Free Trailer Music Thread

Hey Guys,

"Final Hour" is released to have a special appearance in your trailer (for free!)

download it here: Moddb.com

See you ingame,
Mike

Edited by: ComposerGuy

I'm listening to it now, it's pretty good! Thanks for sharing it

Fastel wrote: Much to expensive - just my opinion. 1 Theme for 275€ ? o_O
But good that you dont belong to these basterd guys who do everything for free and destroy the worth of music.

I'm posting this because "fastel" called (presumingly me) a basterd in another thread. I normaly don't reply to such comments (to be honest, something immature never happened to me), but I have clearly to say that I feel deeply offended by this and don't want to leave this without reply.

So why am I supporting modders/indie games here on moddb with free trailer music? You (fastel) have to know that I'm still training my skills in mixing and mastering and I do have payed work as a composer for videogames, but if you are a musician you don't do music only if someone pays you, you do it for fun AND to simply train your skills. The Tracks that I've made downloadable for free were simply unused and I don't wanted them to rest on my harddrive for ever. A Mod is something you make for fun, you are free in making whatever you want and you didn't get paid neither. So why schould I charge money doing music for a mod that is made by people who are doing their part for free and publish their work for free. If there is a indie game who has the potential to get sold, yes, then you can charge money for the music. BTW you won't get paid jobs as a composer for mods and 90% of the indie games here at moddb.

I as a composer can give away my music to who ever and for whatever I want. You (fastel) stated on your youtube-channel: "Music for Videogames". I haven't seen one track in your playlist that is made by you, they are all remakes from games older than 10 years, so it would be: "Music remakes from Videogames". I haven't heard something from you that would be worth paying you for a role of a composer and I don't think you have a slightest idea of how the videogame music business runs.

So for Garyn and all the others here on moddb who appreciate free music for their trailer and projects, feel free to use my tracks and thank you.

Edited by: ComposerGuy

that's some good music , i will defiantly keep a copy of it stored in-case i ever decided to use it....or i just wanna listen to it =D

thanks for the share

realitybreaker wrote: that's some good music , i will defiantly keep a copy of it stored in-case i ever decided to use it....or i just wanna listen to it =D

thanks for the share

You're welcome

ComposerGuy wrote: I'm posting this because "fastel" called (presumingly me) a basterd in another thread.

And you keep your thread running on the top of the SoundBoard
So why dont answer direkt in the thread?... ok dont care so lets see what "I" can tell you about what I said. I now know, thats gonna be a long text.
At first I will quote your post - but before you requote that, read the text below the quotes. We are not as diffrent as you think

ComposerGuy wrote: but if you are a musician you don't do music only if someone pays you

You mean "If music is your job you can look for one/two sidejobs at McDonald's if the people dont pay you."... or at least I mean it that way
.......
What is that

ComposerGuy wrote: train your skills

everytime? I mean - what the fug for? To be the best trailer composer to the end of days? To be the most high-ratet composer with a taxi-driver job?

ComposerGuy wrote: So why should I charge money doing music for a mod that is made by people who are doing their part for free and publish their work for free

Does Intel support the MOD Community? Can you goto a doctor or a drugstor "I'm ill - please support me so that I can finish my MOD-Project. You will be listed in the credits. What you want money for that? What a fugd up world".

ComposerGuy wrote: and I don't think you have a slightest idea of how the videogame music business runs

No not really - do YOU have any idea?... hmm I would think that if you wont trough out your stuff for free. Doing everything for free seems not a good buisnessidea to me. Sorry ;o)
Or are you still waiting to be recognized?

Ok last quote:

ComposerGuy wrote: You (fastel) stated on your youtube-channel: "Music for Videogames". I haven't seen one track in your playlist that is made by you, they are all remakes from games older than 10 years, so it would be: "Music remakes from Videogames". I haven't heard something from you that would be worth paying you for a role of a composer

Ok to me (fastel)... let me tell you a bit about me and my point of view.
At first let me eat the word "Basterd". My bad.. I just like that cool sounding word. I couln't know that a coversation would grow out of it. Ok deleted?

Right... I am a musician for 10 years now. Guitars, Basses, Keys, Drums, Singing, Composing, Arranging... music is shit and everything to me. I don't know how it came but somedays I wanted to become a professional musician. Someone whos gonna make a live on it. Dont have to have a great masion and some sportcars... just can make a nice live without beeing the bum in the ped...

The bad thing with music is: everyone likes it but nobody wants to pay for it.

