Original music needed for Ace Attorney Fan Game PLEASE READ

[SilentBobX]

Hello everyone. My name is SilentBobX. I’m writing this topic to ask for help. I’m creating a fan game based on the Ace Attorney series. Many others are trying to make Ace Attorney games as well, but I’m trying to go beyond what they are doing and create original stuff for the game, such as Sprites, Voices, Art, and Backgrounds. Since I am a capable Sprite artist I’m making sure all the sprites in my game are made from scratch and not edits. (If you wish to see more of my sprites, you can view them in the thread here ) I’ve had many people help me with the project so far, with the programming, art, voice ect. The only thing I need right now is original music for the characters in my game.

But before we get to that, let me tell you what the game is about. The game is called “Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trial after Justice”.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/ ... Boxart.png
It takes place between the second and third game. Phoenix and Maya continue to help those in need as they help defend them through trials. Along the way, they meet a new prosecutor named Luis Hawk, who seems very interested in facing Phoenix… There will be 4 cases in the game, and will be released episodically. If you would like to know more about the game, please head over here: here

The first half of the first case “Checkmate and Turnabout” has been released, and has been met with positive feedback. Here are some Screen shots:




And yes, that’s Maya as the defense attorney. As all first cases are tutoria’s, I saw fit to use her as acting defense attorney. (And yes, you can do this in a court of law.) If you wish to try the game out, head to the Court Records forums and in the game section find the PyWright thread. Download PyWright, launch it and hit the DOWNLOAD GAMES button. Fine Checkmate and Turnabout and play.

Now, the only thing missing from my game is original music. For a start, I’ll need music for the character mentioned above, Luis Hawk. Here is his character art that I had made for the game.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/ ... zJojoP.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/ ... aceOff.png
And these are the sprite sheets I’ve made of him. All original:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/ ... isHawk.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/ ... awkOOC.png

If you are unfamiliar with what Ace Attorney music sounds like, here are some youtube links to a few of the songs. Just to give you an idea of what I need.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuDMNNF4PT0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICUTRPMug50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbbB2iqO9c0
http://www.youtube.com/user/Laizorb#p/u/72/9d_mw_IKSNQ
When Help is offered, I’ll tell what Luis’ music should sound like. And please, It’ll need to be original. I suppose that’s it for now. I’ll share more information about the game when I get a chance. Thanks you in advance.[url][/url]

[Jayster]

I might be interested in doing something for this, though I need more information to know if I'd be up for it. Are you looking for MIDIs or MP3s, is there a deadline, what should Luis' music sound like which you mentioned already, and anything else you can tell me.

[SilentBobX]

Hmm… Jayster and SilentBobX… I see a connection!
I’ve gone through your website and listened to some of your tunes. Good stuff. The Trucy theme you made sounded really good. Let’s see if I can answer you questions.

Are you looking for MIDIs or MP3s

Well, if you’re talking about quality, I’m looking for something that matches the original games bit music. If that’s Midi, then that’s what I’m looking for.

is there a deadline,

None yet. Luis won’t be introduced for a while so there will be plenty of time before he shows up. It could be either this year or the beginning of next. Even before then I’ll be using some music from the games when investigating the crime scenes.

what should Luis' music sound like which you mentioned already

Okay, this’ll be a tough one for me to answer. I guess I’m looking for something that sounds like the objection themes from the games, something with piano and violin. He is the prosecutor for the game, but he’s by no means a bad guy, so it could kind sound heroic. I’m really sorry about the description I gave. I’m not good when it comes to describing music. Actually, In the new Investigations game, Edgeworth has a pretty kick ass Objection theme based on the Great Revival theme from JFA. I have music from that game zipped up if you want to listen to it.

That’s all I can think of right now. If you have anymore questions you’d like to ask, please let me know. I’ll answer the best I can. Thanks for offering help Jay.

[SilentBobX]

I'm bringing this back to see if anyone is still interested in helping. Unfortunately Jayster won't be able to help, but I thank him anyway for saying he would try. In any case If anyone else see's this, I'm still seeking music help. I'm really desperate and need someone with GBA/DS music skills. And if you have a chance check my game out when you have a chance.

[Kefkarjp]

MIDI doesn't necessarily mean better or worse sound quality than MP3 or that it will match the original game's sound quality, it's an entirely different system of delivering music. It makes your computer play different sounds according to its soundfont, and different computers can have different soundfonts so the "sound quality" can be entirely different depending on your computer or synth.

So it's more a question of whether you want your music to sound the same on everybody's computer regardless of the software and to be burnt to a CD or not.

[SilentBobX]

MIDI doesn't necessarily mean better or worse sound quality than MP3 or that it will match the original game's sound quality, it's an entirely different system of delivering music. It makes your computer play different sounds according to its soundfont, and different computers can have different soundfonts so the "sound quality" can be entirely different depending on your computer or synth.

So it's more a question of whether you want your music to sound the same on everybody's computer regardless of the software and to be burnt to a CD or not.

Are you offering help?

[Kefkarjp]

Only if you consider good advice as help.

[sully66611]

Hey im a composer, currentley working on 2 other games. looking for more work. check out these links for some of my work and if you're interested contact me!! thanks.

LINKS:

http://www.myspace.com/defiledfrequency

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lir04Hljlzc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgAGie0D ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KifX_bAa ... re=related

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4636155/Ascendi ... 0rough.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4636155/ssc%20l ... as%202.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4636155/SSC%20t ... al%202.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4636155/Defiled ... ugh%29.mp3

[CBlockDis]

I'm bringing this back to see if anyone is still interested in helping. Unfortunately Jayster won't be able to help, but I thank him anyway for saying he would try. In any case If anyone else see's this, I'm still seeking music help. I'm really desperate and need someone with GBA/DS music skills. And if you have a chance check my game out when you have a chance.

