Game Audio Network Guild

Y'know how TMBG had their regular dial-a-song phone thing, and more recently JoCo pulled off the song-a-week thingamajigger?

Well that is sort of what this is like, except it's not hilarious at all (well maybe a tiny bit sometimes), also it's not a publicity gimmick, also it doesn't have an '-a-' in the middle. 

So, I guess it's completely different short of that it requires regular creativity and dedication. I've dubbed my endeavor "Just for Fun" and it mostly is, but it's also for exploring new composition styles. 

Essentially, I've challenged myself to compose a new song every two weeks. The rules of engagement are as follows:

• It must be composed in less than exactly four hours. 
• It has to be different than my current niche or project. 
• It has to be something fun.
  

 

 

 

 

I have managed to keep at it since January 1st 2010, and I'm working on my 10th at the moment. It's been an awesome exercise for doing some informal personal development while relaxing and thinking a bit outside-the-box. 

Is there anyone else out there with a little personal project outside their regular work day? If there is, I'd love to hear what you're working on.

If you want to see the silly stuff I've generated, you can take a listen here.

Music for Sky Invader (french video game) under development

Work in progress (your opinion is welcome).

The playlist

 

 

...Of diligently trying to purchase EWQL Symphonic Choirs, only to have to put it aside for a more immediate money problem, I finally bought it (and at a price that I can afford)! Thank you NAMM deal! Only half a month in, and this year's already looking up!

 

 ~Bryan J

How are you doing folks?

I hope all is well, soon we have the christmas rush upon us. yey! =)
Last week I produced a couple of new themes (as usual), some pitches and I'm also working on the third AZURE album with my friend Robban Kanto.
5 new songs are currently in proces, I've wrecked some of my drum-gear so I have to buy some new stuff this weekend.

Ahh, and I also just got the heads up from CDbaby that the two EMBRACING albums we produced in 1996/1997 will be released on digital distribution in the coming weeks. iTunes, Spotify etc. So check them out when they are available.

 Don't forget to check my twitter and webpage www.morningdewmedia.com
for new music themes and mp3 demos.

Have a nice weekend my fellow audio artists!

Cheers,

Mattias Holmgren
MORNINGDEW MEDIA
http://www.morningdewmedia.com

 

 

 

Hi!

 Just wanted to share a trailer.  It´s from a small game we´re  doing all audio for, thought would be cool because it´s very fun and it´s Hallowen!  ;-)

Cheers,

J & G

 

Pro Zombie Soccer Trailer 1

Music Teaser 1

Music Teaser 2

MCV PR Note

Franz Schreker (1878-1934) 

He looks pissed! Gotta love old school photography.

• Here's his biography in a nutshell

Born the same year the Tokyo Stock Exchange is established, Franz Schreker was the oldest son of a Jewish court photographer. Beginning with violin studies, he moved into composition and graduated in the year 1900. At one point during his career, he was the second most performed living composer of opera next to Richard Strauss, which is HUGE! In 1933 he suffered a stroke and lived until two days before his 56th birthday. His music was forgotten because of his Jewish background and the rise of antisemitism in Germany.

• Stylistic characteristics

Schreker was very influenced by the high romantics Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner. He is rare however in that he pushed romanticism into polytonality (music in two keys at the same time) while maintaining many aspects of romanticism, instead of completely destroying the aural experience like the Rite of Spring did when it was premiered. The Rite of Spring was one of the first and most popular pieces of Expressionism, where composers began to explore pain and negative emotions within music (which subsequently lead to the rise of ragtime and jazz). Schreker's music doesn't promote the polytonality, it's used more as a tool.

• Die Gezeichneten - Act 1 Prelude  (youtube)
  

This opera's storyline is very strange, you'll see a bit of what I mean once the video gets going. However, The music starts out with Shreker's once famous 'shimmer,' which in this case is an alternation (in various instruments at various tempos) of D-major, and Bb-minor.

This blog is an experiment inspired by my friend Anita. I'm hoping people will be interested, as there are a lot of obscure composers who deserve some recognition.

-Jeff

 

Game Audio Survey's 2009 Game Audio Marketplace Survey is Launched
 
http://www.gameaudiosurvey.com/
 
Game Audio Survey is a not-for-profit organization run by Dan Reynolds which intends to inform our Industry with analyses of data collected through surveys.
 
As professionals in an industry driven by an unregulated freelance marketplace, it is in our best interest to inform ourselves about our own industry.
Market power is about having control of that marketplace and the people who have the control have it because they have the most information when making a decision.
You can help us all take back that market power by participating in this 5 minute survey.
There are many surveys conducted by organizations which collect data on compensation for in-house employees.  These invaluable reports offer insight into the financial side of the games industry.  However, freelance audio services are thoroughly and unfortunately neglected.
The freelance marketplace is a diversified and volatile market that can, at times, seem impossible to understand.  Most of our dealings are done in private emails and rates are rarely publicized.
However, when we have an objective perspective of the marketplace as a whole, we can begin to see where we, as contractors, stand in the marketplace.  This is important as a litmus test for the pure economics of our industry, of course, but it is also important as an index or reference for beginning and intermediate professionals who lack the resources to even understand what could be considered fair pricing in our industry.
My preliminary research has already suggested that intermediate and beginning professionals with fewer than 3 years experience have no clue how much they should and can be charging.  Many think they are even over-charging for their services when their rates suggest that they sit on the low-end of the spectrum.
This survey is simple and anonymous.
This survey is meant for the following Game Audio Professionals:
In-House Audio
Freelance Composer
Freelance Sound-Designer
Freelance Music-Sequencer
 
It is also meant for people who provide audio services for free or paid, credited or uncredited.
 
