Why is the music in some PCE Rpgs so mediocre???

[Arkhan]

I think it's mediocre by era.

So many things (including television) were plagued by derpy as hell music in the early 90s.  It's like The Best of Yamaha Presets.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, those motherf*cking PCM and FM synths with their "Oh! It sounds %80 like a horn section!" Voice Banks and zero tweakability. Worst shit ever.

[ddd1234]

I just want to know what the original poster, found so displeasing about the music in Neo-metal.

It's not repetitive, it's just lifeless. I do like the map themes (there are 2), and few other tunes played in the town area.  I also like the "sad" theme played from time to time. But that's it. I was especially disappointed with the battle and boss theme, something I look forward to hearing in any RPG. Overall, the music doesn't leave a lasting impression on the player. It's there to get the job done, and in that regard N.M.F. composers accomplished that task. I've already listed some examples of good RPG soundtracks in my original post. 

[Arkhan]

Yeah, those motherf*cking PCM and FM synths with their "Oh! It sounds %80 like a horn section!" Voice Banks and zero tweakability. Worst shit ever.

It reminds me of those cheesy ass workout videos from the late 80s and early 90s.

and currently: Poor-budget infomercials.

They start out with some goony drum beat thats like "boom boom baada boom ba"

then the synth starts and its like "beewwwww bwaaaabwooooooo"

and, I just realized that making these sound effects sounds better than what I'm making fun of.  crap.

[spenoza]

Budgets also come into play. When you're making games you are probably only paying one person to do the music unless you are a very high profile developer or have a high profile title. That one person likely has an old keyboard. Bing! Music!

[Arkhan]

Budgets also come into play. When you're making games you are probably only paying one person to do the music unless you are a very high profile developer or have a high profile title. That one person likely has an old keyboard. Bing! Music!

I highly doubt the budget for any of these companies could only swing for one keyboard.  Not to mention if they (at the time) were using an "old keyboard", we'd be hearing tons of Moog/Arp/Etc. synthesizers going nuts.  It would sound pretty sweet.

[esteban]

I'm sorry, but mediocre music is not the result of the tools. A decent tunesmith will make all you haters (temporarily) "putting up with" the cheesiest synth sounds. Yes, even the synth sounds you detest so much.

I'm not saying that you will suddenly fall in love with ALL cheesy synth, but you will make an exception for well-crafted tunes.

While there certainly are "trends" in music (style-wise), I don't think we can condemn entire eras simply based on trends  alone. Why? Because there will always be some totally great tunes that slavishly adhere to an era's trendy formulas (they are the "exemplar" tracks), plus you will have tunes that occasionally break the formula and redeem themselves with a few moments of originality/freshness. Sometimes you'll be lucky to stumble upon tunes that completely defied an era's conventions, but these are less common and often produce extreme reactions (love it or hate it, no middle-ground).

Please note, I am not discounting (or even denying) that particular trends/conventions exist (and evolve over time). I just think it is far too simplistic to blame lame music on hardware, cheesy synth sound libraries, etc.

To bring spenoza's point into my earlier formula, we have a very boring (but accurate) idea of why lame music is created:
(1) time
(2) money
(3) talent (or lake thereof)
(4) purpose of music (standalone vs. incidental vs. intentional muzak) (there are pros/cons with each approach)
(5) influence of conventions/norms/trends vs. willingness to flaunt conventions
(6) our (consumer's/fan's) expectations for RPG's to adhere to established conventions (see below).
(7) the commercial component (selling a game/critical response/customer's expectations) creates a tendency for companies to err on the side of conservatism. Conservatism produces lots of muzak.


TANGENT RANT
RPG's suffer from very strong conventions, unfortunately, and it is very rare for designers/companies to experiment with different musical genres/moods/song structures/arrangements/instruments/etc.

Not to start a war here, but I personally believe that many of the RPG soundtracks that are beloved by many people are extremely conventional (employing trendy, for the time, arrangements, instruments, song structure, etc.), but they are executed well and have just enough artistic flair to transcend being totally generic.

I am purposefully being antagonistic towards RPG's and their history of lame music, but everything I wrote can be applied beyond RPG's. It's more fun this way, though.

[Arkhan]

I dunno, there are a great many songs with cheese synths that if you just swap out the instruments, immediately sound better.

It's like Windows General MIDI vs. Roland MT-32

same notes, different sound.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, from a sound quality perspective the problem with 90s game music wasn't that the keyboards were too old, but rather that they were too new.

However, it's also true that many of these pieces were made by one guy, and it's two f*cks of a lot easier to record a track with a Mac II and a DX7 than it is to do it with old Moog, Emu, etc stuff. The pre-MIDI stuff could only make one sound at a time, required proprietary sequencers (if offered at all) which meant you either had to have an actual band, or access to good multi-tracking gear. All of this stuff was a lot more expensive back then than it is now.

Meanwhile an entire piece could be made from a single medium-end Japanese keyboard with one stereo output, if needed.

[spenoza]

Sorry, I didn't so much mean old synths as that many synths at the time were only so good anyway. Game music always sounds worse when they use bad synths to emulate real instruments instead of simply making a synth soundtrack that takes advantage of the unique properties of synthesizers.

[Arkhan]

Sorry, I didn't so much mean old synths as that many synths at the time were only so good anyway. Game music always sounds worse when they use bad synths to emulate real instruments instead of simply making a synth soundtrack that takes advantage of the unique properties of synthesizers.

you  mean like all the Amiga guitar samples?

Zeta: Many old synthesizers can make more than one sound at a time.  The SixTrak can play 6 different voices at one one time.

It only has 6 note polyphony though...

So it's SORT of useful..

but still pretty basic.  They were designed for bands, not for game music.

IT DOESNT STOP ME THOUGH!

All of Insanity's CD music was done with multiple things.  I guess my only advantage was having good multitrack (fruityloops) stuff.  It took many tries to get some of the leads to line up right.

[nodtveidt]

It took many tries to get some of the leads to line up right.

It would have been braindead simple in a tracker.

[spenoza]

I kinda wish there were more and more varied chiptune sound sets for the PCE.

[SignOfZeta]

All of Insanity's CD music was done with multiple things.  I guess my only advantage was having good multitrack (fruityloops) stuff.  It took many tries to get some of the leads to line up right.

Yeah, software is awesome. The copy of Garageband that came free with my computer beats the shit out of $100,000 mixing desks with $10,000 1/2" tape decks from the 80s.

[Arkhan]

It took many tries to get some of the leads to line up right.

It would have been braindead simple in a tracker.

Yes, trackers definitely make playing and recording live instruments "braindead simple"

/sarcasm.

f*ck trackers.  MIDI input keyboards and piano rolls in fruityloops are far more intuitive and make 100000x more sense as far as music is concerned.  You can visualize your music the same way you would with sheet music.

The problem I had was the same problem any musician in a studio would have.

"Insanity level 3 music lead.  Take 38.".