As long as we're pretending that anybody uses forums like these for anything other than self-promotion, maybe we could start a discussion about the sorry state of the audio industry.

I've been in this field for 5-ish years. I've written some audio for commercials that aired on local television, iPhone games, and other small-time pro projects. I enjoy it immensely.

Yet I am routinely astounded at how cut-throat and competitive this field is, even after all of these years. It is close to impossible to find a listing for a composing gig without 30+ hopeful applicants already submitted - they are often highly experienced composers, as well. With some persistence it is possible to find gigs, but they are rarely well-paying or even worth the trouble. I've only really gotten anything good by operating locally, and even then, it's rare.

Hilariously, I've recently noticed more and more wanted ads from game developers SPECIFICALLY telling composers to bugger off, because they've already got more applicants than they know what to do with - before even posting the ad.

I'm not sure why this field is so horrendously over-saturated. I'm sure it has something to do with how readily available entry-level software is these days. It also probably has something to do with the ignorance of clients - maybe I can tell when a composer doesn't know how to mix & master their tracks, but the client will have no context whatsoever and hire the guy anyway because his name popped up first.

I'm probably coming off as a little bitter, but I don't think anybody will deny that the game audio field is essentially incapable of paying your rent. Unless you are extremely lucky, or you have powerful connections. What are your thoughts?

I've had periods of feast and periods of famine. Right now it's sorta middle of the road for me. I do well enough to get by, which is great and I do feel blessed and lucky, but by no means do I make what someone with my credentials should be making. At least when I research it, my earnings always seem below what someone with 9 years and 140+ titles claims to be making.

A few quick thoughts before I go teach some piano lessons:

1) Diversify.

On top of being a composer, I also work in sound design and voice overs. Recording saxophone parts and doing concert recordings is also another way I make ends meet. Finally, I teach saxophone and piano lessons out of my house a few days a week. In the past I've also freelanced out of studios as a sound engineer. If I tried to make my living solely as a composer, it wouldn't work out very well.

2) Be okay with feast and famine.

It happens to everyone. I once had about 14-15 months of steady work. Each month I had 2-4 projects on my plate at one time. It was great! It was followed by 3-4 months were I had maybe 2 projects. It's easy to ride the wave when things are great and even easier to forget about the good times when work is thin.

3) Clients get what they pay for.

I've been under bid many times. I know there are many guys (and gals!) much cheaper than I am. There are also folks working for free. In a few experiences where I was undercut by a freebie or really young guy, the client actually came back to me and asked to pay my normal rate. They describe the nightmarish experience of having a composer who was flakey or horrible to work with. That client recognized the value of hiring someone who meant business and paying a premium for that. Are there folks that work for peanuts or free to break in and do great work? Absolutely! But too often I've run across cheap composers who lack professionalism in how they conduct themselves and their business.

4) Be flexible

If you go long enough with no bites or without landing any work, be willing to reorganize your plan. Change how you're promoting yourself. Figure out a new way to market yourself or interact with the dev community. 3-4 months without work isn't uncommon from what I've heard. But 8-12 months is definitely a sign that something's amiss.

5) The work IS out there.

You just have to figure out how to make yourself stand out from others. Part of our job as audio folks is to be known. Making great audio is the easy (and first step). Being known and being the type of guy or gal that folks wanna work with is the hard part!

This particular issue is far from unique to the audio profession; I think it's something that occurs in any unlicenced/unregulated field.

As a freelance programmer and web designer it's common to be underbid for the overwhelming majority of projects, often by beginners looking to make a name or by people from countries with a much lower cost of living who can afford to work for far less than would be profitable for me.

When looking for a wedding photographer a couple of years ago we ended up commenting on how helpful and professional the photographer we ended up selecting was, and remarked that he was well worth his asking price. He lamented that a lot of people don't understand the pricing or go for cheaper options, because as an unlicensed profession anyone who owns a decent camera and wants to charge a fee can call themselves a "professional photographer", and unless you have experience with them it can be difficult to know the difference in service and the final product that you'll be getting.

I think Nathan hit the nail on the head with his tips. There is a lot of work out there, and although many potential clients will (at least initially) be tempted to opt for cheaper or even free options there are also plenty out there who realise that they can might want something more reliable and with more polished results, and whilst cheaper or free options will work out just fine in some cases a lot of potential clients will get burnt with bad experiences and may be willing to pay more in the future to avoid problems.

You need to differentiate yourself from those cheaper options by offering a better and more reliable service; always answer communications promptly and courteously, always deliver on what you promise, always do your best work. Take the work you can get and make sure you really "wow" those clients so that they'll not only think of you for their next project, but also enthusiastically recommend you to their peers. Diversify your skill set, and have a back-up option available for when work is hard to find. If your approach isn't working be prepared to try something else!

Great post JB, and Nathan

I hear you Garrett, and you're very right about it being over-saturated.

