naktigonis

[naktigonis]

Just asking, are you still taking private commissions? If not then will you after Deepwoken no longer needs more music? Regardless nice music and hope you have a good day! (:

hello! super belated response (i somehow missed this one all the way from sep 29th 2022!), but unfortunately, i've never really been open for commissions!

for now, i have a sizeable bunch of stuff to finish for Deepwoken, as content is still being made for the game, and thus new music is required. when that well dries up, i'll look into other mainline venues of work B)

i'm open to receiving longer term job offers and proposals via email at tenebrousgravelord@gmail.com - but for one-off stuff like commissions, i'd advertise openings beforehand on my social media outlets, if i ever did them. for now though, it'd be a bit hard, and somewhat non-viable for me as an artist, financially and workload-wise, to do commissions on top of my current workload with Deepwoken 😔

thank you for the compliments, and you have a good day as well! B)

[naktigonis]

quick question, how much of the deepwoken ost was made with real instruments and do u have any tips at composing video game music? very new and dont have the experience like you do

greetings, anonymous asker from a year ago! once again, i Apologise for. making the folks in my askbox wait for over a year... D:

most of the Deepwoken OST, as mentioned here, was made with virtual instruments - mostly these plugins!

as for tips for new and aspiring composers, i answered a similar question here! but i guess to add tips specifically for people wanting to compose video game music - get a good bunch of references for whatever you're making music for. whenever i make tracks for the Deepwoken OST, i always ask for pictures or footage of the thing i'm making music for (be it an arena or a bossfight); and i always ask the developers for details - what's the vibe of the place? is there any lore to it? any specific characters or factions or concepts related to it? what sort of emotion do the devs hope to convey? and are there any specific already existing tracks out there they'd like the finished piece to sound like?

i guess also - don't be afraid to experiment! breaking out of your comfort zone is a great way to improve. and, best of all, there's no 'proper' video game music - so you can make whatever. there's genres, sure - but video game music is a broad church that defies genre. any genre can be video game music. classical / symphonic music can be video game music. trippy psych rock can be video game music. retro synthwave can be video game music! the possibilities are endless. whatever genre of sound you can produce, and define as music, can also be a video game soundtrack.

hope this helps (belated as it may be) - good luck on your journey!

[naktigonis]

what plugins do you use and do you use a lot of physical instruments or are they digital?

I HAVE NEGLECTED THESE QUESTIONS FAR TOO LONG...

HELLO asker from [checks notes] December 13th 2022? i've really neglected this askbox huh. time to clean this mess up !!!

i typically use plugins for my music, primarily the ones listed here! i'll very rarely venture into unknown territory with other VSTs, but these are my bread and butter.

i only really record physical instruments for more sound effect-ish stuff (i.e. the tin whistle stings in 'And Let Slip The Hounds Of War'). i do have a few physical instruments in real life - namely a tin whistle i need to replace, an old soviet bayan (a type of button accordion) and a simple acoustic guitar, - but I prefer virtual instruments for the most part, as I don't really have an appropriate space to record my own. B)

[naktigonis]

hello all, pardon the dip in answering questions. irl stuff came up! my queue of questions remains full though, so i'll be answering more tonight - stay tuned!

[naktigonis]

what program do you use to make your music?

i use FL Studio 21 and Audacity, as already answered here!

[naktigonis]

Hi Nakt :3 Can u answer please, just I decide to start write every question for u, what I want to know, and before do it, I decide check all available info from u, and I found something interesting, if its true if heavenly make my work easier. Ты правда понимаешь русский? Мне достаточно только того, чтобы ты понимал мой текст и так далее. Отвечать можешь на английском, в отличии от создания сообщений на английском, перевожу я лучше, так что это было-бы идеально. Боже как я надеюсь что это правда...

hello! wow this was in October 2022 haha, once again sorry for the late answer.

to answer your (preliminary?) question - yes, i understand some russian! i'm not very fluent in the language, but it was part of my school curriculum (although i learned less than i'd have liked, because our teachers changed basically every year, so continuous learning was hard).

so while i may not be able to speak it very well, i generally understand russian. it's easier if it's written of course, and i may lose some nuances in translation here and there - but for anything i may not understand, there is google translate B)

[naktigonis]

What DAW or sound mixer do you use? I'm getting into sound creation on Linux. (Though, you probably don't use that.)

indeed i do not, anonymous asker! i use Windows 11 (for better or for worse).

