Advice & Opinions please watmm

I recently attended MAGfest 9 and they had a handful of panels on breaking into the industry, making music for video games, some Q&A with composers ect. I found it all very inspiring and motivating. But at the same time I don't know where to start (I do, sort of) and I am not sure if the music I create would fit in with most games that are made.

I happen to like Video Games that are experimental, new concepts, unique looking and playing and with that comes a unique sounding soundtrack and sound design.

I think making music for a flash game would be the best first bet, and then networking and working from there.

Does watmm have any links to forums, sites, or anything that you think would be helpful in my quest? I am mostly looking for indie game developers and other people who make game music I guess.

Also if you are at all interested in video games and video game music, be sure NOT to miss the next MAGfest. It was life changing.

inb4 ulillia

alls i know is that the music for tiger woods 2008 is bangin

This will definitely point you in the right direction - http://www.tigsource.com/2010/12/26/gryzor87s-pxtone-manual/

commercial ROMplers are the name of the game in this field hence the lack of your traditional big symphonic sountracks in most films these days

i know the same dude who did metal gear solid did the soundtrack to The Rock and is pretty minted

i kinda like old sounding videogame music when systems had sound chips and the music wasn't pulled off the cd.

i'd like study sonic games and shit like that (or even melodies from mars), that's what i'ddd do.

also, maybe set some rules and play around with atari vstis and c64 type vstis, doesn't have to be entirely 8 bit but a bit of that would be cool.

of course none of this^ is experimental in any way, just giving you ideas...

http://forums.tigsource.com/

http://forums.indiegamer.com/

You can look at the newgrounds forums for flash stuff but it'll probably be hard to sift through for interesting projects. I'll bet there are better Flash-centric forums if you look about. Wouldn't hurt to email the devs of games you like see if they dig your stuff and have any projects in the works. Be bold!

some subreddits to keep an eye on

http://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGaming/

http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev

and yep, PxTone is a lot of fun.

i won't pretend to be a huge film composer or anything but i imagine a similar strategy could be applied to video games. the idea is this:

established film makers work with established composers. period. they have a group of reliable people they've worked with for 30-40 years or whatever and the chances of them deviating to an amateur are pretty slim. you need to put in the time making next to nothing on shit projects that probably will never see the light of day, and eventually you will network with a group of collaborators that someday might be successful and then you can kind of ride eachothers' success.

turn your eyes to a local video game design college, and maybe go to a few college parties or check their classifieds board. make buddy buddy with those guys because chances are they are just as confused as you are as to how to find music and sound for their games they are working on. become loyal to eachother and who knows what will happen, if nothing comes out of that relationship it doesn't mean they might tell a friend of theirs about this awesome composer they know.

you can't just snap your fingers, you've got to know people. that's all there is to it. i actually get pissed off cause i see peers of mine that don't know an eq from a compressor get all these gigs just because they are socialites, while i sit at home alone reading musimathics by gareth loy grinning at my vast amount of knowledge... i don't care though because i make a steady living elsewhere and i don't have to strive to be successful at music.

also maybe jump at opportunities, don't let things intimidate you like you are somehow not good enough for the project. just go for it.

Ya there are a lot of great indy game designers out there. Most are really interested in anyone who might want to help them out. Check out the gamasutra blogs and job postings. Not sure if they have a forum but that would most likely yield some great leads.

I actually am working on some sound design and music for a game. It's a bit of a long term project, but you can follow it's progress here > http://kotiro.petermichaud.com/

I'd recommend just finding someone and doing it for free. Then you have some experience you can reference when you want to pursue a paid gig. I think the higher level places tend to be quite clubby, and hard to get into so the only way really is to cut your teeth and get some exp points. :)

Just keep in mind that a game project might need 80 programmers and artists, but only 1 composer. That makes it competitive.

Thanks for all the links/comments/suggestions and opinions everyone. Right now I kind of have it set in my mind that I want to do niche games and want to shy away from games that want a retro or homage to retro video game music type of soundtrack, not because I don't like that sound but because in my opinion it's been done to death and is a bit stale (to me at least). I kind of want to keep things small at this point, pursuing this more as a hobby than a career, though if it spiraled into that I would have no qualms of course.

But yeah I do feel a bit intimidated by what I perceive is wanted by developers, because compared to other indie game composers that I met at MAGfest, my music doesn't sound video gamey enough (imo). Where as theirs is full on video game sounding. But that's kind of what I want to go for at the same time (NON video game sounding music), I just need to find a developer with the same thing in mind.

