The Melee: Tecnified Tripods... from space

This is definitely going to be a rant.. so brace yourselves...

I've seen this SO often in the past 5 years it isn't even funny... and I just saw it again today over at moddb.com. An up and coming "composer" who only creates hard techno or electronica music is wanting to break into doing music for mods and/or games. Thats all fine and dandy... but come on man! You've GOT to learn another genre of music! Not EVERY damn game can have BGM consisting of electronica... branch out.. be free... and you WILL score more gigs that way.

Now don't get me wrong. I do truly enjoy electronic music of all sorts ranging from hard techno to trip hop... but rarely does it have a place in a game or mod score. I don't even know why this agitates me.. but it does... ugh. I once saw a team was making a War of the Worlds mod based on the Spielberg film of the same name... and take a guess what they had on their main page as some of their... *cough* game music. Go on... guess... I command it! Thats right, HARD FREAKING TECHNO. REALLY?!? Yup, (cue sarcasm) that totally says ginormous tripods from space ravaging the countryside to me... um yeah..

Case and point:
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrIsgPwlbh4




That makes me want to DANCE... not run for my life from tripods.... well, unless said tripods were dancing to this music as well... then I'd watch that. Hell, I'd pay good money to see that.... but only if the tripod had huge glowsticks attached to each of it's legs and had a huge disco ball dangling underneath.

Lets be honest, for the most part (most... NOT ALL) electronic music these "composers" are making consist of a lone kick drum... and maybe a synth pad mixed with a bassline... a really simple bass line. Some of that stuff has it's place in games... but usually this music degrades into more of a generic techno sound and is not really all that well put together. What I'm getting at can certainly be summed up by strongbad

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwZwkk7q25I



Now I really shouldn't be picking on electronic musicians as I respect what they do... but come on guys... just because you can throw down some decent tunage DOES NOT mean you should score games. Go release an album on cdbaby for the world to hear. If you insist on being a game / mod composer... at least learn how to compose some basic orchestral (read: EPIC) music otherwise you won't have a chance in hell at finding work (for the most part). When I was working as the lone audio guy for a THQ company, I got tons... of demo cds every month... and usually at least two in each batch were from peeps who just did one genre of music... usually hard techno or death metal. What was even funnier to me was that they would take the time to match it up with game footage and send a dvd. Playing God of War with an underlying track of death metal or hard techno definitely doesn't work with that game to my ears. Some may enjoy it... but I sure as hell did not. Fitting the vibe is what you've GOT to do as a composer... which means you have to be versatile when it comes to music so you can tackle whatever genre a producer or game designer throws your way.

So, what did we learn today kids? Thats right...

VERSATILITY IS KEY TO YOUR SURVIVAL!

Ugh... tehcno in games... blah.

The handful of you out there that read this thing... feel free to chime in.

What to charge and contracts... money is a good thing.

Ah yes, the age old question that you all have been wondering about for years, "what the hell do I charge?".

Well, the answer is far more basic than you might think. Here's a basic rundown for you to chew on:

What to charge for original music:

• Always charge per completed minute of music, NOT by the hour.
• If you have NO shipped titles, charge around $100 to $250 per completed minute
• If you have 1 to 2 shipped titles that were on a smaller platform such as the iPhone, charge between $300 and $400 per completed minute
• If you have 1 to shipped console titles, charge around $500 to $700 per completed minute
• If you're a game composing genius and have scored countless AAA console titles, you can easily get away with charge $1000 to $1500 per completed minute.

I usually like to stay right around $700 to $800 to be competitive. Even though you think your music is marketable, you've gotta keep your prices competitive to find work. Overcrowditation is the cause of this (see previous rant for info on that). The glorious thing about this charging structure is that it may take you two hours to do a minute of music, or it may take you 15 minutes if you're simply laying down some beats and a bassline. Regardless, the producers DO NOT have to know how long it takes you to get a piece done. That said, don't procrastinate... always be timely but at the same time giving yourself a little extra time just in case.

You can also get away with charging for revisions. Especially if you've got a few shipped titles and have cut your rates down to nothing (i.e. - doing a favor for a start up or a friend). If this is the case, DO NOT let them push you around and make you do revisions unless you're getting paid extra. Tons of people are perfectionists and will have you doing far too many revisions if you're not careful... especially if they're a musician too. If it's a small company and you don't want to lose the gig by charging for revisions, put a "revision" clause in your contract which lists how many revisions you'd be willing to do, then charge if you go over that amount. 4 or 5 revisions is usually enough to get it right.. anything past that is just the game developer (in most cases) being far too picky. Talking about revisions and contracts, here's some info on that.

