Music in your game

VociferousUrsus

I love using music in my games. I've tried video game and movie soundtracks over the years. However, I find that instrumental music that is not easily identified by my players seems to keep discussion of the music out of the game (aside from praising how awesome it is). So far in my current campaign I've used the following albums:

Pelican- The Fire in Our Throats will Beckon the Thaw
Pelican- City of Echoes
If These Trees Could Talk - Self Titled
If These Trees Could Talk - Above the Earth, Below the Sky
Explosions in the Sky- All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
Explosions in the Sky- Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever
Capricorns- River, Bear Your Bones.

All of the above is instrumental, harder edged post rock/prog/metal.

Idabrius

You can even use music in your online games; I have recently discovered Nicecast for OSx which allows you to turn your itunes into an internet radio station. Example, the DMCast that I run (when not playing its just random music), here: http://24.63.106.214:8000/listen.m3u

spyrusthevirus

for some royal chamber music or a kings fiest, consider using some Bach played on a harpishchord (mind that some people find it's sound irritating :P) or some of his chamber music (again ,with a harpishchord- it gives a great feeling) and for a sad moment (a funeral or a critical loss) I find a classical march funebre ideal. Also, some "sleep music" (sounds of nature, birds, leaf noises etc) can accompany you nicely through that travels in the woods. Old music (with lutes etc) can also make a good sound background for many parts of your middle age set games.
Such selections can make your session more original, since most epic soundtracks are familiar to most people, while most of classical music isn't.

Duskreign

Newgrounds has a lot of Indy tunes I have found. I highly recommend checking that site out.

gaaran

I wouldn't have thought to look at newgrounds, I'll have to take a look. Thanks for all the input guys! It's been invaluable in creating my game playlists.

Duskreign

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/list/3

Under Tranquil/Soothing:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/341691

Villains:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/334568

Temples/Holy Ground:

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/333089

Just a few I found in about 5 minutes of searching.

Grokkit

I use music and sound effects pretty heavily in my game. I even wrote a soundboard in XAML. It was incredibly helpful, and super fun to unleash on my players. :) There are a lot of great suggestions on this thread. My only other 2 cents is to let players pick one song for their character and add it to your playlist. When it plays, give that character some benefit while it plays! For my 4e Campaign, I give the player a +2 to Hit. They love it.

"Return of the Lich Queen":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/eberron-return-of-the-lich-queen

Curufea

For Metascape II we used the soundtracks for Half-life, Half-life 2 and BSG
For Dogs In The Vineyard we used the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou?
In my current DWAITAS game I'm encouraging folk to listen to Nigel Fairs and Alistair Locke who did the music for the audios.

DarkMagus

Music is totally central to my gaming experience. On some of my campaign pages I post the typical background music for that setting with a link so users can hear it, so they can get a feel for the mood that I am trying to develop. I have TONS of soundtracks, and I even put up a page a while ago where I give a quick review of some of my favorites. "check it out":http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/the-ilumnos-series/wikis/music-reviews for some ideas if you want.

Duskreign

I have soooo wanted to be able to integrate a nested flash music player in my campaign wiki. I know it isn't ever going to happen, but it is pretty much the only major thing I wish I could add.

I use music a lot, too. I tend to use obscure video game soundtracks, and I have themes for specific characters, especially villains. I dislike using music that is recognizable from something else, as I think it elicits out-of-character talk about the movie/show/game the song is from, rather than the scene the music is meant to be set to.

Curufea

I'm with you there - I really want my theme music for the campaign to play whenever someone logs into the site, oh well...

Duskreign

It'll never happen, but a Duskreign can dream.

Kama

I've been playing for years with a soundtrack.
At the very beginning, it was a bit tricky to find the good volume, good without/with soundtrack ratio and a remote control, so you don't give any clues to your players like "he's about to change track, let's get ready for a fight", but now i couldn't play without music with tables used to it.
(Like garaan) I prefer to set up many playlists corresponding to different moods/scenes in the game.
My playlists also includes some easily recognizable music (Hans Zimmer,...), but i used them first on rather striking scenes ingame so the players recall what happened to they characters, at the table, rather than endless and irrelevant chit chat.

Everdark

I love playing music while gaming. I'm not only putting together a playlist for my campaign of songs that I want to use but I'm also producing my own original soundtrack for my campaign setting!