i cannot recommend much in the ways of Linux-friendly DAWs, but i personally use FL Studio 21, and then do some touch-ups with Audacity sometimes. B)

[naktigonis]

What instruments do you play and what is your musical background? (How long have you been playing said instruments etc, how did you learn them) And any tips for aspiring composers?

i play the piano (in some middling capacity LOL), and i'm currently trying to learn how to play acoustic guitar (though it is a miserably slow process!).

in terms of musical background, general musical education in school aside, i'm pretty much self-taught - i don't know much music theory, nor can i read musical notation. but i do everything by ear, so i don't really need to know all these things B)

i started dabbling in music when i gained an interest in playing around with the piano my family has in their house back in like... 2013? 2014? and then i got picked up by my late music teacher in school to play in a band of rookies around the same time, though i'm a little fuzzy on the dates.

i played in the band for some 4-5 years, improving my piano skills and learning much about the music entertainment world. in the latter years of playing in this high schooler band, i picked up composition on the side, initially starting on silly little tools like Mario Paint Composer (silly famed NES game!) and later Advanced Mario Sequencer (this was my introduction to how soundfonts worked - i cobbled together a custom one myself once!). sometime in late 2018ish to early 2019ish i migrated to FL Studio 20, and have never looked back.

as for tips for aspiring composers... i swear i must've answered this somewhere already! but i guess repetition doesn't hurt. especially since this question has been in my askbox for ages LOL

i can surmise what i've learned in two lessons:

FIND OUT WHAT WORKS BEST FOR YOU! making music is not a linear single-file process by any means. almost everyone makes music in some different method and way. even when comparing myself to fellow composers, i find that our musicmaking processes differ greatly. don't be afraid to experiment with different digital audio workstations (DAWs), or various musicmaking programs. pick one, give it a shot - if it doesn't work, well, it is what it is. unorthodox ones are just as valid as mainstream ones! hell, i started out with Mario Paint Sequencer. that program looks like this! and yet people can make masterpieces with it. if you're looking for a good sort of middle-ground DAW, your best bet is probably SoundBridge - it's free, and it follows the general rules of other DAWs such as FL Studio or Ableton. there's also a few handy starting plugin tips in a previous post here!

KEEP GOING AT IT! musicmaking and composing are not easy processes. they often take time and persistence. but what i've found when working with the Deepwoken OST is, if you keep consistently chipping away at something, you eventually get good at it. set aside a certain amount of time each week for composing, - say, 1 hour? 2 hours? 30 minutes each day? up to you. and just Cook! don't worry about the end product, don't worry about the destination. get lost in the process of making. imagine you're making music for yourself, and not any audience. that, in my opinion, is when the best music is made. and like the lithuanian saying goes, "lašas po lašo ir akmenį pratašo" - or, "drop after drop, and water cuts stone". if you find the tools you're comfortable working with, and you keep working with them, you eventually get good at using them. B)

hope this helps!

[naktigonis]

how did ragoozer approach you to make music for Deepwoken?

already majorly answered Here, asker from 11th February 2022!

man i've really abandoned this account for a while, huh. well. here's hoping i get it cleaned and maintained this time! B)

[naktigonis]

i'm fine. i'm fine. i don't have a problem. i don't have a

okay fine. since 2021, my library has doubled. what having a Source Of Income does to a mfer 🤪🤪🤪 

i guess for a fun little update, these are my top 6 most played games:

What do you like to do in your free time?

big fan of sleeping tbh >:)

more seriously though, i like video games of all sorts, i own a pretty substantial Steam library that i've accumulated over the years:

i really like listening to music, there's very few moments in my day-to-day life where i am either not listening to music or at least not humming a tune.

i also love playing dungeons & dragons! i own a substantial collection of D&D dice, and i'm involved in several campaigns with several groups of friends. i even intend to run a campaign of my own, in a homebrewed setting B)

oh and i guess every now and then i'll be possessed by some sort of spirit and bingewatch an entire show or two in the span of a day >:)

[naktigonis]

What is your favourite piece that you have made to date? I am fairly curious!

i get asked this question a lot! at the time of this question's original asking (may 5th 2022), i might've said something like 'Sin-Smelted Scoriae' - however, now, on 2nd July 2023, i think my favourites are either 'Kyrie', or 'A Light In The Sky'. the upcoming theme for the Ethiron bossfight will most likely uproot both of them though >:)

