#indie game composer

[amadeusgame]

It's time....

Aska looms and is drawing full. You are running out of options. You have no choice but to make a deal with a witch.

The demo for AMADEUS, my hand-drawn fantasy/mystery visual novel, is OUT NOW!

Play here: https://arcanaxix.itch.io/amadeus-game

Free! Fully playable in-browser! All original art and music!

For more details, including a link to the soundtrack on BandCamp, check here: https://linktr.ee/amadeusgame

And follow this blog for more details and updates as the development of the full game continues....

[sibyl-of-space]

I've just finished a behind-the-scenes video with a sneek peak of one of my original music pieces for Amadeus! Get a 480i look at the recording session I did with percussionist Jay Lee earlier this year. I took the footage on a 2004 MiniDV camcorder because of course I did. Amadeus is a mystery visual novel/puzzle game I am solo developing. The demo will be public at the end of this month and playable in-browser on itch: arcanaxix.itch.io Please let me know what you think!!

(Video is fully captioned on YouTube.)

[composerinprogress]

for a game

not a space game

but it certainly sounds like one 🤷🏻‍♂️🚀🪐

[bibixpgames]

We have more little peeks at "Wake Up Magical Girl!'s" demo soundtrack!

One of the first songs you'll get to hear within the demo, this song is danceable, fun, and might play while you become a magical girl! :D (And learn the dangers inherent in the job :O)

[thumpypuppy]

Are you curious about making game music?

We're planning a Q&A live stream on YouTube (or maybe I should do Twitch?) Friday, October 4th, around 10:00 (UTC-7) / 17:00 (UTC). A lot of folks have asked me questions about the process of creating music, and there are a lot of different facets to the process, but I'd like to start answering some of those questions, especially for folks who are looking to get started making their own music.

So if you have any questions about music production, send them in, and I'll answer them on stream with live demonstrations! We'll have some fun, goof around, and learn some basics of making your very own music! 💙🥁🐶

(Please don't be shy about submitting your questions, there are no bad questions asked in good faith, and getting multiples of the same question lets me know how important a question is!)

[graegrape]

looking for a composer willing to compose some tracks for an rpg maker horror game!

hi there! my name's penny and i'm currently looking to collaborate with a composer versed in piano/atmospheric tracks on a 50s/60s suburban-inspired RPG Maker horror game project i'm making. i have some visions for how the music might sound but i am flexible & overall willing to give as much freedom as you'd like! if you are interested or know anyone who might be interested in doing some collaborative work & maybe filling out your portfolio, please reach out to me via DM here or Discord (@/jokingmotive)!

you can find a short pitch document for my game here if you would like to know a few more details on what the game is about.

this is not a paid job, and more a collaborative project as unfortunately i am unemployed and currently a university student — but we can figure something out if you are in dire need of financial support.

any interest/contact is much appreciated, as i am currently struggling to work on the game with no music. sharing/reblogging would help a ton! <3

[alphachromeyayo]

Hello! 😊

Do you like Showa-era jazz fusion? Cursed rural Japanese towns? Strange instruments, creepy tunes and cute mascot friends?

You might like the music I've made for PROMISE MASCOT AGENCY by lovely Kaizen Game Works ⛩️🛻✨

Here's a bit about it!

If you wanna be extra cool, y'can wishlist this now on Steam. I love this game to bits, I hope you will too 💖

[gamebakers]

Are you ready to find out what makes the music in Cairn SING?

Save the date for Save And Sound and lets celebrate amazing music and sound design in games!

[dpadstudio]

Mesos Theme, recorded at Warm Studios in Leander, TX.

We are celebrating Owlboy's 7th anniversary, and Jonathan has graced us with this beautiful performance of the Owlboy Soundtrack.

Jonathan Geer (Composer) Piano Rachel Browne, Harp Eduardo Cassapia, Quenacho Tony Rogers, Cello Aaron Lack, Vibes

[bismii]

happy Halloween

[amadeusgame]

Have you played the Amadeus demo? It's live, and completely free to play in-browser!

I have released the soundtrack as an album on BandCamp here. As a preview, here is one of my favorite tracks: "Spellbound Mischief," a piece that plays during the longest segment of gameplay in the demo. It features a marimba performance by Jay Lee.

There are a total of 8 tracks I wrote for the demo. This one was particularly inspired by Professor Layton... can you hear the inspiration?

If you'd like to stay up-to-date on Amadeus now that the demo is out, follow this blog, and bookmark this link: https://linktr.ee/amadeusgame

[sibyl-of-space]

All right! Sorry for no post in a while, I've been in the process of moving... but now that I'm all set up, I'm ready to start WORKING ON STUFF.

Here's my latest demo reel, featuring - among other things - gameplay from Amadeus, my solo dev mystery visual novel! All sound in this reel is my work.

The demo for Amadeus will be publicly available at the end of this month!

[composerinprogress]

Nearly six years after the completion of the core @underspacegame #OST, I’m BACK with @trainwiz for the next act! 

Like all my soundtracks, I interweaved the best parts of my original score into this Union March, ensuring a cohesive and satisfying sound. 

