The problem with that is, that with code if you screw it up, the program won't actually run. But if you get the music wrong, you can still win awards for it. coding has an absolute right and wrong, music as you say, is highly subjective.

So I think you should also step up to teach us how to appreciate good from bad, very basics and some theory. I had asked about it briefly before ( http://www.gamedev.net/topic/651305-i-want-something-like-x/ ) but there is more way to go imo.

This is the hard thing about art (music, visual art, writing, etc) because so much of it is subjective. What some may consider bad, others might really enjoy. So while things which are more concrete, like coding, are more black and white (like if the game is crashing, that's obivously not working) music is more of a grey area. This is also the challenging (and exciting!) part of being a composer in this industry. Each time I work with a new client, I view it as a puzzle - trying to figure out what works best for them and their game while remaining true to myself. It can be quite fun when it's working well!

I think that's a common issue for any field you produce something for "senses" , someone may be happy with a pretty bad logo, someone may fall in love with a Flash website at year 2014 etc. It is subjective, I agree , but there is room for an educated opinion I believe.

I mean, unlike an untrained/inexperienced one , I can tell if logo is not vector, too detailed to be lost when used small size or colors are not B&W printing friendly. Similar things apply for an archaic Flash based website. And I can explain this and their purpose to some extent.

If you don't say there is nothing to do for untrained/ungifted "ear" , that's ok but if there are tips we can benefit and you can also benefit because we may stop or reduce asking wrong or stupid questions, I'd like to hear them.

If you don't say there is nothing to do for untrained/ungifted "ear" , that's ok but if there are tips we can benefit and you can also benefit because we may stop or reduce asking wrong or stupid questions, I'd like to hear them.

While I value folks wanting to know what makes good versus bad music, it really comes down to what serves the game (and its players) the best. Some of the more concrete aspects about if a piece of music is good or bad relate to production:

- is it distorting due to clipping out?

- is it drastically softer or louder than any other cues or sounds in the game? (Could be either an implementation or production issue)

- is it set to the wrong sampling/bit rate so that it causes a bad listening experience (like the time a programmer downsampled my MP3s to 56kbps which made it sound horrible). This is the trade off between audio footprint/performance and sound quality.

These are just a few and it's much easier to define good versus bad here. These are less subjective than other criteria of a good song. A repetitive melody? Poor voicings? Less than steller sounding samples/fonts? Simple rhythms? These could be great or bad. They could add to your game or take away. These are things that a trained ear may pick up but the casual player may not even notice. So my advice to others wanting to know if the music/audio they're putting in their games is "good enough" - playtest it with a decent pool of people. If you feel the game has matched your vision for the narrative and you feel the player's getting the experience you set out to create - and 75% of your players are screaming that they hate the music - you're good!

What we need to get away from is the expectation that complex music automatically equals good music. Or that orchestral music automatically means higher quality. Especially in the arena of game audio.

If you don't say there is nothing to do for untrained/ungifted "ear" , that's ok but if there are tips we can benefit and you can also benefit because we may stop or reduce asking wrong or stupid questions, I'd like to hear them.

While I value folks wanting to know what makes good versus bad music, it really comes down to what serves the game (and its players) the best. Some of the more concrete aspects about if a piece of music is good or bad relate to production:

- is it distorting due to clipping out?

- is it drastically softer or louder than any other cues or sounds in the game? (Could be either an implementation or production issue)

- is it set to the wrong sampling/bit rate so that it causes a bad listening experience (like the time a programmer downsampled my MP3s to 56kbps which made it sound horrible). This is the trade off between audio footprint/performance and sound quality.

These are just a few and it's much easier to define good versus bad here. These are less subjective than other criteria of a good song. A repetitive melody? Poor voicings? Less than steller sounding samples/fonts? Simple rhythms? These could be great or bad. They could add to your game or take away. These are things that a trained ear may pick up but the casual player may not even notice. So my advice to others wanting to know if the music/audio they're putting in their games is "good enough" - playtest it with a decent pool of people. If you feel the game has matched your vision for the narrative and you feel the player's getting the experience you set out to create - and 75% of your players are screaming that they hate the music - you're good!

What we need to get away from is the expectation that complex music automatically equals good music. Or that orchestral music automatically means higher quality. Especially in the arena of game audio.

couldn't agree with that more.

mp3 sample rates below 192 distort easily, and it's noticeable to the untrained ear even at that level, if you get a choice go higher.

You do have to accept some degradation of course: an hour of high quality recording can easily exceed a GB (I usually use wav) , the rest of the game assets might only be 300M put together. Ease of distribution has to take precedence eventually.