[naktigonis]

what is the BPM of oscillation deepwoken soundtrack i need to know for reasons

Hello Asker From February 8th of 2022 (holy shit i really neglected this askbox huh). apologies for my late response (like all the others!)

the BPM for Oscillation is - and i opened the project file to check this, - is 90 BPM. hope this helps with Reasons B)

[naktigonis]

I don't know if someone has asked this question before but, is the Deepwoken c-side album copyright free? I'm asking this before I use it in any of my content of course.

i don't mind content creators using my music so long as i'm credited either somewhere in the video description, or somewhere in the video itself. links, of course, are the best kind of credit B)

[naktigonis]

Hey Naktigonis! Your music is extremely well composed and has very unique instruments. Would it be possible for you to compile a list of plugins or what you used to make Deepwoken's OST?

apologies for the late answer, same as all the others!

oh gosh, uhhhh honestly, probably not! i use a broad variety of tools in musicmaking, but to the best of my ability and in no particular order, i mostly use:

OldSkoolVerb - a favourite reverb tool of mine, works wonders when layered;

Valhalla Room - another wonderful reverb tool, this one's great for bigger, more air-y and noble spaces;

Plogue Sforzando - my go-to soundfont player! i have a lot of soundfonts from my days of making music using Advanced Mario Sequencer, so this was kind of my starting tool for musicmaking in FL Studio. i still use it every now and then when i need an instrument that's more synthetic, or if i perhaps don't much mind what the quality of a specific sound is B)

Spitfire LABS - although their CEO is a dork-ass loser (reasons eloquently summarised Here by the wonderful Jeremy Blake of Red Means Recording fame), Spitfire Audio's free instrument library LABS remains a solid choice for any budding musicmaker looking for decent sounds;

Kontakt 6 - an instrument library player, and pretty much my main source of sound in musicmaking. although Kontakt 6 is no longer on sale, its successor Kontakt 7 is! i personally haven't upgraded because i hear it's not much worth the £150ish update for what new stuff it offers. they also have a free version called Kontakt Player, though it is limited in its playback capabilities with some libraries;

A BROAD VARIETY of Kontakt libraries - they come in every flavour under the sun, here's a few to boot from Embertone! (there are many more online for free - if you look up 'free kontakt library', there's typically blog posts from producers offering you tips on those).

as for anything else, i kinda shift and shuffle between some minor stuff here and there. i sometimes use base FL stuff that comes with the All Plugins Edition (bougie of me, i know), but the above list contains my primary tools. hope this answers your question, anonymous asker! B)

[naktigonis]

Two questions: Are you still working on Crossroads of Hekate? and for future Deepwoken updates, are you going to produce additional music for them?

greetings, and again apologies for the Super Late Response!

for your two questions, two answers:

not currently - the Crossroads of Hekate album is currently kind of dormant. i've not abandoned the concept of it - i'm just currently way too busy with real life things and with Deepwoken work to make any of my personal projects :(

yes! i know this was asked ages ago, but Despite Everything, i'm still the composer for Deepwoken. the Verse 2 update came out with some tracks from me - less than i'd have liked, again due to real-life reasons, - but more music from me is planned. both for Layer 2 stuff, and for future updates B)

[naktigonis]

Thank you for your amazing work on Deepwoken! Your music enhances the atmosphere tenfold and the work you put on the leitmotivs explain to us so much about the world through music. (now to the actual question!) There seems to be 4 "extras" on the ost, (apart from "on the shoulders of giants) are they yet-to-be-used music commissioned for the game or are they already implemented in secret locations around the map (like the voidheart for example)?

RETURN OF THE KING?

greetings Gamers, i am here for some Answers.

woah, this must've been asked like... ages ago. i'm not gonna lie, i haven't been on tumblr in ages (something i intend to change soon LOL). i apologise for the super late response!

but thank you for the kind words! and to answer your question, dear anonymous asker, as you must surely know by now, they're not really in game (aside from 'A Memory Of Tides' as an easter egg) - i made these tracks either for fun, or as an exercise in creativity. sometimes my fingers just itch to make music, and sometimes it's thematically fitting to my current line of work B)

[naktigonis]

O Weaver of Words, when are you gonna write poetry again? I really enjoy it :( - Ben

thank you!

inspiration is a fickle thing - it comes and goes. i mostly write poetry when i'm motivated by certain strong emotions, and unfortunately, life's been pretty calm (and mind-numbingly boring) recently.

but maybe soon! maybe soon...