1) Its so normal to download everything at these illegal file sharing sites and share it at the school or whereever. Its a crime to steal a choclatebar at the gas station but to download the new Metallica album via napster is just "up to date" or "smart".
Ok I'm talking about the early 2000ths.

2) I've spend days and (more) nights on, under and behind stages. The greatest buisnesidea of the local "entertainmentscene" is the "pay for play" thing we (as live musicians) got. That came up in the last years. And thats the way it works:

First: You have a band
Sec: Due to the overkill of availability of music (file sharing / youtube) - the people like to have live music. They go to the tavernes to see bands and have a good evening with live rock and beer. The organizer (barkeeper) of that event dont want to take a charge because - if the people have to pay for the entrance they will simply not come. Cause they got to pay a lot for their drinks. So solution: free entrace. Yes the people pay 3$ for a beer but not more than 4$ to see a live band playing the hell out of their souls (as long as you are not famous).... one "fan" came to at least 3 of oure concerts and told that he love the music. But he didn't want to by oure album (7-10$) "I get a copy by a friend" - in his hand a 10$ Longdrink...
Some organizators want to charge the entrace - because they just do it everytime in some clubs.
So they say: "uhh... you are not REALLY famous - so what if you don't pull enough fans/visitors into my bar? So to have an insurance - YOU buy 100 entrace-tickets from me and can have the hole money from the entrance. So its your thing to get the house full" - and its oure thing to do the commercial, print flyers and so on... and as a local Band - you really dont get 100 people running to your gigs. At least not reguarly. So thats the deal... the Organizor takes 3000$ from the alcohol sales and has a party which makes his bar famous. And the Band has 7-15 hours work and "2 free drinks per member" and can be happy if they got the costs of the gas the needed in its bags.

The mother of all motherfugers are these organizators in the european metropoles. some of the clubs take 300$ from the band to allow them to play there
Goddamn what the hell... I shall pay to play? "Its a good advertisment for your band if you play here". We allways said "fuck you" - you know thats really not the way livemusic "buisness" should go. I hate them. The people want to have the music - I want to play it and I CAN play it. So why have I to be the dummie to pay goddamn hundreds of dollars. Pay the musician!
The Bandcontest "Emergenza" is such a thing - Its a european (or worldwide?) contest and every band can play around 25 minutes. The fee is 150$........ just to play 25 Minutes... every band...... and there are sometimes more than 10 bands at one contest-evening... and everyone who whants to see the contest and vote for the favourite band has to pay 20(?)$ entry. And they are completely booked out. 500 fans at some concerts paid 20$ each plus the fee for the bands. The organisators grab all the money and the musician, who did all the creative work, who spent so much time, money and tears to the music is really the last poor basterd who gets the cumbs of the cake - when they are lucky.
Did I said that I hate them? Kill em all said a great philosoph-bassist... I'm getting really angry when I think about that.
The bad thing is - they allways find stupid bands to play there. They're telling farytales about the great brakthrough. And when you win the first round - you have to go to the next round through half the country - on your own costs of course.

Is what we do so worthless? Ok thats my experience as a livemusician who is not part of a "Top 40 - Born in the USA" - Coverband.
Maybe you can understand it a little bit more why I've bee so rude...

I want to study contrabase and e-base in half a year. 'am in preperation for all the tests now. Have given up composing. They allways want cliches. Choir... pecussive orchestras... never ever do polyrythm. The hollywood blockbuster needs silicon tits and "zimmer"-copies. Its not my world. Maybe it is envy? Cause I dont have the abilities to do this direct sounding, pounding things. Maybe I dont want to make this music. Not my world but its not my intention to start a discussion about typical trailermusic. I havent heared yours to this time so lets get back...

2 Questions:
How much money do you have spent in your equipment?
- Its some minutes after midnight now and i got some beer so I wont calculate my equip now :D - but its maybe more than 8000$... yes I have fun. I like it to play al these instruments. Like it to play with my synths...
How much time have you spent in becoming a professional(?) musician?
- I wouldn't call me a professional - really not. But I know what I'm doing. I've learned some different Instruments fo 10 years now. I have studied musicology for some terms. I was deep into these scores of Dvorak and Moe Zart. I spent hole days and nights infront of my computer to get my synth working and to reach my skills in computer orchestration. I'am serious : I spent half of my life to become a musician. Nowdays I could say it was a wrong desicion. Because I said it: noboday wants to pay for music.... you'll allways find someone who does it for free. And this extreme underrating is some kind of death to professional music(ans).

