Remember those pitch things which I've talked about before? Well, last week was a pitch week! I had an opportunity to get music directly to a game developer with whom I could potentially work. So I set to work on Tuesday, and had the job done for the Friday deadline in what I felt was one of my most well arranged pitches to date, where I was determined to do things a little differently from before.
The Music
First of all, let's dive straight into the good stuff- the music itself! Since this is a pitch the samples are relatively short, but the idea is to give an idea of how I would approach the project if I had the job, without requiring too much imagination or guesswork. Take a listen- maybe you can guess what type of game it was for before I tell you. By the way, I really want to know what you think of this. Do you like it for the game? Do you like it at all? You can't offend me, so let loose!
The project is a game called Move or Die, being developed by Those Awesome Guys. It's a multiplayer party game and I can confirm it's really fun, having played it at EGX only a couple of weeks ago. The visual style is 2D, colourful and whimsical, featuring whacky blob characters of various kinds, in blocky industrial styled arenas designed for fast-paced and competitive but casual play. As if that explanation wasn't good enough, go and have a look on their website here
Did you guess that from hearing the music? Well done, I knew you would.
Amongst other things, they asked for music which was fast-paced, with glitchy rhythms and synth, specifically asking for no chiptune. That worked for me since I can't stand the loud, rainbow-coloured electronica which chiptune has become and such I have no desire to learn how to make it. As this brief was fairly open it got a hefty dose of my own spin using largely acoustic and analogue sounds, with electric guitar featuring quite heavily. The guitar adds some classic videogame influence which is good in a 2D styled game like this one, and it's hard to resist when they sit behind me all day looking like this...
Since this is dubbed the “friendship ruining game” I felt the sound could use some competitive edge to get people going a bit and make sure it didn't feel too fluffy. These may be little blob creatures, but they are shooting and otherwise destroying each other after all. The shorter Victory Loop as linked at the top was actually the first part that I came up with and I originally had that sound in mind for the whole background track loop, but when I listened to it and matched it with some in-game footage it was just way too light. So I dirtied the sound up with a distorted synth playing chords, a more pulsing bass and some glitchy guitar, along with a more gritty base of harmony and fewer chord changes to make it drive as a background track. The original concept was still great for a victory loop (happy and annoying simultaneously), and gave me a good base to build the main background track.
Why I went for this opportunity
Some of you will be familiar with my first series of blogs on the subject of pitching, and how much I generally don't like doing it. You can read more about that here, here and here if you wish. To me, this one was worth it for a few reasons. Firstly, I already knew I enjoyed the game and that it had a lot of wider appeal, having played it and seen other people play it. Secondly, I felt that the the lead developer would also be open-minded and would make the effort to listen properly to the submissions and make a well-informed decision. I also felt that there wouldn't be an outrageous volume of different submissions for him to go through, as this is a relatively small indie developer advertising in just one niche. These two factors meant that I was sure that my music, which I always put a lot of effort and mental energy into, would be listened to and fairly considered. Since I am always confident in the quality of what I submit, I felt this gave me a really good chance at getting the job, or at least making somebody positively aware of me even if my approach wasn't right for this project.
To round that off, my interactions with Nick have confirmed my opinion of him from EGX as a really nice guy with genuine enthusiasm for what he's doing, who's keen to build good relationships and create fun games through hard work and perseverance. No matter who eventually does the music, you should go and check out Move Or Die. It's a really fun kind of game for getting together with friends, getting a bit competitive but ultimately having a laugh. Just look at those characters' cross little faces... how can you take that seriously?
The positive changes
I mentioned in the first paragraph that I was determined to prepare this pitch differently from before. That says something as I've prepared a fair few! I credit this to my approach over recent times of actively learning from my past experiences, and deliberately applying those lessons going forward wherever I can. This is something which I hadn't been doing enough with my pitching, but this time I was able to bring a lot of my genuine progress together. The result? I was happier, and worked better. I felt confident at every stage that my time was well spent.
Learning from my previous pitches I was able to put this one together effectively and efficiently. Instead of a wordy explanation of the music, I let the music do the talking. I spent that time instead on putting a short video together, immediately demonstrating my music together with gameplay and with a very short personal introduction at the beginning, so that the developer could actually “meet” me better. I got all the tracks into both Dropbox and Soundcloud so that he could listen to it however he wanted and test it out in different scenarios, and put the video on Dropbox and Youtube so that he could see it however worked best for him. The email was short, well organised and to the point, making it easy to digest and keeping it focused where it ought to be- on the musical content. This made for a result which was also far more time-efficient for me in a situation where time is limited. Four days isn't all that long to get this together from start to finish, and certainly isn't long enough to allow time wasted on content which can even work against the carefully prepared music.