If you enjoyed listening, tell me what you liked about it!

orchestorm.com

[bibixpgames]

Just another reminder that I have a new OST video out for "Wake Up Magical Girl!" a visual novel where I did all the songs! :D

So let a bunch of lo-fi, weirdcore, and chiptune electronic music make you into a magical girl, if only for 16 minutes this video is! :3

[thumpypuppy]

hi! i really love your isat stuff, especially all the drumset parts. do you have any tips for writing drumset parts? like in "i wont let you go home" and "how can you help me stardust"?

Yooooo you summoned the black sheep (or I guess crow, more accurately?) of the studio, your very own Sandra Baker!

Let me start off by saying this: Rule of Three, baybee! Don't repeat stuff more than three times. It's not hard-and-fast, but it'll get you there. So like…

A A A B

A A A B

A A A B

C A B D

See? So like on the fourth measure play something different, and then in the scope of four blocks of four measures play that last set of four in a totally different way. It breaks up the monotony and keeps it fresh.

Okay so let's jump into the songs and break some things down.

I won't let you go home is fully unhinged so… we start on some thrash/punk drums, some late 80s metal drum fills, throw in some spicy rides, it's really about carrying the energy of the piece because drums set the tone. Go listen to some 80s metal, listen to the old punk scene, figure out what people were doing when they were reinventing how drums were played, and then take some time studying where all that came from in the first place, from early jazz into the bebop scene, into psychedelic funk and jazz fusion and prog and… you gotta study your music history.

From there we launch into a chill single time beat, we're keeping time real simple on the hat and snare, but there's still a groove in the kicks. It's SO important to keep the groove, especially when you're working with your weird sister who is allergic to writing things in 4/4 most of the time. This part is pretty straight-forward, so the kicks are doing most of the work here adding weird stutters and triplets, and we have some crashes punctuating a few important parts in the music.

At about a minute twenty we drop into some tight punk drums, so very in-the-pocket, closed hats, this time the kick and snare are keeping the obvious time, so we put a little stank on the hat until we open up full-tilt and head into the next section.

Okay the next part I'm sorry not sorry it's just free jazz and I can't explain that. Go listen to like… Weather Report or KoenjiHyakkei or something… because sometimes it's okay to be weird, just have some care and intentionality behind it, like know what you're doing so you can do it wrong the right way, yeah?

Okay next section, the breakdown… so it's like… half-time feel, put an obvious hat smack on the off-beat so we know where that is, and then just kinda go full prog? Big drums, lots of stadium rock fills, but keep that beat so we know when to headbang, right?

Then like leading into ~2:50 we gotta pick it back up, go full classic punk for a minute, so we keep that half-time feel but imply we're ramping with the snare, and then the classic crash mute and a bar of silence before we're back to OY OY OY.

Then we hit a kind of slower fill that drops into this silly blastbeat breakdown where we're doing these nutty kick fills and gravity bomb blastbeat whatever they are snare rolls while keeping the breakdown feel with big crashes.

OKAY so that was a lot. The big takeaway here is this: Go study the history of rock music starting from like… maybe the mid-1930s… and go from there. Also, make sure you keep the groove. You can be weird, just make sure it's obvious when you're supposed to headbang.

As for "How can you help me, Stardust?", I am so sorry not sorry about this. 🤣

So in the first section you'll kinda hear that I played around with the snare placement and almost gave it like a reggaeton or bossa nova feel? You can do that… you just set up this expectation that we're going full punk and then you can drop a samba beat in your metal and like what is anyone gonna do about that? Dance? Enjoy it? Exactly.

Honestly the rest of this song I got nothing to say that I didn't say for the last song, so the takeaway here is just like… you can kinda do whatever if it grooves.

So like… if you're programming drums instead of playing them, picture the kit and how it is or isn't physically possible to play it, etc. Generally speaking you only have a stick in each hand and two feet, so be mindful of that kind of stuff and don't hit like… a snare and a crash and a china all at once…

Also like… a really fun thing I got to do in DOOMTROID was come up with kick patterns for djent sections, so like… maybe we're playing a section in 7/8, so I'd write a kick pattern in 5/8 and let it drift until it came back around, because it makes a fun dynamic pattern, and then we're playing 7/8 but we still gotta groove, so if you play 4 over 7 you get a measure of four hats on the downbeat, but the next measure has three hats on the off beat, so you have this one regular element that keeps a simple beat, you have the snare showing up to tell you that we're in 7/8, but then you have a 5/8 pattern repeating under all of that… and so it's hella fun to just goof around on stuff like that.

So like… even if you're just playing in 4/4 you can do fun stuff like… let's just talk about the snare for a second.

1 & *2* & 3 & *4* &

Basic stuff, snare on the 2 and 4, but can we get spicy?

1 e & a *2* e & *a* 3 e & a *4* e & a

1 e & a 2 *e* & a 3 e & a *4* e *&* a

See? You can do weird stuff, especially if you just play the hat on 1 2 3 4. Play around and make your stuff sound different.

Your homework for this week is to go listen to at least three songs from each decade starting from 1930, make sure you get plenty of bebop, jazz, and prog in there, and then take a song you've already written and change the feel/genre by only changing the drums, and then share it with the class because we all wanna see how great you are.

(The last part is optional based on your comfort level but I'm still gonna low-key bully you into sharing your music because visibility and networking is important in this industry and I definitely wanna give folks a hand up where I can.)

This whole thing would probably better as a video, so if I can catch a minute to stop by the studio maybe I'll stream all this with audio examples.