AngelCityOutlaw

Sounds good to me that it sounds good to you! I rather like that you rather like this! There was no inspiration. I just wrote the track and afterward, when I was trying to come up with a name for it, I thought it kinda sounded like the start to some great adventure. Maybe an RPG game like Fire Emblem. I posted a link to it in the video description. I think it's just a digital painting someone made, possibly inspired by Shogun: Total War?

It's official https://globalnews.ca/news/4279894/video-game-addiction-gaming-disorder-mental-health/

I strongly recommend that you watch Alex Ball's new guide on using a virtual orchestra. It's a bit long, clocking in at 50 minutes, but trust me: There isn't a more clear, comprehensive video on the internet regarding this subject. As he discusses at one point, the orchestral flourishes that are difficult or impossible with multisamples are essential to composing music like this; reminiscent of the Romantic Era and "The Golden Age" of film scoring. He even recommends libraries specifically dedicated to this task.

Five years ago, there were dozens of members online just about round the clock, and conversations happened real-time in the majority of threads in community. Now, I've seen a week or maybe more go by before a new reply is added to the last-active thread.

That's called a "run". It is a fast scalar "run" as the name implies. Many modern sample libraries contain either run simulators for strings and winds or pre-recorded runs. You can create your own run simulation by playing a fast scale with a mix of staccato notes and half-trill samples. Be sure the the timing is fairly messy as no one can play that precisely. Ultimately though, a pre-recorded run will sound most realistic.

An RPG, fantasy "prologue" type of tune I composed =)

I didn't suggest it was a bad idea I agreed with John Projects here generally fall into point 4.

Well, it's the most controversial point you made lol Everything else is pretty much nail-on-the-head and tough to disagree with. But I suppose I could add another: I know that when you say "reward" and such, you mean as in some non-monetary benefit that can help you further your career. But I think this is something to be careful with for anyone who has professional aspirations: There is little point in pursuing a career if money is of no concern. Musicians are very good at rationalizing failures that provide real, tangible "rewards" (most often money) or hitting real career milestones by substituting them with subjective things; they act like everything is just A-Okay even when it isn't. Many musicians work in dead-end jobs they hate because they offer easy exit strategies and time for their musical pursuits, but don't provide much money or personal fulfillment. Further, a lot of their money is re-invested into music anyway. When days, months, weeks, years start to go buy without a gig and you're pulling extra shifts at that crappy day job...shit gets real depressing, real fast. "But it's all good, fam! I'm real proud of my latest album and I'm up to 600 soundcloud followers! Success haha! .. .. .. .. This is just the complete opposite of how any smart businessman thinks. A restaurant knows its successful when it's turning a profit and its tables are full. All the positive Yelp reviews in the world aren't going to matter when your rent, loans, payroll, bills, etc. are due.

I don't really see what the point would be in a separate community. There is already a sub-forum for recruit and collaboration in which you can find musicians. Plenty of talented instrumentalists have performed on remixes for free, so you'd have to be damn good for someone to consider using a paid alternative. I also don't see why anyone would want to pay a musician for a cover tune from which they derive no benefit other than personal satisfaction. OCReMixes promote OCR, are free advertising for the game being covered, and with the monetization on YouTube as I understand it, contributes to keeping OCR going and possibly some to the copyright holder as well. I just can't see such a service being successful here; especially not when the forum activity has become so low.

Melodies by themselves imply chord changes by the chord tones that are present in them. Polyphonic, contrapuntal textures still imply harmonic progressions without ever actually playing a "chord". The two are not as separable as many may think. But to say that starting with the melody is dumb, is to say that composers like Bach were also dumb.

1) You can get a lot of plays on remixes and be very popular for that, but no one bothers listening to your original music. That's something many people here have always said. 2) Lot of popular YouTubers doing mockups and such of famous pieces, like Ahston Gleckman. Generally speaking, suffers the same drawback as point 1. 3) Nay, is my vote. 4) I'd consider reaching out to some such channels to see if they'd feature your tune in a playlist. I've even seen composers who weren't asked for permission thank the channels for sharing it anyway.

