Hello all, this is my first post on gamedev... I am a composer who has been working on my skills for several years now. I seem to have a fairly natural ability with music, I can sing, play several instruments, and have found the technical side both interesting and relatively easy. Basically, I want to develop a career that incorporates composing for videogames, TV and Film. I'm sure I share that with many here, so I'll get straight to the point: www.myspace.com/leken I think that the music I'm making is now good enough to be used on serious, commercial projects. I feel like I'm starting to develop my own signature sound (the last two tracks are really just to show a little versatility) with a real emphasis on dark, esoteric chords and deep, complex and full percussion. So I guess my biggest question is; am I ready? Or am I wrong? I know us musicians tend to see things in our work that aren't really there (i.e. talent lol) Secondly, I have a couple of questions that I think many others might be asking: How much should you charge for commercial projects? Is there an Industry standard for working on this kind of project? What is a realistic amount of money to charge for the score of your average commercial video-game project (let's assume there is such a thing). How long should I be willing to build my portfolio on small projects? I suppose there has to be a track-record building stage, so how long should it last? When trying to attract attention from serious projects, is a qualification, a decent demo and five or six small or zero budget productions going to be a real portfolio to them? (Is a great demo alone enough?) From reading around the forums, I get the idea that it's not good practice to offer your services for free to start off with, I have already done this a little by instinct, but will correct myself at once! Anyway, sorry to go on, but please share your experiences, I hope these are good questions, and would greatly appreciate any help I can get at this stage

Pretty cool music and sounds nicely executed, you seem to operate very well with mood. But.... you seem to operate with the mood only, I could not hear any strong melody development or exposure (i.e. a strong "main theme"). Also, you seem to make your music too repetitive. Sometimes it is quite useful in certain circumstances, but let's take Samurai as an example - seems like several loops put together (or one decent) playing constantly the same. Given My Wings - the strings pattern you have there plays just too many times, what makes this piece quite repetitive in a bad way. Maybe it would work, if it was orchestrated differently through the composition. Also, you might consider some other chord progressions. There also seems to be problem with harmony - string loop vs the background chords - those seem to not work well together at times....


Having completed projects (even with small or zero budgets) and great portfolio is always a qualification.

Cheers,
Michal

Ahh... I see, thanks. I kinda had it in my head for some reason that for video-games, where the music was the background to unspecified events, too much repetition and variety would cause clashes. Duly noted sir!

Please keep it coming people ;-)

I'm originally from delightful Bournemouth and have worked my way through the industry and now find myself as Audio Lead at Bioware working on Mass Effect 2... so it is possible :) It's a shame you didn't post this before Christmas as I came home for the holiday and would have been happy to meet up and chat about game audio.

Anyway, musically I like your stuff, it has real potential. But I think you have some way to go on the technical/engineering side, I feel like that full potential isn't really shining through in the mixes that I heard. The more work you do the more you will perfect the art of making a good mix, it takes time to learn how to do that.

Practically, I would start off by being more agressive and confident with your processing. Use more compression on the drums to really bring out the impacts, use more reverb to create more atmosphere and a sense of acoustic space. Much of this can be done with mastering, but I would start off by looking at how you can add more impact to the individual elements.

As for money, it's a tough one. It is tempting to do work for free when you're starting out just to get some experience, but later on you will curse people for doing it as it cheapens the art and makes it harder for the people who are trying to make that next step and charge clients. There is no hard and fast 'industry standard', you charge what you are worth and/or what you can get, the most important thing right now is that you get the work, not how much you are paid.

The reality is that music for the media is an INCREDIBLY tough industry, there are thousands of people trying to break in and every year that number is increasing. Universities are spitting out more and more graduates every year and there just isn't that many jobs. That's not to say that it's not possible, you just need a bit of luck, a bit of talent and a lot of hard work in order to make it.

As for 'are you ready'... sure :) Make up a damn good portfolio with perfect presentation and send it out to EVERYONE. Spend a LOT of time working on it, not just the music but the whole package.

Good luck

Rob

Hey.

Take my advise with a grain of salt because I am not a full time audio guy. I have done & am doing some paid game audio contracting work, but I still have secondary work.

I think working for free is a no go if it's a commercial project, but that's not the same as saying don't work for free. I believe 100% finding a good indie / not for profit video game to work on unpaid is advisable. You will get a far better idea of what is required and probably have to make several adjustments if you have a project lead who has a good idea of what he/she wants for the game. You will learn heaps. I did. I think it's the best way to learn about music for games, just getting in there and doing it. You aren't cheapening the profession this way because it's not a commercial game, its made for the love of it. When you work for money, apart from a possible contract based employer appreciating you have some experience with games, you will have much more confidence than if you have done no games.

Try find a game audio job where the music is interactive. Most commercial game projects will have (to a small degree at least) interactive music. You might write a piece or cues cut into segments & stems, and you (or a lead audio guy) will tell the game audio engine how to treat it.

Wow thanks guys, this is all really good stuff. And VectorWarrior I would be immensely grateful if you ever have the time to meet for a coffee and talk, I'm guessing the Bioware HQ isn't anywhere too close to Bournemouth though!

The only question I have left, is how much are you expected to stick to the 'proper' process with games? To clarify, I CAN use pro tools, I CAN notate my music and I CAN work with large consoles and full studios, because this is how I was trained to do it, but that doesn't mean that's how I WOULD do it. Personally, I like to just grab my computer, fire up FL Studio, and using a mix of software and small scale recording, come up with something (or co-write if I can), probably re-write it until the producer is happy, usually without going anywhere near staff paper if I can help it. Just so we're clear, I don't mean this in an anti-social way, I'm always up for some good old co-writing, and see working with others as one of the perks of the job, I'm just talking in terms of technology.

Is this acceptable in the big leagues? I mean, I have no problem doing things the old fashioned way, I love working with musicians and getting to wear my engineer hat, and I know VSL is never going to measure up to a real orchestra, but I am definitely faster doing things 'my way', and sometimes I swear I hear kontakt library stuff in the Lost soundtrack ;-)

Thanks again for all your help guys, I really appreciate it!

Ha ha, yeah, we're based in Edmonton Canada, bit of a trek from Bournemouth :)

As for tools/tech... the people you work for will (or at least SHOULD) not care in the slightest what you use or how you make it. The only thing that matters is the end product, the sound. When you get feedback it'll most likely be along creative lines ("make it more melancholic" etc) rather than purely technical ("do it again but with Pro Tools" :P). As a lead I certainly don't care what D.A.W. a composer uses, I just care about the music. We do the same thing with sound design, 'guerrilla style' is rarely frowned upon, it's all part of the fun :D

As for co-writing, that's a different thing as it'll be dependent on who you're working with and what sort of collaboration you've got going on.