Nutritious

To answer your questions, yes, there generally is a decent amount of interest generated here whenever developers offer paid music & audio work. I'm not sure competitions would the right approach for an indie project, however. In the past, developers have tended to either posted to solicit artists' portfolios or have posted examples of gameplay and asked artists to create audio content based on it. Whatever you choose to pursue, I'd would advise that you post as much information as possible regarding the game, where you are in the development cycle, specific details on compensation (if you're not sure, it may help to do some research on going rates), links to songs or styles similar to what you're looking for (if applicable), etc.

From Dec 20 to Jan 5, Square Enix iOS games are on sale for aroud 50% off. I picked up Secret of Mana the other day for something like $4. I've been wanting this game forever and it's an excellent port - looks gorgeous. They also have other ports like FFI-FFV, FF:T, etc included.

Yeah, Larry & Andrew nailed this one. I really enjoyed the accordian performance, which is spot on. The weakness comes in the kit and lack of sufficient support for the accordian lead. Definitely take the above crits into consideration and bring this one back! NO resubmit, please

Yeah, that intro is quite grating. The headphones I'm using right now don't get fantastic high end freq response and this is still a bit much for me at normal volume levels. Arrangement certainly is creative. I do see what Andrew's saying about the source content and the glitchy effected parts seeming to be separate or disjointed. I ran roll with it as a stylistic choice, because it didn't come off to me as situation (as some do in the past) where source material just sounds pasted-on. Kinda wish we could have a version without some of the piercing freqs - assuming this passes perhaps it could be requested. Yeah so, it's weird, different, but cool. YES

Excellent votes by Vinnie and Andrew above. They really touched on everything I'd want to cover. I'll just add that you've got a good bass here and cool ideas, but more development and better balance will help a ton. NO resubmit, please

Really beautiful work here. I'm jelly of your orchestral work . Arrangement is handled nicely. I like the slow building approach. I did something similar in my ff5 fireship mix, but this one is better . Very good dynamics and sequencing here. Minor issue: Transition at 1:36 sounded a bit weird with the sudden cut off of the rolling cymbal and other instruments. I'm guessing it was intentional, but it still sounded unnatural to me for a predominantely orchestral track. Excellent. Yes

Congrats and welcome to the club

Yeah, cheesy title, but the track is hawt when it all kicks in. Gonna third the issues mentioned on the rhodes. I'll add that I thought the lead that came in at :47 felt kinda weak with the powerful beat & bass synth background it was up against. May be a personal preference, but I would've liked to hear something with more powah. Great arrangement for sure. Source is all over the place, but always used in a creative way. Nice touch with stuff like the swirl-type effect at 1:37. There is a ton of attention to detail like this throughout the track with keep it fresh and interesting. Ending was a bit sudden, but otherwise it sounds really polished. Excellent work. AWW YEAH

Yeah, I'm on the same boat with DS & OA. It's a nicely performed cover (though somewhat loose at times), but there isn't much development of the source beyond changing the backing pattern or doubling the melody. I'm a little surprised at Larry's nod here I'd recommend seeing if you can squeeze more content creatively out of this source or take up Shariq's suggestion and look into incorporating another source. NO resubmit, please

Yeah, I'm leaning more in Andrew's direction here. Arrangement is solid for sure. But man, this mix is really loud - especially the kick. As mentioned, the piano lead has a very dull tone that tends to get buried. Clutter is a big factor as well. Nice breakdown at 1:06, but the saw lead is buried under a ton of reverb, which is causing a lot of mud and washing out the lead. I like the effect, so I wouldn't take it too far into the other direction, just scale back the wetness a bit. Cool, creative high-energy mix. Would like to hear some production cleanup, though. NO resubmit, please

Thanks for the comments, guys. It's been a really fun project. Hah, I doubt I'm any more handy than you in this regard. I really haven't tried anything like this before. The biggest thing I learned, I think, was not to underestimate myself and assume something like this is too difficult to do. I'd just advise lots of thinking and planning before hand as well as measuring 2 and 3 times before doing anything. By the way, I didn't mention it above to avoid making the post too lengthly, but I did make some mistakes and errors along the way. Initially, the legs of the shelf were 3.5" taller than shown above. I only realized it was too tall after putting the monitors on it and realizing how high they would be. I didn't want to pull the whole thing apart, though, so I literally stood the whole thing on the side of a workbench and used a circular saw to cut each leg down. Definitely not a recommended way to accomplish this, FYI. Another lesson learned is that you need to be pretty precise when drilling the holes for the keyboard tray. If they're at all off-center, the tray will slide out unevenly or will be difficult to slide in and out at all. I had to make some minor adjustments in this regard after initially attaching it. It was really my fault because, while I had my wife help me mark the spots for each hole while I held the shelf, I later drilled the holes and screwed the tray in alone, which probably indroduced some margin for error.

