# Questions For Game Soundtrack Composers



## Ned Bouhalassa (Jun 12, 2008)

Hey gang. I'm starting to look into writing for games. I bought myself a used xbox 360, and I'm enjoying the 'research' :wink: ! I have a few questions I'd like to ask those who have experience in this field:

- I've been reading Paul Hoffert's http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paul-Hoffert-Videogames-Presentations-Interactive/dp/B001ARICHU (Music for New Media), and in it, he makes the reader go through some exercises, including writing the opening theme, success and failure music, and variations for the in-game action of a fictional game. Do you guys add such song packages in your demos?

- My fave games so far, Assassin's and Half Life 2, have very little 'music' per say, more electroacoustic textures and synthesizer pads in the background. Is this standard for these kinds of exploring games?

- I see very little talk of Casual games at G.A.N.G. As a greenhorn, it looks to me like a very promising field for small to medium contracts. At the same time, I noticed that one company, Tonesomething (the name escapes me at the moment), seems to have cornered a big segment of the market. What do you think of Casual games' potential for composers?

- Is everyone using .ogg as a format?

- There are many more games coming out for the Wii than for xbox or ps3 - is it just as hard to get a gig writing for the former than for the latter two, or is it easier because there's more demand?

- If you have very limited experience, is it a good idea to add to your demo a screen capture movie of a video game where you replaced the original soundtrack with yours, as long as you have a visual text that states you're not the original composer?

Thanks, and I apologize if some of these questions have been answered here before. What can I say? I can be a lazy sob sometimes... :mrgreen:


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jun 12, 2008)

Mr. T: YOU ROCK! 

Thanks for your helpful replies and email offer. I'll take you up on that. 8) 

Now everbody go to Troels blog and read/listen to this wonderful musical experiment: http://www.troelsfolmann.com/blog/?p=112

=o


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## nikolas (Jun 12, 2008)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Thu Jun 12 said:


> - If you have very limited experience, is it a good idea to add to your demo a screen capture movie of a video game where you replaced the original soundtrack with yours, as long as you have a visual text that states you're not the original composer?


I find this to be a bad idea actually. Something to hurt your hopes rather than bring them up. 

It is not exactly legal, first of all, but we're bypassing that, either way the world is grey! 

But what this movie will tell the potential clients is that, exactly, you have very limited experience. It will prove it hands down! And there's no way around that. 

In addition to that, computer game music works inside a game and not really in movies. In movies it might sound a bit dull, boring, etc, so your wonderful game music won't show in a movie captured from a video game really. And of course, this is the reason people won't judge much from such a feature in your website. 

The rest have been wonderfully asnwered by Mr. T.


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## nikolas (Jun 13, 2008)

Jaap @ Fri Jun 13 said:


> That is not completely working that way Nikolas as long as you ask the publisher if it is allowed to make a sound replacement demo.


Of course, and I did mention the world is grey. If you get permission there's no problem, if that's what you mean.



> Somethimes it is even used in recruiting posts (for example: http://www.gameaudioforum.com/phpBB3/vi ... f=8&t=1189)


I got the impression that the two QT files were owned by the company, or either way they got permission in this case.



> It is indeed that you show that you don't have much experience yet in that field, but most companies don't find that a problem (I got my first gig also with a sound replacement demo and I did not have any experience in the game audio world, but I had been working as freelance composer for concert music and I think the same goes for Ned).


Certainly this applies as well. Sorry I came off a bit... condensending or something. 

Your article collection is very nice, btw


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## Dan Selby (Jun 13, 2008)

Hi Ned,

I would agree with what Troels and Nikolas said. Although it's true in every field that clients like to see work and credits that closely mirror their project, I think you have strong film/TV reels (and on real broadcast commercial projects) that show that you know how to support a story, create mood etc. and this looks better than rescoring a vidcap sequence - which highlights your lack of game experience.