Contracts:

Track down a lawyer (doesn't have to be an entertainment lawyer, but that helps) and have him or her draw up a basic contract which you can use for every gig. You've GOT to protect yourself in this industry... not all, but some will certainly take advantage of you. Have the lawyer draft up the contract as a word document so that you can make changes to it at will (changing the name's involved and monetary amounts for example). This process usually takes about an hour or two and will run you between $500 and $1000 to complete. It's most definitely worth it... believe me, you'll definitely learn the hard way if you don't do this. Specific clauses you might include could be:

• Revision Clause - how many times you'll revise a piece of music
• Payment Clause - when and how the final payment is delivered. I usually like to receive half of the full payment up front and receive the other half after the client is happy with the final product. This way if the client backs out or the game falls through, you at least get something for your efforts.

Charging for sound design:

This is something that every sound designer / company seems to do differently. But I would suggest charging per group of completed sounds. Maybe in intervals of 25 to keep things simple. Depending on how intensive the sound design work is for said sounds... something close to $500 per 25 sounds would be alright depending on how much experience you've got. If you're mainly a composer and you get roped into doing audio for a project as well... don't charge that much or even do the sound work for free as a favor. You're sure to have that client request work from you again in the future that way.

Not too bad eh?

EWQL - Welcome to the party pal!

You know, I think just about everyone... and i mean EVERYONE is using East West Quantum Leap Gold for their orchestra. At least, now the 10 people who don't own it will own it as soundsonline is giving away a free version of the library. If you weren't aware of that fun little tidbit, now you are... welcome to the party pal! Ugh, how frustrating to those of us that bought the library when it was first available for $999 thinking we were being all competitive. I suppose at the time we were... now, not so much. EWQL has turned itself into, ugh, the new Garritan Personal Orchestra... which by the way, DO NOT use GPO on demos... sounds terrible and extremely unrealistic. It's a great learning tool but nothing more than that!

It's really funny to me. Many of the composers who are doing game scores aren't using EWQL Gold... just the people who want to get into scoring games. The problem I have with the library is that it's tough to get past it's overly John Williamsesque sound and therefore makes all demos just utilizing Gold for all aspects of the virtual orchestra sound very similar... to my ears anyway. Sure, the themes are different, but I have a hard time getting passed the Gold sound... maybe it's just a personal preference.

Before I venture forth further with this rant which may offend those of you who own this damn library... which means all of you... I should say that I DO own gold and gold xp play.... and I DO utilize it on some projects. JUST NOT FOR MY ENTIRE ORCHESTRA. I'll use a string section here, a horn section there, then mix it up with a project sam library or one of the many synth libraries out there. While I commend Nick Pheonix and the others involved on the library for a well sampled orchestra... it's just agitating that now anyone and everyone can add to the Overcrowditation of things by picking this orchestra up for free... or for a fraction of the price it once was for the full library. Seriously, if you don't want to sound like EVERY other demo out there, take this phrase to heart.

"Just say NO to East West Quantum Leap O."

I see what soundsonline.com is doing here, they're hoping you'll like the free version so much that you'll plop down the $400 for the real deal. That, or they have a new library coming out which will make Gold absolutely obsolete and will be the new "go to" lib for you, me, and everyone else out there. Overcrowditation indeed. This is a trend that has happened with tons of libraries out there, though very surprisingly not with Symphobia or Evolve.. not that I've heard. There was a time when Stylus RMX could be heard in just about every commercial, television show, and game... but now I rarely hear it at all anymore (except for in really bad reality television... the damn composer / producer usually just throws down a RMX loop and calls it music).

This brings me to another decent point... what's old can be new again. I've recently found myself going back and using Stylus RMX.. but not for the loops... for the loop elements and applying various FX to them. This can be done with tons of older libraries out there so definitely don't discount a library just because it's old!

The whole point of this rant, in case you haven't picked up on it yet, is that you need to make yourself competitive. EVERYONE including you is using EWQL Gold. Save some money up and invest in a more expensive library like Symphobia that will help to distinguish your sound. I know I know... you're all saying "but thats far too expensive", "I can't afford that"! Well, you're honestly going to HAVE TO afford it if you're serious about getting in to composing for games... as stated before, save your cash! There are tons of lesser known libraries out there like String Essentials that will help give you a different sound. After hearing 10 demos from 10 different composers who all used EWQL Gold...an audio lead will want something that will stand out from the rest and not sound like another composer trying to sound like John Williams once again. Hell, they should just call EWQL Gold "Williams in a box" cause thats just what it is!

If you're absolutely stuck with Gold, find a way to sequence / master your music so that it doesn't sound like everyone else (read: Over quantized).

RGO #3 - Epically Metroiding it Up

So to start with some news... I'm going to be scoring a Half Life 2 mod in my spare time called "The Rising". It's got some pretty cool multiplayer action that is being treated like single player goodness. I'm even scoring the thing like a single player title... it's an intere... I digress, More on this craziness soon.


"Epic" - word count widget started

Admittedly, this isn't going to be the most entertaining week on my blog.. I've got tons of stuff going on and am already pretty brain dead... damn, it's only Tuesday... right? Ugh! So I apologize in advance for not keeping you people completely enthralled with my lackluster writing this week. Moving on.

