All posts by Beatscribe

Beatscribe is an full-time indie musician with a long-standing obsession with tall things 8-bit. He has composed soundtracks for tons of mobile and homebrew games and tries to infuse them with the nostalgic flavor of the early days of gaming. Check out his latest adventures on www.beatscribe.com.
PRODUCTION & TUTORIALS

Life As a Freelance Musician: Part 3: One Year’s Timeline

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photo-17

This article takes a look at the first year of life as a freelance composer.

This all started almost two years ago. I wanted to do more volunteer work with my church and also was growing more dissatisfied with my life in corporate America. I live in Chicago and had done programming/DBA work for the last 10 years. I spent 2 hours a day commuting, sitting in an office with a pointless dress code, doing a job I could easily be doing from home. The final straw was when they changed our traditional insurance to a Medical FSA, which means you might as well save your own money for your basic medial expenses. That and replacing our already-small cubicles with coffin-like rectangles you could only pull your chair in and out of were all wonderful reasons to try something new.

 

 

 

-3 Months To Freelance Life

 

I was formerly a roommate of the founder of Bravado Waffle, and he asked me to make some tunes for Robo Hero. It was a fun experience and the first time I tried to make music that I really wanted to sound good. I also helped with art and level design. I did everything in my power to make the game look and sound like Megaman! When one reviewer called Robo “the new blue bomber” I could not have been happier. The game was not a financial success but had a good little following, and reviewers always said great things about the music. One of my dreams was to make a living doing music, but, more importantly not to be chained down to a corporate job. I called my plan, “living off the internet”. I got inspiration from blogs like Wage Slave Rebel and reading other stories of people who just said No to a full time office job.

 

Month 1 of Freelance Life

 

I am not an irresponsible person. I didn’t decide to quit my job and just hope music would work out. I’d love to believe in ‘do what you love and the money will follow’ but I have bills to pay too. Music was actually Plan C for how I’d make a living off the Internet, my 3rd option out of about 7 (#8 is grilling burgers on the street!)

 

I set a plan to reach a certain $ of income each day. Plan A is my fill in the gaps between other plans, and at the start, that’s all I did. I write articles for Textbroker and a few other clients that I’ve built up over the years. It’s grueling work to reach my daily $ goal. I start at 4am and finish around 3pm and then spend 2 or 3 hours working on music for my portfolio, marketing myself as a composer and trying to make connections with clients. I spend one day during the week and the weekend doing volunteer work and occasionally I try that thing called sleep.

 

As far as music, I do some basic marketing, which doesn’t appear to pay off much at first and get a few small gigs for Podcast intros and things like that. Around the end of the first month, I land my first real client and do music for their iOS game. I take a gamble and buy some equipment on my credit card before being paid to make the music as good as possible. It’s worth it! The client loves me and becomes one of my most regular sources of income.

 

Month 3 of Freelance Life

 

The first three months were pretty hard, I realize I can’t write quality articles 8-10 hours a day and keep my sanity. Plan A is getting harder but, fortunately, my Plan B, doing programming and QA as a freelancer starts to take off. This gives me more breathing room for reaching my daily $ goal in just a few hours a day and now I’m spending serious time marketing my music stuff, trolling forums for work and trolling kickstarter for new projects. Plan C (The Music) is starting to pay some of the bills!

 

My Kickstarter trolling works out and gets me a job on the Rubicon soundtrack when it skyrockets past its goal. I get some good comments on the chiptune-inspired soundtrack in many reviews of the game and am starting to build a solid portfolio with different kinds of music.

 

Month 6 of Freelance Life

 

I’ve now completely quit all my Plan A writing in favor of…drumroll…MUSIC!..and some programming still. I have landed a few clients who give me regular work, including a massive orchestral soundtrack for a game that never ends up coming out (but later I do Cognitile for them). I’m able to purchase some more equipment, upgrade my system for a first time, and actually take my wife out to dinner sometimes.  Some clients who could barely pay me for one song when they started their businesses are now ordering entire sets of sounds for games they have coming out each month.

 

I’m still doing my Plan B programming and continuing to market myself for music stuff. I take serious time out of doing actual work to learn about proper mastering, mixing and things that I’ve sort of been hacking my way through until now.  I wish I could have done this sooner. I strip most of my soundcloud in embarrassment at my previous efforts, even some I got paid for.