"I'm sure it has something to do with how readily available entry-level software is these days. It also probably has something to do with the ignorance of clients - maybe I can tell when a composer doesn't know how to mix & master their tracks, but the client will have no context whatsoever and hire the guy anyway because his name popped up first."

Well, a little bit. People don't know good music from bad, but there's also the issue that games simply need a lot more man-hours in art and programming than they do in music.

The typical game has maybe an hour of music? Say, 30 2 minute pieces if you really push it (which is probably about the number I'm commissioning).

How many composers does it take, for how many hours, to do that? Maybe a couple hundred man hours from a good composer. That's just a couple months of work.

Now, compare with the art load, or the amount of programming for the typical game.

Even if composers only make up 10% of game industry applicants, they're already oversaturated because a game (even a high budget one) usually only needs one composer, and only part time towards the end of production, while it may need dozens of artists and programmers.

Indie games can be a little more balanced, but they have almost no budget for music at all.

For example, I can only pay maybe $25 -$50 a minute for music (depending on the quality); I know, it's dreadful and I want to apologize for that, but it's just the reality of the situation that most of my budget goes to art and programming. Would I like to pay more, and hire Danny Elfman? Hell yeah. But it's just not realistic for my budget.

If it cost more, I wouldn't pay more, I'd have to cut the amount of music I ordered instead, or use cheap stock music.

For indies it's a blessing that there's so much competition in the music field: it makes the soundscapes of our games much better than they would otherwise be. But I wouldn't want to be a composer in this market, and I definitely feel for you guys.

Like others said, you just have to struggle to differentiate yourself, and appeal to those who can pay for higher quality and customer service. It's possible to make a living (even the rates I pay are living wages, but just barely), but it takes a lot of dedication to the art since it means more work, more struggling to find work, and less disposable income.

A lot of supply, very few demands.

It's easier to fake composing skills to a client than it is to fake programming skills, so plenty of people who are kinda beginners are on the market. (but I assume if you are decent you are above them in quality).

Mostly it's supply and demands.

A sound designer from Ubisoft told me one day that they had a few composers in mind at all time and when comes time for music they just send pictures of the game to all of them and they all answer with crazy stuff in around 48h max. And then they choose the best.

This is how easy it is for them and how hard it is for composers. They will never post any job offer for it, they have their pros already.

Granted this is Ubisoft and not a small studio but still.

Also as a person who tried to make a student team to make a small game, after my post where I specifically said that I don't need music because I have a friend for it, I got 5 answers from composers in one day and very little from any other job.

It's not just a matter of supply and demand- as others have stated, the situation has changed as a result of the technology. Now don't get me wrong- it's easy to be bitter when you spend most of your life learning certain skills only to have those skills made redundant by software/hardware- I can accept that, and I think removing the initial boundaries into the industry is a great thing. What really gets to me is the move towards loop/sample based music, in which people are able to string together a bunch of loops and deliver something that sounds amazingly professional and polished, if completely unoriginal and generic. Unfortunately, the average person will listen to tracks like these and think 'wow, sounds just like Zimmer' or so on, unaware that the loops used probably come from Zimmer himself.. and the problem is that is exactly what people will be expecting to hear.

The other problem, as mentioned above, is that this is a 'creative' industry (an oxymoron if you ask me..), unregulated and very unstructured. Things are not so different in TV and Film, although those industries have had enough time to settle into some kind of rhythm- but essentially the problem is the subjectivity of music and the wide range of opinions on different composers. It is very hard to justify hiring a composer on credentials alone, it is almost always a more emotional decision based on an attachment to that person's music.

It's very disheartening to find yourself with no work, while witnessing people getting paid to arrange pre-recorded loops that they probably downloaded illegily, or holding down one note in Omnisphere and calling themselves an ambient composer, or so on. But if you truly have something different and interesting to offer, you will eventually be regonised for it, it just a question of how much crap you can take, and how long you can endure it, up until that point.

Speaking of Omnisphere and the like, I work for a stock music library (not the cheap royalty free kind for chumps). Our boss can recognize almost any sample from omnisphere, trillian, stylus, and superior drummer. If he hears one sample, he immediately rejects the piece because the sounds are so overused in production music. I've heard heard music that literally uses raw garageband loops with no editing whatsoever. Hopefully people know the difference between good music and layered loops.

I am not a composer myself but I don't see any link between loops>bad music , no loops>maybe good music.

I mean if they make loops as a preset on plugins it will probably sound good and you kinda paid for the plug-in so why not use it.

Yes people from the industry will probably know what it is and it does feel cheap, but 99% of the people who play the game? Probably won't even notice.

If he hears one sample, he immediately rejects the piece because the sounds are so overused in production music.

That sounds a bit drastic to me, honestly. I mean, sure, I've recognized loops or patches in many production pieces but that doesn't mean it was poor or sloppy work. Take, for example, some of the music from Bastion where composer Darren Korb used some Apple loops but then intentionally made some of them looping point lopsided. On other tracks he created original material around those loops. Here's one such example:

It created a completely new and cool feel! Loops by themselves are not bad - it's how you use them.