Instrumental Implementations?

[C a r p r i l l o]

I don't have high hopes for this.

Right! Now that I've gotten THAT out of the way, I'd like to suggest a few things (mostly) related to instruments. These are just a few fun little things that I think could add a bit of variety and diversity to music in SS13. Though I don't understand coding, especially in regards to implementing MIDI instruments, I'd imagine these wouldn't take a whole lot of work to code and sprite (and in a few cases, tweak).

First off, additions!

I, personally, find the current selection of instruments to be rather boring by this point, especially when there's no real variety to them in terms of availability besides the Moog and piano. I think adding a bit of variety and, in turn, chance to which instruments you'll have instantly available to you
would be largely beneficial, even if it's a rather minor thing. Here are a few instruments that I think should be added, along with proposed locations/availability for each.

Saxophone - For when you need to teach someone how to be a villain. Would likely be located either in maintenance only due to volume. Maybe use a lower, louder version of the horn honk for the sound? Not really sure how instrument sounds are made.

Bass Guitar - This would probably be an edited version of one of the guitar sounds to be lower and more, well, bass. Maintenance and/or stage. If on stage, it would be nice if there was a chance of it replacing the acoustic guitar or violin.

Keytar - Sound-wise, I'd imagine this to something of a mix between the electric guitar and Moog, with the electric's volume. Likely to be put in maintenance due to volume. Possibly have a chance to replace the saxophone and vice versa.

Trumpet - Think the Clown's horn, but an instrument. Could be found either in the backstage/makeup room and/or maintenance. Honk.

Banjo - For releasing your inner hillbilly. Probably a tinnier version of the acoustic guitar. Maintenance/backstage with a chance to replace the trumpet.

Now I'd like to propose some relatively minor tweaks. The first one is a rather general suggestion, so I'll field that first. Some of the songs on the wiki's 'Songs' page have tempos that, when put into an instrument, are instead rounded up/down to the nearest pre-set tempo. I think a lot of the songs would sound a lot better if we got rid of the tempo locks and made it so we have more...precise options for tempo so each song can sound its best.

The second one is mostly concerning the Space MiniMoog. Long story short, it needs to be a bit more heavy and brass. It sounds a bit mild for a Moog right now, and I think it could stand to be a bit more sharp. Harsh. But that's just me.

[NikNakFlak]

As someone who actually made an instrument, it's painful awful work. You have to find either existing sounds of an instrument and either change the pitch/tone of it for each and every note, which usually doesn't sound super great or you have to find/make yourself each note of said instrument in about 3-4 octaves. Then you gotta make sure all these sound files are relatively all the same short length of like half a second or it fucks up while playing a midi in the game or sounds bad. Heck, I spent close upwards of like 5 hours making the guitar and re-doing it at least once and it still doesn't sound all that great. Typically, loud and abrasive instruments just tend to sound bad when being used to playback midis in the game, which is why personally, the acoustic guitar sounds great. It's quiet and very soft sounds.

It terms of the new instruments you want, you'll have to find someone who wants to make these instruments and then they have to actually manage to pull it off. It's difficult and a pain in the ass.

[C a r p r i l l o]

As someone who actually made an instrument, it's painful awful work. You have to find either existing sounds of an instrument and either change the pitch/tone of it for each and every note, which usually doesn't sound super great or you have to find/make yourself each note of said instrument in about 3-4 octaves. Then you gotta make sure all these sound files are relatively all the same short length of like half a second or it fucks up while playing a midi in the game or sounds bad. Heck, I spent close upwards of like 5 hours making the guitar and re-doing it at least once and it still doesn't sound all that great. Typically, loud and abrasive instruments just tend to sound bad when being used to playback midis in the game, which is why personally, the acoustic guitar sounds great. It's quiet and very soft sounds.

It terms of the new instruments you want, you'll have to find someone who wants to make these instruments and then they have to actually manage to pull it off. It's difficult and a pain in the ass.

Ah, sure.

Sorry, I wasn't aware it was so difficult to do.
Had I known, I would have put more consideration into writing this.

[MisterPerson]

Locking the tempo to the set intervals is necessary. There's no way around that. You can play at most 20 notes per second because that's how often the server acts (unless MSO changes the framerate again, but right now it's 20). You can go down to 10 notes per second if you rest every other note, but you can't skip half notes and you can't go any faster.