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Haha... there are already "favourite music"-related threads... But what the heck.

In no order:

Red Hot Chili Peppers- Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Bob Marley- Exodus
Living Colour- Vivid
Herbie Hancock- Headhunters
Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane- Live at Carnegie Hall
Miles Davis- Kind Of Blue
Tears For Fears- Sowing the Seeds Of Love
Stevie Ray Vaughan- Texas Flood
The Police- Reggatta De Blanc
Jimi Hendrix- Axis: Bold As Love

Some other favourites:
Living Colour- Time's Up
Dizzy Gillespie- Live at Newport
Fishbone- Truth And Soul
Red Hot Chili Peppers- Mother's Milk
Steel Pulse- True Democracy
Ziggy Marley- Conscious Party
Matisyahu- Shake Off The Dust... Arise
Jimi Hendrix- Electric Ladyland
Bob Marley- Uprising
Bob Marley- Babylon By Bus
Santana- Abraxas
Burning Spear- Hail H.I.M.

This trailer was decent... Although inspiring at first, I was disappointed by the lack of Indy IV footage and how they had to use the old movies as filler. I mean, we all know about what happened with the other films, show us some good footage this time around... But I guess Indy trailers have never been all too great so we'll just have to wait till May.

MIDI software is what I prefer to use for composing background music, because it doesn't involve all those samples, and you can create some beautiful music if you find the right sounds. With MIDI, it takes some degree of musical knowledge to create good sounding tunes, but people with less ability can learn how to do it.

Well, I am a musician myself, so notes are not a problem here. How is it with the music "database" or whatever you call that for MIDI software? With trackers there are samples, and with MIDI, there is what?

I have seen how approximately trackers work, how does a MIDI software work?
What are some good free MIDI programs to compose in?

Sorry for this lot of questions, but I am totally lost in this music thing, and I find it kinda offering to learn composing myself, but I have no clue where to start. It may be a nonsense, but who knows....

What the last two guys said is true. Also, I'd like to add, that with sampler programs, you can get a wide range of sounds (as well as the ability to add more) and with MIDI, you can only get the default ones that come with the sound card.

I recommend The Jazz if you're looking for free MIDI composing software.

In a word, yes- it's easier to create more modern sounding electronic/rap/techno stuff than to do epic classical-esque pieces, simply because the electronic stuff is more musically simple.

MIDI software and high-quality track software are usually quite similar actually, although they have their differences.

With track programs, you can import sound samples to use; simply take a one note recording of... say, a trombone. Import that into the program, and you can use that sample not only for that single note, but the program automatically raises the pitch when you tell it to play higher notes. Of course, this can start sounding fake when you get the higher and lower pitches, but that's how those programs work. And then of course, you can download high quality samples off the internet (usually you have to pay for them, but they can be found for free sometimes).

Then there are programs I like to call "loop software", which can only be used for creating drum/bass loops, etc (which works really well if you're making something repetitive like hip-hop or techno). These programs can include software like eJay (which has many different items in its library such as Hip-Hop eJay, House eJay, etc), FruityLoops/FLStudio (which can also be used as a good piece of track software), and Acoustica's Mixcraft.

MIDI software is what I prefer to use for composing background music, because it doesn't involve all those samples, and you can create some beautiful music if you find the right sounds. With MIDI, it takes some degree of musical knowledge to create good sounding tunes, but people with less ability can learn how to do it.

There's a lot of software you can use to compose; freeware and non-freeware. I prefer the freeware because a lot of the non-freeware stuff is a hassle to get- either they don't sell most of it in stores, or else it's really hard to find in stores, and I don't like buying stuff online. The freeware programs are very competent though, and there are many different ones. If you're looking to make more modern sounds (new-school R&B, hip-hop, trance, house, rave, techno, etc) then any loop or DJ program will do. However, it might be hard to find a free program that can do the same quality of synthesized sound that someone like Nikolas or Geoffkhan uses. If you're looking to do MIDI, then I suggest JazzWare. It's simple, free, and it can do the same amount of stuff that the purchased programs can.   