Tied to this, and another reason why I don't think rescoring vidcap would be particularly helpful, your biggest hurdle I would think, will be to demonstrate that you understand that, unlike film and TV, game music is a non-linear medium - requiring that you understand something of the implementation of game sound and music and about creating _interactive_ music.

Cheers,

Dan


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## Stephen Baysted (Jun 13, 2008)

Dan Selby @ Fri Jun 13 said:


> Tied to this, and another reason why I don't think rescoring vidcap would be particularly helpful, your biggest hurdle I would think, will be to demonstrate that you understand that, unlike film and TV, game music is a non-linear medium - requiring that you understand something of the implementation of game sound and music and about creating _interactive_ music.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Dan



Agree 100% Dan.


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## Lunatique (Jul 2, 2008)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Thu Jun 12 said:


> - I see very little talk of Casual games at G.A.N.G. As a greenhorn, it looks to me like a very promising field for small to medium contracts. At the same time, I noticed that one company, Tonesomething (the name escapes me at the moment), seems to have cornered a big segment of the market. What do you think of Casual games' potential for composers?
> 
> - Is everyone using .ogg as a format?
> 
> - If you have very limited experience, is it a good idea to add to your demo a screen capture movie of a video game where you replaced the original soundtrack with yours, as long as you have a visual text that states you're not the original composer?



-Somatone is the one you're thinking of. I worked with them on a recent project (Polly Pride), and I was essentially the music director as well as the art director on that game. It was a pleasure working with Somatone and I can see why they have such a large client list. They were very professional, fast, did multiple iterations when needed without ever complaining, and took directions very well without pulling any prima donna type of "I'm an ARTISTE!"" stunts. When I presented them with a bunch of temp tracks I picked out, they never once expressed dismay and did a brilliant job of sticking very close to the vibe of the temp tracks but doing something original, and we're talking a wide range of styles on that game--from bossa nova, orchestral, jazz, folky pop...etc.

Casual games is a big market now, and it could be a nice segment of the market to tackle if you aren't after big money, but often the productions are so small that they barely have any decent budget for audio. Some of the audio budgets are so low that if you live in a city that has high living costs, you'd be losing money on the gig. The AAA titles of course have better budget and you can do ok with those, but it's nothing like what you'd make on a core game. Expect the lowest range of dollars per minute of music / per SFX of the market when working in the casual arena. 

-There's no standard for format, but ogg's are definitely very common as most feel it compresses smaller and retains better quality than mp3's.

-Instead of rescoring an existing game, you should probably tackle the MOD community instead.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jul 3, 2008)

Thanks for the detailed info! :D


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## Scott Cairns (Jul 3, 2008)

Dan Selby @ Fri Jun 13 said:


> ...your biggest hurdle I would think, will be to demonstrate that you understand that, unlike film and TV, game music is a non-linear medium - requiring that you understand something of the implementation of game sound and music and about creating _interactive_ music.



This is a good point Dan.

One exception would be to get some ingame footage, for example, you running around in Assasins Creed Ned and killing bad guys. 

Then, write some music that changes as the state of play changes;

- here's my 'walking around' music
- here's my 'on the run' music
- here's my battle music
- here's my 'me dying' music
- here's my victorious character (vanqòjc   ~^1jc   ~^2jc   ~^3jc   ~^4jc   ~^5jc   ~^6jc   ~^7jc   ~^8jc   ~^9jc   ~^:jc   ~^;jc   ~^<jc   ~^=jc   ~^>jc   ~^?jc   ~^@jc   ~^Ajc   ~^Bjc   ~^Cjc   ~^Djc   ~^Ejc   ~^Fjc   ~^Gjc   ~^Hjc   ~^Ijc   ~^Jjc   ~^


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## Lunatique (Jul 31, 2008)

There are quite a few. I think which one you pick should mainly based on your own passions as a gamer. If you're passionate about games, then you simply look into whether there are MOD communities for the games you love.


