Musician Archive
Thread: Things every musician should know...
Dono use /stopband unless you are the leader of band. If you need to stop playing, use /stopmusic or better yet just move.
Also, stop playing before you /join a band in progress.
Here's my quick musician brain dump:
Bandflourishes:
/bandflourish # causes every musician you are grouped with execute the same flourish.
/bandflourish # [instrument] causes every member playing the named instrument do the flourish. For a fun time, play SW3 with a Slither and a Fizz and do "/band 3 slitherhorn ; /band 6 fizz" (or maybe the numbers are the other way around...)
/bandflourish only gives xp to the player who gave the command, but uses up all player's action and fills up the flourish queue (you can only have 5 flourishes pending). Use /band sparingly, on a rotating schedule, or set up in advance if your goal is to put on an impressively choreagraphed show.
You can turn off the receiving of bandflourishes using the command "/bandflourish off". This only lasts for the current song, if you stop to rest and restart, you will again be receiving /band commands.
Other full-band commands:
"/startband [song name]" has the player giving the command do a quick intro, then all musicians start the song together. If you select a song that not all players can do, only the players with the proper skills start playing, and you receive the message "Some members can not play that song". It's best to find out everyone's skill level first so you can have an impressive start.
"/stopband" stops all the musicians at the same time. NOTE: just using "/stop" defaults to /stopband, not /stopmusic (which just stops you). So if you're in a group of 10 musicians and type /stop to take a break, you just made everyone end.
Changing songs:
You can switch instantly from one song to another using the "/changemusic [song name]" command (when playing alone) or "/changeband [song name]". You can leave off the song name, and it will prompt you with a song list.
Entertainer Gigs:
The nobles standing next to the Musician trainer in the Theater guild hall will *always* give you an on-planet gig mission. They seem to randomly pick one of the cantinas/hotels on the planet, so if you don't like the location, abort the mission and ask again. Search through the Entertainer, Musician, and Game Guide forums for more details. Or heck, just search for my posts. I've made it my goal in life to make sure all entertainers know about this source of income so we're not completely dependent on tips or non-class missions.
Occasionally random NPCs will notice your musical talent when you ask for a mission, and send you on a gig.
Earning XP:
The base music xp you get per "tick" (about 10 seconds) depends on either the song level or the instrument level, whichever is higher. So playing SW1 on a Kloo horn (Musicianship IV instrument) gives you the same xp as playing SW3 (Musicianship IV song) on a slitherhorn. Then you get an extra xp for each additional performer (dancer or musician) who is actively dancing/playing in your group. Then you get an extra xp for each audience member watching the group. Emotes such as /cheer, /applaud, /clap from the audience will occasionally give you an extra boost for a tick or two.
You only need to do two flourishes per tick to get the maximum amount of xp. More than this and you're really just wasting action points.
Healing xp is based on the amount of healing the band does to all listeners for each tick. I haven't seen a specific calculation for this, it may be as simple as summing up all the BF that got healed during the last 10 seconds, with additional xp for Focus and Willpower wound heals.
XP Importance:
Power gamers, please feel free to skip this section, for it may p*ss you off. Xp is not necessarily the be-all and end-all of your playing. Sure it's great to look at the next Tech/Knowlege skill and think "Boy, I just 100k more xp and I can play a bandfill!" I picked up entertainer because it turned out to be more fun than anything else in the game (to me, at least), but I realized that it became less fun when I had those xp status bars glaring yellow at me all the time. Turn them off, give the flourishes a rest a bit, let's hear the song's baseline once in a while. See if you can set up a "call and answer" between two musicians with the flourishes, it will definitely give you a better knowledge about which "/flo #" does what effect.
Aliases:
RPers, please feel free to skip this section, for it may p*ss you off. Using notepad, create a text file in your StarWarsGalaxies directory called alias.txt. At the beginning of the line, give a unique name (e.g. Alias1), then follow it with as many flourishes as you want. Use pauses to space them out (remember the 5 flourish limit). If the line gets too long, just end the line with a call to "/Alias2;", and begin the 2nd line with "Alias2" followed by even more flourishes. Then in the game, type "/load alias.txt". Now all you have to do is type /Alias1 and it will execute that long list you typed in (or copy/pasted) earlier. For even longer flourishes, you can use those aliases in an in-game macro. You're now on your road to AFK macro xp grinding.
Tips: (yeah, like you don't already know these...)
Customers can show their appreciation by using the command "/tip YourName ##". If they have you targeted, this can be done with just "/tip ##". This pays you a tip with their cash on hand.
If a customer doesn't have cash on hand, a tip can be done from a bank account using the command "/tip YourName ## bank" or "/tip ## bank" (if you're targeted). This adds a 5% service fee. So if they do "/tip 100 bank", you receive 100 credits, and their bank account is debited 105 credits.
