Let's discuss the new soundtrack

[sillyfly]

New soundtrack for Factorio! I know I have been excited about this ever since they announced they hired a composer.
Now that the new soundtrack is finally out, what does everybody think of it?

I personally like all of the new pieces, except maybe for the one that starts with an air-raid siren - it always gives me a bit of a jolt
But i would love to see more, and maybe longer, pieces added. And maybe put an in-game song selector, to allow players to disable songs they dislike (I'm almost sure there was such a suggestion at one point. I'll try to link it later if no one else beats me to it )

[oLaudix]

Its amazing. My favs are

Gathering Horizon - 1:43 - very similar to Mass Effect Galaxy Screen. Nostalgy.
Beyond Factory Outskirts
Pollution
Solar Intervention
Resource Deficiency

Transmit is kinda disturbing ...

[Rahjital]

I love the new soundtrack. The tracks are executed really well, and even if they repeat a little too often right now, they still don't get tiring to listen to in the slightest.

I think the previous soundtrack fit the game better, though. It felt like you were in an unknown and hostile environment where the biters could come for you at any moment and your machines were your first and last line of defense. The new soundtrack seems to focus mostly on the feeling of being alone, it doesn't give me the tension I felt when listening to the old music.

[lancar]

While I do like the new tracks, I also loved the old ones. They really fit a highly active factory well, and I would like to see them return in some form.
I made a suggestion about a Dynamic Music system that would play different tracks depending on your current whereabouts, which would address the issue of the music not fitting your current circumstances.

Personally, I think it's a mistake to take out the old music unless you're making remastered, better, versions of those tracks.

[kovarex]

Don't forget, that there are more tracks coming, the soundtrack is not complete.

We have also been considering some way to select different tracks depending on the surroundings and phase of the game, we might do it in the future, when we have more tracks, but it isn't really a priority now.

[sillyfly]

Don't forget, that there are more tracks coming, the soundtrack is not complete.

We have also been considering some way to select different tracks depending on the surroundings and phase of the game, we might do it in the future, when we have more tracks, but it isn't really a priority now.

That's great news!
Of course, it is well understood that it's not high priority for now, but discussing impressions and ideas is always good, isn't it?

[Xterminator]

I like most of what I have heard so far. There are one or two that I really like above all the others, but not sure which they actually are. Haha Good to hear that more tracks are on the way!
I'm actually kind of surprised there isn't a mod for being able select tracks, or at least skip to the next track or back up to the previous one.
Personally I would of liked it if the old music was kept in as well as the new music being added, as I like both.

[Ackos]

I had high hopes for a solid sound track based on the original. Unfortunately the new falls way short.

[Holy-Fire]

I'm sorry, but I hate it. The old music was much much better. The new one makes me sleepy, doesn't go well with the theme of building a factory, and in general is just not all that good. I'll probably just delete the whole folder and put the original back in.

[Align]

I may have stumbled on an important discovery.

As I was listening to the old music (sepro1.ogg), I was trying to put my finger on why I liked it so much for Factorio. Was it because of the rhythmic sound? How it pounded on the inside of my skull? Filled my head with sound? Or my ears with noise.

Noise.

That was when it clicked - the old music had low sound quality, and that made it noisy. If that doesn't make any sense, check out http://simplynoise.com/ and see if any of the three "colours" of noise do anything for you.

White noise is fairly popular as a way to get the brain to stop paying attention to the outside world and just focus on the task at hand, even helping babies fall asleep, and that suits the puzzle parts of Factorio gameplay great. Planning what goes where and how to improve expandability is stimulating, so with the old music letting me forget everything except the abstract task it just felt right. The closest the new music gets to noise is the ambient wind tracks, but since the wind is constantly changing pitch it doesn't work the same - in fact if you take the wind noise, imagine it staying at exactly the same pitch for several seconds at a time, then add some drum rhythm you have something remarkably close to sepro1.ogg.

In short, the shitty sound quality made the old music good!

[ssilk]

Ehm. Yes and no.

Yes: White noise is eventually a good idea here.
No: Because of the bad sound quality it adds white noise. In my opinion it adds compression artifacts. Which is in my eyes never a good idea.

I point a bit to here https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... ic#p104361

[Align]

Well yes, we obviously don't want to deliberately use bad sound quality to get the noise effect.

[ratchetfreak]

it's probably simpler to add some white noise to the oggs than to deliberately introduce compression artifacts

[Align]

Either way, I'd sooner expect a new track rather than replacing the old ones

[lancar]

The old music was actually music, whereas the new stuff is basically just sounds. Or so it feels, anyway :/
I'm not saying they're bad, just... so very bare bones I can't help but being janked out of the experience by the silence.

[cpy]

Am i the only one who doesn't listen to game music at all?

[DanTaylor]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the comments about the new music, more is definitely on the way.

Just to those wondering why some tracks are short or are a mixture of different sounds - there are three categories to these tracks: Main, Interludes and World Ambience. The interludes and World ambience tracks (soundscapes and eerie sounds) are finished and are meant to be played once in a while to break up the main tracks and prevent them from playing too frequently. The upcoming and remaining music will all fit into the main category.

Cheers!

[lancar]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the comments about the new music, more is definitely on the way.

Just to those wondering why some tracks are short or are a mixture of different sounds - there are three categories to these tracks: Main, Interludes and World Ambience. The interludes and World ambience tracks (soundscapes and eerie sounds) are finished and are meant to be played once in a while to break up the main tracks and prevent them from playing too frequently. The upcoming and remaining music will all fit into the main category.

Cheers!

That does explain quite a bit.
Thanks

[cpy]

I wish i could have more ambient "music" instead of actual music. Hearing wind in background or something is nice.