Help me to find new music for industrial/modern era

[Knightly_]

Hi civfanatics,
i love the civilization 4 music... until i reach indutrial era. Up to then the music ist just awesome and gives a very nice atmosphere which fits perfectly into the game period. But for some reason i really dont like industrial and modern era music. It even annoys me so that every time i think "what the.... why was firaxis not able to make a nice late game music". However, my plan is to replace those lategame music files with new ones which i like more. I am thinking of a mix of music styles such as Jazz, Rock, Pop for example. Feel free to make any suggestions of which music to use... the only restriction is that it should somehow fit to the era. Maybe anyone of you has done such a music replacement before ? What do you think of industrial/modern music ?

Greetings Knightly_

 

[EsaKo]

You don't like A. Dvorak? I don't like modern era music either but industrial age music is really great if you ask me!

 

[Lyoncet]

If you don't like the artists they feature in Industrial, you may consider Debussy and Rachmaninoff as potential replacements. If you don't like romantic music in general… then you have my sympathy. Also, consider the likes of Granger/Holst/Gershwin.

Jazz/rock etc would be fine as Modern era, but by Civ's categorization, they really won't fit in the industrial era. So nothing stopping you from putting them in industrial, but they wouldn't really be periodic.

 

[Sisiutil]

I don't know what to suggest for the Industrial era, because I think the music chosen for it is great: Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak... what's not to like? To each their own, I suppose...

However, I fully understand someone's aversion to the Modern era soundtrack; it's a reaction shared by many. Modern "classical" music, for lack of a better term, is definitely an acquired taste.

I'd recommend your favourite tracks from Holst's The Planets, Eric Satie, Gershwin (especially "Rhapsody in Blue" and "An American in Paris") and whatever jazz you like. Movie soundtracks can also provide good fodder for that era. Ultimately, though, play whatever you like--it's your game.

 

[Dusk]

I like all but the modern/future era music in CivIV. The holy soundtrack of ...uh classic? era can be abit tedious though.
At least it's not as bad as the "indstrial" music of the modern era in CivIII. Those drills and jackhammers made me crazy.

For Modern I can recommend the Fallout 3 soundtrack (Galaxy News), very 50'ies. I downloaded a modpack for it and got a total of 100 songs of that time.
I often play the Battlefield Vietnam soundtrack if I'm on the warpath. The Rock 'n' Roll wonder and Elvis the great artist always inspires me to play some by him aswell.

 

[Lyoncet]

Also, add Copland to my list of recommendations.

 

[Glassfan]

As a fan of minimalism, I like the Adams very much - but yes - it's an aquired taste. And of course it's not even the "good" Adams music, like Quick Ride on a Fast Machine. But what music could we all agree upon?

Rock and Roll might be a good choice. It's international and characteristic of the age. The problem might be copywrite and payment. And what kind of Rock? The moment you pick something like heavy metal or grunge, they'll be threads bashing it. Some say yes, others disagree.

 

[dirtyparrot]

I've reduced my CIV playlist to that of the Renaissance (i.e. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven). I just play that for the whole game.

 

[EsaKo]

Yeah, the modern era is, in Civ, the 1900s. I would include livelier Jazz and Ragtime, but for the sake of historical accuracy... gosh, I hate so say this... we would have to include synthentizer pop from the late modern era. Anything with singing wouldn't fit well (except for perhaps national music, in LoR I think someone had opera as their nat. music).

 

[Knightly_]

Thanks alot for your advice.

Greetings Knightly_

 

[joanne]

Odd - I don't like early to mid-game music and my favorite is industrial era music - although we both agree on the modern era music(not a big fan of minimalist music). Anyway my custom music folder is mostly pop music + movie/game soundtracks with a few national anthems, but in some games I noticed that I performed better with the music turned off(can be distracting when doing early worker micro or late war) so sometimes I disable music.

 

[Dr.Null]

Industrial era: Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM -- "industrial".

Modern & Future era: The Field, Orbital, Aphex Twin, Talvin Singh, Thievery Corporation -- "trip-hop".


... on a more serious note, maybe you could use movie sound tracks here.

Modern era = any modern sound track, Future era = Star Wars or the like.

 

[EsaKo]

Modern era = any modern sound track, Future era = Star Wars or the like.

Make sure you use the "spacy" arrangement by Michael Machell instead of the brass orchestra (check YouTube if you don't know what this is about...)

 

[Lyoncet]

Yeah, the modern era is, in Civ, the 1900s. I would include livelier Jazz and Ragtime, but for the sake of historical accuracy... gosh, I hate so say this... we would have to include synthentizer pop from the late modern era.

Got a laugh out of this concept since the first thing I thought of was "Switched-On Bach." Modern era could just be MIDI renditions of all the previous eras (or maybe 8-bit video game music).

 

[EsaKo]

Got a laugh out of this concept since the first thing I thought of was "Switched-On Bach." Modern era could just be MIDI renditions of all the previous eras (or maybe 8-bit video game music).

It's going to be video game music anyway, so why not

 

[katipunero]

Shaking and trembling is a personal favorite of mine.

I suggest, if you've been into civ 3 before, to import stars, smash and techno sound files. But actually I don't know how to put that in 4. I never got around to ask the question I hope someone can help us out.

 

[Lyoncet]

If I recall correctly, it's a simple matter of opening the Civ IV data files then going Assets > Sounds > Soundtrack > Era of Choice and then replacing the files. Since all the game music is in mp3 format, it shouldn't be hard to get it to recognize whatever music you want.

 

[katipunero]

If I recall correctly, it's a simple matter of opening the Civ IV data files then going Assets > Sounds > Soundtrack > Era of Choice and then replacing the files. Since all the game music is in mp3 format, it shouldn't be hard to get it to recognize whatever music you want.

I get the idea of your suggestion. I tried that before. It's just hard to choose which sound files to overwrite or replace since I like to keep all my civ4 music intact. There's a way to do what I need with the sound files via xml coding which I am not good at. I always manage to crash my civ after every attempt at editing xml files.

 

[joanne]

There's a checkbox in the Options->Audio menu that says "custom music folder" you can put all your music files in there or even put subfolders for each era. You don't have to edit the xml at all or replace them one by one - I did that before I learned about the custom folder option, but it works well if you want to replace the diplo music like in some instances when I get really irritated with one particular leader I change their diplo music into something laughable, or into mushy love songs when I've finally got them to friendly after 5000 years of courtship

 

[Dr.Null]

in some instances when I get really irritated with one particular leader I change their diplo music into something laughable, or into mushy love songs when I've finally got them to friendly after 5000 years of courtship

Oh my.

What a hilarious idea.