Game Audio Network Guild

Over Christmas I have been working on a new game from ImmersionFx Games; called Days of Sail - The Good Life set for release in Spring 2012.

I was quite excited to work on the game as this was my first opportunity to use my new sample libraries "Hollywood Strings and Storm Drum 2" this is a huge leap forward from the sample libraries I had been previously using. It has pointed out though that I really ought to update to a better Mac, as at some points I think I could see smoke coming out of the machine.

For the game I tried to capture an exotic and romantic atmosphere which you might expect from an adventure sailing game. This was new territory for me as I had not previously ever written music for this genre. The difficulties for me were trying not to make it too epic as I have a tendency to get a bit carried away, whilst also trying not to make the music too placid.

I’ve spent a lot of time recently working on film projects so it was great to work on a game again as there is so much more freedom working without time markers and specific cue points. I am looking forward to taking on more games.

I’ve got five of the tracks up on my website for you to listen to and any feedback is welcome.

Cheers

Rob

http://robscalesmusic.com/music.html

Hello to all who read this and thank you if you do.

But if you don't want to read, there is some music at the bottom :)

I suppose I am still fairly new here and not to be so mysterious, I thought I would share a bit.

It has been over 10 years now since I first composed a song using a computer; quite incredibly so using the DOS based program called "Impulse Tracker".  Prior to that I used looping software, but "IT" really allowed me to compose something from what seemed like scratch..

It was also ten years ago that I first used Fruity Loops 3 which ultimately gave me the bug!

It took me a couple of years to learn and teach myself all the new things that I wanted learn; starting with simple techno songs; now aiming for something that resembles soundtracks; often inspired by all the video game music made by the many G.A.N.G members here.

I began putting some of these 'songs' I made to use around five years ago or so.  That was when my music really began to take shape and a style was formed.  By 2006, I made my music public online and even got some stuff into a couple of games.

I worked with a lot of bands in the later part of the last decade recording and such and also began making a couple of video games of my own.  I didn't promote much and still have a lot of music that even now has not yet been heard.

This year, I made a challenge for myself.  I had to publicize more which ultimately helped me out.  Seeing as how I am so soundtrack driven; especially game soundtracks, I knew I had to do something a bit different and learned a lot through adapting what I already knew and combining it with online resources.

I made a realization while playing Mass Effect.  I was thinking that the soundtrack was amazing and really liked how it contained both electronic and classical instrumentation - I did a lot of electronic stuff, but wanted to do something orchestral so this union of genres seemed like something I wanted to pursue.  This also lead me here to G.A.N.G.

..So this year I stepped out of my comfort zone a bit, bought a Mac, and started using programs that I didn't know but it really didn't take long to learn how to use these programs such as Logic since it shares some similarities with FL Studio.

I made just over 100 mp3s this year to date in my free time.  Before going out and buying a bunch of expensive programs and stuff, since many of you know how much one can get into, I put my old stuff to work and gave it one good last run to see what sorts of things I could do.

One of the challenges I made for myself was to give myself a limit whilst attempting to produce some soundtrack-like material.  For those who know their computer hardware, the orchestral samples do tend to eat up quite a bit of resource.

Below are some songs that I made this year.  The first six were made entirely on a computer running Fruity Loops 3.56, Edirol Orchestral, and only 256 MB of ram on an over ten year old budget Duron chip clocked at 700 Mhz.  For the fun of it!  That was a challenge of patience ;)

The following six are more electronic on a Celeron computer with FL Studio 6.  Both sets of six tracks were made from start to finish in one week per set.  I have high standards for myself however these do not showcase anything in terms of high quality and were intended more for demoing purposes.  Some of them are a bit shrill sounding.

The last track Overpass was one of my early tracks using the new Mac Mini and Logic Pro Studio 9 with the default instruments. 

Feel free to listen to some of these 'sketches' skip through them, download them, whatever you would like.  The goal here was to play around with orchestral samples before buying higher quality and more updated stuff as well as combining the genres of orchestral and electronic; inspired by the ambient, spacey, and epic stuff as heard in Mass Effect:

Please enjoy and feel free to drop a comment!

Thanks again,

-Trevs.

1. Arrival http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/01%20Arrival%20110%20Master.mp3

2. Impending http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/02%20Impending%20118%20Master.mp3

3. Departure http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/03%20Departure%2091%20Master.mp3

4. Aim http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/04%20Aim%20111%20Master.mp3

5. Landing http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/05%20Landing%2091%20Master.mp3

6. Append http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/06%20Append%20104%20Master.mp3

7. Beat http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/07%20Beat%2070%20Master.mp3

8. Collapsed http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/08%20Collapsed%20118%20Master.mp3

9. Drone http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/09%20Drone%20108%20Master.mp3

10. Endless http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/10%20Endless%2082%20Master.mp3

11. The Case http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/11%20The%20Case%2079%20Master.mp3

12. Scratch http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/12%20Scratch%2095%20Master.mp3

13. Overpass http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13959236/ISO%20MP3%20128%20OCT%202010/13%20Overpass%2090%20Master.mp3

Hey all -

So here's a quick summary of updates from Deprogrammed Studios for June 2008!

More details can be found at: http://blog.deprogrammed.com/

STAFF

Deprogrammed Studios is proud to announce our new partner John Ostrem, who will be handling business for our SW division, in addition to drum tracking services in Austin, TX. We've also brought on several collaborators from around the globe to help expand our catalog.

MUSIC

Nucleus Soundlab asked us to develop a couple of tracks to demo their new release "Viral Outbreak", a sound library based on sounds from the legendary Virus Ti synth. Check out the tracks "Infekted" and "Contagion" at http://nucleus-soundlab.com/viraloutbreak.htm. Reason Refill and VSTi formats and available now!

We've also contributed to several new releases over the last couple of months:

FIXT/Position Production Music Series: Volume 32 - Electronic (Digital + CD - 2008)
Celldweller: Take it and Break it Round 3 - "Switchback" (CD - Release Date TBA)
Transcendence (Score accompanying the book of photography by Alexander23 - 2008)
Harsh Realm: Dual Remix L [Arrhythima/Blood of Another] (CD - 2008)
Deprogrammed Studios Production Music Series: Volume 1 (CD - 2008)

LICENSING/PUBLISHING

The last CD in the list above is our own release, which features 30 tracks that cover multiple genres and moods (action/battle, horror, rock/metal, etc), all of which are available for immediate licensing for film/tv/games/other media.

Our list of publishers is growing rapidly - Stay tuned for more exciting news ahead. =)