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[eric22222]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was dealing with... If nothing they've said helps you any, you can just edit out the sfx and play the game (it's worth the effort; the game is meant to be fast!).

[eric22222]

Alright, here's a question that's somewhat still on the same topic:

What's so great about wav files? If I create a midi file that will be higher quality and lower file size than a wav, why should I convert it? The games I'm working on have tons of levels, and I'd like to create enough background music so that the songs are only repeated a few times among the levels. If I were to convert them to wavs, though, I'd be dealing with massive game! Any reason I shouldnt leave them as midis?

[durnurd]

The only reason to convert them to Wav files is to keep the sound quality.  People with different sound cards end up hearing MIDI files differently because of the way that the MIDI sounds are rendered.  Converting it to a Wav file negates this difference in sound, but I don't think that anybody will care if it sounds different on different systems.  A lot of the older games that use MIDI music have this anyway.

Oh, and some sound cards apparently can't play MIDI and Wav at the same time, but those must be incredibly old, out of date cards.

[billybob884]

well, i dont know about midis, but wavs are better than mp3's because when you loop them they dont have that 1/2 a second of silence at teh end (or however big it is)

[eric22222]

Alright then, I'll just keep 'em all as midis. I'd rather have a wide variety of music for my games. I've always been a fan of video game music... Banjo-Kazooie, Chrono Trigger, even Super Mario World (Haven't played enough Final Fantasy games to be a fan).

Yeah, I was looking at the other games that have been submitted. I'm going to try to keep the file size manageable. Didn't seem like there was much over a few megabytes, except for Turok's World, but I didn't mind its file size; it kept me laughing  .

Looks like I can have as many songs as I need!

Thanks again, guys!

[cbass]

well, i dont know about midis, but wavs are better than mp3's because when you loop them they dont have that 1/2 a second of silence at teh end (or however big it is)

I'm kind of a noob on wav's.  The only ones I've ever dealt with are when ripping a cd and getting a large 30+meg file for a few minutes of audio.  Without knowing anythng more, the only place I would use waves in a gamedev project would be quick <2 second sound effects.  Any large files that would be looped (background music) I would most likely have as midi, or possibly mp3.

An option for good sound quality is to release 2 versions of the game, 1 with wav's and 1 with mp3's and midis.  One would be a massive download, and the other would be more manageable but with less quality of sound.

[durnurd]

Wav files are rarely if ever used in current-day games (Doom 3, KOTOR, Evil Genius are my refference points, but most games are similar).  Almost all files are MP3, OGG Vorbis, BIK, or some format of the company's own devising (which is usually just a TAR-like file containing a bunch of smaller files of the previously mentioned types).

I would sooner upload a game that includes the OGG Vorbis codec installer and uses OGG files than using Wavs.

[GameDeveloper]

  I was wondering, how would I be able to record midi files or any other kind of format other than wav.?  I currently only use the microsoft recorder-type-device/program, and I would really like for my games to be a smaller size!  Is there a free program I can download to do this?  Is there a way to convert?  I just need to know, because most of my games are a tremendous size because of the sound!   Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[durnurd]

I personally use Goldwave (Goldwave.com) for all my audio editing etc.  Very nice program.  It lets you save in many many different formats, including Wav (of course) MP3-compressed wav, MP3, ogg, and others. (however, you need to download an MP3 converter to save as an MP3 file).  You want to make sure you know what all the Kb/s, Sample rate, bit-rate etc. numbers mean as far as size and sound quality go.  I'm still not sure myself :p

As for MIDI, I use Voyetra Record Producer, however it's not free and you only get it for 30 days with the trial version (Voyetra).  I don't actually know of any completely free MIDI orchestration tools that are any good.  Do you have a MIDI piano keyboard that you use, or would you be composing the music note by note in the program?

[GameDeveloper]

Thanks for the programs.  I do have a MIDI keyboard, I believe.  At least it's compatible.  I believe I've tried doing the note by note way, but it wasn't my 'thing'.  I'll try to hook up my Keyboard and try these programs out.

Thanks agian, Durnurd.

[Zorb Burger]

DAYUMM!!  durnurd teh man!! he help me out wit math, but i no not he good at nay music kinda stfuf.  dood yer lik a nerd wit math smarts an a girl wit music tallent and crap!!  u gots it all

[GameDeveloper]

I have a problem.  Any kind of sound editing program I download, I can't hear anything after I record [including GoldWave].  What could be the problem?  Is it because I have integrated sound[motherboard]?  It just kind of frustrates me, and I don't want to be stuck with enormous file size for my games.  Any suggestions?

[durnurd]

I'll troubleshoot Goldwave anyway.  First of all, whatever program you were using before, does that still work?  If not, then it's probably a problem with a volume control.  If it does work, then try a couple of things in Goldwave:

Can you play files that you have previously recorded in another program using Goldwave (just open them and press play or Spacebar)?  If you can, then the problem is probably that it's not recording or not recording loud enough.  After you record sound, does a wave form show up in the main window?

Press F11 to open the Control properties, then go to the Volume tab.  Make sure the "microphone" box is checked (assuming that's the input you're using) and that it's not turned to zero.  Then create a new wave file about 5 seconds long ("5.0").  Record something, anything, for the length of time.  Then, go to the effects menu->Volume->Maximize and press OK.  This should make anything it did record become loud enough for you to hear if it wasn't before.  Then try playing it again.

If you can't hear files you recorded using a different program in Goldwave, can you hear them using other programs (like the one you used to record)?

[GameDeveloper]

Well, I did what you said and everything seems to work fine, except for the quality.  When I turn the volume all the way up, I can hear a very loud wind-like sound, it nearly overwhelms the sound itself.  Is there some way to edit that out?  If not, then it should be ok.

[durnurd]

So the problem is probably that your microphone is turned too far down or is too far away from your mouth (or whatever is making the sound) and too close to a computer fan or something.  If you go back into the volume tab and turn up the microphone some more, give it a little boost, that should help a little.  And another thing you can do with Goldwave is edit out background noise.  There are predefined ways to do this, or you can do it manually.  To do it automatically, from the Effects menu, choose Filter->Noise reduction.  Then at the bottom, in the "Presets" combo, choose either "Reduce Hum" or "Remove Hiss" depending on what the noise is more like.  To do it manually, find a small part of the sound that is just background noise (it doesn't have to be very long.  0.1 seconds is plenty.) abd select it and copy it (Ctrl+c, just like normal).  then Filter->Noise Reduction, and in the Preset combo choose "Clipboard Noise Print" which will remove noise similar to whatever you copied.  It works incredibly well for getting rid of a humming fan or something similar.