Desert - Caravan, Dunes and the Sunken City - Fantasy Game Music Pack - 44 Tracks

Desert is a 44 track score for desert fantasy games: the caravan road and the dune sea, the oasis town, the bazaar and the sultan's court, the sandstorm and the salt flats, a city buried in the sand, the battles and bosses fought over it, a sand wyrm, and the cues a game fires all day.

One interval, every track. Every track is written in Hijaz (the phrygian dominant scale, 26 tracks) or in harmonic minor (18 tracks). Both hold a gap of three semitones between two neighbouring notes, the augmented second, and that interval is the material of the whole score rather than a flourish on top. Checked on the shipped MIDI: across the 26 Hijaz tracks no part, not the bass, not the chords, not an inner line, plays the minor third that would make it plain phrygian (0 found), and the lead of every one of the 44 tracks sounds its scale's colour note, 369 times in all, with 291 melodic augmented seconds. Run the same check over the other 27 albums in this studio's catalogue, 1081 tracks: 53 tracks pass it and no album passes it on every track.

What plays what. General MIDI has no oud, ney or qanun, so the parts are written in those instruments' idiom and played on the nearest General MIDI sound: nylon guitar for the oud, shakuhachi for the ney, koto for the qanun, dulcimer for the santur, oboe for the mizmar, shamisen for the saz. The Readme lists every one. If you own the real instruments as samples, load the MIDI into them.

What is in it. 34 full pieces and 10 short cues, 45:52 of music. The road: The Burning Sands, The Caravan Road, Camels at First Light, The Dune Sea and Mirage. Water and trade: Oasis of Palms, The Oasis Town, The Grand Bazaar, Spice Merchants, The Water Seller's Inn, Lanterns over the Souk, The Sultan's Court and The Palace Gardens. The open sand: Dune Crossing, Wind over the Dunes, Sandstorm, Night under Desert Stars, The Nomad Camp, The Salt Flats and The Canyon of Echoes. The buried city: The Buried City, Halls of Sand, The Drowned Library and Tomb of the First Kings. The fight: Scorpion Pass, Raiders of the Red Dunes, The Tomb Guardian, The Sand Wyrm, Wyrm Rising and Chase through the Souk. After: After the Storm, Lament for the Sunken City, The Caravan Moves On and Song of the Sands. Cues: Water!, Treasure in the Sand, Ambush in the Dunes, The Wyrm Falls, Lost to the Sands, Seasoned Traveller, A Bargain Struck, The Sealed Gate Opens, Rest at the Well and The Sultan's Summons.

What you get. 44 OGG files, 34 of them with sample accurate LOOPSTART and LOOPLENGTH tags, which is what RPG Maker MV and MZ read. 44 editable .mid sources. A Readme with per engine import notes, the proof reports, and a royalty free commercial licence.

One family of 5 cells. Caravan, Dune, Oasis, Sunken and Wyrm. Caravan climbs two steps and comes back, crossing the augmented second both ways from the key note, and opens the title, the road and the ending; Dune stretches it into a rocking climb for open sand; Oasis turns it down to rest at the water; Sunken sinks it a fourth for what the sand buried; Wyrm strikes a fourth up at once and falls back, and opens every fight. 1643 statements and fragments of those cells across the album, counted by the harness in the finished MIDI.

Gate results. 780 theory checks and 498 audio checks, 0 failed, and the reports ship inside the download. They say the music is correctly written, rendered and tagged. They are not a claim about taste, which is what the free tracks are for.

Three full tracks are free on this page, with their MIDI: The Burning Sands, the title theme, then Scorpion Pass, a battle, and The Sand Wyrm, the boss.

An honest note on the style. This is a fantasy game score written in the scales and idiom of Middle Eastern and North African music as games use it. It is not a recording of traditional Arabic, Turkish or Persian music and does not claim to be. The renders are a General MIDI reference render through a conventional soundfont. The composition system is AI written code and no generative audio model is used anywhere.

More scores from Core Systems Asset Factory: Aetherbound Vol. I · Aetherbound Vol. II — The Dark Half · The Sunken Choir · Hearthmoot — A Folk Village & Market Score · Wildwood — A Wilderness Exploration Score · Saltline — A Voyage & Harbour Score · Four Greens — A Handheld Adventure Score · Horror Manor — PSX · Adversary — Battle & Boss Suite · Wayfarer — An Overworld & Travel Score · Dramatis Personae — Twelve Character Themes, Built to Be Quoted · Embercrown — A 2A03 JRPG Score · The Lantern Road — Eastern Fantasy Score · The Long Campaign — European High Fantasy Score · The Lantern Road Vol. II — The Road Home · The Keepsake — A Narrative Score for Piano and Music Box · Nightglass — A Complete Neon City Score · Ironmarch — A Complete Combat Score · The Turning Sky — An Open World Score (Day, Night and Weather) · Longships — A Norse Saga Score · Ashen Realm — A Soulslike Score · Elven Realms — Deepwood & the High Court · Deep Space — Bridge, Drift & the Derelict · Spooky Season — A Halloween Score · Bright & Cute — A Casual Game Score · Airship — Steam, Sky & the Clockwork Kingdom · Jade Mountains — A Wuxia Score · Sengoku — A Samurai Score · Frostfall — The White North · Zarya — A Slavic Folk Village Score