How can I create loopable bounces for video games?

Question

I'm writing the music for a video game. Much of the music is going to be looped indefinitely. How can I arrange my music and bounce audio files that can be looped effectively?A naïve technique is to write the piece so that the end can loop immediately to the beginning, then bounce it. The two downsides to this are: 1. When the loop occurs, all of the reverb and release from the last notes in the loop will be abruptly cut off. 2. There's no way to write an introduction to the song that doesn't loop.What's a more intelligent approach?

Answer 1

The easiest way to achieve such a thing would be to start with an amount of bars in mind. lets say 16. then the music you compose will have to loop with ease. no clips no jarring miss happens. Since you already pre planned your music chances are that it will loop seamlessly.

Tricks of the trade: have a little drum fill introduce the piece. shhh.. that's a secret.

Answer 2

Looping music in video game audio is always a difficult conversation, and while possible, requires some additional methodology and compositional forethought. I will provide two different methods which can be employed, depending on tools and / or resources available to you:

1. If you have a developer implementing sound or an audio software package such as Wwise or FMOD, than you can use Events to trigger the different sections. For example:
2. Write your intro, which would lead directly into your loop - and then:
3. Add a crossfade layer which takes the reverb tail of your loop and fades it out as the loop repeats (which pretty-well maintains the reverb and other effects)
4. If you do not have a developer or audio software package, and are sending assets 'over the fence', consider using a fade-in and / or fade-out at the beginning or end of each loop.
5. However, this obviously does not work if you want to have a continuous musical experience. What may work instead of using fade-outs is to emulate the Super Mario theme - using an anacrusis to signal the beginning of the musical experience, and ending with something than can lead directly into it.
6. The anacrusis approach takes a little more compositional know-how and technique to really make work, so the best way to do it without a programmer or audio package is to use crossfades at the beginning and end of each loop, and hopefully find a way to fade-in the audio when you first start the game or a level.

I hope this helps! Please feel free to add a comment if you would like more information or would like to clarify anything.

Answer 3

I would say that your best bet would be to make the audio file for the song (and therefore the song itself) a few loops long (or maybe enough loops that whatever you're doing in that world/area will likely be completed). If you make the audio 4-5 loops long at least the reverb-cutting issue will be less frequent. Outside of that, if you begin the song with a loud chord or big sonority then the lack of reverb will be less apparent because of the complex sonority.

Hope this helps!