So I went through and gave some feedback on all of the pieces on the last page, most of them I could only give small criticisms- if that.  I was looking pretty hard to find things, but I really liked all of them, you guys are great.

Here's mine, I remixed and remastered one of my old pieces and it came out pretty good I hope.  I was going for a sort of 'Fighting the Spirit' from "Tales of Symphonia".

https://soundcloud.com/matt-pirtle/obelisk-rusted-monstrosity

The track as a whole is pretty muddy.  All of the orchestral parts sound like they are dead center... pan them apart.  I'm going to guess that you have all those parts slapped on one track?  Don't ever take several parts and lay them out on one track. Limits your ability to properly mix things later if several parts are on one track... and strings are not something you want layered together.  Add some more variation in the staccato strings, they are pretty robotic right now.  Giving some notes accents and deadening others makes it feel more human/natural.  Seems like at times some instruments are lacking in volume... sampling issues perhaps?  Song could use a good EQ pass... to help clear up some of the muddiness of the samples.  The panning will help, but the samples themselves sound pretty lowgrade.  The tambourine needs some more variation in the velocity the same as the staccato strings. I would do something like in each set of four notes... velocity values of 100, 35, 60, 30 .... and just repeat that.  Would makei t sound less robotic.  The synth sound you have is so present in comparison to the rest... and honestly sounds a bit out of place at times because of this.  If you can bring the other parts out more by panning them and raising their volume it would probably balance out more and not sound so disjointed.

 

http://soundcloud.com/susanbalmar/malle-yue/s-l118D

Link is dead. :p

Hi guys! I've composed this track for a Pirate game à la Monkey Island.
Please could you give me some suggestion or feedback please? Thanks 

https://soundcloud.com/suondream86/croco-island

Mixing is solid.  Your flute melody leaves quite a bit to be desired.  It was a nice change when it came in but the way that part and the bass progress doesn't sound right to me.  Like... for a track that's kind of "smooth" those two parts don't seem to like each other.  Almost like you wrote one, liked it, and then forced the other on top of it.  Might want to put a little bit of filtering on the reverb so it's not so twangy when the drums are the only thing playing.  I'm not sure how to describe what I mean, but twangy sounds good enough to use as a descriptor.  Panning could use a little work too, get the clavinet out of the center, maybe move the bass off center a bit as well, and the accordion.  The rhodes and marimba could be moved outside of the center too.  The track as a whole is pretty minimalistic so everything is still clearly audible, but imagine how much clearer things would be with things panned apart a smidge?

https://soundcloud.com/estudioevergreen/silence

Short and to the point... so my comment will be too.

Work on the panning in this, seeing as there is none.  You might also consider layering in some more parts as the track progresses toward the end to make it more expressive.  Possibly fade in the start and fade out the tails of the sustain parts to make them more expressive as well.  Song is very robotic at the moment.  Humanize it.

And finally: my song!

I'm going to say a three letter word.  It's a very important word in music production.  I want you to remember this word for the rest of your life.  PAN.  The mix as far as I can tell is pretty narrow if you did any panning at all.  Sounds like the shakers are ... alternating between sides ... though I'm not sure why?  It doesn't really benefit the song much.  The guitar playing the melody whenever it comes in, is audible, but not really punching through the mix very well.  Panning things would help that tremendously. The drums, bass, and guitar all being centered is causing a cluster@$#% of instruments in the same timbral range.  I honestly wish you had developed the harmony of the track more... because it barely does anything in the phrase you've created, and that phrase doesn't really ever change past the incorporation or removal of parts. Be adventurous... go somewhere with the track... Do something fresh and invigorating BESIDES adding or subtracting parts on top of the same phrase that gets repeated 324023 times. 

Here's a song I made recently for a friends game called escape velocity.
I've had a little bit of feedback already but if anyone could give me some advice/criticism that would be rad.

Disclaimer: I am a programmer so making music is kinda new to me (Don't hold back though)

Ryan

Finally going to sit down and listen to all these tracks and rip you guys a new one... you're the first one so you are lucky.  The first one usually gets off the easiest...

