Adventure Forums - View Single Post

Pell · 11-26-2008, 05:59 PM

Wasn't entirely sure where to post this... I'm a composer who's collaborating with a friend on a play that's going to be set in the world of a Golden Age adventure game--bounded geography, barter economy, hilariously large inventory... the works. Naturally, I want the music to evoke that gaming experience. Does anyone have advice on the best way to do this? I guess it's kind of an open-ended question, since those games appeared on all kinds of systems over a long stretch of time. If I had to be specific, I'd guess I'd say I'm aiming for the music you'd hear playing an AGI Sierra game on an Apple IIGS in 1989. Or failing that, on a PC around 1992 with a Sound Blaster. I want folks to be able to hear the pixels, as it were.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! My setup is pretty basic--I record with a combination of live audio and MIDI keyboard on Garageband, on a Mac laptop. Are there any MIDI plugins that do a good job of emulating these sounds? (There are tons that emulate 8-bit video game systems, presumably because the mechanics there were very simple.) I'm not too knowledgeable about how those old sound cards worked, or the software and file formats associated with them... though I suspect I'm going to have to start learning.

11-26-2008, 05:59 PM	#1
Pell Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: New York City Posts: 5	Recreating old game music Wasn't entirely sure where to post this... I'm a composer who's collaborating with a friend on a play that's going to be set in the world of a Golden Age adventure game--bounded geography, barter economy, hilariously large inventory... the works. Naturally, I want the music to evoke that gaming experience. Does anyone have advice on the best way to do this? I guess it's kind of an open-ended question, since those games appeared on all kinds of systems over a long stretch of time. If I had to be specific, I'd guess I'd say I'm aiming for the music you'd hear playing an AGI Sierra game on an Apple IIGS in 1989. Or failing that, on a PC around 1992 with a Sound Blaster. I want folks to be able to hear the pixels, as it were. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! My setup is pretty basic--I record with a combination of live audio and MIDI keyboard on Garageband, on a Mac laptop. Are there any MIDI plugins that do a good job of emulating these sounds? (There are tons that emulate 8-bit video game systems, presumably because the mechanics there were very simple.) I'm not too knowledgeable about how those old sound cards worked, or the software and file formats associated with them... though I suspect I'm going to have to start learning.