Quote from: Insufficient Metal;441566Personally, I think that can be effective in small doses, but after one too many Oliver Stone films using that trick, I just find that goofy now. It's like playing Patsy Cline during a gunfight.

I will take your Patsy Cline and raise you a Slim Whitman.

It can be difficult maintaining an atmosphere of dread and suspense with Eddie Cantor playing in the background.

I usually break music for Cthulhu games into two categories: period and atmospheric. The best atmospheric music tends to be unobtrusive tracks that loop and repeat well. I also like to add tracks of environmental sounds or just plain weirdness, e.g., whispers, screams, footfalls, far behind the music. Creating your own sound effects can be lots of fun: crumpling, tearing plastic wrap close to a microphone sounds a lot like flesh being rent...great for ghoul feasts. Whatever fits the game.

I am wondering how other folks use sound in Cthulhu games? Does anyone use music/sound as horror and suspense cues...like the music that precedes a Jaws attack?

-Hans

Quote from: thedungeondelver;441606If you can find a copy of Quake I (the actual CD itself, not the game necessarily), Trent Reznor's ambient score for it is nice and creepy.

Bought it on Steam and found out the digital download doesn't come with the soundtrack.  I was pissed, being a NIN fan.  Fortunately there's a fan-patch that comes with the music files.

I'll check out the movie OSTs, though, I think I remember them being pretty good.

Quote from: hansI am wondering how other folks use sound in Cthulhu games? Does anyone use music/sound as horror and suspense cues...like the music that precedes a Jaws attack?

I've always wanted to, but I've found it hard during the natural and unexpected progression of play to do it seamlessly.  I'd need a digital soundboard or something, and I really dislike having a laptop in front of me or twiddling with a remote while setting a scene.

Quote from: Peregrin;441737Bought it on Steam and found out the digital download doesn't come with the soundtrack.  I was pissed, being a NIN fan.  Fortunately there's a fan-patch that comes with the music files.

I'll check out the movie OSTs, though, I think I remember them being pretty good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEql5rc9X0A

("Ruins")

Quote from: hanszurcher;441632I will take your Patsy Cline and raise you a Slim Whitman.

It can also be difficult maintaining an atmosphere of dread and suspense with Eddie Cantor playing in the background.

haha yes man, totally agree.

Quote from: hanszurcher;441632I usually break music for Cthulhu games into two categories: period and atmospheric. The best atmospheric music tends to be unobtrusive tracks that loop and repeat well. I also like to add tracks of environmental sounds or just plain weirdness, e.g., whispers, screams, footfalls, far behind the music. Creating your own sound effects can be lots of fun: crumpling, tearing plastic wrap close to a microphone sounds a lot like flesh being rent...great for ghoul feasts. Whatever fits the game.

Good idea! And "period and atmospheric" choices, it's in fact what many GM do. With "thematic" ambiances, for me.

Quote from: hanszurcher;441632I am wondering how other folks use sound in Cthulhu games? Does anyone use music/sound as horror and suspense cues...like the music that precedes a Jaws attack?

Sure it could a great way to use sounds/music. It requires preparation. But during phases of improvisation, my ears listen to the music and influence the choice of the words, or even ideas, and it is often the opposite when my discotheque is well known: to feel which piece will make it possible to back up the scene which is profiled. It's live.

FEAR?

Haaa... music and fear... I love that.

>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU4Rk0NATNs <<<

no?

Quote from: Windjammer;441833There's also a soundtrack, though I can't vouch for its quality (RPG soundtracks varying highly in quality):



Listening sample from the same producer for another project ("Into the Dark").

Edit. COOOOL! Found the original album including a listening sample. Now that sounds... worth getting.

http://www.erdenstern.com/music/cthulhu/

Pelgrane Press also has a collection of music for Cthulhu called the Eternal Lies Suite.

-Hans

Quote from: hanszurcher;441632Does anyone use music/sound as horror and suspense cues...like the music that precedes a Jaws attack?

I only use stuff like the Jaws music for comedic effect, along with stuff like Will Smith's "Wild, Wild West" (in Westerns), MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This", the Hallelujah Chorus, the "Torchy Girl" and "The Ritual/Ancient Battle/2nd Kroykah" classic Star Trek tracks, and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly theme.  Those tracks are just so cliched that, in my experience, they pull people out of the game rather than engrossing them in it.  

I'm absolutely serious about the Prince of Darkness soundtrack.  Great stuff that you can just play on a loop.

Wow, I recently tried to re-watch The Keep. I found the soundtrack jarring and inappropriate.

Quote from: John Morrow;442260I only use stuff like the Jaws music for comedic effect, along with stuff like Will Smith's "Wild, Wild West" (in Westerns), MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This", the Hallelujah Chorus, the "Torchy Girl" and "The Ritual/Ancient Battle/2nd Kroykah" classic Star Trek tracks, and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly theme.  Those tracks are just so cliched that, in my experience, they pull people out of the game rather than engrossing them in it.  

I agree, I did not mean to suggest actually using the theme from Jaws. I was thinking more along the lines of developing our own auditory cues for the potential presence of Big Bad. Usually by extracting a small portion of one prominent musical score or characteristic sound.

Something I forgot in an earlier post. When I select music for Horror games I mostly look for Period and Atmospheric pieces. There is another type I often neglect, Tensive. The Tension cue is a track of fast tempo, dramatic and often heavily percussive music.

So...Period, Atmospheric and Tensive...the three types of music I add to Horror/Cthulhu game environments.

Quote from: John Morrow;442260I'm absolutely serious about the Prince of Darkness soundtrack.  Great stuff that you can just play on a loop.

I agree, most anything from Carpenter is worth looking at. But most of the people in my group are horror film fanatics so the Prince of Darkness soundtrack would be instantly recognizable. I would run into the same problems that the Jaws theme causes.

Fallowing thedungeondelver's suggestion I got the Quake soundtrack, it has a lot of tension building and atmospheric tracks. Good stuff.

-Hans

You can try this: http://zewcthulhu.bandcamp.com/, free music and field recordings for Call of Cthulhu.

Whoah, talk about Back from the Dead.

But yeah, Silent Hill & Dark Ambient imo, combined with little Jazz.

Quote from: Ammon;508759You can try this: http://zewcthulhu.bandcamp.com/, free music and field recordings for Call of Cthulhu.

That's really awesome stuff, Ammon.  I'll add it to my library.  Definitely what I'm looking for.

Quote from: Rincewind1;508762Whoah, talk about Back from the Dead.

But yeah, Silent Hill & Dark Ambient imo, combined with little Jazz.

I have a few SH soundtracks -- they're among my favorites for horror stuff.  I'll have to check out Dark Ambient.

Strangely appropriate that someone should cast Post Reply and raise the topic, since I've been combing over ToC the past week and thinking about running some games.

http://zewcthulhu.bandcamp.com, YEAH, great stuff, thanks guys...

Thanks guys,

You can also try my other dark ambient project: http://atum.bandcamp.com/

What, no one suggested Metallica's "The Call of Ktulu"?

Kidding, of course. I wouldn't use it in-game, but it would be a great soundtrack for a campaign trailer.