Hi! I''m a musician who wants to start doing game music. I''ve worked on a couple projects before but they never really went anywhere. I really want to do some work and get some real games and experience under my belt. You can check out some samples of my work here: http://www.geocities.com/geoffmillermusic/index.htm If you''re interested in using my work please e-mail me at thewired@hotmail.com. Comments are also welcome. :-) Geoff

I am by no means a professional game developer, but there are serveral things that I''d look for in a musician. (I am that musician/programmer type.)

A top priority (aside from actually being able to compose) is a knowledge of the medium; not music in particular, but music from a computer''s point-of-view. This includes the many file formats (mods, mp3s, midis) and being able compose well with all of them. Many consoles tend to lead toward more of a mod approach, because they are flexible in dynamically mixing many tracks in realtime. For example, in Banjo Kazooie for the N64, it keeps a constant song throughout a level, yet is modified (via instrument volumes increasing/decreasing) in different areas that you enter into. While each area consists of the same song yet multiple instruments, the song is balanced, in terms of mixing and placement of instruments among the frequency ranges.

[Although mp3s are amazing in respect to the technology behind them, I have to disagree with their usage in video games. Simply, they are huge (compared to mods) and require quite more processing; needless to say they are quite static in terms of mixing; very boring in video games indeed!]

Also, I would expect that a musician could work with certain (yet, very restricting) boundries. Among these include composing a song within certain timelengths, composing songs that are compatible (ear-wise) at varying BMPs, songs that can jump/mix seamlessly to various locations/specifications within a song based upon cues from the program, and of course, simply being able to write a fantastic, well balanced tune! (Rob Hubbard, WHERE ARE YOU!?!)

If you prepared yourself to learn (and more importantly, exercise) these skills, you would have no problem flourishing in a rich, successful, fighting-off-the-honeys video game music career.

Good luck!

.travois.!

(And I hear Rob Hubbard is with EA, yet *not* writing tunes... what gives?)

Thanks for the advice.

You make some very interesting points. While MODs are very cool things (they''re a great way to use your own samples and sounds in a song), they DO actually tend to be quite big (bigger than an MP3 in some cases!), although you can make them smaller if you downgrade the sample quality (and they''re quite a bit less processer-intensive than MP3s). MIDIs are actually the most flexible format in terms of real-time control (i.e. interactive music, like in Banjo-Kazooie). I don''t know much about console development, but I''d tend to think a MIDI format (or a propietary format based on MIDI) would be the most flexible way to go (I''m pretty sure that''s what most consoles use).

Personally, I think (hope) MP3s will become a viable alternative to audio that might otherwise be made into Redbook audio. Imagine, for example, Final Fantasy with full speech and a full CD-quality orchestral soundtrack!

Interactive music is also quite exciting. Of course it''s quite a bit more difficult to get it to work than just the ol'' loading up a new song for every scene. The main thing is to offer tools to musicians that make it easy to work with interactive music to test segues and changes. A good programmer that understands how an interactive soundtrack should work is also a must. BTW, I''m still looking for people to work with, so if you''re interested you can see hear some of my samples (see my post above) and e-mail me (thewired@hotmail.com)!

Geoff

Did you get my email? The links on your site aren''t working.

I haven''t gotten your e-mail yet (Hotmail can be slow), but I noticed that Geocities deleted all my MP3s (bastards!). I''m trying to upload them all to IUMA right now (would go with MP3.com but they''ve taken several weeks to clear MP3s in the past). If I have problems with IUMA I would be glad to send you some MP3s through e-mail or AIM/IRC/ICQ.

Geoff
(just sitting here uploading the same MP3s he spent several hours uploading on Geocities)

Uploaded all the songs to IUMA. I now link to them on my page so you can download them from the same place. I still haven''t gotten your e-mail yet iamsome1 but I''d be interested in talking to you if you want to work with me.
Geoff

I just wanted to mention that there are many, many ways to make music seem dynamic---even if you are using .WAV files.

Its all about having a game engine that can crossfade different .wav samples. (Or MP3...doesn''t matter).

While its true that MP3 requires processor time, the percentage is actually quite small when you look at today''s faster computers. In many games, they are beginning to use MP3 exclusivly, because the space they save is more important than the processor time used to decode them. If you want one example, check out Vampire. They even used MP3 for the V.O.''s.

As a game designer and musician, I find that really well written (and sounding) music is much better than crappy sounding dynamic music (ala DirectMusic Producer). Here at Gigawatt, we''ve been creating ''dynamic'' music in other ways, without losing sound quality--but by increasing the work load of the Scipting team, and, of course, the musician.

I agree with the anonymous poster. The development of our ''dynamic'' sound engine is a little more taxing on our resources (both developer and musician). We use .WAV''s simply because we don''t want ANY performance degradation. I don''t believe DirectMusic is the best route to go. MIDI is almost pitiful these days (I''m sorry but as soon as I hear a midi note play through my speakers I turn it off...) In order to get true dynamic music you are going to really have to work on it. It will take a lot of effort both code-wise AND new composing techniques (rather unorthodox really...).

Our music engine took 3 weeks of development effort and LOTS more on the musician''s part....

E.D.

check http://nr1.lt/post-nuclear/

It''s a RPG game like Fallout.

KriS