🎉 Celebrating 25 Years of GameDev.net! 🎉

Not many can claim 25 years on the Internet! Join us in celebrating this milestone. Learn more about our history, and thank you for being a part of our community!

Composer looking for advise and feedback

Started by
5 comments, last by BCafGun 5 years, 9 months ago

Hi, and in advance sorry for my bad English.

I'm composing 10 years already (but only last 4 years are most active), have 64 tracks in portfolio and works passed with 2 idie-games already, and aimed to be a soundtrack composer.

But faced a serious obstacle: I do not know where and how to offer myself (at least for the expansion of the audience, not to mention trying to make some money) to get a professional job. Here I got through the search, after a friend's recommendation to search for resources of game developers.

There is also a second one: I'm have a growing feel, that somehow my works are not good enough, but I just can not figure it out what exactly is going wrong and how can I fix it.

So, have anyone any ideas or advises about it all?

===

I'm composig in soundtrack genres, game or film kinds. The main element of my style is orchestration with elements of epic but also quite often with electronics and electric guitars. 

If interested, all tracks available here.

Some examples from my works:

1. Currently most fresh one: (Orchestral only)

 

2. Relatively most popular: (epic rock)

 

3. Last from game project: (electronics mostly)

 

4. Typical from my style: (orchestration + electronics + guitars)

5. And from scenical OST-type of compositions: (orchestration + electronics + guitars)

 

In advance: thanks for answers.

Advertisement

I don't really understand what are you asking.

If you feel you work is not good enough, try finding and internship or become someone's "apprentice", find a mentor.

If your problem is with selling yourself. I think the answer is to be more bold. As Dan Pena would say "Pull the ........ trigger"

1 hour ago, waipowrectdeapr1976 said:

If you feel you work is not good enough, try finding and internship or become someone's "apprentice", find a mentor.

If only I could find one who would agree to this. Expecially in my country and town.

Quote

If your problem is with selling yourself. 

Not only with selling but also growing the audience. A simple strategy of self-publishing "wherever possible", for all 4 years, has yielded clearly small results for plays. Not even mention about buyers.

 

1 hour ago, waipowrectdeapr1976 said:

"Pull the ........ trigger"

But what about hitting the target? 

Marketing yourself is a skill. You have to get yourself out there to people who need and want the type of music you're creating. This means you have to do lots of market research, hunt down where devs tend to hang out and then begin to build relationships with them. For example, I don't see a personalized website for your work. I see only website that anyone (and almost everyone) already has for themselves. This is a bad strategy. You need a personalized website that features YOUR brand and then you can use those public things like Youtube, Soundcloud, etc to point back to your branded website. 

I've listened to a few bits and pieces of your music and it's certainly good enough for devs to want to use it. So this makes me suspect that it's more about how and where you're marketing and branding yourself. Take this thread for example - instead of linking full tracks - why not create a sampler video that highlights the best sections of those pieces? Package things up into a nice demo reel that gives an overview of you as an artist. 

People don't tend to spend a ton of time online, browsing demo reels. They just don't. So you need to do some intense study on how to best get your stuff in front of the right people or groups and then make a strong enough impact that they will want to seek YOU out! 

Also consider taking Skype mentoring lessons. If nobody is local to you then seek out some pros you respect and see if they'll do a lesson or two with you directly via one-on-one. I hope that helps! 

Nathan Madsen
Nate (AT) MadsenStudios (DOT) Com
Composer-Sound Designer
Madsen Studios
Austin, TX

9 hours ago, nsmadsen said:

Also consider taking Skype mentoring lessons. If nobody is local to you then seek out some pros you respect and see if they'll do a lesson or two with you directly via one-on-one. I hope that helps!

Berklee has online courses that relates to game music and middleware. It's not cheap, but I think it's better than those off-line video couses like in Udemy for example. My friend has attended a few classes and he is happy about them. He said it worth the investment.

I considerred myself an amature in the audio area. So, please take my comments with a grain of salt....

I've listened through all of the tracks you've posted above. I think, they sounds fine. Certainly indie developers might have some use of them. However I find that they sounds like all instruments are from a sound module. It feels a bit flat (non-eq wise. It's a bit hard to describe...). My suggestion is, you might want to look more into mixing and mastering process.

Also I find that adding some more real instruments, or very authetic sounding virtual instrument, will make the song feels more real. For instance, you might want to add an actual electric guitar (with a decent effect processor or plugin), and maybe Toontrack EZ Drummer for drums (which i think it's good enough for smaller production). This comes with cost, of courses, so you'd have to consider it whether or not it's worth your money....  

http://9tawan.net/en/

Quote

You need a personalized website that features YOUR brand and then you can use those public things like Youtube, Soundcloud, etc to point back to your branded website. 

 Thats interesting idea, thanks. I will try it.

But then I guess i will need someone who'll properly translate to English (otherwise some visitors may not stand my Russian accent :) ), and especially the web-designer.

23 hours ago, nsmadsen said:

I've listened to a few bits and pieces of your music and it's certainly good enough for devs to want to use it. So this makes me suspect that it's more about how and where you're marketing and branding yourself.

Thanks. Yeah, exatly. I found myself a complete amateur in self-promotion. 

 

23 hours ago, nsmadsen said:

why not create a sampler video that highlights the best sections of those pieces?

Oh... I never even heard about that...

You mean, video sampler with short fragments?

Okay, will do it as soon as possible.

14 hours ago, mr_tawan said:

Also I find that adding some more real instruments, or very authetic sounding virtual instrument, will make the song feels more real.

Currently, I often use a synthesizer.

I also want to use live electric guitars one day (even already have one). But I need to learn how to play them first.

Quote

I've listened through all of the tracks you've posted above. I think, they sounds fine. Certainly indie developers might have some use of them. However I find that they sounds like all instruments are from a sound module. It feels a bit flat (non-eq wise. It's a bit hard to describe...). My suggestion is, you might want to look more into mixing and mastering process.

Thanks.

Yes, sound processing is still difficult for me. I'm constantly looking for information and practice, I have all the frequency tables and a bunch of instructions and manuals. But all of this clearly does not help to get closer to understanding the process, without which it is impossible to solve each individual case.

This topic is closed to new replies.

Advertisement