How Long For A Composer ...

[TheSnowStorm]

I was wondering, how long does a composer have in sense of time does he or her have to complete a total OST for a game? I heard compoers like Tommy Tallarico and Nobou Umeatsu stating that it usually takes them about 8 Months to a year to complete a OST because you are dealing with waiting for the post-production of the game and, If you have that much money, you need to find an orcestra who is open-minded enough to play the music for video games.

Another thing I wonder is how long does it take for an indiepent VG music compoer and from your experinces, if you ever composed music for games.

[RoeTaKa]

It depends on how many songs you're doing, and what the purpose is. And also depends on how good you are too and what you're capable of. But a developer might let you be free enough to go about the music your own way. In my experience, a 20 song soundtrack can take a couple of months, could take longer or less even. If the game is like some action arcade game its pretty safe to say you would go about it your own pace and churn whatever you want out. An RPG though could take a very long time as you're waiting to find out what you need to do and how things are gonna be put together, and get something in mind for the music you'll be doing like characters. I've been working on this RPG chrono crisis (sig) and its taking a long time because of the amount of free time available since its not money making and then everyone needs to be doing their part. Over maybe...3 years, on and off, I've managed to write nearly 100 songs for it. Sometimes it would take me ages to get stuff done, but sometimes I could do like 3 songs a week or more.

Then again a developer might only you give a certain amount of time to do the soundtrack, so you just bite your lip and go for it as best as you can, even if you can't write songs to the best of your ability.

[Zephyr]

It really depends on what you're doing, ^ like he said.

If you're doing a cheap little arcade or flash-game type thing then you can probably get away with really short, simple, looping techno tracks or something, and you won't need to do very many; this wouldn't take too long to do. If however you're scoring an entire RPG or adventure game on your own that could definitely take up into the timespan of a year.

[Sole Signal]

7 months, for Gene Rozenberg's "Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure!"

http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=20014

[PhiJayy]

If however you're scoring an entire RPG or adventure game on your own that could definitely take up into the timespan of a year.

Yeah true. Great examples of this is probably Zelda or Final Fantasy, I can't help to think that Koji Kondo had a great time composing all the different tracks for each and every setting.

Pretty cool job.

[The Pezman]

Someone just asked Howard Drossin this question today.

He said it usually takes between two and four months, but then he's also usually got several projects going on simultaneously. So you be the judge from that, I guess.