Sounds and music are logically different in Ares, even though both are simply sound files in the end when they are played. The reason is that sounds are used for other things than music. The difference isn't complicated and influences a few things:
Ares doesn't recognize a file as sound or music by its contents, but by its origin: if it is selected with the sounds explorer, it is a sound; if it is selected with the music explorer, it is music.
These are described here.
An Ares project is made up hierarchically on the whole. It consists of modes, which in turn contain elements, which can again contain sub-elements. That sounds complex, but in reality it is easy (if you don't want it complex).
A project has several modes. A mode is just a grouping of elements to have a better overview. In the
Controller, there is a separate window for each mode; in the Player you always select the mode
before you select an element in the mode. Therefore, it makes sense to group those elements in a mode which you
will need in a specific situation in the game. You could have e.g. a mode for fights, one for visits to a city, one for a
dungeon crawl etc. Personally, I like to group all music playlists into a separate mode, too.
For each mode, you can select a key. Of course, you can't select the same key for two modes. With that key, you select the
mode in the Player.
Elements of a mode are the most important parts of a project. They are what is started if you press a key in the
Player or press a button in the Controller. The
Controller adds a button to the window of the mode for each element.
For each element in the mode you can select a key, and again, no two elements
There are different kinds of elements, which are added to the mode through its context menu in the Editor.
In this element, you don't select music files directly, but only the tags that the music shall have. The Player will then select music which fits to the tags randomly. Above the tag selection, you can also select how tags from different categories shall be combined and whether the music shall be faded when it changes.
A random music playlist is a choice of music files. Usually, you let it run endlessly. You can give the files different chances to be selected. Such a playlist usually is exactly what you need for the background music fitting to an atmosphere in the game.
Contrary to the random list, the sequential list is played in a fixed order. You can also define the gap between the files. Such a list can be used e.g. for a concert, or you can use it if you want to play only one file.
Background sounds are exactly what the name says: a choice of sounds which are continuously played in the background. More
precisely, the element is made up of several sub-choices. Why? Well, normally there are some sounds which are played constantly
in an endless loop (e.g. wind, waves, murmuring of a crowd) and other sounds which are played only every once in a while (e.g.
creaking of a ship, bird twittering, laughter). For such sounds you should define their own choice each. In the choice, you
can then define how often such a sound is played (with random and / or fixed delay) and which chance a sound has to be
selected. For the endless loop for waves, you would typically have just one sound in the choice list, but for the twittering
of birds, you may have five different sounds so that not always the same bird is twittering.
A hint: use rather long delays in the sound choice. It is easy to be enthusiastic when editing, but during the game, random
sounds should be used sparingly.
With macros, you can react to different situation differently and start or stop several elements automatically. In a macro, you can start and stop elements, you can wait for an element to be started or stopped or for a certain time to elapse. You can also let a command depend on whether an element is currently running. Examples could be a 'storm'-macro which starts different sounds depending on whether sea waves or forest sounds are active; or playing a certain special music file and then turning back to a generic music list.
Lists are groups of other elements with which you can achieve a great flexibility. To each list, you can add the elements above and other lists. Lists come in three variants:
Hint: a list (no matter which one) with a single sound is also the fitting element to create a one-time effect (e.g. the creaking of a door or an explosion).
A scenario just contains background sounds and a music by tags selection, so that you can start both with the press of one button / key. In effect, a scenario is just a shortcut for creating a parallel list, a music by tags element and a background sounds element.
A link references an element like a shortcut. When the Player finds a link, it follows the link to the referenced element and plays that one. In this way you can reuse elements inside other elements. For example, you can put some general music into a random list and then either start it directly from the mode or play it at the end of another element using a sequential list. You create links by either copying the original element and selecting "Paste as link" from the context menu at the desired place or with drag & drop while pressing Ctrl and Shift.