Hi everyone,

My name is Jon, long time lurker, first time poster!

I’m a composer based in Melbourne and just starting out - my focus is writing immersive interactive music for games. I was hoping to get some advice / guidance from you.

I’ve put together a website (www.jonforest.com.au) with a few samples of my music but I’m not entirely sure where to go from here.

What are things that you look for when hiring a composer to make music for your games?

My point of difference is to make a unique and customised piece of music for games that really “pops” over using “stock” sounds that anyone/everyone has access to? So, what would make you hire a composer like me over using stock websites like www.musicbed.com/ that provide cheap or free effects / music etc?

If anyone has any feedback or suggestions it would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Jon

Speaking as a composer - instead of someone who regularly hires one - I know that one of the biggest perks to using a composer instead of library music is the ability to have a red thread woven into a game's soundtrack. This can either be a melodic figure (or figures) that gets used and quoted throughout a score or even just the sonic fingerprint of a score. It's much harder - if not impossible - to get that with library music that was written with regard to other library tracks and created by many different people.

Plus working with a composer allows for collaboration whereas buying library music means you're stuck with whatever you've purchased. For better or worse.

What are things that you look for when hiring a composer

Speaking as a composer - instead of someone who regularly hires one

Exactly. In this forum, the readers are mostly those who create music and sound.
So questions about "how do you get hired" or "how much should I ask for" would make
perfect sense here. Questions about hiring composers and VO and sound would better
be asked in the Production And Management forum instead.

Or I suppose an Audio Director or a freelance audio engineer might on occasion be
called upon to hire a composer...