You know, I feel ashamed to say this... but Super Metroid is a game that I only recently checked out in it's entirety. Amazing stuff. Epic even. (BING, #1) The gameplay laid the groundwork for the free roaming mission structure we're all now so used to. On top of that, the music heard within the game is really AMAZING and will truly grab on to you and not let go. Great / catchy tunes indeed.... I would highly recommend any of you who have not played it... go and grab it off of the virtual console channel on your wii. Good stuff!

Brings me to another topic of sorts... there's tons of things musically you can learn from previous game composers. It always amazes me that no matter how simplistic older chiptunes may sound... they always seem to sound epic (BING, #2) when updated. Sometimes simple is a great thing. Epic even. (BING, #3)

Once again, I updated the music heard within the game in my own particular style and totally epicfied (BING, #4, close enough.. it counts) it to the max. The most updating was done not just on the Super Metroid march itself (heard over the menu) but the overly ambient music heard over the intro as well... which is now epic (BING, #5) Epic (BING, #6) EPIC! (BING, #7) Well, here it is, enjoy:

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14CCiAdSp8k



"Epic" - word count widget finished.........final epic count... 7

Scholastictastic

Here's a novel idea, you want to do audio for games? Go back to school!

After you graduate college, or even if you're in a job and want a career change, go to a trade school that focuses on game design and learn either audio design, programming, or level design. Look into full sail (http://www.fullsail.com/ ) or the Guildhall at SMU (http://www.guildhall.smu.edu/). I attended the guildhall 6 years ago and not only learned level design but as the ONLY audio inclined person there composed music / did sound design for many of the student projects. It was a really great way to buff the old resume a bit with tons of different titles... if you do swing by and get a tour, be sure and say Rich from Cohort 2 sent you... I'm still one of the only audio guys to come out of the program... maybe you'll be next? Seriously, it's a GREAT opportunity to meet contacts and to mingle with game industry professionals if nothing else. They've got tons of connections that are definitely not open to you.. and most of said connections will definitely respond to your communications if they know you're a guildhall student.

The Guildhall has a "show of games" at the end of every term and require you as a student to work as part of a development team to complete a game project.. the first of which is utilizing XNA to build an XBLA title which is pretty damn cool. This is also a very good thing because it forces you to learn a new trade such as coding, level design, or art which ultimately allows you to break into the "back door" of the industry. Come on... as sound people I know you're all creative... you just may have to apply that creativity somewhere else for a while until you can actually get into the industry. Once in, after proving yourself in the trenches with the rest of the team for 6 to 12 months... go and say hey to the Sound Lead and mention you do audio. You just never know what will happen!!

Some peeps have gotten in through testing or localization positions... but in all honesty this isn't really recommended from an audio standpoint as you're just testing and don't really get to show off your creativity.. thus not wooing and wowing producers and/or lead game developers.

I really can't recommend a school like the Guildhall enough. It's a GREAT way to learn terminology you'll hear on a day to day basis in the biz as well as what to expect once you're in with a company... good stuff. Without the Guildhall, I probably wouldn't have found a way in... it's also was where I've met some of my closest friends... a few of which have gotten me full time jobs and paid work...hell, a couple have started their own game companies recruiting me to do audio for them, so don't discount friends as sources either! Everyone you meet has the potential to help find you work in the game industry.

Now, some of you are wondering why I haven't mentioned music schooling in this scholastic bundle of joy, more specifically some of you are thinking... "well, I want to compose.. shouldn't I get a music degree?" or "I have a music degree from the prestigeous X school of music, will I get more work?"

The answer to both is a definite NO! Music degrees may help your music skills, but really and truly mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to anybody in the game biz. I'm 100% self taught and the fact I'm not classically trained has never come up once. Besides, producers want that big hollywood sound (more of the zimmer sound than williams sound... sorry) so be sure and study what current and past film composers are doing instrumentation / orchestration wise... it's a great way to learn applicable music theory.

The Melee - Bonding with Music

Oh man, thankfully it's finally FRIDAY!!! That said, I had a pretty cool idea this morning and it's something I think at least a few of you will really dig. Every Friday, I'm toying with posting something I'm calling "The Melee". Basically, it's a post which I'll write something totally random (but music related) that I've done, someone else has done, discuss film / game music, etc etc.

It's also a place where I'll encourage you people to post comments.... not just in relation to what I post, but any sort of rants, reviews, likes dislikes that you have in regards to game audio, game music, or film music. If there's something you want me to discuss in future Game Biz posts... that works too! Just about anything music related goes here... hence why I call it "The Melee". The whole purpose of this thing is just to discuss music, what got us here, film / game scores that really move you, what we like / dislike about game music, etc etc... an open forum if you will.

So to get things started... James Bond music. Bond music is what has inspired me for my last 30 years on this crazy planet and is something I like to create in my spare time as a composer. I think that Christopher Lennertz has truly nailed the bond games he has scored in the past (though I hear he's sadly not on the next bond game). I also think that lately... David Arnold is doing an OUTSTANDING job at scoring the most recent bond films (not to mention Craig is the best bond yet in my opinion, exactly who Fleming wrote about in the books).

