Programmatic Composition?

[agent4125]

I'm working on a game that will partly involve allowing the player to create their own music. I'd like the interface to be as simple as possible, while still offering a wide array of freedom.

For instance, they could set phrase 1 to be bassline only, with a drum fill leading into phrase 2 which is a latin groove. And for each phrase they could fiddle around with a couple of settings that switch up the rhythms, etc. There'd be no note "painting" -- assume the player has no musical skill beyond knowing being able to pick out patterns that they like and the overall structure of the music.

Anyway, I'm trying to find examples of programs that have done something like this in the past, mostly for inspiration on the interface. The exact style I'm going for is marching band, but for purposes of inspiration it could be anything.

Has anyone seen something like this before?

[omoroca]

Yes, I did. On the C64! The games "Hawkeye" and "To Be On Top" have features similar to what you want, I think.

Do you know where to download? If not, I can give you the links to the disk images and an emulator.

[merman]

Do you mean like the Mix-e-load on Delta?

[Dafunk]

check out the c64 demo "Dutch Breeze", there's a loading part where you could do that...

http://www.c64.com/?type=2&id=124

[agent4125]

Thanks guys, these were all great suggestions. =)

I'd never seen the mix-e-load stuff before... it's a cool idea. Interface-wise, Top Be on Top seemed to be closer to what I'm looking for, but with a few more options. I guess I'll have to do some experimentation to see what works.

If anyone knows of some non-C64 apps, I'd be interested in that, too. I did come across a drum beat generator which was kind of cool, especially since it's open source:

http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~vaucher/SC ... ythm2.html