I considered making a thread about this on the public boards but decided I didn't want to bother wording things really craftily in order to avoid hinting at what The Other Big Project is. Might recreate this thread on public boards or ask a mod to move it there, once it's released.
I know that Caravel experimented with
Deadly Music of Death - which is no longer visible from the website by the way, nor is there any sort of site map, not that one can still order it anyway - and didn't seem to succeed. I think it's time to consider doing something like it again.
Currently, unless I'm mistaken, the only non-piratical alternative is to buy a $20 obsolete DROD engine and dig through the forum for some tool, I think it's called MetaKitExtract? And that doesn't get you the "
new, extended version"
of "
Ancient Machine"
, which I've often wondered about but never felt could be worth $15 on its own.
Frequently when I play games, especially Flash games, if the music is good enough I look for a way to obtain that music. So I was thinking, at least for the JtRH tracks, that you could put the music up for sale on a pay-for-download service like
Bandcamp. And since you aren't selling a physical CD it could be cheaper. And since it's a Flash game that you're offering for free it should definitely be cheaper. Not to mention that it's not really much of a step down, since you're coming from "
selling so poorly that you discontinued it"
.
So let's say $5, with an option to pay more (yes, you can do this, and yes, people actually take you up on it sometimes), or if you're feeling hubris-filled and thematic $8 (don't do this. go with the $5.) Put the extended "
Ancient Machine"
mix on as a bonus track you can only hear by buying the album, and say you're bringing it back for those who never had the chance to hear it. There might be some legalities to look into with the title music and "
Uncovered"
. I'm not really sure about those, but the rest of the soundtrack there's no reason to leave out.
So why would this do better than the DMoD CD did? Well...
* You aren't selling them a CD. But Jatopian, isn't a CD a value-add?
No! No it is not. Rather the opposite, in fact. You could conceivably have a physical CD bundle
option if you must; Bandcamp lets you do that. But I, like many, feel physical CDs are unnecessary expense and bulk in this world of pocket-sized computers that hold all my music. If you only give me the CD option I feel like you're charging me a large portion of whatever you're charging because of a dated storage medium I don't like.
* You aren't selling them AE tracks that are public domain anyway.
* And of course, this time you're giving them
all the JtRH music and letting them choose which ones to listen to, instead of limiting them to only the tracks Erik liked best.
Speaking of the AE tracks, another thing you might be able to do is offer them as bonus tracks. Right now they're all available freely... but only in OGG format, whereas one of Bandcamp's things is that you upload the WAV files and they let consumers choose their preferred format.
The best part about this idea is that as far as I can see it doesn't have any risks or any startup cost aside from some time. I think it deserves serious consideration, and soon, since if implemented the release would be best timed before or concurrent with the Flash DROD debut.
____________________________
DROD has some really great music.
Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
DROD architecture idea generator
[Last edited by Jatopian at 05-16-2012 01:03 AM : re: AE tracks]
.
but if I understand what you are asking, and if the files are MIDI files, they can be imported into Sibelius which will give you the score to work with. Importing MIDI files sometimes leaves the Sibelius file needing a bit of cosmetic 'tweaking' but is generally quite successful. It may also be possible to import MIDI into Notion3, but I am not so famiiiar with it.
Elf