Level Background Music

[Metallica]

Hello there, do you attach importance to the music in the bg of a level? Do you have you favorite music bgs? Did you try to create your ones?

[Strato Incendus]

Indeed, I created rock/metal versions of all the standard Lemmings tunes (except for ONML track 04) for my custom level pack Lemmings World Tour (Old Formats, the New-Formats release is coming soon). I'm planning to do the same for the tracks from Lemmings 2: The Tribes and, eventually, Lemmings 3D as well.

The follow-up pack Lemmings Open Air is also going to feature the same tracks as Lemmings World Tour; you can find some demo levels in the development thread.

[Proxima]

I like the original music a lot; it contributes to a feeling of authenticity, reminding me that I'm still playing the same game I loved in my childhood. So I usually don't download other music packs when I play levels

Favourite tracks would be orig_11 (Rondo Alla Turca), ohno_01 and ohno_05. (I think it's 05; I grew up with the Mac version, which numbers the ONML tracks differently, so I often forget which one is which in the DOS version. Confusingly, NeoLemmix uses Amiga/Mac numbering for Orig tracks and DOS numbering for ONML ones.) But honestly, there are many tracks I like almost as much as these three, such as orig_03, orig_10 and orig_13. The feeling of the original music as a whole is what appeals to me more than any specific track.

Both my in-progress packs, RockLems and GemLems, have one-off "special graphics" levels (just like original Lemmings did), with appropriate music for each level -- for example, Sonic music to go with levels in Flopsy's Sonic styles.

I haven't created any music specifically for Lemmings, but back in the Cheapo days, I included a piece of my own composition as BGM for one of the levels that filled the same role as "special graphics" levels in my pack.

[IchoTolot]

I value fitting music tracks in a level a lot. It just adds the certain something to the feel of a level.

Most commonly I associate music tracks with a type of tileset that supports the mood/theme of the track. Then in a larger pack each tileset gets a certain ammount of tracks assigned. This helps in not letting the ammount of music tracks in a pack explode to a extremely high number, but still offer variety. Also I keep a balance in tileset usage that one type doesn't get the overhand. But sometimes tracks are chosen based on the level itself, special levels and rank finishers would be an example here.

For tracks in general, I also try to choose tracks that don't get blocked in countries on Youtube so that let's plays are not affected by my packs. Copyright-free music, older video game music or asking permission from music creators are my main ways of obtaining tracks.

[namida]

Level-music pairing has always been somewhat of a big deal for me. In most of my newer packs, I've adopted a system similar to that of Lemmings 3D, where each tileset has a couple of tracks associated with it, and for individual levels I choose which one of the tracks I feel best fits the level. (Of course, by default this is how my Lemmings 3D pack worked, but even my NeoLemmix packs have followed this system since Lemmings Plus V; with Lemmings Plus IV also later being patched to use this system too.) In my older packs (as well as Lemmings Plus Alpha, where I went back to this system due to it using the official tilesets rather than my custom ones), I used a more traditional Lemmings style of that the music depended on the level number. This did not mean music-level correspondence was less important here; instead, what music a level would get was always a strong consideration when determining the overall level order. This is why, for example, when I slightly tweaked Lemmings Plus I's level order a while back, levels were often swapped with another level that had the same music; as well as why LPI and LPII have custom music rotations specified that emulate the older behaviour (ie: track selection restarts at the end of a rank) instead of accepting the newer behaviour (ie: if a rank finishes on track 3, the next rank starts on track 4).

[Proxima]

In most of my newer packs, I've adopted a system similar to that of Lemmings 3D, where each tileset has a couple of tracks associated with it, and for individual levels I choose which one of the tracks I feel best fits the level.

That's something I'm doing with both RockLems and GemLems -- each original and ONML tileset has two specific tracks associated with it. (However, for each tileset I rotate the two tracks, to ensure I use them evenly.) I can't remember now why I decided on this system -- maybe it just felt like an interesting idea to try out. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have thought of it without your packs