hero Theme - Viking things
*Fragments - Strings and chords abound
*Ithemba Labantwana - An element of hope
*Clown Squad Countdown - That pre-match anticipation

And entries for past music challenges:

SUMOTORI CHALLENGE
DUSTFORCE CHALLENGE
DUNGEON DEFENDERS CHALLENGE
LITTLE BIG PLANET CHALLENGE
TOWARDS THE LIGHT CHALLENGE
BEAT ATTACK CHALLENGE

iPixelPierre

Resonance & Breathless - Love em

Chippit

Man, this is great. Resonance in particular, while being very familiar in tone, is a very strong track. Your percussion in there is fantastic, good rythm, good beat, good accenting, good variety! (Also you have some great samples!)

Awesome stuff!

Gazza_N

Yeah, this is solid stuff, and I'm with Chippit regarding the percussion in Resonance. That's effective drummery there, with good rhythms and a nice spread of tones.

More please!

Gibbo

Thank you for the feedback guys, glad you like and will certainly be uploading more as I go along :)

Funnynel42

Resonance sounds awesome. Keep up the good work.

Thelangfordian

Ok... My pants have officially been soiled after I listened to Resonance!

Mexicanopiumdog

Oi gibbo, what are you using vst-wise? Dig the Resonance rhythmic arps...add me on soundcloud if you like!

Gibbo

@Mexicanopiumdog - Added! For VST's mainly the EWQL orchestra, Alchemy player and a mix of individual drum samples and loops from all over the place. Had a listen to your stuff on Soundcloud, very cool and a wide range of genres you're working with!

Gibbo

For folks who remember the E : 5 minute challenge games from last year (were results released for that?) here's the track I did for SquidgyXD's entry, Critical Space

*Critical Space (theme)

FanieG

ALL of this is good. Each and every song. ALL OF IT!!!

Gibbo

Much appreciate it @FanieG :)

Moar:

*Dog Days of Summer - another chilled piece, inspired by the warmth and laziness of mid-Summer (e.g. December hols)

Tim_Harbour

Very awesome stuff man. How much did the EW bundle cost you (if you bought it. I've been looking for working cracked versions for ages just to try it out and see what it's like but no luck ;/ So I mostly just stick to electronic sounds for those reasons.

Very cool set of piece! :D very well done! :D

Gibbo

Ahoy and thanks @Tim_Harbour - the EW symphonic orchestra is a fairly old product (roughly 10 years) so the pricing is not too bad, currently at $145 on Amazon which is a lot cheaper than newer orchestral offerings, but you'll also find every now and then the various sample library guys (such as Soundiron) will have special discount drives so it might help to sign up to newsletters to catch those deals.

It's still a lot of money to spend if you're unsure and want to be able to experiment with a virtual orchestra first, so rather try out the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra (http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/) which is free but still provides a decent library of sounds that cover a full orchestra.

Similarly Native Instruments has some good discounted packages to 'try out' their bigger offerings, but are still substantial libraries in their own rights. For example check out their Komplete Elements bundle for $49

Finally check out your DAW of choice and try out the included instruments - for example Ableton has some decent built-in options.

Chippit

I feel like advice and recommendations like these deserve their own thread. We have tons of threads for artists, designers and devs, but nowhere someone who's interested in getting into music could go to find a good bunch of starting points for the audio/music creation. Is that something that everyone else feels has a place here? Have I just missed the obvious thread?

At the risk of derailing your thread completely (sorry Gibbo!), should we not think about having a subsection on the forum dedicated to 'getting started in game dev' topics for various fields? It would be massively valuable in order to collate resources provided by members, and, particularly, to have a place where we can be comfortable always directing new members. I'm sure everyone's fielded 'where do I start' questions, and having a place to send such people feels like it's been a long time coming.