All of that said, Goldeneye is one of those scores that didn't really do it for me. Eric Serras avant garde overly electronic style of composing just doesn't really gel well with the James Bond universe in my opinion. Like many, I wondered what Goldeneye would have sounded like if David Arnold had done the music for it. What if The James Bond theme made a more prominent appearance in the pre-titles sequence? What if Goldeneye was scored more like a regular bond film rather than one which featured bond returning after an almost 7 year hiatus?

Well my fellow music fanatics, I took matters into my own hands and not only rescored the Goldeneye pre-titles sequence in its entirety... but did a sound design pass over it as well so my music would feel more like it was part of a real film mix and not just hover over dead silence. So this melee shows off my approach to scoring to picture... which some of you might find interesting as you may end up scoring cinematics in a game one day. Scoring to picture takes cracker jack timing and is a bit different than laying down background music for a game. To practice, I'd say rip a scene or two from your favorite film, import into your sequencer, and score away!

You'll notice that I didn't hesitate to bring the bond theme in early when I scored it... which some will argue takes away the mystery of who the man is on the dam. Well in my defense, I scored it like a regular bond film... leaving out the mystery and just bonding it up the best I can. We all know it's a bond film, and we all know by now who the guy on the dam is. Moving on.

Without further delay... here is my approach to scoring Goldeneye in a more traditional manner in two parts.

Goldeneye Rescored Part 1 - Arkangel Infiltration:

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0PJAXl6SNE

MP3 Download:
http://www.richdouglas.net/bond/GE_Arkangel_Infiltration_RichDouglas.mp3





Goldeneye Rescored Part 2 - Arkangel Escape:

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9wan-6nQgE

MP3 Download:
http://www.richdouglas.net/bond/GE_EscapeFromArkangel_RichDouglas.mp3




Here's another random bit of bond music I've done in the past... some bloke actually edited a Casino Royale trailer to it:

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKmvrhxpuLc

MP3:
http://www.richdouglas.net/bond/Remix_RichDouglas_TheJamesBondTheme_HardEdgeMix.mp3



And for good measure... here are two more of my recent bond cues:

Boat Escape:
http://www.richdouglas.net/bond/QoS_BoatEscape_RichDouglas.mp3

Bond Theme '09
http://www.richdouglas.net/bond/QoS_TheJamesBondTheme_2009_RichDouglas.mp3

Hope everyone has a good weekend! I'll be back first thing next week with more game industry goodness.

Adaptive Music 101 - Vertically Fighting Lineararity in Game Music

Adaptive music,

It's the thing of legends, and many games seem to skirt around doing it... even very recent games.. which baffles me. Since music is literally the last thing most producers think about... this may baffle me, but it sure as hell doesn't surprise me. Ugh, damn you game industry for being so backwards. Moving on. Most games (I know you're listening Fallout 3 and Oblivion) do the ole tride and true "timed" method of adaptive music. They play an ambient cue sparsely during gameplay (which is on a random timer so it fades in on occasion and doesn't loop or get repetitive), fade that cue out, and fade in an action cue when enemies start attacking the player. While this method works, there are ways to make your music FAR more adaptive than that... you can make it sound more like a well timed film score if you really put some effort into it.

With audio engines such as Audiokinetics Wwise it's easier than ever to put together an adaptive music structure within a title you're working on. Adaptive music will almost certainly set you apart as much of your competition are still in the mindset that you can trigger a two minute piece of music within a level and have it loop. I know it can seem daunting at first, but here are a few ideas to get your brain thinking adaptively. In addition to the Timed method mentioned above, there are two more types of Adaptive Music structures that I'm going to eventually discuss: Horizontal and Vertical. While vertical is the most difficult to compose for in my opinion, it is the easiest to implement and the first I'm going to discuss.

VERTICAL INSANITY

When setting up a vertical adaptive music structure you're essentially composing a piece of music with different elements (read: tracks) and systematically fading said elements in as the gameplay changes. The real trick is, ALL of the tracks eventually have to work together in the form of the action element so it's a real pain in the ass to compose properly. Now, with a system like Wwise, you can fade out tracks if they become too cumbersome on your mix.. but if you do to much fading it totally defeats the purpose of utilizing this structure, so be weary! The screengrab below shows this vertical method set up in Wwise... neat eh? Lemme explain in a bit more detail whats going on there.



Essentially, you have three layers (which can have more than 1 track each), I prefer to call them Ambient, Tension, and Action... all in the same piece of music. Confused yet? Don't worry, after I show you the example I've prepared.. all will be explained. This system is extremely versatile and can be utilized for an onslaught of different gameplay situations. Even if you're working on a mod and do not have access to an audio engine like Wwise, talented coders will be able to find a way to implement this system for you in existing game engines... the interface just won't look as pretty. Blah.


