KiSS resources

KiSS resources

As I had it planned, this would be a list of everything you need to make a KiSS set - paint programs, tools, templates - and where to find it. And that's what it will eventually become. For now, however, the template list (from the Invisible Phan's Links List, compiled and checked out by tea) is still under construction, and said Links List offers links to most tools, leaving only:

Images
Sound and music sources
Sound and music software

Images

This is going to be a list of all pages offering image material for use in KiSS sets (crediting the artists and respecting their wishes, of course); mostly templates, but also props and palettes.

Quem dixere chaos, the English index: click on Templates.
Eph's templates, at the same URL as the tutorial.
Xandorra's Place has some ready-made palettes (click on Tutorials and choose Palettes), not as downloadables but as a picture showing the colours; I think users are supposed to make a screen cap of the image (press PrtScr, then open any paint program and Paste) and use the colour values to create the palettes themselves.

Sound and music sources

Sound and music files for KiSS sets can be had from the following sources:

OS system sounds, especially those of the Windows 9xx sound schemes, which are small and high-quality. Beware of copyright issues, though.
Soundfiles from games and game demos. See above.
If you have sound or video editing software, sound effect files and background music midi files are usually included for your personal use.
Along the same lines: sound effects and midi compilations on CD and CDROM, which can be bought through Amazon or other online stores. There are shareware midi compilations on CD, so it might be an idea to check out old shareware CDROMs.
If you can capture sound off (video)tape: any programs you have on tape. Again, beware of copyright issues. It's always a good idea to credit the source and include a "no infringement intended" disclaimer in a readme.txt.
If you have good recording equipment, you could go around the house with a microphone and a tape recorder ^_^
Online sound and/or music databases. Most are free for personal use, some want payment for downloading.
Sound and music files put up by people on personal webpages. Never take these without asking (unless the page owner has already put up something like "you may use these files under the following conditions", which usually are: not for commercial use, and credit the maker). Especially where midi files are concerned (fans like to make midi versions of their favourite artist's songs) these files may in themselves constitute an infringement of copyright, although I doubt any artist would take legal action against what is basically fanart. MP3 files, however, are often not even fanart, but straight copies of the artist's work. Any soundfile in MP3 format, even if it's completely original, may raise suspicions of copyright infringement, so be very careful about using MP3 files in a KiSS set intended for public distribution (99% of the existing viewers can't read them anyway).

Here is a list of online sound and music resources (thanks to tea and Trillian for contributing most of the URLs):

The Wav Place - sound effects ranged by category (games, atmosphere, vehicles, sci-fi etc.), free for personal use. You can also buy their whole sound collection on CDROM.

Little Music Club - free sound effects in various categories including vocals, sports, animals; will apparently honour requests and probably sell sound collections on CD.

ArtToday - a paysite where you pay for access and then download as much as you like within the period paid for. This is a cliparts site, offering a trial download of five sounds and a sample search; not enough for me to evaluate them as a sounds source. It stipulates very clearly under what conditions their material may be used; it should probably not be included in X-rated sets.

SoundAmerica - has the categories cartoons, comedy, movies, sound effects, spoofs. Soundfiles free for personal use.

800-MIDI-LINKS - a long list of links to midi file pages. This is a site where you can get "stuff for free", also offering XXX pics and get-rich-quick schemes. It's not certain that the owners of the midi file pages would allow you to download and use their files. Treat with caution.

Research Institute for the Humanities (directory: /Lexis/Canton-fr/sound) - from the look of it, a long list of speech fragments (words? syllables?)

Sound Effects Libraries - search for sounds in their own online database.

FindSounds.com - this search engine searches for soundfiles on the web.

Bell labs text to speech synthesis (US demo) - It's still up! This link was posted to the KiSS ML long ago. Type in a text and have the online demo convert it into a soundfile. In several languages.

Ultimate sound and music archive - mechanical, natural and synthetic sounds, and quotes from TV shows. Uploads from commercial sources and the general public. A pay site.

WavCentral.com - rather like the above, but not a paysite (yet). Wavs from many TV series.

Virtual Library - audio links - a list of soundbyte repositories featuring many formats.

These are midi sites from which I've used files myself, which the authors will allow if they're credited and the files aren't used commercially:

The ILP project, a Russian page with Alan Parsons midis; English-speaking visitors should probably go straight to the Discography, MIDI-music & Lyrics page.

RockMagic.net - lyrics and tablatures for a number of rock bands, and - more important - a midi section with songs from, among others, Deep Purple and Alice Cooper.

For something a little older, Music Over 75 Years Old links to sites with midis of older music, whether classical or folk tunes. For classical music renditions, check out the first site on the list, Classical Mike, whose owner has a wicked sense of humour.

Sound and music software

There are many sound (wav, mp3) and music (midi, sequencing) editing programs out there: professional stuff like Cubase (which I've never used) and Cool Edit (of which I've only used the crippled evaluation version, for the few times the Windows Sound Recorder didn't suffice), shareware like, well, too many titles to name and freeware with not quite as much titles, but they're more likely to end up in my list ^_^

First item on this list is VidEdit, which sounds like a movie file editor, right? Absolutely right, but while it has no real editing features worth mentioning, it has something the beautiful editing software with my capture card didn't have: the ability to extract sound from AVI files! Especially for fan KiSS sets of anime or other characters, it would be nice to include some sound captures from the original show, wouldn't it?

VidEdit was made for Windows 3.1. The stripped-down player-only version, Video for Windows, has no editing capability and was at one time distributed on most CD-ROMs with multimedia content. VidEdit can be downloaded from WP's HP Frame Set (click on the D-Load button in the left sidebar and scroll down to "Video edit programs). It can be installed and run under Windows 9xx and ME; just make sure no system files are overwritten with older versions.

Downloadable from shareware sites: the freeware Windows 3.1x WAV editor AudioLab, the only worthwhile thing about it being that it's free. A possible improvement on the Sound Recorder, but I just find it irritating.

At MusicMachines.net I found three useful music composers: MS Music Producer (make sure to install that patch!) and the duo Melody Maestro and SuperJam, which use a compatible format so that compositions made in Melody Maker can be torqued in SuperJam. When I say "composed", that means the program tosses out notes in patterns determined by "moods" and "styles" for the user's approval; after a while, the patterns start to repeat themselves. Using the same method, MS Music Producer composes the whole piece in one sitting; its styles can't be used with the other two programs, however. These programs are free, unless one day their makers start to charge for them.