Creating your own music

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Todo: Add some details or links on the nuts & bolts of working programmatically with .wav files.

Format

PCM 16bit at 44KHz is the highest quality available. Both WAV files and MP3 files should use this standard to work in the source engine. Monaural or monophonic audio is NOT supported.

For music files it is usually best to use the MP3 format, as long audio files will use up large amounts of disk space in the WAV format.

Note:Source can only loop files with cue points, which are exclusive to the WAV format. Consider using ADPCM for looping music.
See also: Looping a Sound

Music differs little from basic sounds in the engine. Adding new music can be done simply by placing it in the mod's sound folder and directly referencing it, or by utilising soundscripts.

Note:Music generally should be placed in the "sound/music/..." directory and be flagged with the '#' character in order for it to be affected by the "Music Volume" slider in the options menu. It also should be set to play unspatialized ("everywhere") with the soundlevel keyvalue set to 0 or SNDLEVEL_NONE.

Software

(see: Music Composition)

Programs for creating music are available in both free and paid versions from many sources. Below is a short list of popular paid programs for making music, which often have various versions and price-points for users.

Popular Music Software

Software	Information	Systems
Pro Tools	Uses subscription model	Windows, macOS
FL Studio	One Time Purchase	Windows, macOS
MAGIX Music Maker	One Time Purchase	Windows, macOS
Logic Pro	One Time Purchase	macOS

Freeware

Audacity Audacity is a powerful freeware sound editor. It allows you to record, edit, and mix audio together. It has many of the basic tools necessary to edit music as well as a variety of effects and filters. Audacity does not have instruments for making music, but has a small selection of sound generators. This program will require you to import or record instruments tracks.

Wavosaur Wavosaur is another freeware sound editor. Like audacity, it allows you to record, edit, and mix audio. The advantage of Wavosaur over audacity is the support of VST and ASIO Sound driver, a means of reducing latency in audio recording.

Recommended VST

REfx Nexus East West/ Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Gold

Demo Song

This song was made using only fl studio and pro tools Click to listen