Here's an example I put together a while back which should explain this vertical craziness a bit more. Essentially, I recorded some gameplay from Rainbow Six Vegas. Specifically, a terrorist hunt map which originally contained no music.... and added my own adaptive music structure on top of it. It's pretty amazing what some adaptive music can do to raise the tension! Pay attention to how when the tension layer fades in... it does so ON TOP of the ambient strings and synth pad. So everything is working together and gels no matter what layers are playing. Excuse the shoddy quality of the video!

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNDjSYrmmM4




Did that clear things up for you? Good! Not as crazy as you would think to set up some fairly adaptive music. Here's another RB6V example for ya which utilizes the same said music structure... just without the walkthrough.

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUswfD0PYwo




I also did an example showing off this said music structure within Oblivion. Once again, listen for how the layers all work fairly well together. I did this music in a hurry so it's far from perfect... and NOT my next opus... but it gets the point across. Once again, the video quality is absolute ****, but you should at least get the basic ideas as to what's going on here.

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbFhQs8M3N0




A WELL TIMED EXAMPLE

Now, I really shouldn't nay say the Timed approach. It can be done, and done well, if done properly. A great example is the Left 4 Dead series! Here's how you could go about setting up a timed structure similar to L4D:

- 3 sound "buckets" - Tension, Action, EXTREME TERROR
- Each bucket contains anywhere betwee 5 and 10 short (minute or less) pieces of music
- Each bucket is named appropriately (ie Tension, Action, EXTREME TERROR)
- When a bucket is called to play via code, it picks a piece of music at random within it and plays said piece of music.
- Tension could be on a timer which is ever changing. So it calls a piece of music to play when there are several zombies on the screen. After that piece is done playing it waits 3 minutes to call another piece of music. After that piece of music plays, the system changes the timing to 2 minutes then plays another. See? Isn't fighting repetition fun?
- When 5 or more zombies are aware of the player, code calls on the action bucket... which functions just like tension.
- If 10 or more zombies are aware of the player, or if the game engine wants to scare the player with a stinger, code calls on the EXTREME TERROR bucket.

Now that you're all fully confused.... I'll call this rant done and let you ponder the craziness that I just discussed :).

Starting Small - Finding that first Gig

I want to start by saying what I post here and in future posts may seem obvious to some, and might be wholly new to others... either way I hope you're at least mildly entertained. Regardless, what I discuss IS NOT a sure thing and a guarantee that you'll find work.. merely suggestions from a somewhat seasoned vet. That is all.

I know a lot of you really want to go right for the throat and start composing music for huge AAA titles. While it's possible via good timing, luck, stars aligning, and damn good schmoozing at conferences (more on that later), your best bet is to start small. The competition is still going to be stiff, but your chances are higher the smaller you go. Like I said, larger game companies won't even look at you if you don't have a few titles under your belt. It helps if they're decently large titles, but they certainly don't have to be! Start small.

The absolute best place to start is... no.. not mods.. those rarely get you real work but can be a real hoot to work on! The best place to start is iTunes...wait.. iTunes? Now you're asking yourself "How the hell can I find work from iTunes?" Well there's a great strategy I've been using with some success, take a gander at the top 10 and "what we're playing" iPhone games about once a month and shoot those game developers an email. Much of the time it's a smaller team of 5 to 10 guys and they will at least shoot an email back your way regardless of needing a composer or not. If it's a larger developer such as EA or Gameloft.. you'll run into the same issues I discussed earlier. Even worse, those larger companies don't have a direct way to contact them on their website making you have to route your email through their publicity department... which means it's most likely a dead end unfortunately. The only way to get your music to the big dogs is by contacting the audio directors of their smaller (which still aren't THAT small) developers. A good example is THQ via Volition Software, Disney via Blackrock Studios, or Activision via Infinity Wa... wait.. don't do that, the zimdog has that one all wrapped up.

Whoever you shoot an email off to (I usually go for the CEO or creative director of the smaller companies)... be sure and personalize it, at least a little. Mention titles they've worked on, download and play their past titles, research what it is that company develops. Make it a friendly email first, and a sales pitch second. If you go right for the sale they'll definitely see right through the email, you, laugh, and go on to read the other composer emails they have received that day.

The good thing about iPhone titles, unlike a majority of other indie games, is that they have a bigger chance at exposure. Don't get me wrong, indie games in general can just explode and end up on XBLA, WiiWare, and PSN in a heartbeat... but for some reason their exposure is limited to indie game competitions, articles on kotaku, and conferences like GDC. iPhone games are exposed to a much wider market for the most part. More exposure means free PR for you, more work, and yay, you get to eat (or drink) that week! Even if the game doesn't sell a bazillion copies, it's perfect fodder for your resume and your website. A shipped game is a shipped game... cell phone, digital distribution or not.

iPhone games will also (if you haven't had to already) make you to learn how to compress the begesus of your files down to nothing. I prefer to use the Ogg Vorbis format as I can compress those down to like 2 to 5 kb a sound in Adobe Audition with a fraction of loss in fidelity. You don't want your music and audio to leave a footprint larger than 1 or 2MB as a whole for the typical 10MB iPhone games.... it's just bad form. But the format is up to the developer and that is something you'll have to discuss with them when you get to that point.