Hey everyone. I recently moved to a new house locally in town, which provided a very nice dedicated office space for my studio (pic below). It has an L-shapde built-in desk with drawer space as well. I initally set up my studio to have the computer input & audio/video monitors on the left and full-sized synth keyboard on the right. After working this way for a while, I decided I didn't like the setup and endeavored to improve it. This thread is to document/share my project for anyone curious or even interested in some DIY studio improvement themselves. Without further ado, on to business. Initial studio setup: After a little time working this way, I came to the conclusion that I wanted my synth keyboard in front of me while composing as I had previously. Not having any sort of elevation to utilize on the desk, I decided to build a simple shelf that would fit over the keyboard (a full size 88-key unit) to hold my video & audio monitors. Materials needed: wood, black spraypaint, nails, 4 metal brackets, & self-adhesive felt pads. Total cost ~$35. At my local hardware store, they sell 1x12 boards, which is a perfect depth for my purposes. They even will cut it down in the store, so I just gave them the dimensions and they took care of all the cutting. Once home, I nailed the two shelf legs to the shelf & spray painted both sides black. After it cured, I attached two metal brackets on each side for stability & the self-adhesive felt pads on the bottom of the legs so it will move freely on the desktop without scratching. The desk space on the right side of my office is the larger side, so I decided that would be the best side to use. I moved my computer tower and mixer to the right side of the setup (all the outlets in this room are above the desktop and I didn't want to drill big holes into the desktop to snake cords through). Then, hooked the audio & video montiors up on top of the shelf. The only issue at this point was that the desk isn't deep enough to accommodate both synth keyboard & keyboard and mouse. The obvious solution was a keyboard tray, however, since I utilize a mouse, keyboard & gamepad in my music production process, it was difficult to find anything wide enough to handle all three. Also, anything approaching decent quality was anywhere between $100 - $300. That said, I did some online research and found keyboard tray hardware to do it myself. Materials needed: Keyboard tray hardware, wood, spray paint (bought). Total cost ~$28. This time I opted for fiberboard. Again I had them cut it to the correct dimensions (16" deep for the hardware, 34" wide to allow space for all 3 components). Once home, I spray painted the fiberboard and attached the hardware to the sides. The hardest part was mounting it to the bottom of the desktop, but with some help from my wife, it wasn't too bad. The hardware itself allows for a customizable height, however, even at the most spacious (lowest) setting, while sliding the tray in my mouse is brushing against the front of the desk due to trim installed at the edge of the desk that comes down about 5/8" from the buttom of the desktop. Sliding the mouse off the mousepad before closing fixes that issue, though. Tray mounting with some support help from a rolling file drawer: Once the tray was installed, I drilled a 5/8" hole in the desk to allow me to snake the mouse and keypad cords to the desktop from below. One added bonus to this process was I realized that the rolling file drawer is a perfect height & dimension to hold my APC20 clip launcher, so now I can wheel that around whenever I want to perform something live. With a bit of cleanup, the finished product: That done, I have a couple future projects/needs that are still in the works. Due to the monitor shelf casting a shadow on part of the synth keyboard, I'm planning on rigging some cold cathode lights to the bottom of the shelf that I can turn on to illuminate the workspace. Also, I plan on getting a boom stand to allow me to use my mic without having to shift around the space. That's it for now. I hope this is helpful/inspiring for anyone interested in making your studio space truly your own.

