We did an utterly amazing thing in Lord of the Rings Online last night!
I have a band in the game, I can muster eight players. I have my main paid account, plus seven free-to-play accounts, which exist only to provide me with additional musicians. I can run all eight copies of the game on my 32 gig Asus gaming laptop. If I want, I can also run one of my wife's accounts for nine. And I'm planning on bringing that number up to 11 as I have some more complex songs that I want to play.
The way music works in-game is you find a MIDI version of a song you like, let's say Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick. You run a program called Maestro, or other similar programs, that converts it to a music format called ABC. ABC is a text file that breaks the tracks in the MIDI into a text representation, it's been around for ages - predating computers - and is a file format that can be read by the game and played by characters in-game! We have frequent band jams/dance parties, both spontaneous and planned. Tuesday night was planned.
If a MIDI cooperates, I can convert a song from MIDI to ABC in 5-10 minutes and preview it in a program called ABC Player, which takes as long as the song actually is. I also need to play it in-game, because the ABC Player isn't always 100% faithful to how it sounds in-game. That takes time, because you have to start up all the instances, load the players, start a party, invite everyone, load the correct instruments, tell them to load the song, then FINALLY you can start play! It takes some effort.
All that setup takes time, usually you do the MIDI/ABC conversion and preview of a whole bunch of songs, then fire up LOTRO, set up your band, and preview a whole bunch of songs in a private place. Make notes on changes that you need to do, and you're good. So that way you're only spending setup time once.
Last night we were playing in Bree, a famous town of the first book of Lord of the Rings and a major city in the game. We're down at South Gate, where we frequently play. One of the bands whom I regularly play with, led by Fersinda, we got in to playing as much Jethro Tull as we could, going back and forth. It was well after midnight, finally a friend announced we could play one more song each, then she had to leave. That was fine, I also needed to get to bed. I suggested to Fersinda that we each play Bouree, a wonderful instrumental based on a work by Bach. Fersinda's version is awesome! Mine I'd never played before in-game, I'd just made it last month.
So she player hers. I played mine. Mine was better than I expected, had some good points and was well-received. I used a harp in place of a piano and a special deluxe bassoon instead of a flute, and it sounded pretty good. And we realized we used the same MIDI to make our songs! Completely different ABCs, but same MIDIs.
And I think it was Fersinda suggested we should play them synchronized.
AND WE DID.
We had both split our songs in to four parts (four musicians), with different instrumentation. We grouped our bands together into something called a raid party, it allowed us to have all eight of us in one group and to start our songs simultaneously. We faced off several yards apart, which was my suggestion, to create a more pronounced stereo effect. She loaded up our musicians from her version on her computer, I did the same with my version from my computer, and did I a /playstart, which triggers our musicians to start playing simultaneously.
It was amazing.
The synchronization was perfect, and standing in the middle between the two bands was fantastic! You could spin your character around and the song swirled and was just incredible! I had dismissed the rest of my band, but brought back one so I could run around and listen because if you move a musician while they are playing, you break their playing and you can't re-enter a song.
The friend who was going to bed, Dreamy, then set up so she could record it - she's going to post it on a private YouTube channel! So we moved a little closer and did it a second time. It was so cool, I can't wait to hear the video! We're going to do it on a regular Friday night band jam at the Pony, one of the inns in Bree, but not this week.
Here is a Youtube recording of the album track of Tull:
This entry was originally posted at https://thewayne.dreamwidth.org/1175381.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
The way music works in-game is you find a MIDI version of a song you like, let's say Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick. You run a program called Maestro, or other similar programs, that converts it to a music format called ABC. ABC is a text file that breaks the tracks in the MIDI into a text representation, it's been around for ages - predating computers - and is a file format that can be read by the game and played by characters in-game! We have frequent band jams/dance parties, both spontaneous and planned. Tuesday night was planned.
If a MIDI cooperates, I can convert a song from MIDI to ABC in 5-10 minutes and preview it in a program called ABC Player, which takes as long as the song actually is. I also need to play it in-game, because the ABC Player isn't always 100% faithful to how it sounds in-game. That takes time, because you have to start up all the instances, load the players, start a party, invite everyone, load the correct instruments, tell them to load the song, then FINALLY you can start play! It takes some effort.
All that setup takes time, usually you do the MIDI/ABC conversion and preview of a whole bunch of songs, then fire up LOTRO, set up your band, and preview a whole bunch of songs in a private place. Make notes on changes that you need to do, and you're good. So that way you're only spending setup time once.
Last night we were playing in Bree, a famous town of the first book of Lord of the Rings and a major city in the game. We're down at South Gate, where we frequently play. One of the bands whom I regularly play with, led by Fersinda, we got in to playing as much Jethro Tull as we could, going back and forth. It was well after midnight, finally a friend announced we could play one more song each, then she had to leave. That was fine, I also needed to get to bed. I suggested to Fersinda that we each play Bouree, a wonderful instrumental based on a work by Bach. Fersinda's version is awesome! Mine I'd never played before in-game, I'd just made it last month.
So she player hers. I played mine. Mine was better than I expected, had some good points and was well-received. I used a harp in place of a piano and a special deluxe bassoon instead of a flute, and it sounded pretty good. And we realized we used the same MIDI to make our songs! Completely different ABCs, but same MIDIs.
And I think it was Fersinda suggested we should play them synchronized.
AND WE DID.
We had both split our songs in to four parts (four musicians), with different instrumentation. We grouped our bands together into something called a raid party, it allowed us to have all eight of us in one group and to start our songs simultaneously. We faced off several yards apart, which was my suggestion, to create a more pronounced stereo effect. She loaded up our musicians from her version on her computer, I did the same with my version from my computer, and did I a /playstart, which triggers our musicians to start playing simultaneously.
It was amazing.
The synchronization was perfect, and standing in the middle between the two bands was fantastic! You could spin your character around and the song swirled and was just incredible! I had dismissed the rest of my band, but brought back one so I could run around and listen because if you move a musician while they are playing, you break their playing and you can't re-enter a song.
The friend who was going to bed, Dreamy, then set up so she could record it - she's going to post it on a private YouTube channel! So we moved a little closer and did it a second time. It was so cool, I can't wait to hear the video! We're going to do it on a regular Friday night band jam at the Pony, one of the inns in Bree, but not this week.
Here is a Youtube recording of the album track of Tull:
Click to viewThis entry was originally posted at https://thewayne.dreamwidth.org/1175381.html. Please comment there using OpenID.