Landing Your First Indie Video Game Soundtrack

As a $32 billion dollar industry with serious growth projected, the PC gaming market has become a premium area for artists to pull in serious money, provided if they're willing to put in the work necessary to land a contract for a game soundtrack.

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Guest post by Glen Parry of Soundfly's Flypaper

So, you’re interested in breaking into the indie game scene? It could not be a better time to do so, with stats coming out in 2017 valuing PC gaming as a $32 billion industry, and with a predicted rate of growth at nearly 5% annually through 2020.

If you’re a music producer looking for more opportunities to showcase your work, well, this could potentially be a very lucrative proposition for you — that is, if you’re willing to put in some hard hours. No one said it would be easy, but more than ever, opportunities are beginning to emerge for independent artists as the music industry evolves and shifts its focus.

Here are some tools at your disposal to get you closer to landing your first indie gaming soundtrack!

Build Your Portfolio

This one is truly essential and will dictate the types of projects you can get involved with. Start building up a body of work. Build as much content as you can. Of course, quality over quantity — but regardless, be prolific in your output. One of the most important features of any good portfolio is diversity — and it’s one of the most valuable features of a composer in the game industry.

Yeah, sure, you can write some basic ambient background music for when a player is just exploring their environment, but can you meet the challenge to write something of a higher emotive intensity when a player is mid-battle?

Your best bet is to start exploring the diversity of musical needs within games, and challenge yourself to meet them. The more you practice this, the easier it will get.

Get Involved in the Community

This is probably one of the most neglected aspects of breaking into the scene. This one will really give you the push you need to get your foot in the door, so don’t overlook it.

Composers want to do what composers do best: write music. While that’s understandable, it’s really only one facet in the complex web of requirements of success in the modern music industry. Immerse yourself in the gaming community in every way possible. The internet is an ever-expanding space of opportunity not to be squandered. Join as many groups online as you can — on Reddit, social media, forums, everywhere.

There are plenty of meet-ups and conventions coordinated by game developers and enthusiasts dedicated to discussing ideas, future projects, and simply being surrounded by fellow gamers. See what’s going on in your local area, and get involved. If you’re not confident networking in person, get a friend to come along with you!

Find Projects to Which You’re Actually Interested in Contributing

Your chances of being awarded an entire soundtrack to compose for will greatly increase if you are genuinely passionate about the project. The developers (no matter how socially awkward they may seem) will be able to sense your enthusiasm.

So, if you want to cultivate some real excitement about a project, the best thing to do is find one that actually excites you personally! Perhaps it’s a stunning artistic aesthetic, a unique storyline, or some amazing gameplay mechanics. Whatever it is that piques your interest, find projects in development that truly captivate you. If you can find this and communicate it to the developer, they’ll appreciate your sincere interest and be more likely to give you a go.

Trust me on this: Building rapport is absolutely essential and will guide your success. It will also ensure that you will never be short of ideas for the game, and it will act as inspiration by itself!

Play a Lot of Games!

This one is a no-brainer. A love for gaming is a big plus and will give you many advantages over other composers. And let’s face it — like all industries, it’s competitive. Knowing the vernacular, the intricacies of different game genres — heck, if you can even learn how to implement your music into a game — this will get you many steps ahead of the competition and make you stand out to any developer.

Playing games will also give you immeasurable insight into how the music (and sound design) functions. Where is it appropriate for the music to sit in the background so the player can immerse oneself, or solve a puzzle? Where does the music increase in energy and intensity? What about the intro music and credits music? What common themes can you find in game-trailer tracks?

Focusing your attention deeper into the functionality of music in games will really upgrade your knowledge and understanding of game music. As long as you limit your time gaming (it does tend to get out of control sometimes) and dedicate ample time to building your portfolio, you’ll be hitting all the right notes!

Create a Persuasive Pitch

This ties in to an earlier point. If you’re genuinely passionate about the project, this is going to shine through in your pitch. What’s unique about you as a composer? What do you believe you can bring to the table that sets you apart from other interested applicants?

It might be tempting to batch-send proposals to companies and developers to save time. While it certainly might save you some time in the short term, in the long run, it will slow you down and you will get a much lower response rate.

You’ll probably find that creating a template works best. Outline a description of yourself, talk about what got you interested in game soundtracks, discuss your portfolio and relevant experience. But leave some space throughout the proposal to create something personalized — something that the recipient will know was custom created for them. They will appreciate it, and it will definitely grab their attention!

There are many more things you can do to propel yourself further as a composer in the game industry, but for a beginner looking to tap into it for the first time, these are some of the essentials. The main takeaway is to simply immerse yourself in the world of gaming and game music. If you do this, you will be well on your way to landing yourself more gigs and becoming the next big soundtrack composer!