For DS music you'll one of 3 things... need to get a MIDI engine for it and someone that knows how to use it(which is part of the DS' dev kit by nintendo) because it requires creating your own soundbank and arranging all the MIDI files in some weird program. I'm not allowed to discuss the software due to confidentiality agreements, but you'll need a couple of thousand dollars for that.

That is of course if someone else hasn't figured out their own version of a MIDI engine using assembly language or something...

The other alternative is to write your own Module player to playback XM, MOD, IT, or S3M formats or purchase a private dev license for this audio engine called "Krawall" that can do the sound effects and module files, but you'll need a composer that knows those formats as well(not hard to find really... just browse the forums at modplug's site).

And lastly, the only other method is to find an mp3/ogg/wma player for the DS... which you might be able to code yourself, however if you plan on porting to a cartridge or making it downloadable it'll make the size of the game's data a fair bit larger than is necessary. Some games on DS use mp3 and what not but end up paying for a larger cart size and thus make less money off of it. This of course only matters if you plan on going retail but I see no signs of that. You did say it is a fan game so I'd say you most likely are doing this as a personal project to share to the masses for free?

Hope this enlightens you a bit on the restrictions of DS's sounds... did a soundtrack for a shmup on DS and it was a royal pain. That was using the Nintendo Dev Kit too... Also used the Krawall player which was a pretty stout little program once figured out.

If you check out GBADev.org they have lots of resources about this stuff.

[Rocco]

Zach, are you offering help?

[Gigasoft]

There's another alternative, which is to invent your own homemade format, which is what I do for the Mega Drive game I am making. This can save a lot of space over MIDI.

To give an idea of the possible savings, here are some figures for some of my songs:
Presence: In game (937 bytes), MIDI (5587 bytes), Ratio: 17%
Wereseals: In game (660 bytes), MIDI (4271 bytes), Ratio: 15%
Snow field: In game (1506 bytes), MIDI (9436 bytes), Ratio: 16% (these are slightly different versions)
Haunted: In game (1190 bytes), MIDI (9957 bytes), Ratio: 12%
First boss: In game (686 bytes), MIDI (6130 bytes), Ratio: 11%

I wouldn't recommend MOD and the likes. Not only is it awkward to compose in these formats, but songs can't share the same copy of a sound, as far as I know. This would also prevent you from storing instrument sounds in IMA-ADPCM format, which uses 4 bits per sample while retaining high quality and is the native audio compression format on the DS.

[CBlockDis]

Krawall actually recognizes duplicate file names in the sound samples for the mod files you compress with it. Then when you load a track krawall's engine pulls the necessary sound files needed to play them back. And a audio guru that has a clue for using samples will be able to save the samples at the correct bit depth and sample rate to avoid the DS' compression from distortion or alterring the sound.

Don't really follow what your examples are for, you listed mp3s and midi files, but I didn't see what you were trying to show.

[Gigasoft]

Krawall actually recognizes duplicate file names in the sound samples for the mod files you compress with it. Then when you load a track krawall's engine pulls the necessary sound files needed to play them back. And a audio guru that has a clue for using samples will be able to save the samples at the correct bit depth and sample rate to avoid the DS' compression from distortion or alterring the sound.

I see, I didn't know that. But is the music data compressed too? It's a bit bloated to begin with, even in IT format (which has at least 2 bytes per note, and 1 byte per time division).

Don't really follow what your examples are for, you listed mp3s and midi files, but I didn't see what you were trying to show.

Well, the MP3s just give an idea of what the music sounds like in the game (to show that no parts have been removed). The sizes given in parentheses are for the actual music data stored in the ROM, not the MP3 files of course. Just trying to show how much space can be saved over MIDI without having to uncompress anything in RAM.

[The Ultimate Chimera]

did a soundtrack for a shmup on DS and it was a royal pain.

Oh, cool, what was it called? I wonder if I've played it...

[CBlockDis]

Krawall actually recognizes duplicate file names in the sound samples for the mod files you compress with it. Then when you load a track krawall's engine pulls the necessary sound files needed to play them back. And a audio guru that has a clue for using samples will be able to save the samples at the correct bit depth and sample rate to avoid the DS' compression from distortion or alterring the sound.

I see, I didn't know that. But is the music data compressed too? It's a bit bloated to begin with, even in IT format (which has at least 2 bytes per note, and 1 byte per time division).

Don't really follow what your examples are for, you listed mp3s and midi files, but I didn't see what you were trying to show.

Well, the MP3s just give an idea of what the music sounds like in the game (to show that no parts have been removed). The sizes given in parentheses are for the actual music data stored in the ROM, not the MP3 files of course. Just trying to show how much space can be saved over MIDI without having to uncompress anything in RAM.

Touche, although the dev kit thingy converts all the MIDI files to text files and so on and so forth, and they end up being really tiny files. Probably something similar to the same thing you are going for minus the hassle, but the dev kit requires a license and a hefty fee. :p I think it's like 2000 dollars for a licensed dev kit from nintendo.

I always used XM format with krawall and the file size of everything always ended up so small it didn't make much of a difference in the end of it. The sound engine of DS is limited(prior to DSi anyway) and could only do so many sound sources at once, music and sound effects alike. So you ended up losing a lot of polyphony to compensate for other aspects of the game's engine, such as loading graphics and such. I think when I did XM I limited it to 8 channels and when switched to MIDI ended up limiting it to 12 notes of polyphony so I could save 4 for sound effects. I'm sure DSi can support more though because the cpu and memory are a lot heftier. :p