 

Month 10 of Freelance Life

 

I’m insanely overwhelmed. I have 8 different LARGE game projects with tight deadlines on my work board. I realize for the first time that it’s almost impossible (for me anyways) to do music work the way I do programming work and other right-brained activities. You can’t force inspiration. I get headaches if I work more than 5 hours straight on music and especially sound effects. I also realize I need to raise my prices to make it worth my while. I take a small break in looking for new clients and do a little more programming just to clear my head. I decide I have to set limits on how much work I take on in the future.

 

Year 1

 

I’ve found a good balance between my volunteer activities and doing music and some programming. The only writing I do is for this blog just for fun. I’m now collaborating with other musicians and even farming out some jobs or parts of jobs (guitar, vocals, violin solos) to keep from getting overwhelmed. I’ve been able to upgrade my systems some more and even take a vacation. I still feel like I have tons to learn so for the time being, I’ve eased off on marketing and looking for new clients and have been focusing on improving my overall skills and listening to what other artists are doing out there.

 

In the next part of the series, we’ll go into details on some of the things discussed here, like how to make those essential first connections, what to do when the client is not happy, how to enjoy life and focus on the advantages of this lifestyle, how to avoid getting scammed (did I mention I got scammed!?) and more stuff.

 

PRODUCTION & TUTORIALS

Music Stuff: The Sounds

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So, you now have an all the gear you need, and a good DAWS installed. The next thing you need is to load it up with quality plugins to produce sound. Most DAWS come with some decent synthesizers, sample collections and loops, but you’ll probably find out pretty quick that you want to move beyond the generic sounds that come with it.

 

There are a myriad of different tools for making music, they range from lame to amazing and their prices range from free to thousands of dollars. You totally need to buy them all! Not really…We’re going to look at some of the best plug-ins that are good for starting out and also for doing VGM remixes and Chiptunes of course. We’ll also look at some of the non-music tools that help make your sound more professional.

 

Troll Disclaimer: This is not meant to be an exhaustive list by any means, and all prices are just estimates of current pricing at the time of writing.

 

Basically, it works like this; these plugins attach to your DAWS, you assign them to a track and start laying down MIDI notes on your MIDI keyboard or by putting the notes in the piano roll. The system plays these notes through its synths or triggers the proper sample.

 

Chiptune Sounds

If you’re not going the hardware route and want to add some retro sounds to your songs, here’s a few great options that are somewhat affordable:

Plogue Chipsounds ($95.00 – Limited Free Demo)

Chipsounds is a really awesome plug-in that emulates the NES, Gameboy DMG, Atari SID and a bunch of other classic chips, some of which you may never have even heard of. It’s well worth the price and it’s clear that Plogue is dedicated to being as true to the original chip’s parameters and sounds as possible.

YMCK’s Magical 8bit (Free!)

This tool provides the primitive waveforms needed to create some basic 8-bit sounds. It’s not as confusing and complicated as Plogue, but does take a bit more work to create a real distinct sound of a specific chip.

VOPM (Free)

This VST might not be compatible with every DAWS but it’s a truly amazing way to get the FM Synthesis sound of the Sega Genesis. See this related article for all the details.

 

Bass And Synths

 

Bass is a key component to any song, and if you’re looking for powerful sounds, you’ll probably want to go further than your packaged bass synth that came with your DAWS. Here’s a few great options.

TAL Free Plugins (Free!)

These guys have all sorts of basic retro synths that mimic the famous TB-303 and other classic synth basses. It’s great for remixes and getting that retro sound.

Native Instruments’ Massive ($200 – Limited Free Demo)

Massive is best known for creating dubstep sounds. It’s powerful and flexible and can produce some nice pads as well. It’s worth trying out since the free demo works (even lets you bounce tracks, so really you don’t need to buy it) for 30 minutes sessions. It’s worth purchasing for almost any type of music.

Native Instruments’ Kontakt ($199.50 currently on sale!)

As you can see, NI makes it on the list a lot. I am dying to know why this tool costs 50 cents more than their other tools. The powerful Kontakt has loads of samples and modular synth interfaces that let you create modern sounds and classic bleeps and bloops. It also has exotic instruments and tons of third-party add-ons available.

Orchestral Sounds ($300+)

If you want to get into orchestral music, Final Fantasy-type stuff you can’t go wrong with Vienna Instruments or EastWest Quantum Leap’s systems. Beware though, you’re going to be dropping a pretty penny. I suggest starting the longly-titled EastWest Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Silver, it’s a well-rounded collection to get you started for minimal spending. Make sure you check the requirements of hard drive and memory usage since these bad boys are huge.