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No matter where your music ends up — whether in films, video games, or podcasts — electronically produced music can often fall into the trap of sounding less human than instrumental music. Writing music for picture requires a keen understanding of spatial mixing and sound design, composing for emotional changes, and timing.

Soundfly’s host of PRODUCE courses can help!

With free and paid courses such as Making Realistic MIDI Strings, Unlocking the Emotional Power of Chords, Faders Up: Modern Mix Techniques, and Theory for Producers, our online courses will help you rise to any musical challenge ahead of you. Preview any course on Soundfly for free, and until January 31, take 30% off our mixing courses with the promo code MIXINGMONTH.

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Glen Parry has been a musician for over 15 years. He’s done everything the hard way so you don’t have to. You can find more musical advice and audio gear buying guides over at Audio Mastered.

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Will Music Modernization Act Precipitate The Decline Of BMI, ASCAP, SESAC?

All week long week we've been exploring the The Music Modernization Act  currently before Congress.  One consequence could be a significant decline in the importance of PROs like BMI, ASCAP, GMR and SESAC

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Guest post by Chris Castle of Music Technology Policy

It seems like every time I read the controversial Music Modernization Act (“MMA”) I run across a loose end or unintended consequence–and here’s another one.  Many of us–myself included–argued for years that PROs like ASCAP, BMI, GMR and SESAC should be allowed to license both the performance right and the mechanical reproduction right for streaming uses.  (Recall that the consent decrees prevent this efficiency in licensing for ASCAP and BMI.)

Mechanical rates could continue to be set in the normal course of the absurdly cumbersome Copyright Royalty Judges and the performance rates could continue to be set in the normal course of the absurdly cumbersome rate courts for ASCAP and BMI–but the one-stop licenses could be issued by PROs for their respective writers’ contributory shares of their songs.  But–these appeals to efficiency were made in the absence of a mechanical collecting society in the U.S.  The MMA changes those arguments.

Let’s be honest–there are plenty of tech folk who despise the PROs and there’s at least one Congressman–James Sensenbrenner–who sure looks like he does, too.  Would any of them shed a tear if the PROs just went away?  Rep. Sensenbrenner’s Transparency in Music Licensing and Ownership Act which we heavily criticized certainly appeared to have the destruction of PROs in mind.

Enter the MMA and its proposal to establish a quango-like mechanical collective.  Without accepting or rejecting the proposed bill (which we are still digesting), I think it’s worth pointing out that there’s an interesting twist here when you consider the longevity of the PROs.

Recall that the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice invited a legislative solution to continued consent degree regulation of ASCAP and BMI in its 2016 statement closing the Division’s review of the consent decrees:

[T]he Division recognizes the incongruity in the oversight over the licensing of performance rights and other copyrights in compositions and sound recordings and believes that the protections provided by the consent decrees could be addressed through a legislative solution that brings performance rights licensing under a similar regulatory umbrella as other rights. The Division encourages the development of a comprehensive legislative solution that ensures a competitive marketplace and obviates the need for continued Division oversight of the PROs.

In a post MMA world, why would the argument for one stop licensing for at least streaming not simply be flipped from the PROs administering streaming mechanical licenses to the MMA mechanical collective administering both streaming mechanical licenses and the performance rights in a new form of one-stop blanket license?  Why have the PROs at all if you have a massive government mandated collective that enjoys an antitrust exemption for compulsory licenses?  And if you have a government mandated one-stop shop in a future version of the MMA, would such a ruling trump any private contracts to the contrary between songwriters and their PRO?

Giving PROs a legislated push toward oblivion would certainly check a box at the Digital Media Association (if not cross one off the bucket list) as well as the MIC Coalition–and possibly be very satisfactory to Mr. Sensenbrenner.  Not to mention that it would arguably follow the Antitrust Division’s guidance.

Personally, I think that outcome would be terrible for songwriters, but there are no assurances in the MMA that it can’t happen that I have found so far.  And that may be the left cross to follow if the Transparency in Music Licensing and Ownership Act is not withdrawn–and by the way there are no guarantees of the withdrawal of that loose end either, at least not so far. 

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Mortgage rates today, February 1, plus lock recommendations

Mortgage rates today are driven by movements in financial markets worldwide. When the economy heats up, bond price drop, and rates increase. When the economy pulls back, interest rates tend to fall.

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Facebook Has An Instagram, Messaging App Problem [Mark Mulligan]

Total time spent on Facebook fell for the first time ever last quarter, down 5% or 50 million hours every day.  The decline, which came in part from changes in its News Feed algorithm, was also driven by increased user on messaging platforms, including its own Instagram and Messenger platforms. MIDiA's Mark Mulligan offers an analysis.