Without the attitude of active learning from past evidence and experience it's very easy to work very hard but achieve relatively little progress over time. I'd imagine many people suffer from this problem, and incidentally I think it may partly explain why composers often take so long to get off the ground. Generally, they're not the most enterprising bunch outside of writing music...
As always, thanks for reading! Get involved in the comments, and check out my social media below. There was some great discussion and sharing of music on my previous blog which you can check out here. Just scroll down to the comments section, and have a look and a listen.
The theme is ok (since it's just a demo) but the glitchy hihats don't fit that way, it too loud and it sounds like my speaker is breaking down...
Gaah that's frustrating. They sound noticeably different in level whether I listen to my speakers or headphones...
hahaha what? Your headphones or speaker that was used to mix has a high end cut or something? Honestly the mixing of the track is kinda messed up for your standards
the issue with the 'hi hat' percussion in the first track has to do with both the spatialization of it (it's too isolated left), and that its too dry comparatively with the other sounds; the result being that they end up not blending terribly well. The other bit about it is that because of both of these the perceived loudness is a little covering with the guitars. A lot could be solved with a little more mixing, but that forces me to ask a question:
How do you go about mastering the track here? What equipment are you testing on, and what's the most likely consumption platform your targeting?
On October 16 2015 07:16 wo1fwood wrote: the issue with the 'hi hat' percussion in the first track has to do with both the spatialization of it (it's too isolated left), and that its too dry comparatively with the other sounds; the result being that they end up not blending terribly well. The other bit about it is that because of both of these the perceived loudness is a little covering with the guitars. A lot could be solved with a little more mixing, but that forces me to ask a question:
How do you go about mastering the track here? What equipment are you testing on, and what's the most likely consumption platform your targeting?
The testing is a difficult subject. I mix on a pair of Ultrasone pro 750 headphones, since my room is too bad to allow for a good reference monitor setup. I then test it out on a consumer stereo system, and.. that's all I got.
The mastering therefore has to happen on the same Ultrasone headphones. Don't get me wrong, they're good and generally have a pretty flat frequency response, but I'm told mixing on headphones is just never ideal.
This game would be going out on PC, Mac and Linux, and would be played probably be most played on a tv screen, which means built-in speakers for a large proportion of the users. I don't actually have a TV though which I could test on.
I am often bothered by the fact that my mixing has to happen largely on headphones and that I can't achieve a good monitor setup, but London being London it would be very expensive to get an extra room just for that. It's hard to find any real solution. I don't want to just blame it on the setup though... Perhaps if I am more rigorous with using reference tracks while I'm mixing, that would help me understand trouble spots in my own tracks as I go along?
ah yea, that explains it. Mastering with headphones is tricky at best because of just how differently sound behaves with headphones vs monitors (physics of reflections, perceivable spectrum loudness, localization differences, etc...). It's always good to use headphones as a secondary reference to check in that environment, but monitors should always be the primary reference wherever possible. Reference tracks can be helpful/useful, but in order to get your own stuff right you'd have to be extremely scrupulous about all of the variables that may be influencing the localized sound sources and how they are affecting the overall environment. Definitely a learnable thing, but its also not easy as there are a lot of important variables to consider.
As for getting the right environment, for sure it's hard to get the right room (an acoustically treated room, or one with good dimensions, or the other variables) but aside from that even just having decent studio monitors are an enormous help.
On October 16 2015 07:16 wo1fwood wrote: the issue with the 'hi hat' percussion in the first track has to do with both the spatialization of it (it's too isolated left), and that its too dry comparatively with the other sounds; the result being that they end up not blending terribly well. The other bit about it is that because of both of these the perceived loudness is a little covering with the guitars. A lot could be solved with a little more mixing, but that forces me to ask a question:
How do you go about mastering the track here? What equipment are you testing on, and what's the most likely consumption platform your targeting?
The testing is a difficult subject. I mix on a pair of Ultrasone pro 750 headphones, since my room is too bad to allow for a good reference monitor setup. I then test it out on a consumer stereo system, and.. that's all I got.
The mastering therefore has to happen on the same Ultrasone headphones. Don't get me wrong, they're good and generally have a pretty flat frequency response, but I'm told mixing on headphones is just never ideal.
This game would be going out on PC, Mac and Linux, and would be played probably be most played on a tv screen, which means built-in speakers for a large proportion of the users. I don't actually have a TV though which I could test on.
