My name is Kade Jones and I compose orchestral/hybrid music for D&D.
I'm currently working on a new website (Not yet published) where I'll be releasing one new track per week for use with a selector/playlist maker. I'll be making tracks easy to find under different headings etc. Over time, this will build into a large library of music to suit many settings, situations, fights or ambiances for DMs.
I'm basically one guy with a lot of work ahead of him, but I'd love to get your opinions on the idea...
Do you use music in your campaigns?
What style of music would be ideal for your current campaign?
Do you look for long or loop-able tracks to play over, or are you happy to find something that fits and insert it into a playlist?
Assuming quality and regularity are kept up, do you think people would support me via Patreon if the bulk of the site was made freely available?
Appreciate any answers or thoughts in general outside of these questions.
I want to use music, but don't at the moment as it seems to be very laborious to have things available given unpredictable circumstances. If I know we have ended on a cliff hanger and the next session is going to be a big boss battle, then it's fairly easy, but mid session, short of knowing all of the music available and being able to quickly select it would be a pain, so laziness has prevented me so far.
What I would find useful would be to have tags assigned to music. So in a similar fashion to looking through a monster manual where I can pick a monster based on location, or by CR, or by type. Say I want some music whilst in a tavern, I want "ambient" "tavern" music, but a fight breaks out, I want "action" music. On a boat, I want "ambient" "sea" music, kraken attacks then I want "action" "sea" music. Or maybe selecting a locale of music, ie tavern, forest, generic, and having a selector for style, ie action, ambient, suspense, I would find very timesaving whilst trying to prepare (no creating playlists) and play (no management whilst DM'ing).
I reckon this is the same with a lot of groups, I only have experience with the one I am running at the moment, but they tend to stay in the same setting for a while! So whether the track is a minute long but plays itself looped, or is an hour long would achieve the same thing. When I attempted to setup a playlist and then promptly gave up on the idea, I didn't like that the track was changing every 3 minutes and each had a beginning and end, when a fight would last an hour so it seemed odd to me to have that cycle mid action.
I think rather than surveying a few folks willing to respond, you're probably best off using this forums search features for threads addressing music. It's discussed not infrequently. There's a division, especialy folks playing online over whether it contributes to immersion or a distraction. That said there is a market for "D&D Music and Sounds" with some professional competitors in existence for the tool you seem to be developing. Syrenscape(Sirenscape?) instantly comes to mind. What I'm saying is that from your post it's not clear whether you're aware of the existing D&D Music Market within which you'd be competing for user/subscribers/patrons. Honestly from what I've seen, most composers in this space get buy on things like Kofi tips, some get enough of an audience to make Patreon viable, but like most composers big earners are likely only going to be had at whatever rate much larger tools are willing to pay their creatives.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It sounds like I'm on the right track then at the moment. I'm using 5 'main' categories and diving down from there to make things easier to quickly find something in a pinch. I've noticed as a player that the game can become a little stuttery as a DM looks for something, or just shoves on something "close enough" to keep the flow but it doesn't quite fit. My DM tends to find one track that fits very well and loop if for the time of the situation, and yeah, that kinda works. I do sometimes ask him to change it though if it's on for too long - but of course, he's got lots of my tracks to choose from as well as the very many he has saved.
I'm looking to make something simplified and user friendly like this, although it may be a little time before I have hundreds of my own tracks... I'm working on it though :)
Yes, you're probably right. This is just a small feeler question and love to get advice such as yours to try. Maybe put my 2 pence worth into the mix and see how the immersion/distraction convo goes. I think I've seen questions like that on these forums too.
I've seen Sirenscape. It seems pretty handy for sound-boarding and atmosphere. I intend to concentrate on music personally. That includes ambience but also some more interesting tracks. It's all early days yet though and plenty of time to figure out demand and hopefully many tracks.
I think a good number of DMs use music and ambience for sessions, and there is definitely a market for it. Personally, I'm always looking for more and better soundtracks for my sessions. I exclusively use YouTube for music, which I know is a terrible platform for creatives, but it's the easiest source of tracks that work with my Discord bot. I know many other DMs who do the same.
I'm obviously only one opinion, but I'll take a crack at your questions, since I'm here.
What style of music? More orchestral, with subtler instrumentation (I find "epic" tracks are too distracting for my players unless we're in combat) and dark fantasy or horror themes. I stay away from anything with heavy synths or rock influences. One thing I wish I could find is more music that has a gothic horror/Victorian waltz feel that doesn't sound like a polka...Peter Gundry's music is lovely, but it's too bombastic and choral for my purposes, sadly.
