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Hello, all. I've decided to post some lists of royalty-free music from Kevin MacLeod's well-known site Incompetech.com, lists that include tracks and themes chosen as potentially useful for The Dark Mod mission creators. Mr. MacLeod's made plenty of really good royalty-free music over the years, including various ambient themes and other music that could work pretty well in The Dark Mod. From what I know and remember, there's already been a fair few released FMs that used a few tracks from MacLeod's archive, so he is not unknown to the TDM community. The older (and fully usable) version of MacLeod's site is here and another archive of his royalty-free music can be found here (on Wikimedia Commons). For the sake of easier reading and finding a song in the lists below, I've arranged them all in alphabetical order. Religious / churchly ambients Types of settings: Builder churches, chapels, cathedrals, monasteries, abbeys, etc. Various solemn and calm religious ambients. - Agnus Dei X (somber but livelier in places, male and female choir vocals in muffled Latin) - Gregorian Chant - Lasting Hope - Midnight Meeting - Organic Meditations 1 and Organic Meditations 2 - Rites - Private reflection - Supernatural (good for an abandoned church, spooky candle-lit catacombs, etc.) - Virtutes Vocis Potentially: - Tiny Fugue - Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (famous organ composition by Bach, IMHO might sound too Barocque for a late-medieval style setting, but good for a hint of eerieness) Spooky / horror / ominous ambients Types of settings: Crypts, catacombs, haunted caves, eerie ruins, lairs and places where undead and other monsters roam, etc. Some of the more industrial-sounding ones could also be useful for missions set at factories or warehouses occupied by criminal gangs, and so on (i.e. also for non-supernatural threats and non-supernatural creepiness). - Aftermath - Ancient Rite - Anxiety - Apprehension - Blue Sizzle - Bump in the Night - Chase Pulse and Chase Pulse Faster (could work in some ghost-haunted location, with ghosts pursuing the player) - Classic Horror 3 (good for a haunted house, manor house or other private household interior) - Crypto - Dark Pad - Dark Standoff - Darkness Speaks (shorter sting, good for a scripted creepy event) - Decay - Deep Noise - Digital Bark - Distant Tension - Dopplerette - Echoes of Time 1 - Echoes of Time 2 - Fire Prelude - Gathering Darkness - Ghostpocalypse 1 - The Departure - Ghost Processional - Ghost Story - Grave Matters - Heart of the Beast - Himalayan Atmosphere (eerie theme, could work in some ancient ruins) - Ice Demon - Irregular - Land of Phantoms - Lithium - Long Note 1, Long Note 2 and Long Note 3 - Medusa - Mind Scrape - Mirage - Nervous - Night Break - Ominous (shorter ambient, but pretty spooky) - One of Them - Ossuary 1 - Ossuary 5 - Ossuary 6 - Penumbra - Political Action Ad (yes, a song for this concept has such an ominous atmosphere ) - Redletter - Right Behind You - Satiate - strings version - Spacial Harvest - Spacial Winds (might be good for Middle Eastern themed scares) - Spider Eyes (this could work well inside a household, or inside some public building) - Supernatural (calmer melody, good for a haunted religious buldings and its grounds) - Sunset at Glengorm - Steel and Seething - Tenebrous Brothers Carnival - Mermaid (sounds serene, but is rather creepy and tense, maybe underground/underwater ruins) - The Dread - The Hive - The Voices (very otherworldly, good for some haunted area or other dimension) - Unnatural Situation - Unease (would sound best in a manor house, museum, or other fancy interiors) - Unseen Horrors - Very Low Note Tension-building / mysterious / general ambients Type of setting/situation: General ambients, especially in parts of FMs where the plot thickens and some coded development is triggered that makes for a new "act" in the overall story of the mission. (Imagine the likes of moonbo's missions and how they're structured and you get a bit of an idea.) - Air Prelude - Awkward Meeting (our thief hero or heroine meets an ally or informant for a bit of chit-chat) - Blue Sizzle (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness) - Crypto (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness) - Dama-May (a bit of a peculiar tense theme, but some might find some uses for it) - Dark Times - Disappointment - Disconcerned - Dopplerette (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness) - Dragon and Toast - Enter the Maze - Fantastic Dim Bar - Fire Prelude (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness) - Frozen Star (exploring some long-lost ruins, mysterious compound or complex, it's soothing but creepy) - Ghost Processional (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness) - Gloom Horizon - Grave Matters (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness) - Greta Sting (a short sting, under twenty seconds, useful for revelatory scripted scenes and building suspense) - Grim League - Heavy Heart - Industrial Music Box (somber and personal, reminds me of the music box theme we already have in the game) - Interloper - Invariance - Irregular (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness/mysteriousness) - It Is Lost (maybe a theme for exploring some mysterious underground ruins ?) - Lamentation (maybe a castle or manor house household where bad events transpired) - Lasting Hope - Lithium (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness) - Long Note 1, Long Note 2 and