Gibbo

@Chippit: Hehe not a worry. I know someone did start a thread like that for various music-related advice, but I've had a look through all the categories and couldn't spot it at a glance. Your recommendation of a category dedicated to 'getting started' sounds like a good solution for making threads like that easier to find.

creative630

I think its a good idea, but it might clash a little with the tutorials section?

The sound section in the FAQ needs a bit of an update. Its more of a how to get cheap-and-dirty placeholder sounds.
I know @Hanli asked us to update it a while back, but I didn't think I knew quite enough to post anything at the time. Maybe we can start a thread to create one together?

The section at the bottom of the sound challenges introduction usually has some links I've found useful.

Tim_Harbour

@Gibbo I use Ableton currently. been using it for many years now. I didn't realise it had a built in orchestral plugin? Native instruments are the ones I use the most at the moment and am seriously considering buying their komplete pack. Just need to get some funds together haha.

I think I checked the sonatina orchestra before but wasn't sure how good it was but I'm a huge fan of free software! I'll use it at your recommendation :D Thanks a lot!

I like the idea of a creating a thread of music/sound advice...always awesome...you can never stop finding new or interesting ways of doing things and seeing how other people do stuff is a great inspiration.

Let's do it! Whose gonna make it?

creative630

Ok, I'll make a thread and link back to it here when I'm done. :)

[Edit:] There ya go.

Gibbo

@creative630 - cool man, have posted there

@Tim_Harbour - check under the folder Instruments and see what you've got in Instrument Rack or Sampler

Tim_Harbour

Lol noob moment ;/ found them...

Gibbo

Some scary stuff this time:

*Lurker (Theme) - also done for the E: 5 minute challenge. This game by @Pixel_Reaper had you navigating a maze while being hunted, with only 5 minutes to escape

Gibbo

As a change from the more orchestral stuff I've been creating, here's some chilled country-folk-rock:

*Petulant Coyote

Tim_Harbour

Really love the tone, reminds me of a Cohen Brothers movie, like Brother Where Art Thou... also if you put some vocals on top of this I swear you could get onto 5fm...country/folk is so in right now :P

Would be nice to have a more prominent melody/solo part come in towards the middle I reckon just to give it a bit of oomph as it's quite loopy as is....not that that is bad ;P

But either way it sounds awesome :D Nice work!

Gibbo

@Tim_Harbour: Thanks for the feedback man! Agreed this would definitely work better with vocals and a bit more variety but it was specifically created to act as a soft backing track to a friend's video (where he will be talking) so it needs to be able to just sit quietly in the background without grabbing attention away from the person talking :)

Tim_Harbour

Yeah I figured there was some other reason for keeping it ambient to a degree.... works really well either way :D Sign of a good creation :)

Gibbo

And now for a bit of nostalgia!

*King's Quest V Theme (remake) - hoping I'm not the only one who fondly remembers this game and it's strong theme/motif. It was one of the defining games of my childhood, so as a tribute I decided to remake the intro theme and see how it stands up to the original midi.

karl182

@gibbo wow well done dude! Sounds really awesome!! Double Like!

Gibbo

@karl182 - many thanks, it took a while to get it to a decent level but I'm happy with the result!

creative630

Oh my gahhd! I loved Kings Quest, especially number 5!

Fantastic job, I really enjoyed that!

Gibbo

@creative630 - wooh, a fellow KQ V fan! Most folks who experienced the series seemed to have played IV rather than V. I was also a big fan of Space Quest IV which had a few memorable themes like the Monolith Burger tune.

creative630

Hmmm, I think I also played space quest 4. Though I only had a demo of the game, which I played over and over.
After that I got hooked on quest for glory 4 and the remake of QFG 1 :)

Last year I bought them all on a Good Old Games sale, haven't had time to replay them but it makes me happy that they are there!

FanieG

@Gibbo - Awesome - all of Sierra's quest games were great. Roger Wilco remains one of my favourite hero's of all time. Also enjoyed the original police quest titles. The top-down driving bits are something I loved (that's if you remembered to check all of the tyres before setting off). Such fond memories bought back by that tune. Thanks

Gibbo

@FanieG - I remember the top-down driving in Police Quest, at the time I thought it was amazing they could do that in an adventure game.

