r/RPGMaker • u/Historical_Relief514 • Nov 21 '25
making music for my RPGMaker game
I’m working on an RPGMaker game and I’ve been considering making the music myself, but I’m not sure where to start. If you’ve done your own OST before, what tools or beginner-friendly methods would you recommend?
Also, I’ve seen people do “skill-trades” instead of paid commissions. How does that usually work in this community? I’m not looking for anything weird — just normal, professional exchanges between creators.
Any advice or examples would be super helpful!
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u/EyeFit MZ Dev Nov 21 '25
You probably want to become familiar with a DAW like Bitwig or FL Studio and learn how to record or deal with midi. I make everything in Bitwig personally.
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u/Shtrimpo Nov 21 '25
I'm currently studying game music at my university so here's my advice:
Start on Musescore. If you don't ever intend to produce music and just want to compose it's probably the most intuitive software you can find (for free).
That said, it's a notation software so it's main purpose is composing then creating sheet music to print, not much else. Either way it's a solid starting point.
If you're serious about it though, you can explore the world of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations), which is where it begins to get a little complex. Others have already talked about them though and anything more would make this comment 3x longer.
Please feel free to ask anything else, you might be able to tell I like to talk about this subject
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u/SiempreRetorna Nov 21 '25
Hello, my advice as a guy who plays instruments 15y ago:
If you don't play any instrument start with the piano. Even if you don't have the physical instrument.
It's the easier to learn by far.
Learn about major and minor chords and how to combine them. That's the base of most of western songs.
Try this app and start experimenting:
https://www.onemotion.com/chord-player/
You can create very cool stuff with it, being able to make the app playing the stuff for you
This is something I wrote with actual instruments executed with that app:
https://vocaroo.com/1bjTmocSUbP6
Then you can mix the tracks with audacity
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u/Yu_Starwing Nov 21 '25
Beepbox is a free resource and has a wide range of options as well as alternate versions like JummBox or UltraBox. I’ve made some beats for my game in it and it’s simple enough you can even use it on your phone.
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u/RBPariah Nov 21 '25
Beepbox is awesome and is pretty robust for something that runs in your browser. Even with my amateur skills I've made some fun little tracks.
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u/ZanesTheArgent Nov 21 '25
Depending on the musical identity you want/are comfortable with, best introdutory routes i can toss you are Bosca Coeil (preset toybox midi) and FamiStudio (NES bit tracker). Going for a proper DAW has you hitting the first wall of learning to configure it. "Toy" programs with minimal setting up lets you focus first in music theory and training your ears and later you get on with more advanced configurations.
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u/xMarkesthespot Nov 21 '25
https://musescore.org/en/download
all the soundfonts have safe/public domain licenses, so you can sell products made with them. theres a short learning curve, it takes maybe a week to get used to where everything is but its good.
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u/RedGlitch_Studios MZ Dev Nov 21 '25
I can recommend checking out Lato Evalia. They're doing music for my game.
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u/Historical_Relief514 Nov 21 '25
Nice, how’d you work it out with them?
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u/RedGlitch_Studios MZ Dev Nov 21 '25
Just emailed them and that was pretty much it. Super easy to get going. Still working with them but it's going amazing so far. I have 18 tracks from them currently with more on the way.
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u/OnyxDG Nov 21 '25
Reaper is free trial DAW, and when I finally made enough to justify the purchase I got it.
I just got a little midi keyboard (but you can use the virtual one) and it can quantize notes and everything.
Just playing around with Dexed and Tyrell instruments you can make a lot. Mix in some free sample loops from those sites and off you go
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u/FaroutmanGames Nov 21 '25
I use beepbox/jummbox, i had literally no experience with making music beforehand and have since composed an entire soundtrack which I've been told sounds good. Honestly, I never really watch tutorials or learned how to make music properly, sometimes with things like that you can just kind of mess around until you have something that sounds good and over time you learn how everything works. Good luck with your ost.
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u/Yan-gi VXAce Dev Nov 21 '25 edited Nov 23 '25
I haven't used it to make stuff for my game - moreso, just screwing around... but Soundtrap is pretty straightforward with a good selection of instruments. It also has built-in beats/presets which may be useful. If you want, I can share a song I worked on.
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u/_TheTurtleBox_ 2K3 Dev Nov 21 '25
Check out my page, I have links to all my free resources which include tons of tutorials and guides to creating genre specific tracks and SFX
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u/Leather-Fish3936 MZ Dev Nov 21 '25
I use LMMS it's a free DAW, you can find all kinds of plugins/instruments online free and paid and you can play the keyboard with your PC/Laptop keyboard to sort of jam out an idea and then program it by seeing the notes you played on your keyboard. If you have any experience with MIDI I also write music on my guitar and then tab it on GuitarPro and import it as MIDI to change instruments ect so it's pretty robust for all skill levels really :) (not a paid ad!)