What to charge. This is a whole nother can of worms which I'll get to in the future. It's not a ton of info, but definitely should have it's own topic so stay tuned!

Modern Warfare 2 : will the REAL composer please stand up?

I was totally going to wait a couple of weeks to post this rant, but after reading a post over at Kotaku in regards to the MW2 soundtrack being oscar-miked, figured I should oscar-mike the hell out of this rant :).

Yesterday I posted about my new word, Overcrowditation (which I'm very proud of), and how it describes composers within the game biz and game scores themselves with their numerous composers. Not only is Modern Warfare 2 totally guilty of M.I.O. (Massive Internal Overcrowditation) and improper creditation, but it brings up a wholly new issue which scares the **** outta me as a freelance composer. The hiring of A-List, big wig, film composers for millions of dollars. You wonder why MW2 cost $50 million to develop? I give you three words... HANS... FREAKING.... ZIMMER!

(zimmer tidbit #1: He has a freaking chandelier in the hallway where his office is)

Now, I should preface all of this with the fact that not only am I a HUGE fan of the Zimdog, but he is the sole reason I got into doing music in the first place, let alone he basically pioneered the sampling of instruments so all of us game composers have him to thank for that alone. I buy every one of his scores as soon as they are released and will continue to do so, but please Hans, stick to composing for films and not writing themes for games, we have our own niche as game composers and actually NEED the work, well.. I suppose game composers like Inon Zur are doing alright.. but some of us really truly need the work. To make matters worse, when your hero in the film score world becomes your competition... ugh.. that sucks.

(zimmer tidbit #2: He played keyboard in the Buggles, yup.. the band behind "Video Killed The Radio Star")

This is happening all over the place, not just with MW2. Steve Jablonsky (known for his scores for The Island and Transformers) just scored Gears of War 2 and The Sims 3. Tyler Bates (Dawn of the Dead and Get Carter) has finished scoring Army of Two: The 40th Day. This is a disturbing trend indeed.. and is a trend all of you peeps who want to break into composing for games need to be aware of. Companies used to hire guys like me who can sound like a specific Hollywood composer... now they have the cash to actually HIRE said composer. How's that for some seriously stiff competition??

Now, how many of you caught the "Themes" part above when I was knocking Hans for scoring games? That's right, the Zimdog didn't actually compose most of the music for MW2, he just did... the themes. He's done this before for films like Pirates of the Caribbean.. but strangely in that case, Klaus Badelt got the credit for the score (as is the way it should have been). But with MW2, Zimmer is getting all of the credit.. not the real composer..Lorne Balfe.

(zimmer tidbit #3: Zimmers personally built Moog synthesizer was sampled for the Spectrasonics Omnisphere synth library)

Lets get to the meat of this thing... MW2 had 14 (F O U R T E E N) composers excluding additional soloists and the army of mastering techs they have over at Zimmers cushy Santa Monica company, Remote Control Productions (formerly Media Ventures). Here's a full list of contributors for the music of MW2, and some of these names will blow your mind:

Main Themes by Hans Zimmer
Music Produced by Hans Zimmer, Lorne Balfe
Music Composed by Lorne Balfe (Balfe is one of Zimmers apprentices that Hans has helped move up in the ranks by letting him do additional music... uncredited... in many of his films... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1154632/ )

Additional Music:
Mark Mancina - yes, the composer behind Bad Boys, Speed, Twister and Assassins... um.. WTF.

Nick Phoenix - really? This guy does trailer music and is the brainchild behind many (if not all) of the sample libraries at soundsonline.com. Thats right, SD2, EWQL Orchestra, Symphonic Choirs... all this guy. So why is he involved.. strange. A little tidbit about Symphonic Choirs and Voices of the Apocalypse if any of you own either of those two sample libraries. DO NOT use either of them for film trailers as Phoenix will sue the begeesus outta you. This is actually listed in the manuals for these libraries.. albeit not as eloquently as I put it :) . Since he does trailer music with it, he wants to keep everything status quo. Moving on.

Thomas Bergersen - Works with Phoenix.
Dave Metzger
Jacob Shea
Noah Sorota
Atli Örvarssön

Additional Arranging & Programming (these are all basically additional composers)
Bart Hendrickson, Clay Duncan, Ryeland Allison, Andrew Kawczynski, Tom Broderick
Music Editor - Dan Pinder
Music Production Services - Steven Kofsky
Music Supervisor - Tom Broderick
Score Wrangler - Bob Badami
Soloists ‑ Guitar Tom Broderick
Percussion - Satnam Ramgotra, Ryeland Allison
Violin - Noah Sorota
Music Mixed by Alan Meyerson
Additional Engineering - Katia Lewin Palomo, Slamm Andrews, Jeff Biggers (actually met Jeff when I was in L.A. once.. nice guy. Remote Control does quite literally have an army of engineers at their disposal. So don't feel bad if your music doesn't sound as good.)