Long Note 3 (these are IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness) - Lord of the Land (maybe usable as a quiet background theme while sneaking through a busier castle or manor house) - Lost Frontier (exploring some city or castle ruins in The Empire that seem majestic at first glance but could hide a darker secret) - Mourning Song - New Direction (very interesting ambient, could work well for a slow-burning urban noir atmosphere and doesn't sound modern) - Night of Chaos - Night on the Docks - piano version (part of a trio of slow noir themes, the others use a sax and trumpet, this is the only one that sounds pre-1900) - On The Passing of Time - Oppressive Gloom - Overheat - Quiet Panic (short and quiet, good for tension-building, including for scripted events) - Relent (the clarinet in this one might be slightly anachronistic, but it's an interesting contemplative melody) - Road to Hell - Satiate - strings version (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild horror) - Satiate - percussion version (this one's IMHO better purely as a tension-building theme) - Scissors (this would be an excellent theme for a mission set at a factory, inventor's workshop or a warehouse) - Shores of Avalon (quiter tension-builder) - Simplex (a pretty good one, though some of the quieter beats are a bit more electronic) - Spacial Harvest (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild horror) - Spring Thaw - Stay the Course - Sunset at Glengorm (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness) - Temple of the Manes (I'd imagine this could work in an atmospheric mission set inside a castle or fortified manor house) - Tempting Secrets - Tenebrous Brothers Carnival - Intermission (tense but melodic theme, with some heavy background percussions) - The North - Thunder Dreams - Unanswered Questions - Unnatural Situation (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness) - Unpromised (can work both in an urban and a rural/wilderness environment) - Very Low Note (this one's IMHO versatile enough both for tension-building and mild creepiness, would be ideal for a cave or basement) - Winter Reflections (good for a mission set during a snowed-in winter night) Period instrument background music (stylistically European) Types of settings: Taverns, village scenes, town life, feasts, scenes among commoners or nobles. Mostly stuff with a calm and cosy atmosphere. - Achaidh Cheide - Angevin B (this one sounds a bit more aristocratic or courtly, good for a feast or public event) - Danse Macabre - harp version - Errigal (this one sounds a bit more aristocratic or courtly, but it's a good secular piece of music) - Evening Fall - harp - Folk Round - Heavy Interlude (short but really cool, IMHO could also work for a background scene of two AI characters sparring for fun) - Master of the Feast (good for a scene with at least two or three musicians and multiple noble/patrician characters attending a feast) - Minstrel Guild - Midnight Tale - Old Road - Pale Rider - Pippin the Hunchback - Suonatore di Liuto - Teller of the Tales North African, Middle Eastern and other "exotic" background music Types of settings: The TDM universe's analogues of the Mediterranean, North African, Middle Eastern regions, and other "exotic" locations. - Asian Drums (could work for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, good slow, tension-building ambient theme) - Desert City (could work for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, good all-around urban ambient theme) - Drums of the Deep (could work for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, good tension-building ambient theme) - East of Tunesia (could work in a mission with either a Mediterranean or North African style environment, e.g. a port city) - Ibn Al-Noor (good for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, especially for a palace or public event environment) - Lotus (good as a general ambient theme for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, or some other exotic locale) - Mystery Bazaar (another good one for a Middle Eastern or North African style mission, ideally some marketplace or square) - Perigrine Grandeur (Middle Eastern style percussions interspersed with a grunge-like tune reminescent of those from Thief) - Tabuk (slow, but slightly more dramatic theme for a Middle Eastern or North African style environment) - Tenebrous Brothers Carnival - Snake Lady (has a Middle Eastern feel to it, very good for building suspense and tension) Wilderness / nature ambients Types of settings: Outdoor areas with groves, forests, rivers, small lakes, mountain valleys, caves. Potentially also some Pagan villages and camps. - Black Bird (tribal type stuff) - Dewdrop Fantasy - Kalimba Relaxation Music (maybe could work in a cave or similar environment ?) - Evening Fall - harp - Firesong (tribal type stuff) - Intuit (tribal type stuff) - Healing (I think this one could also work in an urban environment) - Heavy Heart (also works as a general ambient theme) - Magic Forest - River Flute - Moorland (could work for an isolated Pagan tribe village) - Shamanistic - Spirit of the Girl - Thunderbird - The North (very short but looping theme, IMHO also works as a general ambient theme) - The Pyre - The Sky of Our Ancestors - Unpromised - Very Low Note (IMHO very good for a cave or cave system) - Virtutes Instrumenti - Willow and the Light - Winter Reflections (good for a mission set in winter or in some cavern strewn with magic crystals) Non-serious bonus suggestion - Crunk Knight (when the