Continuous Background Music

[+bflentje]

Going to start off first by stating the obvious..  I know this won't work on Garmin devices. But if on the smartphone platform, if I want continuous background music playing, what's the best way to proceed? I have not tried it, but the idea of a timer came to my mind, configured to coincide with the length of my sound byte. Anyone have any better ideas? Or is there an easier method I may be overlooking?

[Ranger Fox]

There aren't any events for when music stops, so the most I can suggest is to have a timer based on the duration of your music clip.  When the timer event fires, play the music again.

That said, over the years, I've heard reports of the timer not being too accurate.  For example, I helped someone create a cartridge you had to do on a bicycle due to the timing.  One piece of feedback I received from the cacher was a claim that the timer didn't accurately tell how long the player took to complete the leg of some of the trips.  To compensate for that, I think I switched it out so instead of a timer starting, I got the time from the OS.  When it was time to evaluate the leg's duration, I got the current time again and then did some math to determine the true duration.  I'm including this anecdote just as a warning.  The player apps may have improved over the past couple years, so I don't know if this is even an issue now.  Anyway, what you want is simple enough, so I suggest you test it out and let the music loop five or six times while doing other things in the cartridge.

[+Forest-Ghost]

This monkey island Wherigo has something around an hour of music. The music files are started based on various events in the cartridge--leaving/entering zones, new messages, and interactions with items/characters. Although not continuous, I think it does make for a very nice effect. Would just need to make sure to also include stop sound events as well.

[Ranger Fox]

5 hours ago, Forest-Ghost said:

make sure to also include stop sound events as well.

Yeah... as if we all haven't been subjected before to sounds we can't turn off.

In one of the cartridges I created, I had to act the part of someone recording a tape left for the player to find.  On one of the tapes, the character is supposed to be crying because someone died.  I had to do several takes because I was ad-libbing the whole thing and I'd mess up on a part here or there.  By the time I was on the third or fourth take, I'm trying to stifle my laughter at the same time I'm trying to imitate someone crying their eyes out!  I kept thinking of people listening to this, knowing they're really just in it for the next stage's location, and there's no way to stop or fast forward, so they're forced to listen to my acting, and it's getting worse all the time because I can't help but laugh at the situation, standing out here in the woods, while I'm trying to imitate crying, and will they be able to tell the difference, or will they think I'm imitating someone who's doing some sort of sniffle-crying, and this is just too funny, and I hope I'm not missing my lines.

[+Forest-Ghost]

This is another reason for me to make it out that way sometime to do a Wherigo cache run. :-) It sounds like a really cool cartridge. 

[+bflentje]

On 4/17/2018 at 6:04 PM, Ranger Fox said:

There aren't any events for when music stops, so the most I can suggest is to have a timer based on the duration of your music clip.  When the timer event fires, play the music again.

That said, over the years, I've heard reports of the timer not being too accurate.  For example, I helped someone create a cartridge you had to do on a bicycle due to the timing.  One piece of feedback I received from the cacher was a claim that the timer didn't accurately tell how long the player took to complete the leg of some of the trips.  To compensate for that, I think I switched it out so instead of a timer starting, I got the time from the OS.  When it was time to evaluate the leg's duration, I got the current time again and then did some math to determine the true duration.  I'm including this anecdote just as a warning.  The player apps may have improved over the past couple years, so I don't know if this is even an issue now.  Anyway, what you want is simple enough, so I suggest you test it out and let the music loop five or six times while doing other things in the cartridge.

Thank you. It sounds like I was headed in the right, in the only, direction to get close to what I'd like to do.