The data will be subjected to cross-sectional analyses which will be published in a report and made public later this year.  This report will discuss the various angles of pricing and experience in our industry and how those prices change depending on the profile of the project and the profile of the audio professional.
The report will also explore suppositions conclusions and aberrations in the data and encourage an informed discussion on this most important topic.
Again, the survey is completely anonymous.
If you have already taken the survey, thank you for your support, but please do not take it again.
The survey can be found here:
http://www.gameaudiosurvey.com/
 
Inquiries are welcome.
 
Finally, thanks for helping us help ourselves.
 
Sincerely,
- Dan Reynolds
 
PS: Since it's been asked, data will be handled by myself and Anthony Hannagan who has a Bachelors in Economics from the University of Colorado, additionally, outside consultants will occasionally be employed for discussion of the data set.

(Click the logo for Contra-Inspired Anthem music!)

Well, it's not quite Friday, I know, but I decided to at least make a secondary update to this blog to show some things from my past in doing game music in this particular style, namely in showing two tracks that have been favorites, and giving a little perspective some of the techniques that lead up to the creation of those tracks.

My first foray into doing music tracks in this style began while experimenting in Propellerhead's Reason for various purposes (coming up with techniques to teach, for fun, etc.), and one thing I stumbled upon was doing older video game sounds using the synthesizers built into the program.  Thus, with some experimentation, I realized how to do some basic NES-ish sounds, in addition to my introduction to the concept of using a noise generator solely as a means of creating percussive sounds.

 Every example that is shown in this blog were all created within Reason alone. 

To test this, I did a basic transcription/rendering of a very well known theme from the NES era by the great Koji Kondo as a way to test the concept -

The Overworld Theme from The Legend of  Zelda 

After hearing how the results turned out, I then decided to explore specifically the technique of using noise to create a drum track, as the Zelda theme allowed a very rudimentary basis for the concept.  This lead me to a very basic test song that I entitled my Blanc Etude.  Namely, I was practicing in how to manipulate how the noise generator could change in tone and response to get different kinds of hits for different types of drum sounds.

Alongside the noise practice, I was also experimenting with how to recreate the sound of monophonic synths being used to create chords in the music of various NES games, and several Commodore 64 titles out there using nothing but sequencing in MIDI, trying to get juuust the right balance out to make the result convincing. 

About another month or so of practice later, I then put those techniques together into creating my first major track demonstrating these techniques, one simply known as:

The Blue Bomber

The key here was that I was restricting myself to only 4 channels (2 Pulse Wave, 1 Triangle Wave, 1 Noise), all monophonic, and trying to stay strictly in that style for the track in an attempt to be as 'authentic' technique-wise in the process as possible.  The results made me very happy, and it was as fun to write as it is to listen to (even though it was very tedious at some points to pull off some of the nuanced sequencing initially).

I kept on working on this technique in general at times, typically from either doing little simple tracks that didn't lead anywhere, or trying my had at taking tracks that weren't 8-bit style to begin with, and reducing them down to that format. My favorite example of this was one I did of a track from the soundtrack of Killer7 by Masafumi Takada:

Rave On 

At this point, I was getting pretty comfortable with the idea of doing things in a 4 channel sense, and doing drums fully with just monophonic noise.  So a bit later on, when I wanted to do another original track of a reasonable scale, I decided to do things a little differently, especially regarding the drums.  Furthermore, I had read into how various Japanese iterations of games for the NES/Famicom actually had more than just 4 channels of Tone Generators/Oscillators to work with.  One title in particular that stood out to me that had such a feature was the Japanese version of Castlevania 3, or Akumajo Densetsu (Demon Castle Legend), by Konami.

Upon reading into this, I decided to do a bit of a less 'authentic' styled 8-bit track, but one that really tried to capture the sound/feel of the music of that particular franchise in the NES/Famicom era.  I appropriately named this track:

Hunt for Dracula 

The difference in this track, regarding the drums, is that unlike The Blue Bomber, which only used a single noise generator for all the drum sounds, this one featured several tone generators/noise generators that were individually being triggered by a separate device within the workspace.  This allowed for a bit more ease in the sequencing side of things, as I didn't have to draw as much automation to get all the sounds I wanted...but I never was quite as happy with the results as I was with simply using a monophonic noise generator, and simply putting in the work to get all the sounds out I needed.

Otherwise, I really liked how the track turned out, especially in the timbres I got from using different phase settings on the pulse waves to get varying timbres throughout the song.

At any rate, I hope you enjoyed reading over some of my background doing this sort of music, and if you have any particular questions about specific techniques I used for some of these tracks, feel free to ask them in the comment section.  I'll gladly answer as much as I can in the comments section myself, or I might take a bunch of questions, and field them with some examples in a future Famicom Fridays. :)

Thanks, and have a great week, everyone! 

 

Sound moves around us every day and the human ear is capable of discerning both the location and relative direction of its motion. "3D sound" or "sound spatialization" is the process of placing and controlling the movement of sounds in space.

Though "sound spatialization" has been of interest to composers and sound designers for years, recent breakthroughs in computing, software design and psychoacoustics have brought this exciting realm of sonic expression within reach of creators and engineers in all aspects of design and production. And with the proliferation of surround sound technology and surround media standards for cinema, gaming, computing and home theatre, any consumer now has access to the power of spatial sound within their own home media environments.

Immersive Media Research is dedicated to providing sound designers, musicians, and composers with professional, affordable, and powerful software products that address the entire production chain associated with the development of multichannel and binaural audio content.

Our tools are designed to inspire and enable surround sound content development, replacing the tedium once associated with this work with efficient, fun-to-use, powerfully expressive tools for designing sound in space.

Sincerely,

Terry Maedhce

CEO Immersive Media Research