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[MD9]

Wow, registering on this site was tricky. Hello peoples of TIGSource! I am a hobby composer who tries to make a little money with it on AudioJungle. I have not made much money from that considering the hours I have put in, but I have enjoyed the hours. So anyway, I'm thinking I could make my hobby more profitable if I composed custom music for games, which seems like the easiest way to start off. What I am wondering then is how good quality people think my work is. How much do you think I could charge per minute and what level of clients could I work for? You can see my portfolio on the link above. My most recent songs are some simple kidsy tunes that I figured would be good for certain kinds of games, but if you look further down you will see that I can do quite a variety of styles.

Some examples:
http://audiojungle.net/item/coming-this-summer/1844418
http://audiojungle.net/item/aether/2827249
http://audiojungle.net/item/minion-march/976741
http://audiojungle.net/item/codes-casualties/162165
http://audiojungle.net/item/western-funk/977749
http://audiojungle.net/item/going-somewhere/150238

Your honest appraisal is much appreciated!

[MD9]

So over 60 people have viewed this post and not 1 person can say anything? Are there not many experienced musicians on here that trust their judgement? I thought there were a few.

[Calum Bowen]

So over 60 people have viewed this post and not 1 person can say anything? Are there not many experienced musicians on here that trust their judgement? I thought there were a few.

c'mon dude...

OK. This is such a tricky subject that so much comes into it from both your own side & the side of the person paying you. I can't really put a specific price on your music but i feel there is still much that could be improved in your music. If you want more specific appraisal - definitely post some specific tracks in the harsh criticism thread. My general impressions are that the composition & style is very generic. Compositionally, it feels like ideas are not very solid - especially in western funk - each part (theremin, guitar & honky tonk piano) seem to be almost improvising through a lot of the composition. Work on clear simple melodies, structures that make sense and are nicely contrasting. This is probably more personal, but your use of chords is the main thing that bores me. Usually just using triads and having only one or two chord sequences in the whole song. I personally would love to hear more extensive harmony and a structure that's dictated by change in chord sequence (obviously, this isn't necessary). Use of samples & production is OK. At times the drums and bass in particular felt a little weak - they could do with a bit more attention and pumpin'. Orchestral samples often don't get the attention needed - make sure you give every small part 100% attention.

I can't say this is your level so this is what you should do. Just keep working on your music and pushing yourself and make the decision of your own worth on your own since I don't know 1). how much money you need to survive, 2). how fast you will make music 3). how much work you will get 4). the budget of the people you're working with 5). the prospects of the project without money, etc. etc. etc.

Generally though it just felt kinda like "oh, this is what this kind of music sounds like, i'll make some music like that" instead of you making music that really excites you. I may be totally out of line with saying that - but the music just feels kinda imitative of trailer music or some other stuff that's popular without any particular personal flair or anything.

Those are my impressions. Sorry I can't give you a number.

[MD9]

Thanks for your critique. You have some interesting ideas, although I confess I don't understand what you mean by some of them. And some of your "boredom" could certainly be personal taste. I do often "imitate" (or draw inspiration from) songs or genres that I like. Isn't all most music somewhat imitative, so that it is familiar to listeners? So I am generally doing music that excites me, although I have also been trying to make songs that I figure will fit the need of customers on AudioJungle.

My general impressions are that the composition & style is very generic.

That's weird. I thought the samples I highlighted are wildly different and fairly unique. Perhaps I don't understand in what way it is generic.

Work on clear simple melodies, structures that make sense and are nicely contrasting

Once when I was a teenager I wrote a song for piano and sent it to a competition and the main feedback I remember was that it lacked a clear melody. So maybe you have something there, but I have always kept that feedback in mind. I don't know what you mean by "structures that make sense and are nicely contrasting". I'm not doing that? Out of curiosity, do songs such as these also bore you?








I don't understand why it is hard for you to put a number on me. It can be a range of course, or a limit or something. For example, what do you typically charge for music? If you can put a number on yourself then I can assume my figure will be a bit lower.