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## Jaap (Jul 31, 2008)

A couple of nice and good communities:

http://www.garagegames.com
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/
http://forums.indiegamer.com/index.php?
http://www.moddb.com/forum


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## Stephen Baysted (Aug 1, 2008)

If it's racing/driving games you're looking for, here's your best bet:


http://forum.racesimcentral.com/


Cheers


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## damoy (Aug 1, 2008)

Thanks for tips folks. I'll check out these links.

@Luna - what you're saying makes sense, I'll be sure to keep this in mind.


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## Stephen Baysted (Aug 1, 2008)

damoy @ Fri Aug 01 said:


> Thanks for tips folks. I'll check out these links.
> 
> @Luna - what you're saying makes sense, I'll be sure to keep this in mind.




Damoy, 

Lunatique is bang on the money.


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## Conor (Aug 19, 2008)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Thu Jun 12 said:


> - If you have very limited experience, is it a good idea to add to your demo a screen capture movie of a video game where you replaced the original soundtrack with yours, as long as you have a visual text that states you're not the original composer?



Always a controversial topic it seems. I've heard straight from the mouths of the Austin game gods that they love this kind of thing -- shows your skill and understanding of the medium, makes it very easy for people to hire you because they don't have to speculate. Of course you should be very professional and discreet about this, i.e. sending a demo reel clearly labeled as "sound/music replacement" or something, as opposed to posting stuff on YouTube!

Also, I wanted to mention that at least in my town, there's a sort of elitism among game audio people, or maybe more of a defense mechanism against the (perceived) elitism of film audio people... To make a long story short, make sure you come off as a person who knows and loves video games and video game music, as opposed to a person who's just testing the waters for financial reasons. Luckily if you're not a "gamer" already, you can become one with a bit of very enjoyable "research" as you say. 

Cheers,
Conor


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## Jaap (Aug 20, 2008)

Video game composers are the new geniuses of the world! (who said I am elitistic >8o we are just far better then any film composer! )

Just kidding 

Conor makes a point though. Having a big passionate for (creating) games makes you certainly going. I recently got hired by a company who does all kinds of casual games and I think the biggest plus was that I am addicted to sound design and creating music for games and that I am a passionate gamer as well (though I need more time, these jobs are far to time consuming haha). It's like with any other job, people like it if you have a good feeling with the business you are entering.

About the replacement video. It is a good method as I mentioned earlier as well and I know that some people got very succesfull with it with landing jobs. On Audiogang there is a guy who worked for years as a succesfull sound designer in the film industry and he made a replacement demo and it landed him a job at EA and I got my first gig as well with a replacement demo (not as big as EA though haha).
I think it is also important to keep showing who YOU are, so don't forget to show your previous work as well (I saw yesterday your videoreel Ned when searching for info about Zebra and I think you have gold in your hands there ).


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## Waywyn (Aug 20, 2008)

He Ned,

basically Troels and all my foreposters said it all.

What's also good to have in the pocket is a bit of sounddesign abilities. I know a lot of game companies have or hire composers and sounddesigners separately, but when I was doing Wii Battalion Wars 2 cutscenes for KUJU, the company asked me if I am able to do the sounddesign of the scenes too. I just said yes and it turned out that they were superpleased with my work. I wouldn't say it was luck ... HAHAH ... I just have interest in both and back then I wasn't really sure where to head.

So as Troels said, it is best to have abilities and skills in all areas plus to simply love your job, then most of the results are pleasing to the customer (which I am definitely sure you do and have!! )

Besides all that it is good to have some surround mixing skills. Lot's of companies start to create 5.1 soundtrack. In the case of "Sacred 2" I had to do all tracks in surround too, which was basically to mix every track twice ...

It's not really necessary to survive but basically it is good to be able to quickly say "YES" if there is a question of customers regarding sfx, surround etc.
Besides being versatile in music it also shows that you are flexible with other things.

Just my 0,02 bucks ...


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Aug 20, 2008)

Wow, lots of great advice, guys! I'll try and apply some of your suggestions when I have a bit more time (too busy right now, in a good way!)


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