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 :).