Thanks for your comments!

[Xishem]

Building a bit off of what Calum said: there are two music structure types that are pretty different and pretty distinct -- the classic verse-chorus-bridge style where themes recur, and then the build-up style.

While songs utilizing a build-up of sorts can be fun to listen to, they aren't usually (in my experience) as enticing or attention-grabbing. They usually end up amounting to some sort of mindless repetition with variations and arbitrary motives thrown on top. People like hearing strong and explicit motives and variations over and over (if they are good) -- it makes songs feel like they have some structure and some thought. On the other hand, it's easy to get a nice theme going and throw some improvisations and variations on top of it and call it a song -- it's just not as thought-provoking nor interesting as having some very discrete and purposeful melody lines.

With that said, most of your songs lack structure. Even the ones that don't try to follow that sort of build-up pattern tend to just feature some instruments playing something that sounds good, but it's not consistent -- it feels like random improvisations only built to fit into the key, but not the style. I thought one of your best songs was "Codes & Casualties". It seemed to have very cordoned off sections/themes that persisted across the entire piece, and even though it had probably the least instrumental variation, it was still the most interesting. Because instrumentation doesn't make a song interesting, music does.

Final note: like Calum noted, the tracks do tend to lack a bit of polish in mixing the sounds well together. It's important to prospective clients to be able to hear fully polished songs that represent fully your abilities as a music producer.

[ZackParrish]

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.

[MD9]

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.

Why not? It can be a challenge in any industry to know what to charge for your services especially when you are starting out and you don't know what is the norm and how your skill level compares to others. It seems totally logical to me to size yourself up to other artists or tradesmen or whatever and charge accordingly. I was recently trying to see what people charge for web design because I do that for work and I was getting the impression that I am not very fast compared to others. I did manage to find some hourly and flat rates here and there but they weren't very useful numbers unless I could see the kind of work that those people could do for that price. Experimenting with the rate you charge and seeing how much work you get is a problematic way of figuring things out.

Right now I know I could charge somewhere between $0 and... $500 per minute? This website suggests between $300 to $600 depending on number of instruments, but it doesn't indicate if that is referring to just computer produced music or something using live musicians. It doesn't mention if you are selling the rights either. And it doesn't say what quality level that would be.

I figure if I worked full time at it I could scrape by at $30/min assuming I could keep the creative juices flowing continuously, but I don't think I could and I would be barely staying afloat financially. And that would be silly if I could be charging $300. I was thinking of starting at $100/min and they can have the rights to the music as long as I can showcase it for personal purposes. Eventually I would want to double it. Does that sound realistic at least?

---------------------------

Xishem, what you and Calum are saying is very intriguing, if not an answer to my original post. If you were a client I would be having a very hard time understanding what you want me to do differently. I thought Calum was saying my music was too monotonous, but it sounds like you are saying it has too much variation? Is there really something consistent in my music that you both notice? Isn't a lot of film and game music just "background texture"?

I have training in linguistics, so maybe a language analogy is helpful. It sounds like what you are talking about is the discourse level of the songs -- the large scale structure and flow of the piece. It sounds like you are saying my grammar is good (I can make proper "sentences"/themes), my pronunciation is alright most of the time, but I am not developing an interesting, cohesive plot. Is that an accurate analogy?

If that is what you are talking about then that is good for me to think about, but isn't it a highly subjective matter? It doesn't seem especially relevant to video game music. It sounds more like advice for pop music. Verse-chorus-bridge structure isn't so applicable in classical, or film, or game, or ethnic or a lot of electronic music. Whatever it is you guys are talking about it must be something that you care about more than I do. The question then is, am I abnormal?