This track, to be blunt... is kind of dull and uninspired through most of the track.  Kind of a ... I'm not sure what I'm doing but this sounds cool so I'll keep doing this for a while and then eventually change to something else.  The drums are really annoying after about ... a minute or two.  The hihat is just constantly click click click click click click click... around 3:40 or so they finally stop, which was kind of exciting in a sad way.  I think if they weren't so present in the mix, they wouldn't be so bothersome.  The track doesn't really get interesting until after 4 minutes in, then you start playing around with more ideas... but not really moving anywhere that interesting past the "I have no idea where this is going but this sounds cool" phase.  Which is okay, you're learning... and a huge problem when starting out writing music for most people... is just to draw things out too much, repeat things too much, or shift between several ideas in rapid succession creating a track that makes little sense.  Your bass line could be more involved, right now it's just whole notes.  There is a tiny melody at times, but nothing really grabbing my attention... it's more of giving me ADD and causing me to force myself to listen on.  The mixing is muddy in spots, clear in others, which seems to be more of an issue of individual parts as oppose to the full mix. Then the track ends. :D

I didn't tell you what I thought you were worth because it would be highly based on my own self worth and comparing myself to you... and that's not a fair way of looking at things.  Your best bet is to try and find gigs, and just get ANYBODY to pay you for custom music to start with.  It doesn't matter how much, but just getting your first paying gig will be a chore in itself.  Get a few projects done so you can showboat finished soundtracks as oppose to a random stock music you have uploaded on audiojungle.  Stock music seldom has the same thought put into it that an actual game's custom soundtrack will.

For $20, HELL NO.  I wouldn't consider it. Well... unless of course they offered really nice royalties and it had the potential to be as successful as Angry Birds. :p  But $20 flat per track is absurd to me.

So, I'm currently burnt out from an overabundance of gigs so I'm going to finish up the few projects I'm  currently working on and then take a break.  If you'd like to use me within the months of June/July then by all means, email me... just don't get your hopes up. 

Tootles,
Zack

I find that comment quite offensive.  Everything I write for is indie. :\

Just keep an eye out for contests like Dream Build Play where hundreds of developers indie and pro are entering their games.  Their contact info is usually listed somewhere either on the hosting site for the contest or there will be a link to their team's website that usually contains information for how to contact them.  Also in some cases they might display their openings for the team, though more often than not composers are not hired on full time but dealt with as freelance service providers.

Also keep an eye out on twitter, because a lot of people wanting music will tweet it about it at times.  I've had a few gigs come from there where a friend or a dev I've worked with before will see a tweet from another team and toss my name to them.  Social Networking is your friend. :p Abuse the hell out of it.

I receive payment in shipments of gold bounty. 

Sometimes they send checks.

Most of the time it's paypal.

I usually present them with the different options they have available that I will accept(basically anything that gets the money to me) and let them choose what works best for them.

If you live in the US Paypal has the potential to cause problems when filing your taxes if you ever make a significant amount of money from it, but if you don't cross that threshold then Paypal won't report your earnings(which makes things complicated when you get a 1099 from the developer AND paypal... -_-)

It's not $20 per minute, it's 20 per track (it's worse LOL).

Zack, you have to take into account that there are several countries in the world whose minimum wage, just to name one indicator, is smaller than in the U.S, Europe and places like those. Even in Europe there are several countries like the one I live in (Spain) which are having difficult economic situations (not only the countries but what is worse the people). I have been contacted by Indian developers and have been offered $20 per pre-made tracks. They later sell the game to Europe and The U.S. and they are making a living.

There's another situation I'd like to explain and it is when you live in a country in which the video game development industry is zero or close to zero. Of course living in Palo Alto for tech and Hollywood for entertainment is higly desired, even needed, to succeed. Here in Spain there is no industry or just symbolic LOL, so I have to look for developers in other parts of the World.

Anyhow, it's clear that you are in the middle of Hans Zimmer and these examples we're mentioning in terms of music earnings, which is a fairly healthy situation IMO. I can't live on the music alone and I mostly do any design duty anyone has to offer

Not sure I understand the Hans Zimmer reference... o_O

I haven't had to initiate any deals in several years... I might post on a forum once in a blue moon though.  

