VS Instruments Redux

[jovial breach]

VS Instruments Redux

*"If music be the food of love, play on..."
-William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night *

Description

VS Instruments Redux (https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/61428) is a mod that brings musical instruments into the game! I was inspired by the somewhat abandoned and buggy "Instruments" mod (which I loved), but this new mod is completely separate and built from the ground up. Multiplayer servers are especially on my mind, as this was made in support of the "World of New Horizons" server, though anyone is welcome to use it. Sounds are sourced from GeneralUser GS (https://www.schristiancollins.com/generaluser).

Features

• Currently 12 Instruments: Guitar, Violin, Banjo, Trumpet, Sax, Ocarina, Pan Flute, Piano, Accordion, Kalimba, Steel Drum, Choir, and Upright Piano (and Piano Bench).
• Solo ABC Mode: Play custom .abc sheet music files. Just drop them in "ModData/vsinstrumentsredux/songs" and select them from the in-game GUI!
• Shuffle Mode: Shuffle ABC songs in a chosen folder to make things easier.
• Freestyle Mode: Play live using two different keyboard layouts (Virtual MIDI or Diatonic Number Row).

For Modders

Want to bundle ABC songs with your own mod? You can! Just:

1. Make this path in your mod: "assets/vsinstrumentsredux/config/songs/"
2. Add your ABC files to the "songs" folder
3. Rename your ABC files by adding '.txt' at the end (for example, "DaisyBell.abc.txt"). My mod will automatically load them for any player who has both mods installed!

Coming Soon

• "Band Play" mode for synced multiplayer performances
• More instruments
• Custom animations (if I can get them working right)

Drop your feedback and share ABC song files below!

[deft wing]

would be cool and more immersive if some instruments were actually placeable, like the piano, sick mod though reminds me of minecraft's immersive melodies mod, maybe you can take inspiration from there for the animations as it's open source

would also be even cooler if it supported MIDI files but I have no idea how complicated that is to do

[jovial breach]

The peaceable instruments is a cool idea! I’ll have to think on it, as it would require a few work arounds.

And yeah—initially I intended to use MIDIs, but ABC files have a lot of advantages. Most notably, their size and simplicity, which is great for sending packets to nearby players without lag, as well as parsing them for different instruments to play.

[jovial breach]

You inspired me. This will be coming in the next update:

[jovial breach]

Bass Guitar finished up~ Feel free to leave any instrument ideas you'd like to see! I've been building a library of notes.

[unique warren]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guzheng

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guqin

[deft wing]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy-gurdy

Fitting, considering there is an npc that plays this iirc

For placed ones
Marimba
Harp
Large drum

[jovial breach]

Ooo~ I'll see if I can find good note files for these. Thanks!

[jovial breach]

Actually, that's already in! It took me a while to find a good Hurdy Gurdy recording.

I also have a marimba, but being able to place it on a table is a good idea!

[molten granite]

I love musical instruments and especially medieval ones!! Some instrument to consider:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnyx
• gong
• some kind of bell?
• organ :)c

[jovial breach]

Organ will be in the next update!

[keen wasp]

Hey would you happen to have a good link for getting abc songs? Been struggling to find one

[deft wing]

Main reason I asked for midi is because of this, abc isn't a popular format especially if you aren't looking for popular songs

The only "library" I found is abcnotation.com

[outer wind]

https://community.playstarbound.com/threads/sbsp-1000-starbound-song-pack.58760/

Just a big ol collection of abc

[keen wasp]

Thank you!

[jovial breach]

Yeah. Unfortunately from a technical side, ABC just performs much more cleanly.. There are music packs though! And I also have a feature where mod authors can load in ABC files that my mod will find and make available to anyone with both mods installed, which should help.

[jovial breach]

Thanks Meadow! I pinned this to help others in the future. I really appreciate the link!

[outer wind]

No worries ⭐

[proven fulcrum]

+1 for wanting to see guzheng/guqin
Really cool mod, I can see a lot of flavor possible with this!

Thank you for your work on it

[keen wasp]

This mod has been so fun for me and my girlfriend! Great work man!

-edit: she would love a flute if you are looking for recommendations

[jovial breach]

@unique warren @proven fulcrum You'll see the Guzheng in the next update~ 🙂

[jovial breach]

Thanks so much! I'll definitly work on a flute for either this next update, or the one soon after. 😉

[unique warren]

Hell yeah

[proven fulcrum]

Wonderful!! Thank you!!

This plus the hanfu mod is about to be awesome

[jovial breach]

Actually, I just went ahead and made one~

[keen wasp]

Thank you so much! Im sure she is going to love it!

[keen wasp]

Been loving the flute! its so peaceful and pairs really well with the violin. Thanks again for adding that! So excited to try out all the other new instruments!

[jovial breach]

The phonograph (which can play the sounds of any instrument put inside of it), comes in the next update! It's like the ABC player from the old Instruments mod~

[jovial breach]

Latest update adds two new features:

1. You can now transcribe music sheets, which let you share ABC files in-game!

2. You can now make recordings with the phonograph on wax cylinders!

I'm really excited to see what people can do~

[drifting horizon]

peak mod

[jovial breach]

In the next update, there is a major overhaul of guitars/basses. A warning that you will see your "Bass Guitar" become a black square, as the names have been updated. That is now the "Electric Bass".