Thanks for making this thread and sharing your experience. It definitely can inspire others in similar situations. I wasn't actually planning on posting here, but one of my past experiences just popped into my mind so I thought I'd share. It was my senior year in high school and I was the first chair saxophone player in band. Our band competed with others in regionals and state competitions near the end of the year, but it was also an option for members to compete as soloists. Now, in order to qualify to compete at the state level, you had to get a "1" (superior) rating at regionals. I hadn't tried soloing before, but I decided to go for it for my last year in band. By my senior year, I was quite confident in my abilities. I practiced my song quite a lot and had the piece solidly memorized. You had to have an accompanist to perform with you, so I'd been fortunate to get a local piano teacher to play the supporting piano part. When my turn at regionals came along I did pretty well. I was a little shaky a parts, but I managed to get a 1 rating. The judge wrote in my scoring card that he was going to give me the opportunity to go to state, but let me know that he expected me to practice more and perform better. So, leading up to state, I did practice as much as my schedule allowed. When the time came, those of us in the band who qualified for state traveled together to the competition. It was an all-day event, and myself and one other girl were scheduled to perform near the very end of the day. Her turn was a couple of slots ahead of mine. I actually wasn't nervous at this point, but leading up to her turn, she was extremely anxious - like near hysterics, shaking, etc. I did my best to calm her down and encourage her up until it was her turn to go. Then she got up to go in to perform and someone made a comment to the effect of "get ready, it's almost your turn". At that moment it hit me: I was about to go in and I'd been so wrapped up in helping her I hadn't mentally prepared myself at all. All of the sudden, I'm hit with a massive amount of anxiety and nervousness; along with the stomach tightening/butterflies feeling as well. I tried to calm myself down, but couldn't seem to get control of the feeling. My turn came and I walked in to perform. I remember my pianist was rushing from another performance and got there right in time to quickly set up and play, which didn't help my anxitey. I stood up and announced my piece, then took my first breath to start playing when I realized something - I couldn't breathe normally. Literally, I physically could not take a full breath, only small, shallow breaths. So, throughout the entire piece I was fighting to force myself to get more air but simply couldn't do it. Now, you decide ahead of time which points in the song to inhale as to not disrupt the flow of certain sections, but I'm sure I threw that completely out the window just trying to get enough air to support the sound. Fortunately, I had the song so well memorized, that I was pretty much on autopilot on that front. Now, at the end of the song, the piano part has this really difficult, discordant part that the teacher always had trouble with. She told me to just play through my part no matter what happens with her. Not helping matters, she crashed and burned the end section of the piece during the state performance. I have no idea how it sounded, but I was able to just play my part straight through it and finished. I was super relieved to have it all done and almost immediately I was able to breathe normally again. I remember my friend, who was second chair sax player under me, telling me that I did well but internally he was thinking "just breathe! take a breath!". So, it must have been clear what I was struggling with. In my turmoil while playing, I really didn't know how well I actually performed the piece. We didn't find out our scores until later (and since I was at the end of the day, would have to wait until we got back to school). To my shock, I received another 1 (superior) rating. No mention was given by the judge about my breathing, but only praise for my performance. I don't know if he was just being nice or I really did well despite what happened (or he didn't notice), but It was a super proud moment for me. Even though the experience was pretty horrible, it was great to have validation for the work I'd put into it. That whole experience is really weird for me, because I DON'T normally experience undue anxiety or nervousness. I performed on stage for several different types of events, gave public speeches, etc without ever having anything remotely close to the above occur. So, yeah, I really believe this can happen to ANYONE. I hope anyone struggling with this finds encouragement here.

I've used a Samson CO1U usb condenser mic for a few years now and have been very pleased with it. I got it at the time due to budget issues (cheaper than buying a decent xlr mic + preamp). I've gotten good results with both vocals and saxophone recording. I have a mixer now with decicated preamps, so if I was to buy a mic today, I'd probably go with a traditional xlr one due to the aforementioned latency issues.

FYI, posted a near complete WIP for Weapons Factory in the subforums. Stole Flex's idea to live stream the arrangement process, which forced me to make rapid progress. Win-win!

Ok, I'm remembering this track from last time. Let's check the revision. I complimented the arrangement last time and it remains strong here. Balance is sounding improved here for sure. The violin lead sounds MUCH better integrated into the piece now. Nice drumwork overall. In some sections (ex. 2:36 - 2:57) the cymbal use was really repetative, which got a little annoying after a while. I noticed you varied them much better in other sections, so this was probably just an oversight. Had some crowded sections to watch out for like 3:36 & 4:38. The transition is a bit abrupt, but I'm loving the breakdown at 3:41 with that oh so smooth guitar. Transition at 3:55 also felt somewhat sudden. Attention to transitions is one of those details worth keeping in mind for the future. Huh? Odd cymbal cut off at :52. I heard it again at 1:46, which sounds like he's going for a hand-muted (whatever it's called) effect where the drummer grabs the cymbal after hitting it. It sounds fine at 1:46, but not good at :52. May want to see if he wants to fix :52 assuming this passes. Some stuff to keep in mind for the future, but this is a really solid track. Looking forward to hearing more from you guys in the future. YES

Production is clear and well balanced. Nice work overall in this regard. I don't normally like sampled voice clips in mixes, but it was well integrated here and brought some humor into the mix. Arrangement-wise, this is sitting pretty close to cover territory: similar style, same key, same melodic/rhythmic patterns, similar general progression, even similar sounding (if more effected) synths. This, coupled with the repetition issues mentioned in above votes is really hampering this mix. So yeah, production is clicking well, but this needs a healthy dose of personalization and less repetition before I'm comfortable passing it. Good luck to you. NO resubmit, please

