Allar's Awesome Blog   Programming Stuff and Things

Game music is, without a doubt, one of the hardest things to break into, ever.  To put it into perspective: I had a friend start a band, get the band signed to a label, make an album, toured Europe, then left the band, all while I was still trying to break into the industry.  

Unlike artist, programmers, and even sound designers, very few studios actually house full time composers.  Your chances are already slim.  Small time indie developers make the mistake of wanting a sound designer that can do both sound and music, or a composer that can do sound design.  Add that to the fact that the director of the indie project has a brother with a cracked copy of Fruity Loops who now thinks he’s Mozart, and you may realize your chances of becoming a game composer, or even working on projects, are less likely.

Frustrating and depressing at times? Yes.  Without a doubt.

Does that mean you should give up? No, of course not.  But knowing how hard it is will help put things into perspective.

Taking the music aspect out completely, being a game composer is so much more than knowing how to write music.  Dare I say it’s an art to itself.  Understanding interactive media and how that translates to the music is one of the differences that sets it apart from any other media.  You’re not just writing a piece of music.  You’re writing music that has to adapt and change with the player.  Not only is it interactive but you have to understand that it is fluid, not abrupt stops from the ambient piece to the tension track.  It has to evolve from one to the other.  Which, in reality, might be a whole different “transition” piece you have to write all together.  Being a game composer means understanding all of this and being able to write music according to these demands.

The Unreal Development Kit (UDK) / Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) and WWISE / FMOD are probably the best examples of how a game engine (or middleware in some cases) create an interactive musical landscape.  If you do not understand at least the basics of these programs, and how they relate to, and handle, music you are doing yourself a disservice.

Do you understand when the tension track is played in UDK?  How about the action track?  Do you know how loop points get set in WWISE, how it can relate to your music, and how it’s incorporated into UDK / UE3?

If you have no clue what I’m talking about or don’t know the answers to those questions then I suggest downloading both UDK and WWISE and experimenting with them.

UDK Website

WWISE Website

Both are free to download and learn.

Not only will this give you an understanding of how these tools work but it’ll give you a better understanding of interactive music.  How it’s created, applied, and possibly even change how you write you music all together.

Now on to the music aspect.

If you want to sound like Zimmer, do sound like Zimmer, or only write music that has staccato strings with horns playing fifths, and don’t even know there’s a woodwind section to an orchestra, then don’t waste your time trying to break into the industry.  Zimmer clones are a dime a dozen and, honestly, not very well-respected in the musical community.  Yeah, you might pull off a convincing Zimmer sound, but no one cares.  We’ve all heard that style time and time again.

On a similar note, if all you write is “un-tis”, house, techno, whatever you want to call it, you might want to try a different industry as well.  Everyone with their cracked copy of Fruity Loops is a “producer” and can write that same stuff.  They too come a dime a dozen.

I can hear the angry mob forming, ready to lunge at me with their pitch forks and torches.  I know it’s very blunt and may even be hard to hear.  But the fact is, you’re applying for an industry that has some of the most talented and creative people you’ll ever be given the chance to talk to or associate with – people who aren’t a dime a dozen and could probably write that same generic crap ten times better than you in their sleep.

Do you think Kevin Riepl knows what notes are in a B minor scale?  Without a doubt.  Do you think Sascha Dikiciyan uses stock presets in Massive?  Far from it.  These guys have honed their craft and are damn good at what they do.  Jesper Kyd, Sam Hulick, etc, these are, essentially, the same group of guys you’ll be applying against (or possibly even working with).  What are you going to do if someone tells you, “Alright guys, we’re gonna write this whole soundtrack in A minor.” and you don’t know what A minor is, or what notes belong in that scale? (Red Dead Redemption’s soundtrack was all in A minor)

Again, this isn’t musical elitism.  This is knowing your craft inside and out and being able to deliver on all fronts when asked.

So if you are reading this and are becoming depressed – good.  But that doesn’t mean don’t try to break into the industry,  just know that it’s something extremely hard to do and you really have to be on top of your game to get that foot in the door.  Hell, things are just now starting to come around for me after many years of determination and growth.

- David Mason