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By Mark Mulligan of MIDiA and the Music Industry blog.

Mark Zuckerberg dropped a bit of bombshell during the Q4 2017 earnings call. He announced that Facebook daily active users (DAUs) have fallen across some key markets, including the US. COO Sheryl Sandberg elaborated:

“In the US and Canada, these changes contributed to a DAU decline of 700,000 compared to Q3. We don’t see this as an ongoing trend, but we do anticipate that DAU in this region may fluctuate given the relatively high penetration level.”

Facebook attributed the fall to the newsfeed changes it has made to improve the quality of relevance of content users see, and to mitigate against trends such as fake news. While these will certainly have played a role, there is a bigger, more fundamental factor driving the decline: Facebook has an Instagram problem. Or, to be more precise, Facebook has a messaging app problem.

Messaging apps are the third phase of platforms on which digital audiences congregate. First came websites, then social networks and now messaging apps—which collectively accounted for 7.7 billion monthly active users (MAUs) at the end of 2017, up from 6.6 billion in 2016 and 5.5 billion in 2015. This is a massive segment that continues to grow at pace.

When the sector first started emerging, Facebook could have battened down the hatches and played a defensive hand. Instead, it did what the bravest companies do: it decided to disrupt itself before the competition did. The result: Facebook is now the global leader in the mobile messaging space, with a 2017 global market share of 49%, up from 43% in 2016 and 41% in 2015. It has done such a good job of transitioning its audience that 77% of Facebook’s total audience now use at least one messaging app. But, the problem with messaging apps is that no one has really worked out how to monetise them yet. And that’s a doubly big problem for Facebook because the more time that its users spend on lower monetised messaging apps, the lower the ad revenue yield. So, the more successful that Instagram and WhatsApp become (neither of which are included in Facebook’s active user numbers) the worse off Facebook itself becomes.

Hiking ad rates hides the impact

Right now, Facebook has got enough velocity in its core ad business to absorb the DAU drop. Q4 ad revenue grew by 26% on Q3, only one percentage point less growth than it recorded one year prior. But, until Facebook gets better at monetising its messaging apps, ad revenue will increasingly feel the pinch. This is why Facebook spent much of its earnings call talking about how it is increasing the relevance of advertising, improving targeting and improving user experience, so that it can charge advertisers more. For the midterm, it will hide the impact of the messaging app shift.

Longer-term though, Facebook needs a more robust solution. It cannot rush monetisation of its messaging apps as this will risk alienating users, especially in the more personal environments of WhatsApp and Messenger. Instagram will be the core focus of ad revenue growth, as this has already proven to be a natural home for branding. Facebook is also confident it will be able to build upon its initial base of business users of WhatsApp. All of this will take time though. So, it will need to be complemented with other efforts.

If it looks like a duck

Back in our November 2016 report ‘Facebook The Media Company: If It Looks Like A Duck’, we correctly predicted that Facebook would start to feel the impact of messaging app growth on its core platform. We also predicted that Facebook would start calling itself a media company, but that it would say it was a media company unlike any other. Sure enough, one month later that’s exactly what Zuckerberg did.

There is a serious point to this analyst gloating though; Facebook needs its media company strategy to start paying dividends. It is busy finalising music rights deals and is building up its video arsenal. For music, expect (ad supported) music-based social communication to find a home in messaging apps. For video, expect the messaging apps to start acting as virtual TV programming guides and remote controls for what will likely be a semi-scheduled ad supported and premium video offering. As we said in our 2016 report:

“Media companies beware, there’s a new player in town and it’s betting big, real big.”

This blog post is an excerpt from MIDiA’s forthcoming report ‘Facebook’s Instagram Problem: Building Media Strategy In A Fragmented Audience World’.

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Cardi B Replaces Alexa In Amazon Super Bowl Ad [WATCH]

 

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Musicians And The Great College Dilemma

For many musicians, the choice of whether or not to attend college can be a difficult one. While college can provide a lot of opportunities for both networking and improving one's skills, many artists find that college is out of their financial reach, or consider unnecessary to their success in the industry.

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In this latest article from MusicThinkTank, Daniel Matthews explores the age-old dilemma faced by musicians trying to decide whether or not to invest in a college education.

"Ever heard of biomimicry? Turns out there’s a degree in it. “The mix of online and field study was what made it so life-changing,” says Sara Al-Sayed, who got her degree in biomimicry from ASU. “It was a shift in my paradigm and the way I look at the world.” This paradigm shift easily translates into the world of music. Instruments that imitate birds and whales. Soundscapes that mirror the landscape. "

[Continue Reading]

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