Question regarding the Alpha Centauri series
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Ask Sid Meier
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I don't buy a lot of games generally because I find very little replay value in most of them. But I have to say that Alpha Centauri (and Alien Crossfire) are the best games I have ever bought. You can't imagine the fun I had (and still have) playing just the single-user mode. It is very unforunate that (I am a Mac user) I was never able to find anyone to play a multiplayer game, either because of bugs in the application itself or because of a lack of available players. In any case, I was wondering if you have ever considered a follow-up to those wonderful games, maybe something more in-depth with deeper social and political aspects (I loved how they intergrated into the game). I should say I've never been tempted to play any of the Civ games. In any case, kudos on all of your work and the people that have helped you in making it happen. Thank you!
Actually, that is how music is recorded most of the time. Thing is, the album, after being recorded, is made into a final mix (where everything is blended together) and then sent to mastering.
So in order to be able to do "selective listening" as you propose, you would have to have each seperate track available. And by doing so, you of course mutliply the size of the song x the number of tracks. Basically, the only place you could fit this onto is a DVD, and a whole album with all the tracks available would not even fit on a single-sided DVD.
And then there's the problem of playing those and controlling the tracks. On a computer it is easy enough since that's how the labum was created in the first place. But you would need a whole new line of home and portable audio devices designed to play and manipulate such a "format".
Didn't mean to shut down your idea completely though, it's just not very feasible unless it is compressed AND unless they narrow it down to mixing the basic tracks individually and just making those available (vocals, guitars, bass, drums, percs, horns...), because a single song mix, in the recording studio, is made up of a minimum of 30 to 40 tracks most of the time. And in some cases, it can go quite higher than that.
So it's not just a matter of delivering it, it would be a nightmare for sound engineers to do a full regular mix (for today's CDs) using all the tracks, and then remix each basic instrument seperately. The music industry is cutting corners as it is during recording... you would be asking them to spend more money on something that would be used by a minority of people that are either hardcore audiophiles or people that are sticking rich with an itch so spend.
This would be very similar to surround-sound music (albums playing in 5.1 surround on DVDs). It never took off because it was hard to justify the costs for such a small market share. It will never sell as well as CDs (though more and more surround-sound concert DVDs are being produced) because its just not accessible to everyone. Even those DVDs I mentioned only sell to the basic fan base of the band that's being promoted... who's going to buy a 30$ concert DVD of a band they don't know?
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I don't buy a lot of games generally because I find very little replay value in most of them. But I have to say that Alpha Centauri (and Alien Crossfire) are the best games I have ever bought. You can't imagine the fun I had (and still have) playing just the single-user mode. It is very unforunate that (I am a Mac user) I was never able to find anyone to play a multiplayer game, either because of bugs in the application itself or because of a lack of available players. In any case, I was wondering if you have ever considered a follow-up to those wonderful games, maybe something more in-depth with deeper social and political aspects (I loved how they intergrated into the game). I should say I've never been tempted to play any of the Civ games. In any case, kudos on all of your work and the people that have helped you in making it happen. Thank you!
Actually, that is how music is recorded most of the time. Thing is, the album, after being recorded, is made into a final mix (where everything is blended together) and then sent to mastering.
So in order to be able to do "selective listening" as you propose, you would have to have each seperate track available. And by doing so, you of course mutliply the size of the song x the number of tracks. Basically, the only place you could fit this onto is a DVD, and a whole album with all the tracks available would not even fit on a single-sided DVD.
And then there's the problem of playing those and controlling the tracks. On a computer it is easy enough since that's how the labum was created in the first place. But you would need a whole new line of home and portable audio devices designed to play and manipulate such a "format".
Didn't mean to shut down your idea completely though, it's just not very feasible unless it is compressed AND unless they narrow it down to mixing the basic tracks individually and just making those available (vocals, guitars, bass, drums, percs, horns...), because a single song mix, in the recording studio, is made up of a minimum of 30 to 40 tracks most of the time. And in some cases, it can go quite higher than that.
So it's not just a matter of delivering it, it would be a nightmare for sound engineers to do a full regular mix (for today's CDs) using all the tracks, and then remix each basic instrument seperately. The music industry is cutting corners as it is during recording... you would be asking them to spend more money on something that would be used by a minority of people that are either hardcore audiophiles or people that are sticking rich with an itch so spend.
This would be very similar to surround-sound music (albums playing in 5.1 surround on DVDs). It never took off because it was hard to justify the costs for such a small market share. It will never sell as well as CDs (though more and more surround-sound concert DVDs are being produced) because its just not accessible to everyone. Even those DVDs I mentioned only sell to the basic fan base of the band that's being promoted... who's going to buy a 30$ concert DVD of a band they don't know?
My 2 cents.
Cheers!