[Zoe Coleman Music]

I've not been in this game (no pun intended) very long myself, but I would say that getting a decent showreel should be your very first step before thinking about the financial side of things. And by showreel I mean clips of music purposely written for a specific project, shown with footage or at least artwork of the project its for (whether a game, film , animation etc.) A showreel demonstrates not only how you can make music to that fits with what is occurring on-screen but also demonstrates you are capable of working with other people in a team. It means possibly doing your first few projects for free or perhaps for a small cut of the games profits, which sucks, but if the footage looks good on a showreel it will secure you more jobs. I wouldn't expect anyone to want to pay me to write music for them if I have no evidence of experience working on games. Likewise I would never get on board with a project without being able to see some artwork, or at least previous games by the dev.


Also with pricing its not really fair to ask 'what do you charge?', as the amount can vary so much between jobs, and the rates charged can depends on so many things (the devs budget, what country they live in, what country you live in etc etc). I always ask the dev what their budget is and we take it from there.

As I said before, I'm still only in my first year of trying to make a living out of this, so my experience is fairly limited.

Hope this helps! :D

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i'm not a musician, i have dabbled in it but haven't written a song for about 13 years, but i am someone who makes games has used people's music in my games and have had different musicians ask me to use their music, and i do give people instructions on what type of music to make for my games and how to improve it and which instruments to use etc., and my father is a professional musician, so that's my vantage point here: i have experience in knowing which music i like and which i don't for use in my games, and even some experience arranging music composed by others, but i don't have much knowledge of music terminology and i've never composed anything very good. so basically i'm not completely uninformed, but don't take this advice as being from someone who knows exactly what they are talking about, either

my main criticism is that the "background" themes for each of your songs (i don't know what it's called exactly, but it's the part of the music that gives the rhythm rather than the melody) is (a) too prominent in comparison to the melody and other parts of a song, often overpowering it and (b) too repetitive, it goes on and on without changing much over the course of a song. my main thought is that that is the part of the song that normally gives rhythm and texture to a song, but is often in the background away from the listener's consciousness, with other parts of the song being the parts that are primarily being paid attention to; with your songs it feels like the background part is what's taking up most of the attention of the listener. songs always have a lot going on, but usually you want the attention to be on the parts other than that background part, with the background part sort of being in the listener's unconscious rather than consciousness

as a result, i think it gives the impression that your songs are more repetitive than they actually are, because it's the repetitive part that is most prominent and has the focus or attention. like, i could go to any part of one of your songs randomly and it would feel like any other part, just due to how the repetitive part of the song is the part that captures the attention

hopefully that helps you improve in some way, or at least makes sense to someone. perhaps if you were to improve this you could practice making songs that do not have any repetitive parts at all, e.g. songs that are almost pure melody, perhaps like prokofiev's peter and the wolf. remember that that song was largely composed for children, so it's a good example of how a song for children doesn't have to be all that simple:

[mscottweber]

I'll chime in here as well.
Picking some tunes at random from your Audio Jungle page, staring from the top...

Sunny Theme Game Tune
This piece is waaayyy too straightforward and boring.  This is the kind of music that, if I were playing a game and it were the background music, I would turn the sound off.

Chillin'
Has a decent feel to it, but again, its way too repetative.  The bass and shaker are very robotic sounding and they never change; if you could re-record this with LIVE instruments it would add a lot of interest to it.

Babylon

This piece isn't so bad, but I didn't really get interested in it until the break that happened at about 1:20.  If I hadn't been listening intent on giving a critique of the track I wouldn't have listened that far into it.

--------------------

Although not "Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge Chorus" per se, good structure is INCREDIBLY important to all forms of music, including classical, and film and game music.  To say that quality, well-thought-out, well structured music is irrelivent in games because "it just sits in the background" is quite an absurred and ignorant thing to assume.  That's like saying that artwork in games doesn't have to be high quality either, since "its second to the mechanics of the game".

--------------------

And as far as what your music is worth?  Well, what is a gallon of milk worth?

Its worth what someone will pay for it.

