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I'm working on my Ludum Dare entry and trying to figure out how in the world I'm ever going to get background music. I found WolframTones, but the license is too restrictive:

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But I really like the interface! It's a lot like sfxr - click a genre and download a song. That's so cool. Is there another program that does this same sort of thing but without a restrictive license, so that I can generate a bgm and use it in my game?

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A ancient one exist, called "Melody Raiser"

unfortunately I have no idea of where to find it (my copy is fan translated to portuguese, and probably pirated... I have no idea what was the license of the original software, I never found it... also probably the original software is japanese).

But if I remember well, it was quite popular in RPG Maker communities.

Also, its music is not the best one around... It is easy to tweak it though...

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Interesting. A bit of searching brought it up (look for "melr1999.exe" but be careful of viruses, I ran my copy in a sandbox because it supposedly had a trojan). In fact it's actually a Portuguese program, not fan-translated, and was freeware. Unfortunately it only generates four measures though, a perfect recipe for the most annoying background music ever. :) – Ricket♦ Aug 22 '10 at 22:21
Your version probably is better translated then :P I think that it is fan translated from japanese, because there are in the same style also "Wave Raiser" (and my version is english, and some strings empty), and the "Melody Raiser" have japanese characters to edit the music. – speeder Aug 23 '10 at 2:39
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WolframTones output is easy to modify to the point of unrecognizability, at which point even the best attorneys would experience some difficulty in collecting royalties. I see nothing in there about "derivative works".

Also, google "generative music" and "algorithmic composition".

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You may not modify Well, modifying to make it unrecognizable would be cheating, wouldn't it? – Gustavo Maciel Mar 24 '12 at 17:01
Our friend wikipedia "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…; says "if the later work embodies a substantial amount of protected expression taken from the earlier, underlying work". So, to me, I have just enough music theory to change the original midi to exceed the standard. Again, just me, but that means I can use whatever I get out of it. – Joe Stavitsky Mar 25 '12 at 17:28

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