There were years before that

Hey I got this weird issue with the kontakt player and cinesamples that even cinesamples themselves couldn't seem to figure out, but I figure that doesn't mean someone else out there might not know. Ever since I got their 1.7 update for CineBrass, the Kontakt Player will not play back certain samples in Cinebrass despite no missing samples being detected doing "batch resaves" or whatever they're called and the player shows that the samples have all been loaded into RAM correctly. Like, if I switch off the default microphone position, it makes no sound whatsoever. I tried purging all the samples, and then playing the MIDI controller, and kontakt shows the samples are being loaded in real time as normal, but still no sound. I've checked, and nothing muted is to be found anywhere; hardware or software. Further, while I do get sound using the "articulations" patch velocity, using the sustain pedal to trigger sustained articulations also doesn't work and produces silence. V 1.6 doesn't have this issue, but obviously I'd like to use 1.7 This problem doesn't affect any other library I own, and I've tried reinstalling everything, etc. to no avail. Very strange. Any tips are appreciated!

I don't see how I'm over-reacting to anything nor am I "antagonizing" anyone. You though, are quick to over-react and be like "you're over-reacting and being hostile" to me fairly often over nothing, dude. Though to be fair, my wording may not have been the best. As in my post, I actually didn't even accuse him specifically of being an elitist, rather I'm talking about elitism among jazz and classical musicians and teachers (which in my experience is pretty common) and saying that the statement of "You think 'mainstream' music is what music is" which he did effectively say, is something that elitists do say. The short version of my point is: There's no sense expressing disdain toward students knowing music by something you don't necessarily hold in high regard, when the stuff you are going to be teaching them is still relevant to them. A point he went on to make after that very sentence! I have agreed with his point that education should be of a higher standard, 100%. Like I said, your opening statement typically goes with the assumption that it's inferior. My rebuttal to this part of you post is essentially "Yeah, obviously" The rest of my rant was about the people who hate anything that doesn't adhere to these rigid standards of classical and jazz. I wrongly assumed that I was clear by referring to such as "these people" and not saying things like "you". My bad.

This is an absurd complaint and goes with the assumption that the amorphous "pop music" is inherently inferior. Obviously, especially where young people are concerned, they are going to know music by what their primary exposure to it is. For me it was 90s country music and 80s rock bands. Now, I mostly write orchestral stuff whereby I'm most influenced by composers like Williams or Goldsmith. Now here's where you see how nuts this starts to get: Plenty of people hate modern trailer and film music because it's significantly dumbed-down compared to Williams or Silverstri. But lots of people shit on Williams for not being enough like composers that lived and died a hundred years before him, and plenty of people yet shit on film/tv/game music altogether, and for the same reasons. Classical and Jazz elitists base their criteria for "good" or bad on how much it employs specific composition techniques for a previous time period. Now, this isn't to say the "pop" world hasn't seen a pretty serious decline in skill of the most basic level; hell, most of the "trailer" composers couldn't compose a string quartet that wouldn't be an incredibly boring "chord in left hand, melody in right" keyboard-style piece. Is this music of a greatly-lowered standard for composers? Yes. Should we expect that aspiring professionals should have great respect for the craft and be able to do more than this? Yes. Are people wrong for liking or wanting to make that kind of music regardless? No, but that hasn't stopped people from saying that trailer composers should be sent to literal death camps. What these people don't realize, is that these musical devices they love so much and associate with classical or jazz are not limited to those genres. Plenty of 90s and early 2000s pop music like Girls Aloud actually had some great counterpoint among the singers, and even more impressive in old video games. But is that good enough? No. It has to be a fugue or follow every 18-century part-writing rule to perfection or else it's shit.

The way I see it, streaming is the best option that could exist for the consumer. It's legal, it's affordable, it gives you access to all the music you could want. The issue is that you can never count on the corporate suits to pay a fair share, even if they can keep their operating costs to a minimum. I had some tapes from the radio, too. I also have a lot of tapes from stores that I still listen to. Mostly these ones at the moment. =D

Well, to a certain extent it has been. It doesn't generally cost you anything beyond your power bill and the initial cost of the radio to turn on your radio and listen to music without paying a cent. There have always been street performers who may or may not earn tips and historically, a lot of music was at the church where, beyond the collection bowl, there wasn't any real payment required to listen to the music. But what's changed is that now you can listen to just about any piece of music you want, at any time, without paying a cent thanks to YouTube and Spotify. There are also entire live DVDs and cellphone footage uploaded to YouTube which somehow escape copyright claims. In the past, you could only tape some performance if it was on TV or phone in and request songs at radio stations to make your own mixtapes. But that took a lot more effort than just going out and paying 20 bucks for the album and you HAD to pay to experience the concert. Nice. I've thought about doing more remixes, but I just can't find anything that I'd want to do except original tunes.