When someone commisions you to write music for their product, the music is only a fraction of what they are actually paying for.  They are also paying for:
-Your reputation
-Your experience
-Your attitude
-Their friend's/colleague's recomendation of you
-Your ability to work well with others and collaborate
-Your ability to take criticism and refine your work
-Your ability to follow instructions
-Your ability to meet deadlines
And much more.


I'm sorry if this post comes off a bit harsh but I get the sense that you are not taking to heart what others have already said, choosing to get defensive rather than listen to the honest feedback that you are being given. 

[Calum Bowen]

For the sake of moving this argument along I'll put my cards on the table and say that the price i've been looking to get paid is roughly £150 p/min (roughly $300 p/min) - i always retain rights but the music is also pretty much always exclusive for that project. Whether I've been paid exactly that every time is another story but that's probably the figure I would throw into the ring when discussing prices. That's my costing based on my own valuation of my music, my valuation of my reputation, my expectation of what developers of the caliber i'd expect to mostly be working with can afford, how much I think is a fair rate in terms of the time I will put in etc. Hopefully, this price will increase with time and everything but you really have to take each project as it comes - see what their budget is and see if that's something you can work with, if not keep on searching - if after a while, no one can match your price, perhaps you ought to re-evaluate.

From the moment I started I was working for free on various small things. I had the occasional pay and that encouraged me to seek out more things that were paid - these would only be something like $50 per track (not minute) or even less. And then as more people come to you with bigger prospects out of the contacts you have made doing these small things, you can charge more. Unfortunately, your skill isn't immediately worth something unless you're particularly lucky in finding or knowing people that will take a chance on you and/or recognise your ability right away. However, to be completely blunt, I feel you still have work to do that if I were you, I wouldn't expect to be paid $300 p/minute - just being honest because I think that's what you want.

The problem I PERSONALLY have with your music is that you seem to be thinking "what does video game music sound like? OK, I'LL WRITE LIKE THAT!" It's imitating a very broad and generic style that everyone does to begin with but the music ends up boring and predictable. I went through the same kind of process of thinking "what kind of imaginary video game music can I write" and at the beginning, the results you come up with (if you are dictated by the idea of what you should be writing) is really uninspiring stuff. Imitating is fine and good and everyone does it, to a certain extent - imitation of something very specific that you love and then moving on from that is a good method but imitation of the broad idea of this generic sound is what bores me in particular.

If that is what you are talking about then that is good for me to think about, but isn't it a highly subjective matter? It doesn't seem especially relevant to video game music. It sounds more like advice for pop music. Verse-chorus-bridge structure isn't so applicable in classical, or film, or game, or ethnic or a lot of electronic music. Whatever it is you guys are talking about it must be something that you care about more than I do. The question then is, am I abnormal?

I get the impression that you write in this way because you say "It doesn't seem especially relevant to video game music." You see video game music as an exception to the rules - like some sectioned off thing that doesn't have to compete with other kinds of music! YES, i will not deny that video game music has a function and there are some expectations it may have to meet BUT this is no excuse to start to think "this game music only sounds like this", "this is the kind of music I'm expected to write". That's exactly what your music is sounding like to me. I would be surprised if you wrote some of this stuff without the purpose of it being for a video game. Don't take this as gospel since it's a very personal feeling I have but I do believe there's a big problem with people writing the kind of music they're expected to write - it's not a specific genre but more a method - I can't really explain but it seems to be the kind of music that people write at the start of their career before they've found their own voice and the kind of music they really really want to write. I'm not saying everyone should write the most unexpected thing that doesn't fit in with the game at all BUT people write better and more enjoyable music when they're not obsessing with the thought "this is how video game music sounds".

