How should track order be determined?

How should track order be determined?
by Dwedit on 2011-06-13 (#79667)

How should track order be determined for a game?
There are many possible ways of ordering tracks. One way is to leave the track numbers alone, but sometimes sound effects are interleaved with the music tracks.
Another way is to take the earliest possible time a given track could play. But then you end up with Jingles intermixed with the rest of the tracks.
Another way is to categorize the type of song (map music, battle music, etc), but then you end up with late game songs appearing out of order compared with early game songs.

So I really want to know what the best practices are for establishing a track order for a game's soundtrack.

Follow the example of OSTs
by tepples on 2011-06-13 (#79675)

How do official soundtrack albums, such as the Super Mario 64 OST, appear to order the tracks?

by Bregalad on 2011-06-13 (#79678)

In a soundtrack you definitely want them in the order of the first time you hear the track in a "normal" playthrourgh.

But since when sound effects are included in the soundtrack ?

If by jingles you mean really short musics such as ones you get when getting an item, then they're usually like other music the first time you hear them. But if they're too much like sound effects then they're not included.

by Dwedit on 2011-06-13 (#79689)

Let's take an example... Dragon Warrior III. When I "ripped" this nsf (which consisted of looking at the Japanese version's code, and changing the init/playback addresses to match the US version), I made up my own track order by categorizing the tracks instead of doing earliest possible track play time. Looking back, I don't like how the track ordering turned out.

But the earliest possible track play time is not constant. There are branching paths you could take to make the tracks play in a different order.

For example, the title screen could either go to the Menu Selection screen, or to the Battle Theme if you let the attract mode play instead. Then you start a game, and you are guaranteed to hear the Castle Town theme and the Castle Theme in that order. But then you could sleep at an inn before leaving for the overworld. And on the first overworld area, you could either enter a dungeon, enter a village, enter a shrine, or get into a battle. And from a battle, you could lose or win, or maybe gain a level.

by Gil-Galad on 2011-06-13 (#79695)

I always order them in numerical order. Looping tunes first, short tunes, sound effects and then D(PCM) voice samples.

If they are not in order I arrange the looping songs together, short tunes, etc. It makes it simple and easy for me.

by Bregalad on 2011-06-14 (#79786)

Quote:
For example, the title screen could either go to the Menu Selection screen, or to the Battle Theme if you let the attract mode play instead. Then you start a game, and you are guaranteed to hear the Castle Town theme and the Castle Theme in that order. But then you could sleep at an inn before leaving for the overworld. And on the first overworld area, you could either enter a dungeon, enter a village, enter a shrine, or get into a battle. And from a battle, you could lose or win, or maybe gain a level.

You rasie an interesting point. Traditionally, battle music often comes after the overworld music, then victory music, and game over music comes after boss music but this isn't always the case.

In the Dragon Quest VIII original soundtrack (the only one from the DQ series that I have), the battle come after the overworld music, but the victory music is not present (its not really a music in DQ games anyways). The jingles such as level up, inn etc... all comes at the end of the second CD.
(by the way I was scammed because the OST comes from the jap version of the game which contains synth music, as opposed to the western version which contains streamed orchestral music, when I discovered this I was really mad so I hardly ever listen to this OST)

Other soundtracks, like Chrono Trigger, works differently. You have no battles on the over-world so they put it in this order : Overworld theme, forest theme, battle theme. This is the most likely order you'll listen to the songs if you are a curious player and explore the optional forest at the start of the game, but you could go straight to the millennial fair and only hear the battle theme (and the forest theme) later.

In Final Fantasy VII you only make it to the overworld after a considerable amount of time (typically 5+ hours) of gameplay, and fight quite a few battles before getting "outside". Ironically they put the battle theme (and victrory fanfare) at the location you hear the boss theme for the first time (the robot you fight from both sides after president ShinRa shows up, it's the second boss of the game but you don't hear the boss theme at scorpion guardian, the first boss) ! Probably they messed up or were planning to use the regular battle theme for this boss ?
I'm absolutely certain the messed up on this one because it comes right after 1-09 Shinra Inc's theme that you hear the first time right before this battle, and before 1-12 Flowers blooming in the Church that you hear for the first time right after this battle. So there is NO way the battle them can POSSIBLY be heard between those scenes, only the boss theme.

Anyway the boss theme comes when you have to fight the boss after rescuing Red XIII which is a few bosses later (that sewer guardian and Reno comes inbetween but for some reason they didn't "count" for the OST).
They chose to put the "sleep" theme after the village theme that is after the overworld theme (the first time you walk on the overworld), even though you can (in fact you HAVE TO) sleep in Midgar before seeing the overworld.
The "game over" theme comes after the Jenova boss theme which is heard on particularly important boss battles (supposedly you're supposed to loose against him haha).
On all FFs generally the songs comes in a "global" order, but it happens you hear a non-battle-nor-jingle song in the game long before it comes on the soundtrack.

To take the same games as before for an example, in Chrono Trigger you're likely to hear "3-07 Sealed Door" quite earlier in the game during your first visit to the future, so that song "should" have been placed between "2-06 The Day the world Revived" and "2-07 Robo Gang Johny"

In Final Fantasy VII you hear "2-13 Trail of Blood" in Shinra Building (and nobody can BYPASS the instant this song plays) so it should have been placed between "1-21 Red XIII's theme" and "1-22 Crazy Motorcycle". The fact this song is titled "trail of blood" proofs it was titled after the first time you hear it in the game (you hear it quite a few times later in the game without any trails of blood involved), but it was located in the OST at the third time you hear it in the game.

Also you hear "4-01 Shinra wades a fullscale attack" when climbing to the shinra building so this shong should have beeen placed between "1-18 Don of the slums" and "1-19 Infiltrating Shinra tower". This time the song was clearly titled towards the events that happens at the end of the game, as the Shinra is not planing any attacks at the start of the game (on the other side it's you who have to attack them). So it makes more sense to place this song at the second time you hear it instead.

So really there is not a single possible order for a soundtrack ! Even the official ones were "guessed" and the song comes approximately the first time they're heard, but sometimes they are here for the 2nd or 3rd time. Maybe the developers just "forgot" that you hear them before, or considered it wasn't during a time long enough ? Who knowns.
Jingles can be placed about anywhere (like in Chrono Trigger) or at the end of the track (like Dragon Quest VIII).