I am often bothered by the fact that my mixing has to happen largely on headphones and that I can't achieve a good monitor setup, but London being London it would be very expensive to get an extra room just for that. It's hard to find any real solution. I don't want to just blame it on the setup though... Perhaps if I am more rigorous with using reference tracks while I'm mixing, that would help me understand trouble spots in my own tracks as I go along?
Actually I was listening to it on my headphones all the time and I still heard the same unbalanced sound. Maybe you're just unfamiliar with this style? If you're unfamiliar reference tracks are definitely useful as you know, sometimes after a long day's work (of creating some glitchy hi hats maybe :D) our perception goes crazy and it takes some rest and time away and some reference tracks to reset our ears
On October 16 2015 23:21 wo1fwood wrote: ah yea, that explains it. Mastering with headphones is tricky at best because of just how differently sound behaves with headphones vs monitors (physics of reflections, perceivable spectrum loudness, localization differences, etc...). It's always good to use headphones as a secondary reference to check in that environment, but monitors should always be the primary reference wherever possible. Reference tracks can be helpful/useful, but in order to get your own stuff right you'd have to be extremely scrupulous about all of the variables that may be influencing the localized sound sources and how they are affecting the overall environment. Definitely a learnable thing, but its also not easy as there are a lot of important variables to consider.
As for getting the right environment, for sure it's hard to get the right room (an acoustically treated room, or one with good dimensions, or the other variables) but aside from that even just having decent studio monitors are an enormous help.
I'm starting to think maybe monitors would be the right way to go. The room isn't perfect but actually, it's not all that bad. There's a sofa on the back wall behind me, my desk is to a side, not the middle, there's lots of uneven surfaces around and some carpet, but not too much damping to suck all the high-end out. Part of me suspects that all the pro-audio forum talk of "there's NO point in monitors if you're not in a treated room" has quite a dose of snobbery in it, and that I could actually benefit quite a lot from an upgraded setup.
Which is good, because who doesn't love buying gear??
On October 16 2015 07:16 wo1fwood wrote: the issue with the 'hi hat' percussion in the first track has to do with both the spatialization of it (it's too isolated left), and that its too dry comparatively with the other sounds; the result being that they end up not blending terribly well. The other bit about it is that because of both of these the perceived loudness is a little covering with the guitars. A lot could be solved with a little more mixing, but that forces me to ask a question:
How do you go about mastering the track here? What equipment are you testing on, and what's the most likely consumption platform your targeting?
The testing is a difficult subject. I mix on a pair of Ultrasone pro 750 headphones, since my room is too bad to allow for a good reference monitor setup. I then test it out on a consumer stereo system, and.. that's all I got.
The mastering therefore has to happen on the same Ultrasone headphones. Don't get me wrong, they're good and generally have a pretty flat frequency response, but I'm told mixing on headphones is just never ideal.
This game would be going out on PC, Mac and Linux, and would be played probably be most played on a tv screen, which means built-in speakers for a large proportion of the users. I don't actually have a TV though which I could test on.
I am often bothered by the fact that my mixing has to happen largely on headphones and that I can't achieve a good monitor setup, but London being London it would be very expensive to get an extra room just for that. It's hard to find any real solution. I don't want to just blame it on the setup though... Perhaps if I am more rigorous with using reference tracks while I'm mixing, that would help me understand trouble spots in my own tracks as I go along?
Actually I was listening to it on my headphones all the time and I still heard the same unbalanced sound. Maybe you're just unfamiliar with this style? If you're unfamiliar reference tracks are definitely useful as you know, sometimes after a long day's work (of creating some glitchy hi hats maybe :D) our perception goes crazy and it takes some rest and time away and some reference tracks to reset our ears
I'm using Beyerdynamic DT8800s BTW
I'm not so familiar with the style either, you're right. The electronic percussion in particular is something which I've only been experimenting with for a short while now, and sporadically even then. I'm sure you've picked that up though, hearing other music which I've produced.
lol I can't unhear that dry hi-hat sitting on top of the mix now. How did I miss that before?? Ear fatigue most likely plays a large part. It was quite a long last day before submitting- all of the production had to happen basically in that one day, since the writing wasn't as smooth as I had wanted throughout the week.
Just make sure your room has enough stuff around to deaden the reflections as much as possible as standing waves or other patterns can be very detrimental to trying to accomplish any mastering.