@creative630 - I see the Space & King's Quest series' are also on Steam, but there are also a lot of comments there that these don't work if you're running Windows 7 or 8, so it looks like Good Old Games is the place to get them.

PS89

Very nice! :D

Tim_Harbour

QFG, KQ and SQ ... love and played every single one :D Point and click games are probably one of my all time favourite types of video games! Nice work!

Gibbo

As a fan of Celtic music, I used this track to practise expressiveness and blending solo instruments, while fulfilling the urge to do something Celtic. I've put some of my own interpretations, melodies & instrumentation into the piece but it's a cover of 'Iona' by Jeff & Mychael Danna:

*Iona (cover)

Gibbo

Here's a piece done for @Fengol's Maharaja prototype (if you haven't seen the thread it's OVER HERE):

*Maharaja Ambient (Theme)

Gibbo

More nostalgic remakes from the old adventure genres, please give it a listen via the Soundcloud link below!

*Discworld II Menu Theme (remake) - as both a fan of Terry Pratchett and of point-and-click adventures this game did my nut in as a kid. Must have done a full play through at least 4 or 5 times. In terms of the music my favourite theme was the short piece in the menu, so I've tried remaking and extending this.

konman

@Gibbo

I love your song "Critical Space".

As a matter of fact. I am going to fire up Elite Dangerous Beta right now, turn off ALL the sound (space is silent), switch on this amazing track full volume on Sound Cloud... and boost my sidewinder ship out of the nearest Coriolis space station at 300 meters per second.

Godspeed!

Gibbo

@konman - awesome thanks for the feedback man, I'm also keen to get Elite Dangerous when it comes out :)

konman

@Gibbo

There...I've made a short 40 second clip featuring your track. Hope you don't mind ;)

Mexicanopiumdog

Absolutely brilliant @konman + @Gibbo combo. Can I have that with some fries??

konman

@mexicanopiumdog

Thanks :) No fries, but plenty of fish...

Gibbo

@konman - that is turbo-rad right there, dig the timing with the build-up and Earth reveal!

Gibbo

I've uploaded the two music pieces created for Super Wolfenstein HD which you can have a listen to here:

*Super Wolfenstein HD - Mein Leben

*Super Wolfenstein HD - Menu Theme

EvanGreenwood

I think it's worth noting that @Gibbo made both these Super Wolfenstein tracks during the 48 hours of jamming (even though the menu music only got integrated by programmers after the jam ended). And he also made the voices and sounds in that time. It was a superb performance under pressure.

Gibbo

Hehe thanks @BlackShipsFilltheSky - the Nespresso coffee definitely helped! Honestly though the game concept, visuals and approach were already so well fleshed out at the start (yet simple and easy to understand), it made it significantly easier to put all of that together in a short space since there wasn't any need to spend time experimenting with musical concepts.

Gibbo

As a follow up to the Aim For The Stars (Cottonstar Theme) track inspired by the Cottonstar webcomic, I made use of the theme to create a faster-paced piece using an unusual 9/8 time signature to try create a sense of movement. Also wanted a stronger focus on brass instruments supported by strings.

**
*Cottonstar - The Voyage
**

Gibbo

Popped my head in at this year's Global Game Jam going down at UCT, and ended up joining in on the game Inevitable by @damousey, @pietpompies, and @Nuclear_Mosquito by creating a version of "Closer, My God, To Thee" as a sort of melancholy post-apocalyptic "sinking ship" musical vibe (since this piece was supposedly played by the orchestra while the Titanic was sinking)

Unfortunately the music didn't make it into the game, due to technical problems that turned it into an HTML entry.

**
*Nearer My God To Thee
**

karl182

Wow well done man! Always amazes me how a single instrument can pull you into the music like this! It's a pity it couldn't make it into the game!
Well done again!