I offer my services on a tiered rate, based on the rights that they will receive for the music.  Low level pricing I only give them distribution, and as the rights they have go up, so does the pricing.  It's a simple matter of ... "What is the likelihood I will receive anymore money for this music?"

That question of course being based on the idea that I can sell an album of the game's music, sell it as stock music in places like AudioJungle, resell it to the same publisher for additional projects, etc.

I give the developer my rates, then negotiate with them depending on their budget.

And.... who in the @#$% only pays $20/minute!?  That's... insulting. :p  

Oh, and royalties are always nice...you keep getting paid for a few years until the project finally dies... and even then half the time you are still making money off of it.  Though it tends to get so low the checks are laughable...

For flat rates... do this...

Write something outside of your comfort zone, timing yourself how long it takes to write 3 minutes of it.

Write something inside of your comfort zone, timing yourself how long it takes to write 3 minutes of it.

Delete 1 minute off of each and rewrite it entirely like it was rejected, timing yourself for that time as well.

That's 6 minutes of music you wrote and got approved after receiving feedback.  

Determine what you are willing to work for at the MINIMUM per hour, so let's say the TN minimum wage in this example... $7.25

We'll say we... worked 30 hours on this music between initial production and reworking sections of it...

(30*7.25)/6 = $36.25

So in order to break at minimum wage based on better or worse conditions, basically an average of sorts, you'd need to charge at least $36.25/minute of music.

If you want to further complicate things, you can figure in your spending, but if you do things right you can write everything off in your taxes and not pay a dime to the IRS for whatever you purchased.  I'm talking, writing off things 100% as a business expense.  Just make sure you keep receipts and such just in case the IRS decides they want to audit you one day and ask about your $5,000 worth of purchases that year...

http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/legato

Made this while playing around with a new string library...

I'd suggest asking around at the lemmasoft forums, they focus on visual novels and seems to be a lot of voice acting requests over there. :p

Wow, this stuff sounds great!
I'm still far from the point where I'll need music, but I've saved this post and I'll probably send you a message when I'm in need of some tunes.

Can you also compose original songs, or do you only play them?

Yeah, I write music.  My demo reel can be heard on main profile:

http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish

[Edit -]

So, I've been able to play this thing for several years, and haven't had the chance to record anything with it because I didn't feel like buying a new preamp so I can actually use my mic.  Well...... I finally bought one and can record again.  With that... I am open to record clips for people on here, no idea what to charge for it so I'm up for offers to start with.  So if you are interested in using a Native American Flute in your music just let me know what your budget is and more info about the song.

I would like to make it very clear... that the range on these things is VERY limited.  I'm playing on a 6-hole flute as well so I can kind of work outside of the traditional pentatonic scale that they are confined to, but I do have some notes that are impossible for me to play.

http://www.flutopedia.com/fingeringChart_SixPentatonicMinor.htm

That's the range that I can play, only instead of it being in F# minor pentatonic I'm tuned to A minor pentatonic.  

Some examples:

http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/sets/native-american-flute/

Anyway, want it, just email me at [email protected] with your offer and preferably the notation for the music in there as well so I can give it a whirl and let you know how playable it really is.

I can also add in grace notes myself if you want, or remove them entirely.  

Lastly... I'm learning to play duduk at the moment but I suck terribly at it... but once I get it down as well as the NA Flute I'll offer that up as well.

Tootles,
Zack

Edit - Added another demo clip.

Sorry about the lack of activity from myself, been quite busy lately and haven't really had a chance to sit down and listen to anything. 

Thanks for picking up the slack, John. o_o

I'd tell you what royalties I've been cut before but it would violate the NDAs I signed so can't really help you any there...

Best thing I can tell you is to come up with a chart of sorts and determine how much work really goes into each part of the game.  Programming is typically the largest chunk, plus you will want to have some of the profits held off to the side for the "company", to use for future projects and such, then art, which in most cases is still a larger portion than the audio, then music, then sound.  The less people you have on the project, the larger you can make the percentage for each participating party, but definitely don't do something crazy like 50/50 when you are doing the bulk of the work. 

I can't speak for all composers/sound designers, but typically it's not THAT hard to make music for a game, and if the game has any potential for great success, royalties will keep paying them far past what they would have likely made working for flat rates, even at a lower percentage.