One of the most under valued and over looked systems available in LOTRO is the music system. We have all seen people or groups just standing around strumming away on their instruments.
I recall seeing them and thinking that that must take some real talent to be able to play those songs on a keyboard. Since that time I have been educated in the fascinating and highly addictive realm of the LOTRO Music System.
Mechanics:
LOTRO’s music systems is developed around using a combination of your number keys (1-8) and ctrl and shift. While you can with much work and effort, master the art of live music in LOTRO, this post will consist mostly of utilizing the alternative form of using .abc files.
.abc Files:
For those of you who do not know what .abc files are an ABC is an alphabetically based music notation system, essentially it is sheet music in text form. This makes it possible to create .abc music files which may be recognized and played using the LotRO in-game music system.
Rather than going into extensive and elaborate details on the whole process, please take a look at The Fate Lute http://www.thefatlute.com/Tutorial.aspx which gives very detailed steps on how to create your own .abc files from MIDI files.
Playing .abc Files:
To play the .abc files you first need to obtain the files you wish to play. Two great sites which offer hundreds of files are either The Fat Lute or LOTRO-ABC.COM. From here you can search and download the .abc files you wish to play.
After you have downloaded the files, you will need to place them in the following directory, which is usually "C:\Documents and Settings\<owner>\My Documents\The Lord of the Rings Online\Music". If the "Music" folder does not exist, create it. After you get the files there you are ready to play them in-game.
To play the .abc file you need to enter music mode, by either right clicking on your instrument or typing "/music". Once in music mode you type "/play <filename>". You do not need to put the .abc extension.
If you are in a fellowship and would like to have more than one player play a song, you will all need to have the .abc file, or an .abc file of the same name, and each type "/play <filename> sync". After everyone is synced one person types "/playstart" to start the playing. There are several .abc files which are split up into different parts made specifically for multiple players so if you can get a hold of a few people it can make for a great time.
For more information please check out The Fat Lute and LOTRO-ABC.COM. Also if you would like to ask questions of the experts in this art feel free to contact The Lonely Mountain Band.
This is a guest post by Azz of wizzardofazz.blogspot.com. Be sure to check out his blog and follow him on twitter at @wizzardofazz.
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December 30, 2009 at 7:04 pm
A few things…
1) On freestyling (playing live with your keyboard)
I have a blog entry on how to set up your keyboard to make it into a usable instrument here:
http://my.lotro.com/harperelle/2009/07/17/how-to-freestyle-the-harperella-way/
2) I would reccommend the Eriador Music Society on Elendilmir or the Green Hill Music Society on Landroval:
Eriador Music Society songbook of Laurelin
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Songbook_of_Laurelin/forum/193928/
Thread about Green Hill
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=301697&highlight=band
Not sure how to embed links here, so I just put them raw.
December 30, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Great links and info, Thanks!
December 30, 2009 at 9:19 pm
This looks a lot simpler than I imagined. I don’t know why I thought it would be so hard. I guess because it sounds so complicated when you hear people performing. I’m definitely gonna try this!
December 31, 2009 at 4:27 am
Also one addition, one abc file can contain multiple instrument tracks. In that case you can play a certain track by using it’s id number which is on the first line of each track. For example, X: 1 or X: 2.
So to play track 2 on that file and sync with your fellow you just type:
/play 2 sync
It’s pretty conveninent to have all instruments on one file, easier to manage. Though you do have to double check which track you should play
.
Nice work with the blog and podcast, and a happy new year!
December 31, 2009 at 4:31 am
It seems that part of the syntax was censored in my previous comment. So should be for example:
/play musicfile 2 sync
December 31, 2009 at 9:40 am
I have this LOTRO MIDI program on here… I load up a MIDI in there and it approximates playing it on an instrument in the game. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty neat.
I’ll have to dig up more info on it.
December 31, 2009 at 12:05 pm
This is awesome, thanks so much for the info. I haven’t messed with music in such a long time.