So what can the project (the mod) offer?
1) To have fun?
I'm having fun jerking off... or arrange and sing the strangest a capella versions of the Zeldasoundtrack.
I've fun to play Dream Theater withs some buddies, fun when we feel like the smalltownstars on stage. Fun with playing with my dog or playing NES games.
But I have definitly no fun when I'm sitting weeks infront of the fukin PC and fitting out the toughest arrangements, working on the smoothest grooves, writing, mixing, arranging... and then... throw it out for nothin?

2) To be recognized in the scene and start the career
Yeah my favorite! We are a generation of "wanna be recognized". A generation of unpayed trainees. I know this story about this writer who had the offer to do something for a Warner Bros Project. He is a well known professional author - but they wont pay him. "Is a good reference to be part of this big project - millions of vievers" and so on... somedays Hollywood knocks at your door: "We like what you did. You're great. Do you want to make the Soundtrack for our new Batman Movie?... Well of course you do it for free. Its the most incredible reference you can get. Imagine you are the composer of a million viewed blockbuster Movie. If you do that job good, you got the breakthrough. Dont mind that we pay our charwomen. Wasn't it fun to you composing?"
.............
You know... I really think that that will become truth really soon because "You want to be paid? Well everyone else would o it for free. So have a nice day - we call you back".
Maybe somedays the studios sell the composing-work to the composers because it might be advertisment for the composer. And everyone has to pay for ad.
I should stop thinking of that - it makes me angry about the uselessnes of composing.

3) ...... "You come into the Creditlist" - what a senceless argument. Every cameraguy, statist, coffecup has its place in the creditlist. Thats a matter of course. No one can catch me with the fatherfugn credit list.
The best credits you can give me is when you put the hard cash credits in my bag.

So lots of philosophical stuff for now. I just want you to understant my point of view. Forget about the "basterd" its just away now. We are both composers who wanna sacrifice our time, money(!), soul and maybe the hole life to creating music. My problem is just: "What happend to us if everyone got what they want". If we are the only one dummies who studied music or spent thousand houres getting a good workflow with oure libaries. What happend to us if we give it all for free?
These Mods here are non commercial - but the Windows they use is. Does Bill Gates approaching in the credits? Maybe not because he dont support the mod-community by giving the OS for free.
Or if the programmer has a leak in his roof which interrupt his work. Will the roofer be an ashole and ask for money? I dont know how much money the programmers invest to create their mods but I know verry good how much money I have invested ;)
And I think there is a little un-equality.

And the new technologies make it worse. Because its much much much more easy to make musik this days. Just think 20 years back. You had to take pen... o_O ... uha WRITE notes. Would be a bad experience for half of the "internet composers". Now there are programms who do the work for the kids. Hans Zimmer (love him) helped in creating a programm who makes orchestral music just by typing in some notes/melody. Paint by Numbers...
So the "amateurs" growing incredible fast and overflow the internet with all these cliches. And maybe they all dreaming about being recognized and for that they work for free. But when they are recognized and professional and ready to be payed - there are at least 2 other newcommers who are waiting to be recognized and doing it for free. And they can - cause they construct their music out of programms. Ready to play - final produced - everything in the computer. Then you got a game where the avatar is running like hes got a stick in its as and with graphics like from the early 90ths ... and with that a nearly professional-(because computer-)produced soundtrack. I'm tired of the dreams of the scene. If a developer wants to make a game which is his entrance into the professional game making scene - he got to pay me. Like his hardware, like the bus ticket, like his pizza.

So my Solution: just ask for at least little money. A little compensation money for all the hard life a musician has :o)
The programmer wants "HIS" project to be great. HE wants it in HIS portfolio. And he uses YOU. Of course he thanks the gods that they send you to make professional sounding music for his project - but at least you did a service to him. Not to yourselfe. I'd like that also the programmers try to see this point of view.
Verry less projects are really open - there is always a guy on the throne who wants to hold "his" project high.
> "I made the game Castle and Dragons"
< "Yeah I've played it. And it got a real cool soundtrack. Congratulation!"
> "Thanks"

So its like peace now?
Thats just my opinion. Infront of every sentence should be "I think that...". You are another person and maybe you dont feel like that. So I think we're cool.
I have to admit that I would work for free to if it is a really intresting and big community project. I've wastet to much time with developers who need 5 years to make an alpha version and freeze their projects. Why do they allways look for composers in the begin of the development? Hmm ok we don't know. Maybe thats the reason I usually ask for a little cash - just to make shure the developer means buisness.