Drums

Creating drums can be challenging but fun. There’s a myriad of free sample collections, which you can load into you’re the sampler that comes with your DAWS. Here’s a few really great programs if you do want to drop some cash on some killer beats and rhythm elements.

Native Instruments’ Battery ($199)

Battery is a full-featured sampler that comes with lots of great beats and has tons of available expansion pack drum kits you can add too. You really get your moneys worth on this one.

FXPansion’s BFD2 ($99-$199)

BFD2 has some killer acoustic drum sounds that sound natural and full. The affordable BFD2 ECO is a great place to start for some acoustic sounds.

East West Quantum Leap’s Ministry of Rock 2 ($299)

If you want thundering heavy metal drums, you can’t be ministry of rock. It also comes with some amazing guitars and bass guitar sample-based programs as well.

Mastering

If you can only buy one thing on this list, I suggest you look at this section. Most of the DAWS come with basic mastering tools, but you really can’t beat oZone for its all-in-one professional interface.

iZotope Ozone ($199)

This mastering plug-in contains equalizers, multipressors (we’ll learn about these later), stereo controls, harmonic exciters and maximizers to help you get a loud, professional mix. It also does technical stuff like dithering to make sure you’re really producing a quality mix and final file.

 

Mailing Lists

Chances are, you can’t buy all this stuff right away and you will probably make more purchases over time. Therefore, it’s a great idea to sign up to the mailing lists of many of the companies that produce these tools. This not only makes you privy to new tools that come available but you can also take advantage of holiday sales, limited time offers and other deals. I’d estimate I’ve saved about $500 this year alone by buying things during sales, using customer loyalty discounts for repeated purchases and basically just being a smart shopper. Here’s a few companies whose mailing lists you’ll want to join:

 

Sweetwater – They sell lots of gear and software and have regular sales.

Native Instruments – The makers of Massive, they’re always putting out new stuff too.

iZotope – Makers of Ozone, they have lots of great EQ, distortion and other effect plugins.

FXPansion Audio UK – Makers of BFD and tons of other great tools.

Next week, we’ll return to life as a freelance musician with a ‘day in the life’ perspective of what it’s like scraping out a living by making a lot of noise in your living room. Stay tuned.

Screen Shot 2013-05-03 at 2.36.44 PMBeatscribe is a full time indie composer, musician and writer. By day he creates soundtracks and sfx for various mobile gaming companies, by night creates megaman-inspired chiptunes, in the afternoons he drinks tea. Check out his latest releases, tutorials and retro ruminations at www.beatscribe.com.
ALBUMS, CHIPTUNE, GAME MUSIC, MUSIC

sleepytimejesse’s Spacious Anxious Takes You On a 16-bit Audio Odyssey

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When we think of what sounds make up quality, memorable chiptune albums and songs, the SNES is probably one of the last systems we think about. However, when you think of the most memorable songs from the 16-bit era, the SNES, at least for me, is near the top of the list.

 

Sleepytimejesse aims to close that discrepancy with Spacious Anxious, which he describes as  a “first-person space odyssey; episodes of awe and agoraphobia.” If you recently picked up Chiptune = Win vol 2, you heard his stand-out track, Riparian Woodlands, arguably the quietest song on the entire compilation, this delicate track recalled the mystical feeling of every 16-bit RPG you ever played. He’s also the author of the massive, Earthbound Soundfont. To my knowledge, it’s the most extensive SNES soundfont out there.

 

With Spacious Anxious, we get an album that’s both beautiful and menacing, spacious and claustrophobic, it all depends on the track. Using sounds from the SNES, N64 and GameCube, sleepytimejesse constructs an album that mostly sounds like boss battle music from Super Metroid interspersed with slower, soaring pieces that give you rest from the action and make me think of exploring some sort of foreboding alien temple.

 

What also sets this album about is the composition influences, it’s not a dance album, so don’t expect that. It’s clear that Radiohead is an influence with the track, “Anthem For A Plutoid”, which sort of sounds like Massive Attack remixed “National Anthem” on an SNES. The heavier tracks also have a bit of chugging Djent converted to 16-bit guitar samples. It’s great to see someone taking a fresh approach to chiptune music, not only with their platform choice but also with their style. Support this excellent effort and pick up a copy.

 

Screen Shot 2013-05-03 at 2.36.44 PMBeatscribe is a full time indie composer, musician and writer. By day he creates soundtracks and sfx for various mobile gaming companies, by night creates megaman-inspired chiptunes, in the afternoons he drinks tea. Check out his latest releases, tutorials and retro ruminations at www.beatscribe.com.
PRODUCTION & TUTORIALS

Life as A Freelance Video Game Musician: Part 2: The Gear

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Cutman's home studio setup.
Cutman’s home studio setup.