I'll post some videos of the panels from MAGfest soon for those interested.

Again, thanks everybody for the wonderful links and comments.

Making Music: From Hobby to Profession" MAGFest 9 Panel

[youtubehd]ltRy6VU0xaY[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]OZZjrkdo4gM[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]jKSQNNHRRtc[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]qqulgrlIvps[/youtubehd]

Life of a Freelance Game Composer (MAGFest 9 Panel)

[youtubehd]gw3wAFUuPvc[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]KrjEk-qVa-M[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]qpFqDilSNto[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]QkFpFThnSXA[/youtubehd]

Indie Game Music 101

[youtubehd]aPXu_8nzZF4[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]IKmk2EeBpJE[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]oLH4mG4uXUc[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]8WHbDi1x1lE[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]njYgYDyOoMk[/youtubehd]

  On 1/23/2011 at 12:29 AM, Spore said:

not because I don't like that sound but because in my opinion it's been done to death and is a bit stale (to me at least).

Absolutely. Terry Scott Taylor's "Imaginarium", a collection of three game's soundtracks, is probably my favourite game music and it really isn't what you'd expect from a game soundtrack. It works on its own as just music too. This thread is making me feel like I should go do some downloading and research listening.

  On 1/23/2011 at 12:29 AM, Spore said:

I'll post some videos of the panels from MAGfest soon for those interested.

That would be very cool.

edit: oh there they are!

Find an indie game studio and become the studio composer. That's what I did. My roommate just so happened to be working with a friend to get the company off the ground, and they thought that the way I write music was fitting for games.

I've only been doing it for a little while though and I'm exploring other avenues now for getting myself out there and whatnot.

You know, if anyone's interested, we could probably start a collective of video game music composers/producers and use that to legitimize and advertise ourselves as well as support each other.

  On 1/23/2011 at 9:45 AM, wahrk said:

 

You know, if anyone's interested, we could probably start a collective of video game music composers/producers and use that to legitimize and advertise ourselves as well as support each other.

I wanted to do this with beneboi, but for TV commercials, TV shows and like Jingles as well. Still hasn't been realized yet. :(

  On 1/23/2011 at 9:45 AM, wahrk said:

You know, if anyone's interested, we could probably start a collective of video game music composers/producers and use that to legitimize and advertise ourselves as well as support each other.

sounds awesome.

  On 1/23/2011 at 9:45 AM, wahrk said:

You know, if anyone's interested, we could probably start a collective of video game music composers/producers and use that to legitimize and advertise ourselves as well as support each other.

I could dig that.

  On 1/23/2011 at 9:45 AM, wahrk said:

You know, if anyone's interested, we could probably start a collective of video game music composers/producers and use that to legitimize and advertise ourselves as well as support each other.

I am down with this.

IT SHALL BE DONE.

First we need a website. I'm super rusty on web design, so someone else handle that, please. Let me know what you guys wanna do for hosting and whatnot though and I'll set it up.

What else do we need to do to make this happen?

What did you guys envision? I don't know if I am in or out yet.

Man, I don't have a clue. I don't know first thing about networking, nor do I know web design. I know a dude who does some interesting digital art (sadly, he doesn't have anything online), but that's the extent to which I can help set up.

tbh i was kinda hoping someone else would do all the boring stuff while i just poop out tracks.

wouldn't know the first thing about how to get started anyway. i was in contact with http://www.axolotgames.com/ for a little while about

a potential collaboration, but it didn't really work out in the end. anyway, now i can't remember what my point was. nevermind.

my thoughts exactly

I was just thinking of having a website with different profiles for each of us with demo music and/or links to download and listen to examples of our music and a way to contact each of us. Throw in a general inquires contact, a mission statement for the collective, and maybe even some standard rates. Then we just promote the fuck out of it and we're good to go, eh?

Edit: Also, lol at both of those dudes for thinking that "Tik Tok" is by Katy Perry.

If there's really no one here who has the time to make a website for this, I can probably pay a pal of mine to do it if you guys want to chip in. I will gladly maintain it after that.

Is this like 8 bit stuff or just for any sort of video games?

  On 2/1/2011 at 12:58 AM, chassis said:

Is this like 8 bit stuff or just for any sort of video games?

Any.

And actually, while I'm thinking about it, I'm gonna make a new thread for this whole collective idea and leave this thread for advice.

Edit: New thread is here.