ComposerGuy wrote: I haven't seen one track in your playlist that is made by you

On my youtubeaccount is just the Duke Nukem and Age of Empires thing uploadet... I reguarly not put my music to the open net. I have a soundcloud with some own compositions I'm working on. Just to show to the state of music to the developers/producers. That account is more just a storage/depot for demos and some things I need to show. Some work in progress. Especially the metal things were written and recorded verry fast cause a dev wantet a demo quick. Nothing special.
Of course you can listen to all the tracks...
Maybe you start with that
Soundcloud.com

(Ah the 2 AoE Tracks "Last Stand" and "Capture" are not by me of course)

Ok much text. I allways felt tired to fight aggainst the worthlessnes of music. But I still strongly recommed to ask for quit a bit of money - even if you are professional or amateur. If you are not good - you dont get the gig. If you are good and they want you - be confident!:)

Ok, I see... I can clearly read the hatred and dissapointment between the lines of your text which came from the experiences you've had. Let me say that much in your text is irrelevant and further has nothing to do with (as I statet) the video game music industry and ModDB.

Fastel wrote:

ComposerGuy wrote: but if you are a musician you don't do music only if someone pays you

You mean "If music is your job you can look for one/two sidejobs at McDonald's if the people dont pay you."... or at least I mean it that way

No, I simply mean that a Artist has always the need to express himself. Of course, a full time job is the goal, but it's a long road to get there. I myself had to work hard to get my template togheter, which by the way still isnt't complete. Maybe there is some time between two projects or you simply have some rejected tracks that you can give away for free. In my case it's only trailer music and none of this 3 tracks are made exclusively for one mod or game. Of course, if someone here on ModDB is a good friend of mine and asks me to make a 3 minute track for his game, I'll try to do it, but only if my main projects don't get affected.

Fastel wrote:

ComposerGuy wrote: train your skills

everytime? I mean - what the fug for? To be the best trailer composer to the end of days? To be the most high-ratet composer with a taxi-driver job?

No, to get beyond a taxi driver Job and beyond a limited way of understanding. Since you've stated that you haven't heard anything of my music, I assume that you haven't recognised that there are a lot of things that I could work on to make my music sound a lot better (in composing as mixing/mastering). I'm posting my work regularly on composer forums and am annoying leading video game composers in germany to get feedback and to improve my skills in mixing and mastering constantly.

Fastel wrote: Doing everything for free seems not a good buisnessidea to me. Sorry ;o) Or are you still waiting to be recognized?

You have to start thinking out of your "rock band dream box cinderella story". The videogame music industry is a hard place to survive. It's about attraction and action, not reaction. I do have paid work and am not doing everything for free, please read my text above again, I don't like to say things twice.

About hans zimmer: Take a look at hans zimmer... he knows what the people want to hear, nothin more, nothin less and he worked hard to get where he is now. when he came to hollywood he had no clue how he could write songs for the orchestra without knowing notation, so as you've said he helped himself out. Furthermore it gave many people hope to make it as a musician in a unconventional way, which sure is kontroversial.

You're refering to the worth of music and you've had your problems in the band scene, but videogame music and the band-thing are simply two different fields, which you can't compare so easy as you did.

The best place for a young composer who wants to start doing music for games is ModDB. It's simply a win-win situation for the composer and the developer. When you get the feeling that your work is getting better and better you can jump over to indie games based on royalty payment and so on. Really good developer want to see references, three or more years of work in this field and maybe some shipped AAA-Titles.

About the "dark night composing for free" story: I had to laugh, sorry . There is much more involved in this, someone has to pay the orchestra and all the other people around. Hollywood recieves his music from big studios (check "remote control productions" or "Dynamedion" in google or wikipedia) which normally are managed by the composers themself. The VST samples they are using are only to present the client a better view how it could sound like.

I wish you good luck studying bass.

Edited by: ComposerGuy

Naja dann können wir ja deutsch reden
Bist Du nicht auch im Musikerboard? Irgendwoher kenn ich Deinen Nick...

Fastel wrote: Naja dann können wir ja deutsch reden
Bist Du nicht auch im Musikerboard? Irgendwoher kenn ich Deinen Nick...

gibt viele "composerguys" da draußen, allein im soundsonline-forum gibt es 2. Mein Youtube nick ist "ComposerMikeC"