There is no /grouptip or /bandtip, and tips do not get divided among the entire group (even with the group option autosplit turned on).
Instruments:
The majority of instruments sound identical to the slitherhorn and fizz: Slitherhorn: Fanfarr, Trazz Fizz: Kloo Horn, Chindinkalu Horn
In addition, the Bandfill and Ommni box sound identical.
However, using the higher instruments will grant you more xp (see "Earning XP" above)
Having a larger variety of sounds will make the songs sound better. Even if everyone can play a Traz, have someone drop down to Kloo Horn to get the Fizz sound. And a bandfill/Ommni box can make even SW1 sound good (ok, it's a bit of a stretch...)
The Mandoviol is a cross between a guitar and violin. You must get Master Entertainer to play this instrument. It is the only stringed instrument currently available. And yes, it does suck to have to go through Image Design and Dance just to get to it. But it's worth it!
The final instrument, playable only by Master Musician, is the Naler...Nelar...[CHECK tree skill] the Nalargon. Remember the little blue elephent guy in Jabba's palace in RotJ on the semi-circular keyboard? That's what this is. Flourishes include Jerry Lee Lewis style keyboard dancing. =) Some cities also have Nalargon's sitting in the street. Any Master Musicians want to chime in on whether they're playable?
Instrument crafting:
Instruments can only be created by musicians (artisans do not receive the schematics).
All the instruments up to and including Fanfar can be crafted using the generic crafting tool. Beyond that, you must use the specialized "Weapon, Droid, Item" crafting tool.
Instruments do not decay.
As far as has been determined, using experimentation points on the instrument quality does nothing for either the xp the player gains, or the rate of healing of the listener.
Check some out the artisan guides on crafting for more details on creating items.
Stage effects:
The Tech branch of the musician profession gives you the schematics for higher level instruments and the ability to do stage effects such as Spotlight, Dazzle, Firejet, etc.
These are purely eye candy, they give no xp bonus, and suck your action like.....um...an Electrolux (phew, kept it family safe).
The stage effects change as you get higher tech levels. For example, you get Dazzle at Tech1, it looks like rings of light spewing from your head. When you get Tech2, Dazzle becomes a ball of color. One of my goals is to see what Firejet looks like at TechIV.
And....I'm spent. Hope there was at least one or two new things in that list for everyone.
Please do NOT use /changemusic or any other command to change the band's tune abruptly. This command always, without fail, bugs me (in the computer-bug sense). I can't play, I can't stop, I can't get XP, but I keep hearing the basic theme repeated. The only way to clear it is to relog. Yes, I've /bugged this.
Please: don't use /changemusic or /changeband.
How about it? A thread for tips and tricks that every musician should know! 
Here's one: once you are a novice musician, go up the knowledge line first, then techniques. The ommni box can rake in over 100 xp easily in a large group, which you are never going to do with your Traz! You will get to master much faster this way.
Oh good one... also more importantly don't use /startband! If someone moves during the intro they will get bugged.
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Actually...its if someone uses /change that this will happen...if your not playing at all. There is no way to NOT use /startband because /start also does it if your joined with other musicians.
/bandflourish only gives xp to the player who gave the command
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Actually, after testing this a TON....bandflourish gives no XP to anyone. Command issuer or not.
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Please do NOT use /changemusic or any other command to change the band's tune abruptly. This command always, without fail, bugs me (in the computer-bug sense). I can't play, I can't stop, I can't get XP, but I keep hearing the basic theme repeated. The only way to clear it is to relog. Yes, I've /bugged this.
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Actually...leave the group. Type /stop and then /start, your now unbugged, /stop again, and rejoin the band. No rebooting needed.
/bandflourish does give exp to the person commanding them. It's not as much as you would get with normal flourishes, but it is exp and it's a lot more than your bandmates are getting. I perform with a regular band, we do gigs and such, we often trade off doing the flourishes and the only time I see music exp is when I command the /bandflourishes.
"Actually...its if someone uses /change that this will happen...if your not playing at all. There is no way to NOT use /startband because /start also does it if your joined with other musicians."
You're wrong about /startband Bann. Type /startm for startmusic, this will start your individual. If you do type startband and someone starts moving, they will have to log for 15 minutes.
You're wrong about /startband Bann. Type /startm for startmusic, this will start your individual. If you do type startband and someone starts moving, they will have to log for 15 minutes.
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Hijo, as I said, you can FIX that bug and not have to log....read up. An when in a band, any usage of /start (/start, /startband, /startmusic) has been causing *ALL* players on Wanderhome at least to start up. Every band I've been in. I have tried even using the hotkey they give you which does /startmusic.
Sorry Bann the way you post I thought you said what you quoted. 
Anyway, I think your char must be bugged because everyone in our group uses /startmusic just fine. In fact we use it all the time so one person can do the intro by themselves, and then the rest of us will come in.