Assistant Engineer - Adam Schmidt
Production Coordinator for Hans Zimmer - Andrew Zack
Music Mixed at Remote Control Productions Inc.


Yup... $50 million, that's what it will get you... a big time name to help market your game (Zimdog) who has tons of resources to soloists and engineers that most of us couldn't even dream of having access to. It should be said that I thought the bits of music that Zimmer actually wrote for the game were amazing and really made me smile while playing... those bits of music within the MW2 score should be overly obvious to any of you other Zimdog purists out there. But this score must have cost as much as a small country in Europe.

(zimmer tidbit #4: You want to work for Zimmer? Good luck, they don't listen to unsolicited demos and you would have to work there for FREE as a midi programmer for the better part of 3 to 4 years to even get noticed.. or so I've heard)

Just because you have the money Infinity Ward / Activision (and we all know you do), doesn't mean you have to spend it all. There's plenty of us out there that could have done what was done for this score.. and for far cheaper. Not saying it would be done better... after all Activision.. you did hire the great Hans Zimmer... or did you?

RGO #2 - Retro Gaming thats Out of This World

From now on, let it be known that when I post a link to retro game music that I've re-orchestrated and posted on youtube... the post will contain RGO (retro games orchestrated) in the title.

Out of this World for the Super Nintendo was another game that really truly grabbed my attention when I was younger. I loved this game for a slew of reasons:

-It was nicely animated
-Hugely atmospheric
-Felt like a movie
-You played a lab geek named Lester who kicks ass (slowly)
-The game completely lacked a HUD, which was unheard of at the time
-What little music there was, sounded pretty cool

Well, that was 19 years ago in 1991... wow, 19, really? Great, now I feel old. Anyhow, have you played the game recently? HOLY HELL IS IT HARD! Seriously, we've gotten so spoiled with infinite / definite saving in games that this game will kick your ass 10 times over before you get passed the second level.. and then make you do it all over again. Still, I would highly suggest those of you that haven't played this game.. check it out. It's pretty damn cool.

Without further delay, here's RGO #2, my suite of orchestrated music from Out of this World!

Overcrowditation - The Word of the Decade

I think... wait... yes....

BEHOLD! I HAVE CREATED A NEW WORD.. "Overcrowditation!"

Over·crowd·it·ation
n. 1. The cause of being agitated because of overcrowding. 2. Extreme emotional disturbance amongst crowds of people.

Use of the word includes (but is not limited to): The trains in India suffer from Overcrowditation, as do shopping malls around the holidays and the pages of a "Where's Waldo" book. Overcrowditation.

note: not trying to sound negative... just tell it how it is sans sugar coating. This is just how this post and handful of my future posts will most likely be.

As it turns out, the word is also a damn fine description of the current state of composers in the game industry... they're a dime a dozen and all of you who are wanting to do this for a living need to know that you're not special... there are TONS of us out there doing exactly what you're doing, and some of us are doing it better. We're all sending the same sounding emails to game companies, leaving the same messages on the voicemails of auido leads, and you also need to know that this overcrowding is agitating as many gigs will slip right through your fingers thanks to it. Never give up, never surrender... this is something that I have only recently adpoted and am glad that I have. This industry has surged so much in the last decade that it takes some serious patience to get work. You WILL lose gigs to other composers, and you WILL have tons of stiff competition... get over it... move on... and keep sending out said canned emails.

Email Template 1A-ninerblah

Hello... my name is.. blah blah... I have worked on blabbity blah, blah, blah and can cover any genre you need... blah. Please visit my webpage at blah blah.gov.org.

Yes... we all send the same emails and I'm proud to admit it!


Overcrowditation also applies to certain recent game scores. Why is it that game developers feel the need to hire 5 plus composers for a game project? It seems a little strange, unwarranted, and non cost effective to me. I mean, I can do around 30 minutes of pretty damn high quality music over the course of a week be it adaptive or static... so surely this isn't a time issue. My theory is that the audio lead may not be able to figure out who he wants to work with, wants to work with a slew of A list composers for the sake of working with them, or has made deals (over a beer... or six) with said composers at separate conferences and can't bring themselves to "break up" with them.

Or maybe it's just plain bad planning. Still, I find it strange. Borderlands has done this (5!!!! Composers), as has Modern Warfare 2 (which due to Massive Internal Overcrowditation.. or M.I.O.... is going to merit it's own post later on for sure).

This for some reason bothers me, as when I score a game... I like to do it with my own workflow and not have to worry about the workflow of others or mastering my music like the other composers.

