What's considered a good song length?

[forgettable pyromaniac]

Because if it loops too soon, it'll have "Into the Beast's Belly" syndrome, where it gets grating only after like 2 replays, but if it's too long, not only will the wad's file size increase, but people may have already thought it looped and silenced the music entirely to listen to their own tracks.

 

What is the average range for a song that doesn't hit either of those, basically?

[roadworx]

pretty much depends entirely on the length of the map

[The_Trve_Raith]

Really it depends on the length of the map you're putting the song in.

 

If it's a long map then ideally you'd want a longer song, cause if it's short then it's gonna loop over and over until it gets grating.

 

However if you have a long song on a short map, you have the opposite effect of it not being long enough.

[Shepardus]

Anything shorter than The Godhood Suite is too short.

[forgettable pyromaniac]

34 minutes ago, The_Trve_Raith said:

Really it depends on the length of the map you're putting the song in.

 

37 minutes ago, roadworx said:

pretty much depends entirely on the length of the map

 

Let's throw out an arbitrary time: Five minutes. When should it loop?

[yakfak]

music length aint distributed equally
a three minute midi with a bunch of different ideas can be way less repetitive than a six minute midi that's jamming a riff down yr throat imo
eg eternal doom's midis are too short not cos of length but because they're doggedly dedicated to playing their motifs over and over with no variation

[Doomkid]

Pretty much what Yakfak says, it's more about how repetitive the song itself is moreso than how actually long it is. As a rule of thumb though, 3 minutes is considered a standard song length. As long as it's not the same thing ad nauseum for 3 minutes - a healthy bit of variety - you should be fine.

[Dubbag]

about 80 years is perfect length, 81 would be too long.

Edited June 19, 2021 by Dubbag

[Deadwing]

If the song has at least 2 minutes with 3 sections, you should be fine with looping, imo (as long it isn't like a +30 min map)

[Final Verdict]

In general I would say no more than 2-3 times a map, but there are a few factors to consider.

 

If the map is 10 minutes long then looping it twice seems about right, although you could probably get away with just once if it's good enough. If the map is 15-20minutes then you'll probably want to compose a longer track. Preferably with more variation to it in order to avoid repetition.

 

You could do that with almost anything, melody, percussion et-cetera. Then you have other options like reverb, resonance, equalizer and so on. Not that I'm a music expert. I fool around on an old music program occasionally but I have no formal (i.e music theory) education in it.

 

From experience though I think @yakfak's advice is about as sound as you can get, so I would personally go with that line of thinking if it were me. 

 

[1Destro3456]

Depends of map length, though it really helps to put a longer song into a longer map, there are some exceptions like, Eviternity's Map 19 that is one of the longest levels in that megawad yet Jimmy made a 4 minute track that people liked it being used on that map

Edited June 19, 2021 by 1Destro3456

[out_of_service]

Intermission from E2M3: Refinery getting on your nerves?

[continuum.mid]

Forty-three minutes and thirty-nine seconds.

 

More seriously, it depends on the map. With a really short map you can get away with a short track, it'll only loop a couple of times. With a really long map you will want something that either doesn't easily get boring, or is 5-7 minutes long so it loops fewer times.

 

I will listen to your forty-minute tracks if you include them, seriously. I like long songs when they are done well. Is people turning off the music after they think it's looped once really that much of an issue?

Edited June 19, 2021 by northivanastan

[forgettable pyromaniac]

3 hours ago, northivanastan said:

I will listen to your forty-minute tracks if you include them, seriously. I like long songs when they are done well. Is people turning off the music after they think it's looped once really that much of an issue?

I know a few people that do, suprisingly. And no doubt there are more.

[Steve D]

As a general rule, I prefer 3.5 minutes with 3 or 4 distinct parts, but there are no perfect rules. For example, Agony Rhapsody is really short, but IMO it has no problem in a 40-minute map.

[TheMightyHeracross]

Same with "You Suck" from Rise of the Triad. 1:15 but it could loop forever.

[ApprihensivSoul]

I don't know what ideal would be considered, but my top ten songs are all over six minutes long.

[leodoom85]

Let me put an example of length. 

Heretic...I like some of the songs but goddamn those are too short for the length of the maps!!!

 

I usually like the maps if the song is good and pleasant to my ears. I think a length between 3 and 5 minutes should be fine if the map takes a reasonable time and that helps to avoid being repetitive. However, I don't mind longer tracks as long as it's great or moody, like the PSX tracks of Doom.

[AD_79]

As a general rule of thumb, I usually consider a track too short for a map if it plays through more than three times. At the very least, this is what I keep in mind when writing music for my or someone else's map, so if you're giving me a map that takes 25-30 minutes to play, I'll likely feel compelled to write something that at least reaches the eight-to-ten minute mark. Of course, you can go either way with it, this isn't a hard rule in the slightest. As mentioned above, Jimmy managed to make a 4-5 minute piece completely engaging for an hour, which is a testament to how varied individual compositions of his are as well as how skilled he is as a composer.

 

(In terms of going in the opposite direction, Jimmy also wrote a nine minute track that ended up on a map half its length. Do whatever you think works!)

[Bridgeburner56]

15 to 47 minutes

[Wavy]

A good MIDI length should last as long as a berserk pack

 

So about 4 years

[Mayomancer]

As other people have said, depends on the map, but i think even some sub 2 minute songs can be made so they don't get boring on repeat. I'd personally say something between 2 and 5 minutes should be great for most cases.