Long tracks or playlists? I prefer tracks that are long/loopable and have some variation to them, rather than new wave ambience that doesn't go anywhere, melodically. I choose music to set a mood, and I find that I only change pieces if the mood changes significantly or the scene demands it. If the melody is too repetitive, I won't use it on loop because it will drive me nuts. Ideal track length for me tends to be around an hour.
Patreon? Patreon, Kofi, sure, but you will probably need to build up your library a while before you start seeing consistent donations. There are a number of ambient music composers out there you'd be competing with, so carving space out for yourself will take some time, especially if you are only going to be sharing your music on your website.
Another comment I'd make is that I find a lot of RPG music composers add rain sounds and campfire sounds to their tracks. I personally can't stand it. I feel like weather rarely gets featured in D&D sessions and some lovely tracks have been utterly unusable for me because of nature sounds that can't exist in my setting. I'm overjoyed when I find pieces that have the added nature sounds as a separate upload.
Best of luck to you! There's always a need for more music in the world. :-)
Thank you Theologyofbagels. Appreciate your detailed answer, and it’s always good to get an insight on practical use from someone who actively looks for this stuff. Most of my music will be available on YouTube, Spotify as well as my own site so there’ll be plenty of places to find me. The site will be more for picking up my music exclusively and the ability to make a playlist from it, but also a good way to contact me or perhaps have a specific track made as a commission too. I’ve done that on Fivver here and there already.
Steampunk and Victorianesque music are definitely on my list to do, as well as dark tracks to get that Dark Souls/Elden Ring vibe. I have a lot of fantasy work right now which would go well in a Tal’Dorei like setting. I also have a fair bit of Arabian style music (which is my own campaign setting at the moment) 1001 nights stuff. Got a few horror tracks etc too and can usually pick up on different styles. I rarely use synths/rock unless as a texture, and keep to orchestral for the most part. Although I love making an epic battle theme, I’m concentrating more on those background tracks right now.
I’ll probably experiment with doing some longer ambient tracks that can just run, and yes, the trick is to not let them sound repetitive or monotonous.
I think with Patreon/Kofi, the hardest part for me would be getting the word out. Nobody likes someone banging on about “product” lol. Hopefully the music will speak for itself and I’d like to get more involved with the community anyway.
That’s a good call about the nature sounds being on an optional track. I rarely cover my tracks with sounds, but there may be a demand for it within the D&Dosphere so I’ll bare that in mind as a simple solution when releasing something ambient.
Hi
My name is Kade Jones and I compose orchestral/hybrid music for D&D.
I'm currently working on a new website (Not yet published) where I'll be releasing one new track per week for use with a selector/playlist maker. I'll be making tracks easy to find under different headings etc. Over time, this will build into a large library of music to suit many settings, situations, fights or ambiances for DMs.
I'm basically one guy with a lot of work ahead of him, but I'd love to get your opinions on the idea...
Do you use music in your campaigns?
What style of music would be ideal for your current campaign?
Do you look for long or loop-able tracks to play over, or are you happy to find something that fits and insert it into a playlist?
Assuming quality and regularity are kept up, do you think people would support me via Patreon if the bulk of the site was made freely available?
Appreciate any answers or thoughts in general outside of these questions.
Cheers, KJ
I want to use music, but don't at the moment as it seems to be very laborious to have things available given unpredictable circumstances. If I know we have ended on a cliff hanger and the next session is going to be a big boss battle, then it's fairly easy, but mid session, short of knowing all of the music available and being able to quickly select it would be a pain, so laziness has prevented me so far.
What I would find useful would be to have tags assigned to music. So in a similar fashion to looking through a monster manual where I can pick a monster based on location, or by CR, or by type. Say I want some music whilst in a tavern, I want "ambient" "tavern" music, but a fight breaks out, I want "action" music. On a boat, I want "ambient" "sea" music, kraken attacks then I want "action" "sea" music. Or maybe selecting a locale of music, ie tavern, forest, generic, and having a selector for style, ie action, ambient, suspense, I would find very timesaving whilst trying to prepare (no creating playlists) and play (no management whilst DM'ing).
I reckon this is the same with a lot of groups, I only have experience with the one I am running at the moment, but they tend to stay in the same setting for a while! So whether the track is a minute long but plays itself looped, or is an hour long would achieve the same thing. When I attempted to setup a playlist and then promptly gave up on the idea, I didn't like that the track was changing every 3 minutes and each had a beginning and end, when a fight would last an hour so it seemed odd to me to have that cycle mid action.
Just my personal opinions!
