AngelCityOutlaw

Music is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. You have to force yourself to compose and keep chipping away until it's done. "Done" is basically whenever you decide it is. One thing that can definitely help on the "inspiration" side of things though, is to write music that serves a purpose. Like, take some footage from a film, game or TV show and write your own music to it. Find a picture and compose a piece that fits with that etc.

I was inspired a few weeks ago to compose some music after watching Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. After finishing the tune, I decided it would be cool to enlist the help of Timaeus, who added some additional sound effects as well as mixed and mastered the thing. Personally, I think it turned out great. https://soundcloud.com/angelcityoutlaw/lost-in-the-woods

Glad you liked it! There is no guitar, though there are some guitar style effects on the piano such as some distortion and a little bit of a talkbox.

Thanks, man! Yeah, I'm writing a lot more music in this kind of style. As you found out with the track I sent you, I've been doin' more film-score orchestra type stuff.

I spent the past couple hours or so transcribing Poison's theme from Street Fighter and I have some ideas for a remix of it. If you want I can go ahead and try to make a WIP so you can see if you think it will be good enough. EDIT: Or maybe not, since Neblix is doing Street Fighter.

Thanks for tuning in! Yeah, lots more of that type of stuff coming and longer tracks too.

Some new orchestra/movie sounding stuff. https://soundcloud.com/angelcityoutlaw/a-guiding-light

The drums are a little overpowering. The other sounds seem quiet by comparison. Aside from the levels, the tune is rather repetitive. Do you intend to include more melody or rapping over it? Also, this is pretty much just personal taste, but I'm not really a fan of the old school synth tones and I feel like there is a clash in harmony with the two notes at around 38 seconds? I don't know, maybe it's just the sounds themselves, but something definitely feels off there.

This is really pissing me off, and I can't seem to find the solution via google. For some reason, Reaper will only display video from one file I have. An MP4. Yet, any other video file will only play audio and no video despite sharing the same properties as far as I can tell. I do have the proper video codec things installed as well. Anyone know of a solution to this?

Well, for something like E3 you basically have to be established and be able to verify your professional connection to the industry to attend. What I mean is just find out what's goin' on in your area as far as video game developers go. Is there some kind of indie or even major events that go on in your area where these people go and the public can attend? The answer is usually "yes", you just gotta do some digging and maybe travel a little bit. Something that's cool is the IGDA, which has chapters all around the world and it's basically where local indie devs get together and network. Thing about it though, is that one person is in charge of their respective chapter, so not every chapter is super active and meets up regularly. Video game themed concerts and tournaments are another worthwhile thing to check out, because often professionals in the industry are in attendance. Doing the same things, just with the film-making community, is how I recently got a paid gig composing music for an action short-film. Even with networking, it's hard to get a gig, but I find that if you go out there and make friends (don't sound like a salesman in dire need of work) and take a genuine interest in their work, they'll usually take a genuine interest in your work as well.

Here ya go, it's a list of indie-game development forums http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-indie-game-development-forums/ Honestly though, if I may offer some tips... If you want to do serious composition work, I would avoid forums as much as possible. A far better approach is to actually go out there and network with developers at industry events, IGDA meetings, or getting in touch with local developers. I have only gotten one serious composition gig via an indie forum. 9 times out of ten, you're just going to get people who want you to work for nothing or will "profit-share" with you or more likely, tell you there is no budget but you should do it for the "exposure" on their game which has no marketing budget either and almost certainly will never be finished. Best of luck, though!

*facepalm* I totally forgot for a second that there are other versions of it.

Definitely give Reaper a spin. Cubase is also good. I've tried all the major DAWs except for Logic at this point and Reaper and Cubase are definitely my favorites for composing music. However, I didn't want to spend the 500 or whatever on Cubase since Reaper is basically free and the full license is like sixty bucks. It is also a very similar program. I recommend those two because I have like...no complaints about either of them.

Shinobi. ..........

Well, finally got it working. They had to directly put the license onto the ilok as the code was no good at all.

Yeah, arranging is more like "arranging" smoke on the water to be played by a string quartet.

Honestly, I think the elitism, not just with loops, stems from the availability of software DAWs. Most people are now making music in an environment where every part of the music process can be done. You can compose with MIDI, orchestrate and arrange, record audio, mix and master all in the same place. This has created the mindset of "I have to do it myself or I'm not worthy." Not too long ago, it didn't work that way. If you composed, a keyboard/guitar, sheet music or a basic MIDI sequencer was just about the only way to do it. Few composers would actually hear their pieces played back by anything resembling something more than a piano before MIDI and Virtual instruments showed up less than 40 years ago. Not many people could afford to go to a professional studio and record their compositions as well as have them mixed and mastered. Now, you can do all of this from your home! Except that what most people don't realize, and this is why, in combination with the interwebs, there is a greater abundance of shitty music - is that most people simply don't have the skill to do it all on their own. An example would be that I recently was telling a guy about how I'm writing some music that I'm going to get professionally mixed and mastered. He was like "You're not going to mix and master it yourself!?" Like, he was genuinely shocked. No, no I'm not. I possess neither the proper environment, equipment, perfect ears and experience to make my music have the kind of production polish I want. So therefore, I will hire someone I trust who DOES have all of the aforementioned things so that I can get my music sounding the way I want without having to invest another who-knows how much money and years off my life learning how to do it on my own. I write music - I know what notes go together and how to write a catchy tune and I like to think I ain't half bad at it. I'm not an audio engineer, I could not orchestrate as well as a professional orchestrator and I definitely couldn't conduct a freakin' orchestra. I also can't sing, nor do I know personally any singers who are up to the task of doing vocals for my music. So if I wanna use a god damned vocal loop because I want vocals in my composition, you better believe I will use one.

I'd wager less than one more, personally.

That didn't work either, unfortunately. Tech Support got back to me with an email telling me to do every single step I already told them I did lol. So I sent an email about the license problem to the email specifically for licensing. I've been able to work around the installation problem, but I'd wager my code is a dud.

Never understood the hate for that soundtrack. It's amazing.

I removed everything from my computer and tried re-installing again the manual way. This time, I can get the play engine to actually recognize the RA libraries, but it tells me my code isn't valid. I did send East West an email. This is just bullshit on an apocalyptic scale.