This is taking me back to my years of listening to Dream Theater, Circus Maximus and Anubis Gate. Well done.

Holy shitballs I haven't seen you post in years.

The simple way of putting it is that men date across and down, while women date across and up. So yes, if you can meet a woman with the same kind of career aspirations, then it's probably a strength. But generally speaking, most people aren't working toward such high-risk careers despite said careers still being saturated. I'd say that's a fair assessment. I think when you hit a certain extreme of wealth and fame,everybody will only date similar people. Like, Brad Pitt could have any woman he likes right? Except he seems to only ever date other celebs. I assume because he'd have basically nothing in common with a "commoner". No, but it is odd lol It won't let me read that article, but I can say that if you look at it just in general, it's an even split, but areas of interest are disproportionate and depends on geography. In North America, there are far fewer female composers than somewhere like Japan. On the flipside, we tend to have a lot of female pop and country singers. Anyway, regarding the OP, I don't think there's much else to be said IMO. Fields that once could be lucrative like albums and touring have becoming unreliable means of pulling in serious cash unless you really kill yourself with it. There is still, and may always be, good money in composing for films or TV at the highest level, but the market is extremely tough to break into, is a pretty elite boy's club, and involves a lot of luck. The amount of teaching positions is also a case of supply exceeding demand and I don't think teaching is a job for everyone to begin with. It takes a specific type of person to make a good teacher. Writing music for trailers and production libraries could also be lucrative, but again largely boils down to luck since you can't MAKE a certain track(s) get tons of syncs in big-time ads. There's also the possibility of becoming a session musician (though I suspect that's becoming very rare) or playing in orchestras that record film and game music, but no doubt that's also a highly saturated business.

You did, but I suppose I should elaborate. The person I'm talking about when I responded to your post also missed out on his child's first steps and words because playing a ridiculous amount of shows, always being on the road, was the only way it was feasible to feed himself and his young family with it. That kind of lifestyle doesn't seem so bad when you're 16 - 25. Afterwards, it gets to be way too much for most. Should be, but it isn't. I know a lot of the younger "I'm studying liberal arts in college and I know everything" crowd will call for my head for it, but it's a double standard that will probably always be around. Men don't care if their girlfriends/wives work at Starbucks forever. The number of women who, even today, are still housewives by choice while their husband goes out and works, with both parties being fine with that arrangement, is all the proof you need. Women of all shapes and sizes, not just gold diggers, want a mate who has it all and feel like they're "settling" if they get less. They want tall, successful men with full heads of hair well into middle age. Preferably forever. Obviously, there are exceptions, but they are just that — exceptions and we can't ALL get what we WANT. Without going too off-topic, evolutionary biologists and psychologists have studied this behavior in the females of various species for years and it makes perfect sense why women would be gunning for the "highest-quality" mate possible. Even dating sites have, on numerous isolated occasions, found that 80% of female users only match themselves with the top 20% of men. This isn't to say "Oh if you're not a good-looking lawyer and rich you'll never find love!" but the point I'm making, is that creating lasting relationships without a financially stable career with strong future prospects on the man's part is very difficult. Like, find me a woman who is a lawyer or a doctor and is married to a gas station clerk.

