Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

I'm seeing more and more people come here (and not to the collaboration forum, as they should) to recruit musicians and sound designers to their projects. We're in a site chock-full of music licensed in a way that it can be used in non-commercial games, so if they were wanting to do one of those, they could easily grab a track and give the artist credit. As expected, many of them believe they cannot afford music and sound design rates, and want custom service pro bono, gratis, absolutely free. Which would be understandable if it wasn't obvious they're going to profit from these games, and their defense when asked why they can't pay a musician for custom work is that the exposure would be good enough.

Talking from experience, and audio work is how I make a living, it isn't.

Let's be realistic: the people asking you to do free work aren't Carmack or Gaben. They wouldn't need free work if they were. There's not going to be a lot of people looking forward to the game, there's not going to be bloggers revealing details over the course of months to eager soon-to-be fans. These are developers who will not, by default, get tremendous amount of media exposure themselves, and in the off-chance their game would be the next big thing, the composer's name would be far down in the journalist's priority list to mention in an article or even a YouTube video.

I understand many developers don't have money right now, and can't pay upfront, but that's no excuse for why they should profit out of what you make and never compensate you for being a part of it. Anyone who says the music isn't important to the game experience could very well release the game without it, but everyone knows that's absolutely untrue.

Now, we know there's some money to be made of ads, even in a post-AdBlock world. This seems to be the plan most developers that come here asking for free work for their projects have; a thread I saw earlier this week mentioned the developer's games get over a million plays, which should make some ad revenue... but not enough to give a small percentage to people using their time, energy and years of studying music off whatever money comes from that. Funny, isn't it? A percentage can be taken from any sum, but they reject that notion and decide money goes to them, "exposure" goes to you.

Let me tell you why: they don't want to deal with you. It was never a partnership. You could do better than this.

This is free market and I know some of us are eager to just make music to be featured on projects, but you're shooting yourself in the foot every time you accept to work for exposure in a project you know will make others money. Next time they need a track and come to ask you, they're not going to want to pay you for a service they got for free the other day; I've seen people say that as well, and it's a lie. If someone wants your work in their game that will make money, it has some sort of value and it's only fair you're remunerated as such, be it upfront or with a percentage on future gains. If they don't think so, I'm sure there are a lot of people developing completely free games for fun that would appreciate your participation in their projects.

I hope this rant helps musicians who are just starting and not sure of how to act at the beginning of their careers.

Looking forward to the results, good work everyone!

PM'd you.

• 
  Tower Over Waterfalls by Ryuno074

  Trance/Dubstep track for the Art-Inspired Music Contest 2014

  Score

  5.00 / 5.00

  Type

  Song

  Genre

  Trance

  Popularity

  20 Views

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Entry for the contest, Trance mixed with Dubstep.

At 4/14/14 08:26 AM, Yoshiii343 wrote: Can FL Studio run on Linux?

Yep. When my previous computer died, I used Knoppix to access the HD, for file recovery purposes. Since I was there already, I decided to run my FL Projects just to try. Every VST worked fine too.

Just submitted my entry.

It was a tough month for me, with my computer giving out and lots of work to do despite that. I wish I had more time to work on my track, but I also know it's easy to fall into the pit of never wrapping it up.

Inspired by kamikaye's "Tower Over Waterfalls"

• 
  Tower over waterfalls by Kamikaye

  Doodlin around a bit in the comfort zone. After fixing a driver problem and other things. About 2-3 hours PS CS 5 Intuos 4.

  Score

  4.658227848 / 5.00

  Type

  Illustration

  Popularity

  1,026 Views

  Rated

  Everyone

I wrote a track with with the same title.

• 
  Tower Over Waterfalls by Ryuno074

  Trance/Dubstep track for the Art-Inspired Music Contest 2014

  Score

  5.00 / 5.00

  Type

  Song

  Genre

  Trance

  Popularity

  1 Views

• Loading...

Ready to take more commissions!

I got one too, it's because I submitted music to MonsterCat in the past. Should be safe.

• 
  Dodge & Fuski-SWYD(Ryuno Rmx) by Ryuno074

  Dodge & Fuski - Stop What Youre Doing Ft JFB (Ryuno Remix)

  Score

  0 / 5.00

  Type

  Song

  Genre

  Dubstep

  Popularity

  1 Views

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Dodge & Fuski - Stop What Youre Doing Ft JFB (Ryuno Remix)

Some musicians are sound designers, and many sound designers are musicians, but not every musician needs to be a sound designer. If you want to learn more about synthesis, OP, it's fine and even commendable. But from a composer's standpoint, it is a disservice to your workflow to choose to make everything from scratch, because in many situations, you will be re-inventing the wheel.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11682568/909/index.html
Same mechanics, 909 edition

Someone asked for it on another community and I figured "why not?". It didn't take long to replace the samples, and gave me insight on how to work with more than one kit, which is the direction I have in mind for this. Hope you guys enjoy it!

