How do you get your own custom music to put in a level pack?

[Shmoley]

Shmolem's question of the day is.. How in the world do people get music to use in their level packs? I'm just curious because I might want to get some for my future level packs. I'm not exactly a computer expert I'm sure you'll find that I will have plenty of questions down the line. Anyway, hopefully I'll get to see some response.

[IchoTolot]

You can spercify the music track for each level in the editor. Under globals there is a music tab for that.

Dont forget to put your tack in the music folder.

[WillLem]

I made my own music for Lemminas, that can be a lot of fun. You just need a decent DAW like Logic or Ableton (both of which have free versions). Or if you're a beginner with music, I'd recommend GarageBand; it's very user-friendly and has plenty of built-in instruments and sounds (as do the others, but they're a bit more advanced). Since the tracks only need to be a couple of minutes and simple music is good for Lemmings, it can be a great way to learn if you're not used to working with audio/music.

There is also a huge selection of music already available from various other custom packs - just be sure to ask the pack creator's permission if you want to use theirs (you're more than welcome to use the Lemminas music btw, all I ask is that you include a credit in the level pack topic or scroller text)

Let me know if you need any help with music, I'm more than happy to offer guidance wherever possible.

[namida]

You just need a decent DAW like Logic or Ableton (both of which have free versions).

LMMS is outright free. Fairly similar feel to Fruity Loops, if I had to compare it to a particular more-well-known software.

[Shmoley]

I have one last question: Do we worry about copyright? Say someone were to take a copyrighted song and put it into their pack could they get into trouble for it?

[Proxima]

Generally, pack developers try to be careful about that, not because they could get into trouble for it, but because it makes it awkward for anyone doing an LP of the pack and posting it on YouTube.

[Dullstar]

Since no one has mentioned this yet, I would recommend you put the music in a subfolder. It will still work (although I don't remember of NeoLemmix will present it in the dropdown menu in the editor if you do this, so you may have to type the filenames with the subfolder manually), e.g., if the song is called song.ogg and stored in a subfolder of the Music folder called shmolem, you'd type "shmolem\song.ogg"

If you don't do this, name collisions become a potential risk, in which two unrelated tracks from different packs share the same name, which can have one of two effects: either one song masks the other (if they share a name but not a file extension, as NL seems to ignore the extension), or the songs cannot coexist within the music folder. If you put it in the base Music folder anyway, make sure there's a naming convention to reduce the likelihood of this, e.g. "shmolem_song.ogg"

[Shmoley]

Ok so I found a song and put it into a sub folder in my music folder and called the folder Shmolems Music. Now that it's in there how do I actually get it to play in the level? I tried opening one of my levels and selecting it from there but it wasn't on the list. Neither was the Sublems music from the pack Sublems that I played a while back. I guess the editor can't choose songs that are in a sub folder?

[namida]

You can't choose them from the dropdown, you have to enter it manually. For example, for a song called "derp" in a subfolder called "blah", you'd enter: "blah/derp" (without the quotes).

[Shmoley]

Thanks a lot!! It works perfectly! I guess for now on I won't have any problems with music... I'm listening to it right now in the level and I noticed that after the song ends it takes a few seconds before it loops again. Is that normal or can I fix that?

[namida]

For module-based formats (IT, MOD, etc), these formats have proper native support for looping - use a module editor such as OpenMPT.

For waveform-based formats (OGG, MP3, WAV) etc, first, convert it to OGG, then add "LOOPSTART" and "LOOPLENGTH" metainfo tags, with the values being the position in samples to start the loop, and the duration (again, in samples) of the loop respectively. Most audio editing software should have some way to display positions in samples, but if all else fails, take the time in seconds and multiply it by the file's sample rate in Hz (eg, 33.18 seconds in a 44100Hz audio file would be 33.18 * 44100 = 1,463,238 samples).