Music track lenght

[steve bisson]

When you buy custom music from a composer or when you buy stock music how long is it ?

How long do you like your music to be for puzzle games or other casual types ?

Whats the average lenght of the music track you use in your games ?

3 questions that sounds alike but are different ;)

Thanks

[Phil Steinmeyer]

My game had 30 minutes of custom music, about 4 minutes a track.

[Bmc]

you want something that isn't too repetitive, and ideally you should have a different track for different states of the application (main menu, in game play, between levels).

[Jeroen Stout]

In my view it really depends. I sometimes rip the music from games I own (I own the game, might as well listen to the music I bought with it - or so my without doubt somewhat unlawful thoughts are) and I notice that sometimes they're very short without me having noticed.
If your music is very repetive and is played in a heavy attention-absorbing battle scenario you can get away with 30 seconds without any problem. If it is played during a feel-good reward moment in a grass field during which you slowly walk, then 30 seconds would make you a very, very horrible man.

The music files I used in my adventure game were up to 2 minutes and one review read (I can't believe I'm in the phase where I got reviews I can semi-quote) that the music was a bit repetive if you played it too long. I made the music myself, and it comes freely with my game (www.jeroenstout.net/divided (http://www.jeroenstout.net/divided/)). Fruity loops can do the right things if you have the right samples (so no awful trance-inspired music!)

Bmc said a valuable thing, btw, music in menus and even areas is a good thing. My game had different tracks for most areas; the opening room had one track, a cave had only random dripping water and at one point you entered a huge environment with large machinery in it and the music changes to this heavy machine-induced music. Then during the closedown of the game you get very active music, high rythmic (although it is an aventure game and the closest you can to shooting was pointing at things and going 'kpow! kpow!' by yourself.

There :) this seems like a good first post.

[soniCron]

Sorry to throw this thread off topic, but Jeroen, beautiful looking game! Great job! I'm going to have to check that out! Welcome to the forums!

[svero]

I think a good composer can produce stuff thats pretty short 30-45 seconds per track and not too repetitive. It depends on the length of your levels a bit though.

[Barlok]

Imho, 50-70 sec per track, but it depends on a game. :cool:

[Jeroen Stout]

Sorry to throw this thread off topic, but Jeroen, beautiful looking game! Great job! I'm going to have to check that out! Welcome to the forums!
Cheers :) Hope you enjoy it.