Not gonna go into too much detail rehashing what's already been said. This does have some mixing issues thoughout - lead guitar too loud, 1:03 synth loud/muddy in low-mids, muddy piano tone yet bright overall mix, minor clutter at places. Still, I didn't hear anything major enough to push this into NO territory in my opinion. Close for sure, but I can roll. YES

Nice, chill intro. You've got my attention. I can hear some complaints about piano stiffness, but you've done a good job masking it with effects. I don't think it's as much an issue of not having velocity variation as perhaps the sample lacking different timbres for different velocity levels. What's here is just fine with me, though. Groove really compliments the track nicely here. Pretty unassuming, but complex enough to keep it interesting. The little beep sequence is a nice touch, just be careful not to go overboard it with . Drums at 2:47 felt like a weak point. The multiple snare hit pattern exposed the fakiness of a sample lacking round-robin sampling. Guitar section sounds like it extended the mileage of a track quite a bit from what would've been possible otherwise, so nice touch. Arrangement-wise, clear connections to both sources, yet tasteful personalization as well. Solid track. Very enjoyable. Nice work dude. YES

Gonna echo the sentiments of my fellow j's here. Drums could certainly use variation and having some of the melodic elements brought to the foreground would certainly help this. Right now they're a little too much like background noise/effects. It's certainly not a wreck, but there's room for improvement. NO resubmit, please

Yeah, it's pretty apparent that this has some big mixing issues early on, which only get worse as the track develops. That said, I love the concept of the track and the style you're going for here. The drop at 1:50 was hot. Love that. 4:08 too. I'd argue that the AA connection really starts at 1:50 with the brass lead playing a simplified version of the OST melody. Beyond that, it's still pretty liberal for the first half. As mentioned, the fakiness of the sequencing on elements like the sax lead bring this one down as well. Personally, I'd just like to hear a good nuanced synth lead instead, but that's just me . I really want to hear a cleaned-up, tuned-up version of this, because it's got some great ideas. NO resubmit, please

Man, I'm way on the fence on this. Arrangement spends a lot of time in cover territory until the soloing comes in. On this count, I think there's just enough personization to justify passing on arrangement criteria. The rhythm guitars are really getting buried in the mix, while the strings are taking more than their fair share of sonic space. Pull them back and maybe roll down some of their low-mids. Drums didn't bother me quite as much as the others, I think, but I'd agree the core pattern does get repetative after a while. Loving the solos. Great ending as well. I can hear how this one could go either way for sure. There's room for improvement in both arrangement and production, but what's here is also quite good. Which is why I'm going: YES (borderline) Good luck with the rest of the vote. In the event it doesn't pass, here's hoping you guys can tighten it up and send it back.

Yeah, I'm also not feeling this one as much. The tone on the beats came off as somewhat flimsy and the synths (especially the bass synth doubling the melody) are overpowering the other elements. Despite the loud synths, much of the track comes off as empty sounding due to relatively simplistic writing for much of the track. Far string stab panning in both directions at 1:46 is a little disorienting on headphones. Transitions like 2:14 sort of fell flat for what they were trying to accomplish IMO. Solid idea, but you've got to build stronger to moments like that so the sudden synth solo has a more distinct effect, then it needs to hit harder coming out of it. Lots of detail for a single example, but I think working on the transitions in general would be helpful for you. Arrangment-wise, this is mostly focused on the melody line with additive sections and effects around it. By the end, I feel like I've heard the same theme way too many times without something new and/or meaningful to justify the repetition. On the positive side, there is some cool synth work here for sure. String breakdown was a good idea to get away from the main theme for a while. I think this could turn into a very cool dnb track with some TLC. NO Resubmit, please

Pretty hot production, ESPECIALLY for using default FL sounds. Still, I'm pretty familiar with the Starcraft soundtrack and I'm having a really hard time making out the connections. Much <3 Michael. NO

Great crits here from my fellow J's. Definitely look at varying up your drum patterns in the non-break sections, as the pattern (esp hihat) is pretty repetative. Kick could use some more presence as I can hardly make it out in the louder sections. 2:23 is getting quite crowded with the additional elements on top of the existing parts. Overall, the track actually sounded a bit on the loud side to me, which may partially explain the lack of headroom at 2:23, but I think it's more the writing that's the issue. Guitars sounded a bit loud to me for the mix, so backing them off may help them gel more with the mix as Larry was alluding to. You've got a solid base here, keep at it. NO resubmit, please