Maybe it's just me, but Overcrowditation is a disturbing and annoying trend as of late and can lead to the wrong people getting top billing for the game score even though they were just responsible for the "themes" and not much of the music legwork.

Note to any game devs reading... just because you hire an A list composer... this DOES NOT mean he is doing your music.

Revenge of the Retro Games!

Well,

Figured it wasn't all that professional for me to be posting about the game industry if you don't know what I do within it. So to be fair, here are a couple of pieces of my recent music for you to check out via youtube.

Revenge - Ahhh yes... the tried and true huge choir paired with over the top percussive, ethnic, and string elements to give the listener a sense of awesomeness when viewing trailers. To me, the whole trailer music business is way overblown and all kinda sounds the same... but damn is it a fun type of music to do! I actually have heard trailer music where the choir is saying "Yes! Yes! This is Awesome! You know it is!". Although the choir sounds SO big, that the listener will have no clue and is taken aback by the sheer awesomeness of the music paired with Jerry Bruckheimer's next action opus up on the screen. Ugh, I digress.



Retro Games Orchestrated Volume 1 - Flashback: The Quest For Identity - About two years ago, while sitting in my office at work bored after Stuntman Ignition had shipped (and done poorly), I had a crazy idea. I'm going to take some old school music from some of my favorite games like Flashback, Super Metroid, and Rush N' Attack, orchestrate it, and make it sound as epic and cinematic as possible. So, around 10 of these tracks later... I got the idea to start posting these puppies on youtube and will be posting them here on a regular basis for those interested.

Flashback is one of those SNES games that first grabbed me as a kid. Semi open level design (which feels a hell of a lot like backtracking these days... strange), damn cool music, and a pretty interesting story / mission structure. The game is definitely one of the main reasons I pursued the game industry in the first place so it seemed like a great place to start! I took some pretty basic chiptunage and turned it into an epic score suitable for a film... say, someone should MAKE a flashback film. Now that's a film I'd gladly pay $10 to see on the big screen in 3D!

Lesson #1 - First, the bad news

Every journey has a first step, unfortunately the first step of this journey must start with some bad news. It's not an easy process to get into the game industry... in fact attempting to get into the game industry as a composer is, unfortunately, extremely difficult if not almost impossible. EVERYONE wants to be a famous game composer, the thing is.. game companies won't even really look at you unless you've had previous experience scoring several shipped titles on notable systems like the Xbox 360, DS, or PS3.

So in essence, it's a bit of a paradox. You can't work without experience, and you have to get damn lucky to get said experience. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it takes a lot more luck than skill to break in to this industry. I went to the game developers conference 5 years ago before I had any game experience (and again recently just this last year, more on that in a future post). While waiting in line to give my demo CD and info to THQ I noticed all 15 people in front of me were all prospective composers doing the same thing. The market is saturated folks... there's just no nice way to put it.

Now, on the positive side of things.. there are some steps you can take... which I'll go into nauseating detail about in future posts. Not all is lost if you're willing to fight a small... well I should be honest here... a fairly sizable uphill battle, in the snow, barefoot, with a dull butter knife. Said battle will last no less than two years as it takes time to get your name out there and pester game companies enough to get a job as a freelance composer. Be vigilant my fellow composers, as that is the one thing that seems to pay off when wanting to be freelance in the game audio world!

I plan on doing posting a lesson once every week or two so stay tuned for future tidbits about breaking into the industry.

The Rich Has Landed

If you've found your way to this blog, then you either have an interest in the game industry, games in general, audio for games... or (gasp!), are already a fan of my music.

First things first, a little bit about me and what I plan to talk about here. My name is Rich Douglas, I've worked as a composer and/or sound guy on games for the Xbox 360, the Nintendo DS, and PC. I've been a huge game fan since the days of the atari 2600 and still play Flashback: The Quest For Identity on my SNES at least once a year (more if time permits).

I know there are a TON of you out there who are curious about breaking into the game industry... the industry you'll love to work in and hate at times. Throughout my blog tirades I'll give some tips and tactics in regards to breaking into the game industry and staying competitive. Also, I'll talk about what projects I'm currently working on (be it personal or professional), as well as post you tube links to my music. So that said, take the title of this blog loosely, while I will be giving some advice for all who are interested... I'll also be taking pot shots at the industry as it can be a pretty squirrely place to work at times as well as discussing music in current and games of memories past. If it's game audio / music, it's all fair game here.

Let it be known, I'm certainly not an expert when it comes to game audio... nor have I worked on a ton of amazing games. But I do have 6 solid years of experience paired with 6 shipped titles under my belt so I do have some decent knowledge to share with those of you who are interested. Some of you might be above and beyond the advice I give here... but for those of you who have no clue where to start, this blog is for you!

Over the last year I've been trying to get more gigs, sending out hundreds of emails to game companies all around the world with some success.

This industry is overly competitive
This industry is craziness
This industry is war
This blog covers my trials and tribulations within the industry...

This is Rich VS The Game Industry.