Music Works WTH?

A

angryjuz

Chieftain
Joined
Dec 11, 2013
Messages
6
Ok so you invest an age in promoting great composers to create awe inspiring works in your highly cultured and enlightened civ and then it happens... firaxis didn't pay to use a genuine recording of a masterpiece, but instead we are faced by an oompa general midi approximation of indescribable horror. Why oh why sell a game on it's cultural advancement then short change our sensibilities... anyone agree???

Solution: A fan or firaxis created patch that removes all midi files from the game and replaced them with real recordings that you can be in awe of.
 
I think they were counting on fans to substitute with the real thing. I have to agree with Firaxis that it's not worth the cost of royalties to put the non-free music in their commercial product.
 
Folks actually pay that much attention to that music in Civ V? When I get a masterpiece it plays for a few seconds, but I don't pay much attention to it.

I just don't pay that much attention to those details; just like I don't zoom in to see what unit is fighting or working right-handed or left-handed, or zoom in to see admire a world wonder.

Not insulting those who do that. Am just saying I don't pay that much attention to those details.
 
Well civ has introduced me to some beautiful music and the great musical works could do too apart from everything sounds like a bontempi keyboard played by a seven year old.

Recordings would be cheap as let's face it the composer is dead and you just have to pay the recording owner... of which there will be several and so I reckon this is penny pinching for the sake of a few grand. The rest of the music in this game is first class and it is erroneous that mike flowers pops chimes in half way through in the name of some amazing composer...
 
Well, I was never into the classics. And I don't even know what a bontempi keyboard is.

But that's me.
 
no Big Deal for me either. A picture is worth a thousand notes!
 
Well most of these guys have been dead for ages so they wouldn't have to pay to play the music itself, just to use specific recordings. They could have just hired an orchestra and rattled through the lot in an evening, would have been so much better than the hideous monstrosity currently on show.
 
I actually disagree quite a bit with the assessment of the music quality. I've never noticed them being of poor quality?
 
Camkikaze, the music is amazing in civ, I'm specifically talking about when you expend a great musician as part of the Brave New World expansion... check it out if you haven't already, it's poor. Crafty Bison is spot on... they had a meeting about the budget for music and decided twenty quid was sufficient... this is meant to be a AAA game not made in a bedroom early access nana
 
I agree with angryjuz: the quality of any GW of music is horrible. Take for example Beethoven's 5th symphony: you just listen to the first three seconds recorded in midi quality.
It doesn't make my games unplayable, but is underwhelming, to say the least. You almost prefer not to create great works of music, except for paintings and writings, that are much better.
 
I think it sounds fine. I actually didn't even really notice that they were midi recordings. Paying an orchestra to record them would not be practical given time and budget constraints. They only last like three seconds, after all.
 
I've actually never played a game of Civ 5 with the music turned on. I get a GWM and all I have to say is "oh, that's cute".
 
Sturmgewher88mm said:
I've actually never played a game of Civ 5 with the music turned on. I get a GWM and all I have to say is "oh, that's cute".
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Same here. I'm always watching TV while I'm playing, so I have the computer volume turned down. That's also one of the reasons why I haven't taken part in any of these Peace/War Theme elimination threads - I couldn't tell you what any of them sound like.
 
shaglio said:
Same here. I'm always watching TV while I'm playing, so I have the computer volume turned down. That's also one of the reasons why I haven't taken part in any of these Peace/War Theme elimination threads - I couldn't tell you what any of them sound like.
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Listen to the themes on youtube. Type in leader names peace/or war theme (Pedro war theme, Sejong Peace theme etc.) One person (Skummelhustler, I believe) has uploaded them all.

Or you can get them straight from the files of the game, you have to look in the DLCs and expansion files for the later civ themes
 
headcase said:
I think they were counting on fans to substitute with the real thing. I have to agree with Firaxis that it's not worth the cost of royalties to put the non-free music in their commercial product.
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You don't have to pay royalties for music that's more than a hundred years old. The copyright expired.
 
Quineloe said:
You don't have to pay royalties for music that's more than a hundred years old. The copyright expired.
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Which would be fine if there were LPs a hundred years ago. The thing is, these pieces have to be recorded and the recording artists get copyright for that version - the piece isn't copyrighted (which is why Firaxis is free to rerecord Beethoven's 5th, say), but the recorded version is. That's also the reason for the absence of 20th Century music, which is a real shame and means we lost a lot of Great Musicians from earlier versions of Civ V and from Civ IV - I understand the US, where many of these artists are from, has particularly protectionist copyright laws (so a '50s recording of, say, Hank Williams, that would be out of copyright if published in Europe, is not available for the game).
 
You are confusing copyright law and patent law. The US has very bad patent law, ∞+1 years and whatnot.
 
PhilBowles said:
Which would be fine if there were LPs a hundred years ago. The thing is, these pieces have to be recorded and the recording artists get copyright for that version - the piece isn't copyrighted (which is why Firaxis is free to rerecord Beethoven's 5th, say), but the recorded version is. That's also the reason for the absence of 20th Century music, which is a real shame and means we lost a lot of Great Musicians from earlier versions of Civ V and from Civ IV - I understand the US, where many of these artists are from, has particularly protectionist copyright laws (so a '50s recording of, say, Hank Williams, that would be out of copyright if published in Europe, is not available for the game).
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You said it, Firaxis is free to make their own recording and put it in the game. That would not be expensive, because there are millions of people who play instruments and would be happy to have their very own music in a game played by hundreds of thousands.

Firaxis just chose to go with the even cheaper option of midi.
 
I think you seriously underestimate how much it'll cost to have these pieces in the game (especially since quite a few use an orchestra, not an instrument). I also suspect the gaming industry has certainly standards regarding wages you'd have to pay recording artists, so I doubt anyone will be allowed to work for the price of getting their music included in the game.

Then there's just the issue of time. If they wanted to record everything, they'd have to nail down the list of what to include much earlier.
 
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