River Cycles

Just finished this piece. I think it turned out decent.River Cycles

River Cycles

hey , nice piece . the recording is very good , how did you do it?

Thanks man! The acoustic was recorded with a Sterling ST31 condenser mic plugged into a Presonus "TubePre" preamp. The preamp is plugged into my Pod X3, which is then plugged into my computer via USB. The electric is plugged straight into the Pod X3. Gotta love those Pods. They are wonderful for recording guitar. Software wise I used Sony Acid Pro for recording guitar tracks, and linked it to Reason with Rewire for the strings and pads.

The way you compose reminds me of Tim Follin. He has some similar ambient stuff, especially in the work he did on Ecco: Defender of the Future.

Here's my favorite of his songs:

It might be slow at first, but it gets to some incredible guitar parts in there.

I could say the same about your song, it starts off kind of slow and I got a little bored, but it redeemed itself towards the end, and I was thoroughly satisfied. Not much bad I can say about this song really, though.

So I have a question for you: What do you make your music for? Is it just a hobby, or are you working for someone? I mean, if I were you, I'd seriously look into finding someone to hire you to make music for their game, movie, or whatever.

Thanks Charybdis. I'm enjoying the song you linked to. I'm gonna have to check out some more Tim Follin stuff! As for your question, for right now its just a hobby. I've been toying around with the idea of composing my own works since I was a teenager, but I didn't actually buckle down and start recording more seriously until about a year ago. That's when I actually started writing complete pieces that sounded decent, so its a relatively new thing for me. The majority of the music on my site was composed just within this past year. I'd love to do it professionally some day but just in the last few months that I've been sharing my music online I've ran across so many incredibly talented artists that can't even get a decent crowd of people to listen to their stuff let alone make a career out of it. Its sort of discouraging, but I don't picture myself ever retiring my guitar. I love composing too much to do that. I'll keep writing songs until I'm old and gray even if it never takes me anywhere.

I just updated this. I made a few minor changes, most notably boosted the volume of the lead electric guitar after deciding it was too quiet. Nothing major though. Probably not even noticeable without directly comparing it to the old version.

As for your question, for right now its just a hobby. I've been toying around with the idea of composing my own works since I was a teenager, but I didn't actually buckle down and start recording more seriously until about a year ago. That's when I actually started writing complete pieces that sounded decent, so its a relatively new thing for me. The majority of the music on my site was composed just within this past year. I'd love to do it professionally some day but just in the last few months that I've been sharing my music online I've ran across so many incredibly talented artists that can't even get a decent crowd of people to listen to their stuff let alone make a career out of it. Its sort of discouraging, but I don't picture myself ever retiring my guitar. I love composing too much to do that. I'll keep writing songs until I'm old and gray even if it never takes me anywhere. <img src="http://network.youngcomposers.com/elgg/ipb/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif" alt=":)" />

I'm a relatively new composer too. A good mentor, Zack Parrish, known as CBlockDis over on VGMusic Forums, told me that the best ways to get into the actual business of making music for people, is to not wait for people to come to you, but to go to them. Some of the suggestions he gave me were to join gamedev forums and make yourself familiar there, and then, just to get your music out there, volunteer for a small project, doesn't even have to be something that will survive, it's just serving the purpose of getting your music out there. I've partly followed that advice so far. I volunteered to make the music for a Sonic Fangame, so that I can get some practice composing for people, and for something to show off to people on the Gamedev forums once I get there. I even just got an E-mail yesterday, someone asking me if I'll make 6 tracks for THEIR game too!

As for all the other talented artists you speak of, don't get discouraged. I mean sure, there are a lot of them, especially on this site. Don't put yourself down because you don't think you're as good, though. Every composer harshly criticizes their own work, and that's how we get better, so I tell you no lies when I say that your music sounds professional. I wouldn't think you would have any problems getting people to want to pay for your music in their game, or maybe even movie. (Well, movies are a bit trickier, because they usually go for orchestral, and it has to go along with the movies scenes.)

The reason you don't get a lot of comments? Not because of your music, it's because people are lazy. That's why I like taking part in contests, because you will always get criticism in a contest. Speaking of laziness, that's the only excuse for why I haven't responded to this sooner, or even listened to Spinning Rocks yet... And those aren't the only places where I'm lazy at.

Ah God help this poor sloth that I am. >_< I'm even being lazy in writing this when I have school I should be doing right now.

Thanks Char. The contests are a wonderful idea. I've been thinking of entering one and I probably will eventually. I've also thought about volunteering for small game projects, but I'm not sure if I want to take on something like that with the way my current schedule is set up. I really don't want to promise some tracks for somebody and then not be able to deliver them in a timely manner. I just never know when I'm gonna get time to record. For example, I've had two nearly complete tracks sitting on my hard drive for a week now, I just need to do a few final mixing related things to them and they'll be ready, but I haven't had time to do it yet! Basically when I do get a few hours of time to record I have to cram as much in as quickly as possible or else I'll never finish anything, If I were to volunteer for a project though, then the gamedev forums would be one of the first places I'd go. I used to frequent that site in my nerdy game programmer wannabe teen years so I know its a wonderful site! But yeah, congrats on the interest from the game developers. Good luck on those projects!