• 
  Tower over waterfalls by Kamikaye

  Doodlin around a bit in the comfort zone. After fixing a driver problem and other things. About 2-3 hours PS CS 5 Intuos 4.

  Score

  4.649350649 / 5.00

  Type

  Illustration

  Popularity

  928 Views

  Rated

  Everyone

I got permission to use this one.

• 
  TR-808 by Ryuno074

  Browser Drum Machine based on the legendary TR-808!

  Score

  Under Judgment

  Type

  Game

  Popularity

  3 Views

  Rated

  Everyone

I uploaded it to NG, currently Under Judgement.

I'm glad you're enjoying this guys, I'm planning to do more drum machines.

At 3/13/14 06:50 PM, LiquidOoze wrote: Nice one man. Closed hihat is kinda glitchy though, doesn't work all the time.

I just fixed that, figured out what was going on. What caused the issue in the Closed Hi-Hat was that it was preemptively calling for a stop in the Open Hi-Hat (for the sake of realism). However, Chrome interpreted that as "kill all sound, forever" sometimes. So, even though it pains me, I removed that feature, at least for the web version. Tested the EXE and Android builds as well, and everything is working so far.

http://ryunocore.tumblr.com/post/79466985819/tr-808-based-drum-machine-demo

Made in Construct 2, have fun1

Controls:

Q A Z: Kick
W S X: Clap
E D C: Snare
R F V: Crash
T G B: Open Hi Hat
Y H N: Closed Hi Hat
U J M: Rim
I K ,: Tom
O L.: Clave

At 3/9/14 06:00 PM, FaeryTaleAdventurer wrote: It depends on the day for me. I actually wish that at least one of these DAWs today had a feature that records the amount of time you spend on a project.

FL Studio does.

I found an inspiring piece and started working on my track. More automation than notes so far, and layered NI Massive all around.

It's good stuff, just not a synth.

https://soundcloud.com/ryunocore/stop-what-youre-doing-ft-jfb

My entry to the Stop What You're Doing EP remix competition, pure Neuro Hop stuff.

For me, from 1 to 10 hours most of the time.

However, seeing how long Madeon's projects take, I think I should work a little more myself.

This sounds like fun to me, I'm in.

https://soundcloud.com/ryunocore/limit-break
Did some chippy trapstep.

At 3/4/14 11:03 PM, Kawaburd wrote: First of all, sorry is this is in the wrong forum. Not sure where else to put it and this seems the most relevant.

The short form is that I'm working on a small indie project codenamed "MineGame" (www.gryphonheartdesigns.com) and need help with the music so I'm not spending the next few months just learning the relevant skills to compose my own. While I'm not recruiting with this post, I do need advice. Offering on twitter, someone with a decent portfolio responded and offered to compose 5 tracks (SNES-style chiptune), each around 2 minutes long for a flat fee of $250.

What I'm asking here is this: Is that good deal? How much time and effort does this sort of thing take for someone whose already learned the trade, and what's the going rate for indie composers? I'm able to pay but not readily expecting this project to make much, if any money, but at the same time I don't want to cheat anyone with ridiculously low rates either. Plus this person IS freelance rather than actively seeking to be on a team, and having never completed anything or worked with others I'm really not sure what to expect. Am I better off looking for a partner in this or just buying his services, and are there any surprises I should be ready to handle?

It all boils down to the quality you want and the price you can afford. If you can find a suitable partner who doesn't mind receiving only a share of future profits, that'd be the ideal situation; if not, freelancers are the way to go. When hiring an audio freelancer, it's not important that they have actively worked on a team before, but that they know exactly what is expected of them; loops should loop seamlessly, SFX should have a little "tail" so they won't cut off abruptly, file formats, stable dB levels, etc.

Regarding the rates, I'll tell you right off the bat, that is under what I'd personally charge. If you like what they do and can afford that, it seems like a good deal.

http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=The_Longing_Of_Shiina_Ryo

Story Synopsis

A teenager who has always found himself involved in mysteries and unusual situations decides to move to the town where his only friend (a girl he met online) lives and starts living by himself. At first he is unsure whether it’s going to be a place where he can finally lead the normal life he always dreamed of or if it’s going to be just another place he’ll eventually run away from. The town turns out to be everything the doctor prescribed and he starts falling in love with his friend, making new (and unique) friends and getting the support he has craved for so long. What could go wrong?

Just what he feared the most.

*******

I wrote these books a few years ago and have been struggling to finish up the third. Hope you guys enjoy them.

Atari 2600, then the NES. I blame them.

PM'd you.

• 
  501-And it Begins (Ryuno rmx) by Ryuno074

  actually drumstep

  Score

  5.00 / 5.00

  Type

  Song

  Genre

  Dubstep

  Popularity

  1 Views

• Loading...

I believe Genesis is a superior machine, especially for its wonderful FM synthesis, but SNES had better exclusive games.

Love Drum & Bass, especially neurofunk.

My top 3:
1) State of Mind
2) Billain
3) Audio