Formula for background music

[dstarsboy]

I was just wondering what experienced VNers have found to be a working formula for background music? I figure the obvious... sad music for sad parts, silly music for silly parts, romantic music for romantic parts... but I read that someone mentioned that each girl or character has their own music as well? How does that work? Also, do you experience music getting repetitive and annoying to the point where having no music at all actually makes the game better?

[dstarsboy]

No one can help out here?

I guess my problem is this... I have 4 great background music pieces in my current game: romance, normal, sad, silly... but as I play through I can feel it becoming increasingly repetitive and more and more annoying (I guess it could be just me, lol). But I just don't want add more music for the hell of it and without purpose and I'm not 100% sure what situations are best suited for removing music completely. How many background music pieces do you typically use in your VNs?

[papillon]

Game music pretty much always feels repetitive eventually... I've known several games where I sulked about them repeating 'all the time' and then was amazed when I went to the game jukebox and saw just how many pieces there were!

Until you have the programming and musical expertise to do dynamic music changes to keep it from feeling loopy, you'll have to face a bit of repetition.

How much music you need probably depends on how long your game is and what emotional states it tries to invoke.

[azureXtwilight]

Well, you see... In my opinion, if the music is very good I won't get bored easily. But I think only four music is a bit too little, maybe you can add two or three more?
But, size also matters, since audio files take responsibility for those big sizes and I'm one of those who has slow connection, so I hopw it won't be too many.
Oh, and about each girl having their own music, yes. You can try that as well!
But I think that's more fitting in a dating sim than in a VN...
But. it's my personal opinion of course.

[Sapphi]

IMO, one "sad" theme isn't enough.
It gets kind of cheesy if it's repeated enough... you hear the first couple notes and then you're like "Oh, here comes a sad scene.." If you can, switching it up might be good. I also like the idea of character themes. I think they work well when you have a character with a very obvious personality (Like in Evangelion, Rei had a theme, and so did Asuka if I'm correct). However, it's probably not a good idea to play their themes every time they come up. Maybe just when the scene is supposed to be about them. I think that maybe, you should have one "base" theme that's mild enough not to distract, but likable, to "carry" the game when there's no real mood to be set. Not that there can't be silence, but if there's too much, that's no fun :b

[Coatl]

I try not to go with that generic sounding music like the piano melodies in Brass Restoration. It is often a great idea to figure out music for moods but i think you should have around three or four types of music. Music for characters are also great because you can use it to fill the general mood of the character's conversation or it often reflect the character's personality.

If you compose your own music on programs such as Fruity Loops. I recommend you do different genres for the same mood song, a genre or style for each character. It can help a lot in making each experience unique.