The HQ of any indie musician is is home studio. There are a myriad of options as far as monitors, computers, keyboards, headphones, mics and other equipment that you might need or want. However, most indie musicians have a limited budget for starting off. Today we’ll look at the bare minimum equipment you’d need to start making some quality tunes.

If posisble, it’s best to decide on what digital audio workstation you’ll use before purchasing any of these items since it will influence what kind of computer you need and what kind of software instruments you might want to purchase. Check out our previous article here on that subject.

As always, these are just suggestions based on a few independant musicians, myself and Cutman’s experience and input. There are always other options out there, but we’re focusing on how to get the most for your money.

In this article, we’ll look at some handy suggestions for your computer, MIDI controller, Monitors and Headphones. Are prices are rough estimations of average prices at the time of writing this, so make sure you shop around!

 

Computer

Beatscribe's Mac-based home setup.
Beatscribe’s Mac-based home setup.

The heart of your your home studio is the computer. I’m not going to go into TONS of detail on this, it could be its own article. We’d recommend you get the most powerful computer you can afford. Few things are as intensive as audio processing on a computer. If you can get a SSD hard drive, this helps immensely in speeding up load times and giving you better latency, but it really isn’t needed to produce music.

Most DAWS systems work with dual monitors and most studio buffs will tell you they can’t live without two big flatscreens. Additionally, you’ll want a computer that has a good cooling system, ample storage space and all the normal things like antivirus protection and surge protectors.

 

 

 

Mac or PC?

The decision to get a Mac or a PC mostly depends on your choice of DAWS since not all are available on the Mac platform. If you do go with Mac, you will be closing the door on a lot of VSTi/VST technology that doesn’t play nice on a Mac. This includes useful chiptune tools like the VOPM vst for doing FM synthesis (Sega Genesis) sounds. I have an old laptop with Cubase on it just for the rare occasion I simply MUST use a VST. The bottom line is you’ll probably get more for your money from PC than with MAC.

MIDI Controllers

A MIDI Controller keyboard is not a necessity but it does make composing super easy and actually give you something tangible to “play” on. You could build everything in a tracker or your DAWS but having a keyboard is great for getting into the live vibe of making music even when sitting at home and composing on a laptop.

MPK Mini ($100)
APC40 ($400)
Edirol PCR series ($50)
MIDI Fighter ($300)
M-Audio Ozone ($150)

Production Headphones

Good headphones are perhaps the most essential component of making quality music. You have to be able to hear what’s really going on in your tracks. Richard D. James, who has more rare gear than many other musicians combined, once said in an interview, “All you really need to make electronic music these days is a laptop and a good pair of headphones”. If you can’t afford anything but a computer and headphones, make sure you get one of these great pairs.

Sony MDR-7502 ($50)
Klipsch Image S4 ($80)
Sony MDR-7506 ($100)
Beyerdynamic DT 770  – Cutman’s Favorite ($229)

Monitors (Speakers)

Monitors are essential to understanding what your song “really” sounds like. Home sound system speakers, PC speakers, car stereos and headphones all tweak the raw signal with extra bass and sometimes highs. This means that if you mix your songs relying on one of these systems, you may be over- or under-compensating for what the speakers do. Monitors produce unaffected audio that helps you know what your song actually sounds like in its most raw format.

Take the time to read up on positioning monitors correctly and how the room size and wall material effects the sound you hear. At first, you might not notice much difference by these elements, but they will have an impact on your final product.

M-audio AV40s ($150)
Yamaha HS-50s ($130)

Microphones

If you plan to record acoustic instruments or perform live or sing, you’ll need a mic. The SM58 is a standard but decent quality mic for starting out. If you plan on tracking lots of live instruments, you might want to get a digital audio interface as well, but we’ll get into this in a future article too.

SM58 ($100)

Now that you have your home studio built, you need to look at getting the right plugins for creating some awesome tunes, third-party programs for mastering and mixing, and a few other useful bits. We’ll take a look at this next time. As these posts continue, they’ll alternate between talking about the gear and technical topics and talking about the business and lifestyle side of things.

 

Screen Shot 2013-05-03 at 2.36.44 PMBeatscribe is a full time indie composer, musician and writer. By day he creates soundtracks and sfx for various mobile gaming companies, by night creates megaman-inspired chiptunes, in the afternoons he drinks tea. Check out his latest releases, tutorials and retro ruminations at www.beatscribe.com.