I think rather than surveying a few folks willing to respond, you're probably best off using this forums search features for threads addressing music. It's discussed not infrequently. There's a division, especialy folks playing online over whether it contributes to immersion or a distraction. That said there is a market for "D&D Music and Sounds" with some professional competitors in existence for the tool you seem to be developing. Syrenscape(Sirenscape?) instantly comes to mind. What I'm saying is that from your post it's not clear whether you're aware of the existing D&D Music Market within which you'd be competing for user/subscribers/patrons. Honestly from what I've seen, most composers in this space get buy on things like Kofi tips, some get enough of an audience to make Patreon viable, but like most composers big earners are likely only going to be had at whatever rate much larger tools are willing to pay their creatives.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Many thanks for your thoughts Tlawrence.
It sounds like I'm on the right track then at the moment. I'm using 5 'main' categories and diving down from there to make things easier to quickly find something in a pinch. I've noticed as a player that the game can become a little stuttery as a DM looks for something, or just shoves on something "close enough" to keep the flow but it doesn't quite fit. My DM tends to find one track that fits very well and loop if for the time of the situation, and yeah, that kinda works. I do sometimes ask him to change it though if it's on for too long - but of course, he's got lots of my tracks to choose from as well as the very many he has saved.
I'm looking to make something simplified and user friendly like this, although it may be a little time before I have hundreds of my own tracks... I'm working on it though :)
Hi MidnightPlat
Yes, you're probably right. This is just a small feeler question and love to get advice such as yours to try. Maybe put my 2 pence worth into the mix and see how the immersion/distraction convo goes. I think I've seen questions like that on these forums too.
I've seen Sirenscape. It seems pretty handy for sound-boarding and atmosphere. I intend to concentrate on music personally. That includes ambience but also some more interesting tracks. It's all early days yet though and plenty of time to figure out demand and hopefully many tracks.
I think a good number of DMs use music and ambience for sessions, and there is definitely a market for it. Personally, I'm always looking for more and better soundtracks for my sessions. I exclusively use YouTube for music, which I know is a terrible platform for creatives, but it's the easiest source of tracks that work with my Discord bot. I know many other DMs who do the same.
I'm obviously only one opinion, but I'll take a crack at your questions, since I'm here.
What style of music? More orchestral, with subtler instrumentation (I find "epic" tracks are too distracting for my players unless we're in combat) and dark fantasy or horror themes. I stay away from anything with heavy synths or rock influences. One thing I wish I could find is more music that has a gothic horror/Victorian waltz feel that doesn't sound like a polka...Peter Gundry's music is lovely, but it's too bombastic and choral for my purposes, sadly.
Long tracks or playlists? I prefer tracks that are long/loopable and have some variation to them, rather than new wave ambience that doesn't go anywhere, melodically. I choose music to set a mood, and I find that I only change pieces if the mood changes significantly or the scene demands it. If the melody is too repetitive, I won't use it on loop because it will drive me nuts. Ideal track length for me tends to be around an hour.
Patreon? Patreon, Kofi, sure, but you will probably need to build up your library a while before you start seeing consistent donations. There are a number of ambient music composers out there you'd be competing with, so carving space out for yourself will take some time, especially if you are only going to be sharing your music on your website.
Another comment I'd make is that I find a lot of RPG music composers add rain sounds and campfire sounds to their tracks. I personally can't stand it. I feel like weather rarely gets featured in D&D sessions and some lovely tracks have been utterly unusable for me because of nature sounds that can't exist in my setting. I'm overjoyed when I find pieces that have the added nature sounds as a separate upload.
Best of luck to you! There's always a need for more music in the world. :-)
Thank you Theologyofbagels. Appreciate your detailed answer, and it’s always good to get an insight on practical use from someone who actively looks for this stuff.
Most of my music will be available on YouTube, Spotify as well as my own site so there’ll be plenty of places to find me. The site will be more for picking up my music exclusively and the ability to make a playlist from it, but also a good way to contact me or perhaps have a specific track made as a commission too. I’ve done that on Fivver here and there already.
Steampunk and Victorianesque music are definitely on my list to do, as well as dark tracks to get that Dark Souls/Elden Ring vibe. I have a lot of fantasy work right now which would go well in a Tal’Dorei like setting. I also have a fair bit of Arabian style music (which is my own campaign setting at the moment) 1001 nights stuff. Got a few horror tracks etc too and can usually pick up on different styles. I rarely use synths/rock unless as a texture, and keep to orchestral for the most part. Although I love making an epic battle theme, I’m concentrating more on those background tracks right now.
I’ll probably experiment with doing some longer ambient tracks that can just run, and yes, the trick is to not let them sound repetitive or monotonous.
I think with Patreon/Kofi, the hardest part for me would be getting the word out. Nobody likes someone banging on about “product” lol. Hopefully the music will speak for itself and I’d like to get more involved with the community anyway.
That’s a good call about the nature sounds being on an optional track. I rarely cover my tracks with sounds, but there may be a demand for it within the D&Dosphere so I’ll bare that in mind as a simple solution when releasing something ambient.
Thanks again.