Bridgeport City Watch throw an annual office party :-))) ) Giving MacLeod proper attribution if you chose to use this music in your mission Each song comes with an attribution quote that you need to include if you're going to use any of this music in your fan mission. If there is a final credits sequence in your mission, or you can include this quote at least as part of the mission's release notes, please do so. Though you can buy a license from Kevin and don't need to use attribution, all of this music is for free, as long as you give him credit. The credit-giving (attribution) is as follows: Name of Song Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Replace "Name of Song" with the actual name of the song, keep the rest of the quote in this format and include it in your "free music used" credits for your mission, and you're golden. Final note from me If you've found some other good tracks in Kevin's musical archives that could fit the tone of The Dark Mod and its setting and would like to include them in this list, please let me know and I'll update this post. Don't send me a personal message, just post your suggestion in this thread. Thank you ! I sincerely hope these lists will be of at least some use to mission builders. Good luck ! If you want to seek out non-MacLeod royalty-free music and public domain music, I've started a thread for that as well. Not too many download links yet, but it's meant to give you inspiration what sort of ambients or period music you could search for.

Hello, all. This thread is meant as a follow-up companion piece to my previous thread listing royalty-free music by Kevin MacLeod that could be usable for new missions for The Dark Mod. In this thread, I take a slightly different approach. Instead of focusing on one author and his royalty-free music, I'll be writing an ever-expanding list of songs, compositions tracks and ambients by various musical artists that could come in useful for mission makers working on FMs for TDM. Aside from ambient music for background atmosphere, I'll also be listing some historical music and compositions from the real world's ca 14th-17th century that are in the public domain and could be used as background music in your missions, provided that someone does a royalty-free recording of them (i.e. not released on some payed-for album, but at most a royalty-free album or online collection/archive). Please note that, though I will try to provide you with links to royalty-free versions of historical compositions in particular, I sometimes might not be sure of the status of some of these recreations/recordings and you'll have to snoop around for their royalty-free status on your own. However, if you do confirm that, e.g. some freelance artist recorded a well-known 16th century piece of music, and is giving it away royalty-free, possibly with the only necessity being attribution, then please let me know and I'll include any download links and the details concerning necessary attribution. Thank you ! And now, it's time to begin... Royalty-free ambients As in "free to distribute and use (though possibly with attribution)", not necessarily "free of the TDM universe royalty". List currently To be added (TBA) Historical background music - lute and similar string instruments La Rossignol ("The Nightingale"} - a Renaissance era piece, anonymous composer. This one was written as an instrumental duet for two musicians. So, if you'd use this for a scene of AI characters playing their instruments, you should use two such characters for added believability. Here's what the composition sounds like when played as a duet on: - lute (obviously the most medieval/Renaissance instrumentation) - acoustic guitar (example 1) and acoustic guitar (example 2) - 11-string guitar what it sounds when played as a duet on an 11-string guitar - licensed album version (presumably lute) If you find any royalty-free version in good quality, let me know. Lachrimae ("Tears", sometimes known as "Seven Teares") by John Dowland - another Elizabethan era piece, by a 16th-17th century composer. Various reconstructions: - on lute (example solo performance at the Metropolitan Museum) - on lute, with vocal accompaniment (lutist and female soprano) - on lute, violas, and other (six musician ensemble performance) - on viola da gamba (five musician ensemble performance) Lachrimae Pavan ("Teary Pavane / Pavane of the Tears") by John Dowland - a variation on the previous composition, for the Renaissance pavane style dance. Various reconstructions: - on lute - on acoustic guitar (example 1), (example 2), (example 3) Again, I'd like to find a royalty-free version of these two compositions. Frog Galliard - one more by Dowland, for now. Another composition for a Renaissance dance style, the galliard. Reconstructions: - on lute (solo performance) - on lute, deeper sound (solo performance) - on acoustic guitar (example 1), (example 2), (example 3) Royalty-free version would be appreciated. Greensleeves - by an anonymous 16th century author, quite possibly a folk song of the era. Trust me, you know this one, even if you don't know the name. It's one of the most well-known bits of Renaissance secular and courtly music in the popular imagination. (Trust me, it's been referenced in everything. Even the first Stronghold game from the early 2000s had an in-game character sing a made-up ditty to the tune/melody of this song.) Reconstructions: - on lute (solo performance) - classical guitar (solo performance) - acoustic guitar (solo performance) I bet there's a royalty-free version