Friday Facts #407 - Automating a soundtrack | Factorio

Last week we presented a general approach to the Factorio Space Age music (FFF-406). We also mentioned that we have some new techniques to not only cover these 5 hours of music, but to also surpass them.

This automatic way of making music is something that I was experimenting with a long time ago, before Factorio. I've played a lot with random melodies on top of random bass sections, with random rhythmic bases, all programmed with action script (yes pretty old). The results were quite intense, but never good enough to consider them finished tracks.

When the 5 hours soundtrack project for Factorio Space Age started, I immediately thought of those old experiments. Now having Petr composing, and Donion programming, the thing looked different. I just dared to go this way. Now I'm convinced that this was a good decision.

These tracks play out differently each time they are selected, they are a kind of procedurally generated music. But we don't want to go too crazy with the randomization, a variable track is more like a set of variations of a single track (without the need to record them all). These tracks take the place of the interludes which play between the main tracks (unless you go rooting around in the hidden settings). The goal is to provide some variety in the music after tens or hundreds of hours spent in game, regular music is still the main focus and large majority of the soundtrack.

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