Anyway, as with all things of this type you're absolutely right that there's a heavily skewed opinion with pro audio specialists and this kind of discussion. The main reason why this is skewed - disregarding the whole physics discussion which is super complicated - is because we often talk about the 'theoretical best' conditions which is a combination of acoustics, the room, and your equipment. For example, if you wanted to buy a "good" large condenser microphone, you could go with an AT4040 which is a decent mic, but that's $300. It's not that expensive, but pair it next to other mics I've used by AKG (their famous 414 which runs about 1k), or anything from Neumann and $300 is now chump change. I used to broadcast on a Neumann that was in all likelihood a $3,000 mic and it sounded amazing, but that's the big leagues and I was sitting in a very specific room for that. Similarly, when buying studio monitors, you could get a decent pair for $600, but some of the best from say Genelec, could run you up to $12,000 for a single monitor... The equipment sounds incredible, but, and its a huuuge but, without a perfectly treated room, the right dimensions, and the proper monitor setup those 12k speakers will be utterly worthless.
So let me come back to reality, well a little bit. If I were to recommend a monetary value for a pretty decent system (and this is coming from a professional composer), it'll run you around $2,500 to get a very nice, basic setup (2 monitors, a sub, and an external interface). This is what I have, and in all likelyhood the only thing I'm ever likely to swap out of this is my audio interface when it finally dies:
The other thing that I need are speaker stands at some point, because the acoustics of where they are at the moment colors the sound in a way that I have to be constantly mindful of.
Okok, so less expensive, is that possible? Absolutely. I think you can get some ok monitor pairs that don't require a separate audio interface or XLR cables for a couple hundred dollars, and that would already be a huge step forward in my opinion. Just whatever you do, don't buy 'computer speakers' (mainly because of the abysmal noise floor they have). Get ones that are designed for more professional needs.
edit: i should note the reason I went with a more expensive system when I got mine is because of how bad the noise floor is with lower end speakers/cables. If you really want a good clean environment you'll need to jump up to XLR cables, which requires you to have an external audio interface.
One last thing, for proper levels, what can help a ton is deliberately listening at a low amplitude on your monitors and headphones. Often times that can reveal certain frequencies/sources that might be out of balance that might be less obvious when at your normal "fuller" amps level.
On October 20 2015 08:01 wo1fwood wrote: Just make sure your room has enough stuff around to deaden the reflections as much as possible as standing waves or other patterns can be very detrimental to trying to accomplish any mastering.
Anyway, as with all things of this type you're absolutely right that there's a heavily skewed opinion with pro audio specialists and this kind of discussion. The main reason why this is skewed - disregarding the whole physics discussion which is super complicated - is because we often talk about the 'theoretical best' conditions which is a combination of acoustics, the room, and your equipment. For example, if you wanted to buy a "good" large condenser microphone, you could go with an AT4040 which is a decent mic, but that's $300. It's not that expensive, but pair it next to other mics I've used by AKG (their famous 414 which runs about 1k), or anything from Neumann and $300 is now chump change. I used to broadcast on a Neumann that was in all likelihood a $3,000 mic and it sounded amazing, but that's the big leagues and I was sitting in a very specific room for that. Similarly, when buying studio monitors, you could get a decent pair for $600, but some of the best from say Genelec, could run you up to $12,000 for a single monitor... The equipment sounds incredible, but, and its a huuuge but, without a perfectly treated room, the right dimensions, and the proper monitor setup those 12k speakers will be utterly worthless.
So let me come back to reality, well a little bit. If I were to recommend a monetary value for a pretty decent system (and this is coming from a professional composer), it'll run you around $2,500 to get a very nice, basic setup (2 monitors, a sub, and an external interface). This is what I have, and in all likelyhood the only thing I'm ever likely to swap out of this is my audio interface when it finally dies:
The other thing that I need are speaker stands at some point, because the acoustics of where they are at the moment colors the sound in a way that I have to be constantly mindful of.
Okok, so less expensive, is that possible? Absolutely. I think you can get some ok monitor pairs that don't require a separate audio interface or XLR cables for a couple hundred dollars, and that would already be a huge step forward in my opinion. Just whatever you do, don't buy 'computer speakers' (mainly because of the abysmal noise floor they have). Get ones that are designed for more professional needs.
edit: i should note the reason I went with a more expensive system when I got mine is because of how bad the noise floor is with lower end speakers/cables. If you really want a good clean environment you'll need to jump up to XLR cables, which requires you to have an external audio interface.
One last thing, for proper levels, what can help a ton is deliberately listening at a low amplitude on your monitors and headphones. Often times that can reveal certain frequencies/sources that might be out of balance that might be less obvious when at your normal "fuller" amps level.