Again, I've been totally harsh but I don't want you to take it as a negative thing. I've just been as honest and blunt as I could be about my own experiences and my perception of your current situation.

also, ideas about charging people based on "how many instruments are you using" - some people say "oh, it's just a chiptune, that's cheap" or "woah, A REAL VIRTUAL INSTRUMENT ORCHESTRAL SCORE - BIG BUCKS FOR THAT!" It's total BS. I wouldn't ever valuate my stuff based on that. I personally feel like the style or instruments i'm using is my responsibility - i'm going to give my all to everything so there's no need to change a price for that - chiptunes take a long time if you do them well, orchestral stuff takes forever if you're not very experiences at it.

I hope you don't take this as an attack. I haven't given much specific information about how to improve your individual tracks more general advice but others have given good advice and hopefully you'll get more in the harsh crit thread.

TL;DR VGM is sick - don't make generic shit. money is a tricky subject - keep at it!

[YellowLime]

"What am I worth?"

That's a terrible question to ask on the internet

[Whiteclaws]

Nothing . DUH!

People*infinity < penny

[MD9]

Thank you Calum for finally saying a number and explaining how you started out. And thanks everyone else for your comments. Let me try to respond to everything.

Zoe, incidentally I did compose music for my own animation demo reel back in the day (I originally studied to be an animator). You can view it here

. I believe that was the first song I ever made on a computer, and I was my own client, so I don't know what it is worth as far as a music showreel.

Paul, thanks for your input. That probably helps narrow down what people are talking about. I certainly could compose a song that is all melody if I wanted to. Maybe I just pay attention to and enjoy the underlying rhythms and riffs of songs more than the average person. This could have to do with what somebody else said about getting a proper mix of the instruments.

mscott,

Sunny Theme Game Tune
This piece is waaayyy too straightforward and boring.  This is the kind of music that, if I were playing a game and it were the background music, I would turn the sound off.

Obviously it is a simple piece, I don't disagree. How is it essentially any different than the orginal Mario Brothers theme? Sure the MB theme has a bridge part. I could add a bridge to my one too, but I have tested it on repeat and I thought it was fine as is.

Chillin'
Has a decent feel to it, but again, its way too repetitive.  The bass and shaker are very robotic sounding and they never change; if you could re-record this with LIVE instruments it would add a lot of interest to it.

Yes live instruments are always better than samples. That would be great to have it recorded from the real thing or even just to have a better sample. (My budget is practically $0 though beyond, FL Studio, Kontakt, a computer and a midi controller.) Bass and shaker never change...so? It is hardly unusual to have repetitive, unchanging bass and percussion in a song. But now that I listen to it I think the shaker ended up louder than I intended in the mix.

To say that quality, well-thought-out, well structured music is irrelivent in games because "it just sits in the background" is quite an absurred and ignorant thing to assume.  That's like saying that artwork in games doesn't have to be high quality either, since "its second to the mechanics of the game".

But I do believe the structural requirements are different and less demanding for video games than for songs made for their own sake. Just as the requirements for video game textures are generally quite different than for a standalone painting. Usually you don't want a song in a game to grab too much attention by having big ups and downs or anything very distinct. It would be very distracting to have a song like Peter and the Wolf playing in the background, but it would be awesome if you could somehow sync it up exactly with what the player was experiencing in the game. (Procedural music, hmm...)

And as far as what your music is worth?  Well, what is a gallon of milk worth?
Its worth what someone will pay for it.

Right, and I was just asking what do you think people would be willing to pay for my music, based on your experience. I think I naturally tend to charge too little for things and I don't want to have anxiety about charging a fair amount. On the one hand the price that moderately experienced composers charge seems rather high to me. But on the other hand I am surprised by everyone's low evaluation of my music, so I guess it balances out. A gallon of milk is about $3.50 where I come from.

--------------

Thanks again Calum, and I hear what you are saying that it is a risk for the first clients to trust you. I think I'm understanding better what you are saying about my music. I think I could identify in other artists less experienced than me, or even just certain strains of popular music. Would you say that it is typical of a lot of the music on AudioJungle? Are you saying that the chords and rhythms are too commonly used and I don't explore outside the box enough? I think that may be true about some of my music but not all of it. Would you say I have successfully distilled some essence out certain genres but failed to inject my own personality into it? I'm afraid I might not have a lot of personality when it comes a lot of my artistic endeavours. I generally study certain styles that appeal to me and then try to make something that is the same but different. I actually enjoy that.