of this one somewhere. I'll snoop around, and if you find one before I do, let me know. In taberna quando sumus ("When we are at the tavern") - anonymous period song from the 14th century, of Goliard origin. Written and sung entirely in Latin (so if you can explain Latin within the TDM setting or use only an instrumental version, go for it). An unabashed drinking song, you could use this for more rascally Builder priests/monks or for various commoners and lower-ranking noblemen while they're having a good time at the inn. A pretty well-known song even nowadays (though the most famous melody for it might be the more recent arrangement). Reconstructions: - example performance 1 - example performance 2 Again, an entirely royalty-free version of this one could come in handy. Historical background music - by Jon Sayles Jon Sayles is a musician who runs the Free Early and Renaissance Music website. His recordings are in .mp3 format (so you will need a conversion to .ogg and he's made them all freely available. The instrument he used for his musical reconstructions is the classical guitar. Some examples of Sayles' reconstructions of period music by anonymous or known authors: Saltarello, based on the late-medieval and Renaissance dance tune from Italy Madrigal by Anthony Holborne Al fonsina by Johannes Ghiselin Ich weiss nit by Ludwig Senfl So ys emprentid by John Bedyngham, mid-1400s Riu, riu, chiu, famous 15th century Spanish Christmas carol Fantasia, by Orlando Gibbons, late 16th and early 17th century Die Katzenpfote, German-speaking lands, anonymous author, 15th century A gre d'amors, 14th century, anonymous French author Nightengale (unrelated to La Rossignol), by Thomas Weelkes El Grillo, 15th to early 16th century composition by Josquin des Prez The Witches' Dance, by anonymous, Renaissance English composition Ma fin est mon comencement, by 14th century composer Guillame de Machaut In Nomine, late 15th and early 16th century composition by John Taverner Ricercare ("ricker-caré", nothing to do with rice or care), by Adrian Willaert Fantasia by Thomas Lupo, 16th-17th century English composer The Nite Watch, composed by Anthony Holborne - appropriate for TDM Plenty more where these came from... Historical background music - from the A-M Classical website This website offers plenty of freely available, royalty-free .mp3s of early and classical musical compositions and instrumental songs. The only thing you need to do is provide attribution, as everything on the site is via a Creative Commons license (this is noted on every page). Counting Christmas songs from the Middle Ages and Renaissance alone, I was able to download loads of them already years and years ago. Though they're far from epic recordings, if you're just looking for a competently done free version of these compositions, this is an excellent site. A few examples of medieval music from the A-M Classical site: Angelus ad Virginem (played quietly on organ), Diex soit en cheste maison by Adam de la Halle (organ and other instruments), Greensleeves (this is for a carol version of the lyrics, but the melody is the same as standard Greensleeves) Historical background music - by Vox Vulgaris The Swedish band/ensemble Vox Vulgaris aren't very active nowadays, but they did plenty of early music recording in the early-to-mid 2000s. From what I've read about their song releases, they're okay with others using the songs from their 2003 album and other material they've done. I don't know if their website is still around (there's an archived version) and whether you can still contact the band members, but if you'd like to be extra sure and ask, go ahead. I don't think they've changed their copyleft stance to their own works, but it pays off to be sure. So, here are some of VV's own takes on period music: Cantiga 166 - based on the eponymous song (full title "Cantiga 166 - Como póden per sas culpas (os homés seer contreitos)"), by Spanish composer Alphonso X from the 13th century (yes, king Alphonso X ! They didn't call him Alphonso the Learned for nothing). To provide you with a point of comparison, here, here and here are versions by other artists. (If I remember correctly, this particular VV song was also used by moonbo in his Requiem FM, as part of an inn's muffled background music. I did a real double-take when I played the mission for the first time and recognised it.) Cantiga 213 - based on the eponymous song (full title "Cantiga 213 - Quen sérve Santa María, a Sennor mui verdadeira"), again by Spanish composer, king Alphonso X from the 13th century. To provide you with a point of comparison, here and here are versions by other artists. Saltarello - based on the well-known melody for the Italian late-medieval Renaissance dance, the saltarello (also the saltarello trotto specifically in this case). To provide you a point of comparison, here and here are versions by other artists. La Suite Meurtrière - I can't quite source this one, it might be their own original composition, though "in the style of" some particular period music. Rókatánc (Fox Dance) - this is a really wild bit of period dance and festive music, possibly Hungarian-inspired, given the name. I think this would fit both a tavern environment or some public event for the nobility and patricians, including an armed sparring tournament or similar. Final note from me New suggestions are always welcome as I expand this thread. For any suggestions concerning Kevin MacLeod's royalty-free music, please use the other thread I've already made, purely for listing MacLeod's stuff.