In full, there is now (from left to right):

• Acoustic Guitar
• Nylon Guitar
• Acoustic Bass
• Lead Guitar
• Electric Bass
• Fretless Base
• Overdrive Guitar

[keen wasp]

Dude so peak!!

[robust mulch]

Please make a separate add-on mod for each of the musical instrument families!

• Brass
• Percussion
• Strings
• Woodwinds
  Great work!

[jovial breach]

Thanks! It’s something I’d like to organize eventually as I build up a nice library. I definitely like the idea~

[robust mulch]

More types of string instruments please!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/704202677092876310/817271792850042890/strings.jpg?ex=6a7965ab&is=6a78142b&hm=8eeb0fa3bbdf9e8afb628e3531baa1ba0f996b3d2e4590e4b71aaf79b567dea7&

[jovial breach]

Well, there is at least one more on that list added with the latest update! (The Lyre)

[robust mulch]

thank you! 💙

[deft wing]

question, as I saw MIDI was added which is nice

do you play every instrument track in the song at the same time regardless of the instrument that is playing? I don't know how ABC files work but in the case of MIDI I would suggest allowing the player to choose which track/s they want to play instead, as otherwise it's just...a muddy mess

especially relevant for band play

[jovial breach]

Ah - actually, the way I have it set up is when you add a MIDI file, the code rips it apart and places it AND its individual tracks (labeled by instrument) all in a folder. It's actually a nice improvement over ABC in some ways, where you have to have each track as its own file. 🙂

[deft wing]

the question still stands, when I play a midi file that has multiple tracks, are all tracks played at once? cause every time I try to play anything it's just garbled noise so I'm guessing that's what is happening

[jovial breach]

Oh - yes. Specifically, if you play the "full" file, all tracks play at once. It's the downside of MIDI - it can be messy. Finding a simpler MIDI, or converting it to ABC with Maestro and removing some tracks is best.

I'll ponder on the idea of making it so the player can pick and play multiple tracks at once, to kind of cheese the same effect.

[deft wing]

either that or assign each instrument to a group of MIDI instruments, so a guitar would play all guitar-adjacent instrument tracks and completely avoid playing something like drums or piano etc...

there are 128 instruments in MIDI so that might take a bit though

[jovial breach]

Hmm...that's actually not a bad thought! I'll think about this over the next couple days. I bet there is a really clean solution. This is a good idea! Thanks Ghosty!

Btw - any instruments you have been especially wanting? I've been getting back into adding more, so I'll let you choose one of the next if you want. lol

[deft wing]

how about the harpsichord? it's the piano's ancestor after all

[jovial breach]

Ooo - great choice. Consider it done!

[deft wing]

that was fast damn

[jovial breach]

I’m a little crazy. Lol

[jovial breach]

The Harpsichord is now live!

[jovial breach]

In the latest release, I made it so you can select multiple individual MIDI parts to play at once. I think this is a nice solution - let me know what you think!

[deft wing]

it's perfect, thank you

[glass heron]

Friend is trying to connect their midi keyboard, they followed the instructions and they get this error?

[robust mulch]

Please add some more low tech drums like

• Powwow Drums
• Log Drums
• Water Drums
  Basically Native American style drums!

https://youtu.be/q1Oo9cwouTE?si=zH7N9Fh5x-C7MrCK

This is more of a joke but, giant bamboo flute?

[jovial breach]

Let me see if I can find a good SF2 pack for these! 🙂

[jovial breach]

If I had to guess, your friend probably has their MIDI keyboard being used by some other program.

[glass heron]

Yup that was the issue!

we got it fixed

[jovial breach]

My suffering...but the Glass Armonica approaches:

[jovial breach]

Log Drum coming with next update!:

[robust mulch]

Wooo! Thank you! Yay Tribal / Low Tech instruments!

[jovial breach]

Oh - this actually requires steel…

Jk! A knife, log, and some sticks. (Specifically an oak log, as it seems these are traditionally hardwood. Lol)

[robust mulch]

Please make a Didgeridoo in the future! Oh and a rain stick could be fun!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgeridoo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainstick

Can put to use bamboo!

[jovial breach]

Actually, slight redesign, but same recipe (though using any log). I just used an actual log drum as a nicer inspiration:

[jovial breach]

Will do!

[potent geyser]

Oh my god he’s going ham with it🤯
You’re actually cracked bro.

[jovial breach]

Didgeridoo? More like Didgeridone:

[robust mulch]

Amazing!!! Thank you!!

Now tenth just needs to make a kangaroo mod. Lol

[jovial breach]

Hammered Dulcimer in the next update too!:

[robust mulch]

Please make a conch insturment out of the base game conch shells!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_(instrument)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGby5d4eQAw

could just be one note. lol

https://youtu.be/ycm5IIZrpKs?si=Yw7uPRj75TyFAA9o

bonus video! That's crazy

[jovial breach]

This...actually sounds fun! I'll give this a go!