Getting truly honest perspectives on the music industry, especially where composers are concerned, is quite difficult because people tend to fall into one of two camps: The starry-eyed dreamers who've given into that "survival bias" I was talking about, and can't see that these highly-successful musicians are the outlier and not the rule; and people like you'll find on V.I. Control who are these old guys who have been doing this most or all of their lives and have absolutely no idea what it is like for 99% of people. I won't say who, but there are a couple of well-known composers who really piss me off with their pompous attitudes regarding the business. One thinks that music is the most important thing in the world and composers pulling in millions is still "criminally underpaid" because actors make more. The other guy literally thinks all that this career path is supposed to be "easy" and that if it isn't, it must be because you suck or don't have the knack for it. I mean, if I was pulling in millions of dollars with music and famous since I wasn't even legal drinking age in the US, I'd probably imagine the same thing, too. Here's the thing that's really hard about this, though. Love isn't something that truly just endures any hardship thrown at it. Not like in the movies. It needs stability. Remember the "Musician B"s, I was talking about? Those guys who've done everything "right" but are still working at McDonald's and eating beans on toast at 37? Most of those guys are still single and tend to be so for most of their adult life. While most men generally don't care about what women do for a living, most women always care what their man is doing. If it comes down to you and another guy she thinks she likes just as much, what he does for a living vs what you do will be the deciding factor. I'm not saying it's fair, but it is the way it is. Unless you're already making money and scored like...the Avengers or something, saying you're trying to become a professional musician to women makes you go from a "date, maybe kids and white, picket fence" to "One-night stand at best" in an instant. and that's a good plan and place to keep it.

It's not really absurd at all; it's symptomatic of supply vastly exceeding demand. Dude, performing artists earn less money than they ever have before and only the top like...10% as a very generous estimate actually earn a living from it. I know a guy who drummed in a successful country band and made a living at it for several years...but they had to play 200 shows a year to make it happen! Over the last eight years, I've composed soundtracks for about 10 games, many of which were paid but only 3 ever actually made it being publicly playable. I've also done music for a production library who provided music for Netflix and recently some short film work as well. The entire experience has made me very red-pilled to two facts: 1) MOST people don't bother to seriously learn things like even basic four-part writing, don't understand the concept of consumer buying power and thus expect ridiculously-high pay from small-time producers, all while having a meager list of accomplishments; a general respect for the CRAFT of composing and learning everything you can about music composition and theory goes a long way and is putting in more effort than 90% of people. 2) Despite that, it does mostly boil down to sheer luck and who you know. Odds are, even with networking, the people that you meet will not require your services. Your best bet, is to work with indie filmmakers and such and hope that you can ride their coattails to success (if they succeed themselves!) and that's really it. Making the best music you can that doesn't sound like just another Zimmer clone goes a long way, but you still need that luck factor because like I say: Supply exceeds demand. I've been more fortunate than many, and from a young age. Looking back, my earlier projects I didn't really know nearly as much about composition as I should have. Honestly, to the point it's embarrassing. Still, I was more successful THEN than now! When it comes to pursuing music as a career, you should never "give up" but you should absolutely accept the reality that even being really skilled, the odds are terribly against you. You also have to pay attention to "survival bias". Musician "A" might have succeeded by doing XYZ but we ignore the countless musician "B"s who did all the same things and still failed. Like @Meteo Xavier often says: There is no recipe for success. Lastly, there's been some recent studies that show mental health among musicians is on a serious decline: Depression being rampant. These studies have found that this depression comes from a decreased sense of self worth from the struggle of not "making it" financially as a musician and trust me: Musicians tend to rationalize career failures that yield real-world rewards with subjective ones. "Sure, I'm not making any money at it, but I'm really pleased with my new album and that's a success!" is just denial. For all that musicians like to say what they do is a "business", no businessman thinks this way. Becoming a full-time musician requires sacrifices of time that could also be spent on other fulfilling pursuits and as the years go by (they only go faster as you get older!) where you're NOT doing music and instead working dead-end dayjobs you hate, if not unemployed entirely, and eating just beans on toast — I'm using real examples here — to forgo spending money on proper meals so that you'll have enough money for that next music investment; all the Facebook "likes" in the world on your newest track aren't going to quell the soul-crushing depression that will come with realizing the rent is due, you hate your dayjob, you're 37 years old, and your life has gone nowhere.

I used some classic 80s tricks and arcade-style sounds to compose this track inspired by 90s arcade games like Street Fighter. Thanks for listening!

Yeah, this one is also a big one for me. Reaper allows you to edit multiple MIDI channels and see ghost notes, turn them on/off, etc. with no hassle. As for the piano roll thing, most DAWs have good piano rolls and most people who use FL's piano roll as a selling point tend to not play piano very well and just click notes in. Not that I'm saying that can't work, but it's all very much an electronic music viewpoint. For things like orchestral music, live rock bands etc., the setup of FL Studio just isn't very advantageous to composing that kind of music within a DAW