Well, maybe there's a bug with Audacity and your soundcard and drivers.  Maybe you could try uninstalling and reinstalling it?

But if you're looking for a new program, I highly recommend REAPER.  It's free to try (last time I checked) and it's very powerful.

Also, if you're REALLY looking for a new program, and if you have cash to burn, you'd probably have a lot of fun with ProTools.  I use it at college, and it's pretty nice, I guess.  Takes a lot of system power, but can do all kinds of cool stuff.  Beware, it's fussy with anything other than a Mac though.

Thanks for mentioning Reaper, downloaded it, and it works fine, no troubles, so I think something is wrong with Audacity, not my computer. Although Reaper is better for recording, I can still use Audacity to clean up songs and add some effects without it totally screwing up, so it works for me.

Thanks!

I have a perfectly normal computer... too lazy to check its stats right now.
It was working just fine about 4 days ago, so my computer definitely met the minimum requirements...
Strangely enough, my computer only shuts down when I try to change the 'play while recording' option... but it hasn't done that before, it just started doing this yesterday. Also, for the 'playback' option, it's not currently using my sound card, but some sort of Microsoft/Windows output thing... Maybe that has something to do with it? When I tried changing it so it would use my sound card for playback, the PC shut down as well... I don't know why it's doing this, it's really making me mad. Are there any alternate programs that you could suggest I use?

Ok, I've been using Audacity for my sound mixing and recording for a long time and I've been happy with it... until now. Somehow, it was adjusted so that while recording a new track, it won't play the other tracks, however I need that function on so that I can hear the rhythm and play in time with everything else... I tried changing it back to the default 'play other tracks while recording' function, but when I try to apply it, my computer shuts down. This thing is acting really screwy... Can anyone either give me a possible solution to my problem, or offer an alternate program with basically the same functions?

Thank you!

Uh... shouldn't this be locked?
There's a new sprite jam going on now...

UPDATE: Finished main theme. I'll leave it up to mouthuvmine whether or not to post it.

Hmm, looks interesting. I wonder when he'll release a game outside of the Trilby series?

Hmm... mouthuvmine, I thought I replied to your last post, but I guess it either got deleted, or I forgot to hit the post button... 

I've previously been hired for several other games, and out of 5 games, 3 had authors which never communicated with me about the music, except when they hired me. If this is one of those same games, I can't say yes to doing music for it. 

However, this game looks promising, and I've always been a sucker for low-res stuff. In other words: I'll provide music for this game, on the basis that it will be finished at some point, and not just worked on for a week and then abandoned because you got bored of it... PM me. 

Oh: Is that GUI going to be used in the final version? I've always been afraid of games that use the default GUI...

Looking great! When you hit half way on each aspect except sound give me a shout for some MIDI if you need it.

Dang it m0ds, you beat me to it!
Looking good mouthuvine, I was hoping you'd post a thread about this game... the character reminds me of Tintin somewhat (or a character from that series)- did you draw any inspiration from Herge?

First time seeing this thread, and it looks great!

Steel: Listening to your second theme right now. I can definately see the Chameleon in it. I love that song, and consequently yours. Good show.

Thanks, I was wondering when someone would comment on the music! Glad you like it!

This wasn't the right place to post a thread, you shouldn't have even started a thread, first you should have posted in the 'Offer Your Services' thread.

But, can you give us a sample of your work?

These sprites all look great! I know I'm not a participant, so I can't vote, but I was just wondering: when was the voting rule ever instated? In the past, the host always chose the best one.

This is great animation, Maverick! *gives standing ovation on his computer chair*
This game is looking better than I expected, the new screenshots are so much better than what you had before.

Heh, those were characters he designed for a game he was helping me make. Can you please remove them, lo_res_man? I'm still making that game and I don't want people thinking I've used ripped character sprites.

Yeah, most of those arcade style GB games don't let you save. It's a real shame...

Or just post them in the 'Post an awesome video' thread.