That's really helpful, thank you.
Sometimes it really helps to have a suspicion confirmed. I decided it'll definitely do me good to have some reasonable quality monitors even though my room isn't ideal, so after quite a lot of research I went for a pair of Genelec M040's. They seem to be a good size for my room, have some smart adjustment features which is good for me as I work facing against a wall, and have good frequency response without being too big on the low-end. It seemed like I'd end up with too much untamed bass otherwise, being in an untreated room. The same went for a subwoofer- I reckon it'd just get out of control...
I do already have an external interface so I go some TRS cables too, based on your advice about XLR cables. It doesn't make too much sense to have those speakers and an external interface without using balanced cables.
That's a very restrained setup you have there! I'm really curious what your background is, and what music you make? The room looks nice
On October 16 2015 23:21 wo1fwood wrote: ah yea, that explains it. Mastering with headphones is tricky at best because of just how differently sound behaves with headphones vs monitors (physics of reflections, perceivable spectrum loudness, localization differences, etc...). It's always good to use headphones as a secondary reference to check in that environment, but monitors should always be the primary reference wherever possible. Reference tracks can be helpful/useful, but in order to get your own stuff right you'd have to be extremely scrupulous about all of the variables that may be influencing the localized sound sources and how they are affecting the overall environment. Definitely a learnable thing, but its also not easy as there are a lot of important variables to consider.
As for getting the right environment, for sure it's hard to get the right room (an acoustically treated room, or one with good dimensions, or the other variables) but aside from that even just having decent studio monitors are an enormous help.
I'm starting to think maybe monitors would be the right way to go. The room isn't perfect but actually, it's not all that bad. There's a sofa on the back wall behind me, my desk is to a side, not the middle, there's lots of uneven surfaces around and some carpet, but not too much damping to suck all the high-end out. Part of me suspects that all the pro-audio forum talk of "there's NO point in monitors if you're not in a treated room" has quite a dose of snobbery in it, and that I could actually benefit quite a lot from an upgraded setup.
Which is good, because who doesn't love buying gear??
On October 16 2015 07:16 wo1fwood wrote: the issue with the 'hi hat' percussion in the first track has to do with both the spatialization of it (it's too isolated left), and that its too dry comparatively with the other sounds; the result being that they end up not blending terribly well. The other bit about it is that because of both of these the perceived loudness is a little covering with the guitars. A lot could be solved with a little more mixing, but that forces me to ask a question:
How do you go about mastering the track here? What equipment are you testing on, and what's the most likely consumption platform your targeting?
The testing is a difficult subject. I mix on a pair of Ultrasone pro 750 headphones, since my room is too bad to allow for a good reference monitor setup. I then test it out on a consumer stereo system, and.. that's all I got.
The mastering therefore has to happen on the same Ultrasone headphones. Don't get me wrong, they're good and generally have a pretty flat frequency response, but I'm told mixing on headphones is just never ideal.
This game would be going out on PC, Mac and Linux, and would be played probably be most played on a tv screen, which means built-in speakers for a large proportion of the users. I don't actually have a TV though which I could test on.
I am often bothered by the fact that my mixing has to happen largely on headphones and that I can't achieve a good monitor setup, but London being London it would be very expensive to get an extra room just for that. It's hard to find any real solution. I don't want to just blame it on the setup though... Perhaps if I am more rigorous with using reference tracks while I'm mixing, that would help me understand trouble spots in my own tracks as I go along?
Actually I was listening to it on my headphones all the time and I still heard the same unbalanced sound. Maybe you're just unfamiliar with this style? If you're unfamiliar reference tracks are definitely useful as you know, sometimes after a long day's work (of creating some glitchy hi hats maybe :D) our perception goes crazy and it takes some rest and time away and some reference tracks to reset our ears
I'm using Beyerdynamic DT8800s BTW
I'm not so familiar with the style either, you're right. The electronic percussion in particular is something which I've only been experimenting with for a short while now, and sporadically even then. I'm sure you've picked that up though, hearing other music which I've produced.
lol I can't unhear that dry hi-hat sitting on top of the mix now. How did I miss that before?? Ear fatigue most likely plays a large part. It was quite a long last day before submitting- all of the production had to happen basically in that one day, since the writing wasn't as smooth as I had wanted throughout the week.
:D I've been through that and have had my mind blown many many times (like what I imagine you're going through now hahaha)
So nowadays I take lots and lots of precaution. Mainly rest and come back to it. I'm working with the CSGO team for a video (similar to a TLC type), and we are going to release it soon, will let you know when it's out
EPT
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