I guess a lot of my stuff that is on AJ is in fact dictated by the thought "Hmm...perhaps I should make a song in this genre/style." My best selling song, Fun Times, was a deliberate sell-out song because shuffley ukulele songs were and are so popular on there. But hey, it sells, so I consider that a success. I have a lot of other songs, most of them unfinished, that are more just "doing whatever I feel like", which I think would do better on iTunes if I had some fame. Some of my songs that have 0 sales on AJ are ones that I just did for my own interest, like Babylon, Eastern Funk, and Requiem for Love. Then again Western Funk is also one of those and it is selling OK.

I didn't intend to make this a big thread all about analyzing my music, but now I am curious, if you are still up for discussion. It might be beneficial to compare some songs that I can say I drew inspiration from and the resulting song I made. Just to see what I am doing and how much is "lost in the translation" or how much is it a faithful translation.

My song Summer Night is very much inspired by

. Would you say La Femme is repetitive or generic or lacking in melody? Of course they are much higher calibre artists than I am but...

My song Going Somewhere is probably most inspired by the artist Yann Tiersen -- songs like

. Again I admit am not as masterful as him.

[ROCKYIII]

Hey MD9,

If you ask a question like "what am I worth?" on an internet forum, that's like waiting for the sharks to eat you. It's because every person on this earth has a different opinion than you on what good videogame music is. You can literally criticize anything it's extremely easy (I mean look at lebron james and what they say about him! ). You should go to people you respect and trust and ask them of some constructive criticism. And if you like that idea they told you, go with it.

And maybe get someone to mix and master your songs

Great job though.

[Calum Bowen]

it's a big ask to respond exactly to this and I always regret getting too involved in these kind of topics hahaha.

I agree with ROCKYIII - find some people who can invest time - right now you open yourself up for everyone just to say whatever they're feeling but personally, I can't give you enough time to specifically say instruct you but yeah it's good to find people to bounce ideas off of, get feedback from - people who you respect and trust.  Maybe rocky didn't exactly mean this but "if you like that idea they told you, go with it" - the impression i got from this was "only listen to criticism you like"... i'd not suggest that. Stay as humble as possible, defensiveness sucks balls. Maybe rocky didn't exactly mean that though.

[Impmaster]

Just out of curiosity, what does the OP feel he is worth?

[MD9]

Just out of curiosity, what does the OP feel he is worth?

Like I said, I was thinking of offering $100 to start off, then try doubling it over the course of a few more jobs. Then seeing how that goes maybe eventually get to $300/min. Maybe I should offer some free stuff first. I did charge $100 for a song once I made like 7 years ago. It's called Seaforth, it is on my AudioJungle. I made it for a guy who was advertising for Yachts.

ROCKYIII, yeah I suppose you are right. I just imagine people will be as straightforward and objective and analytic as me about things. Not that anybody is truly objective.

Well, I wrote a lot in my last post, I hope some of it at least can be responded to.

[MD9]

Oh, and I don't personally know many people whose musical opinion I can respect. I have been playing percussion for a talented guy and girl who used to have a moderately successful rock band. He said I had skills when he heard some of my stuff. Strangely I have sort of lost contact with them lately. We were supposed to do some performances and recordings but I don't know what is going to happen with that.

I have played drums for 12 years now. I haven't pushed myself super hard but everyone says I'm gifted at it. And as far as my computer compositions, I have only ever received praise from friends and online people, so I have stopped asking for a long time now since nobody gave me advice on how to improve.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

then why not just charge that and see if anyone is interested? if not, you can always lower the price later

i think it should really depend on someone's budget though (that's usually how it works), cause charging indies the same as people with large or mid-sized budgets makes no sense