Game companies hiring composers

Create rough and final cuts. Position is coded as Local Y Set up and record loop groups. Briefing, reviewing demos and providing client feedback with composers. Final Cut Pro: 1 year Preferred. Coordinate album mastering with composer and engineer.

Manage audio and artwork production process from film to soundtrack. Receive and vet music metadata and music files from productions, composers, and music supervisors related to music placed in ViacomCBS content. Use Facebook or Google to sign in or register with SimplyHired. Continue with Facebook Continue with Google. Job Title, Skills or Company. He sent it over, and — you guessed it — he got the gig.

So what music do you like to write? What music do you see a need for among game devs? Find where those two intersect, and start building your volume of work.

Building entire albums helps you experiment with theme and variation, create a palette of sounds, and have a robust completed project to showcase on your demo reel. And make it a habit. Set a time in your calendar to compose. But all professionals know that time is money. The faster you move your art from ideation to creation to production to completion, the more work you can take on. Focus on the proficiency of your art and the frequency of your art.

The speed will naturally come. There are also many ways to technically improve your workflow, like learning keyboard shortcuts, setting up DAW templates, or setting up a palette of sounds early.

My guest Chase Bethea Aground composer told me that game jams were his number one avenue for building relationships in the game audio space. Heck, The Binding of Isaac started as a game jam game, and we all know how that ended. Before joining the Indie Galactic Space Jam in , I had no idea how the game development process went.

I had no idea how programmers, artists, animators, creative directors, and composers worked together to create a finished product. Up to that point, I had only worked with indie games where I threw music assets over the fence and they magically appeared in the game. We were fortunate to have Necole, a very experienced creative lead, as our team leader and I learned a ton from her.

I got to see how artists worked, how 3D modelers transferred assets to our programmers, how our programmers implemented them in Unity, and much more. It was such an educational experience and will absolutely serve you well if you want to make a career working with game developers. I thought most of my time would be spent with my nose in my DAW writing tracks. I was constantly talking to our creative lead, our head programmer, and our designers about how my work would help align with theirs.

The experience really helped me understand the value in team communication and maintaining a consistent vision with the other developers. Our creative lead had a particular vision for the music, but I had some reservations. I expressed my reservations and suggested an alternative a great formula for compromise , and the end result was something we were both happy with. Time waits for no one, and neither do game jam judges.

One of the best benefits of game jams is that it forces us perfectionistic, noodling, hand-wringing, self-doubting creative types to actually finish something.

And that, we did. We won second place, too. Check out some upcoming digital game jams on itch. Passive income is revenue generated in perpetuity requiring minimal to no maintenance from the recipient.

In fact, it often takes an incredible amount of work. However, once the work is complete, the money comes independent of how much time you spend on it. Think of it this way. Now, there are only 40 working hours in a week, so if you ever wanted to make more money, you have two options:. The first option works to an extent. Now, you can still raise your prices, but the beauty is that you can afford to turn down certain gigs and concentrate your efforts on other projects.

These projects may be building a team of composers, traveling to an event for networking purposes, or even starting a sample library company like my buddy Steven Melin did. Passive income takes time, just like compound interest in the stock market. Compound interest needs time to work its magic. The same is true of passive income. For this reason, Steven Melin recommended in our very first conversation that composers start by concentrating on passive income sources.

After all, what else are you gonna do while prospecting for gigs and waiting for devs to call you back? Freelancing as a game composer is already stressful enough.

However, by far the most interesting and productive passive income channel to invest in is creating game music packs for developers. So what are you to do? These are absolutely golden opportunities for composers. Steven Melin has an incredible step-by-step guide on making game music packs.

I come from the digital marketing world. This means analyzing the top performers in a particular niche or vertical and figuring out how we can create even more value for this particular market.

The first step is to find the marketplaces that are most popular with developers. As of this writing, they are:. On the Unity Asset store, I sorted by 5 stars and up in the filter. Then, I did the same thing on itch. Interestingly enough, the packs on itch.

Good to know! I opened them in a new tab. Just rinse and repeat this process until you have about music packs that you believe are in your wheelhouse. The next step is study each aspect of these music packs and look carefully for areas of weakness.

This crucial step is what will help you rank higher on these marketplaces and land more sales. I reckon the same is true in game music pack composition. For example, take a look at one of the top sellers on itch. The artwork is decent, but not amazing. Regardless, the sounds of the tunes are polished, interesting, full, and rich. It offers exactly what the title advertises. Is this a surefire way to rank highly in these marketplaces and gain all the benefits I covered above?

Music packs are an incredible way to hone your craft, make inroads with creators, and make some passive income. But they require work and a lot of patience. In fact, active income gigs — usually custom composition gigs — are notoriously some of the most lucrative things you can spend your time on.

Plus, this is the dream right? Allow me to put my marketing hat on. Yes, I care way more about my friendships in this industry than anything else. There are two types of ways to acquire leads. Included in inbound marketing is brand-building; or building an audience online where people know and trust you, kind of like how Steven has on YouTube. Nobody is desperately beating down your door to score their game. That would be kinda weird if they were, right?

But, as your career grows, as you start to develop repeat business and a solid reputation in the industry, your marketing breakdown will probably look a lot like this:. Obviously, outbound marketing is centered around reaching out to people and making connections with them. The hope is that these connections lead to some sort of mutually beneficial business outcome or working relationship.

This is by far the most preferable form of networking, even for an introvert like me. The quality of the friendships you make at meetups, conferences, or game jams are infinitely more powerful than sending a bunch of cold emails. My point is that making inroads in person is so much easier than online. I find that my confidence level to approach a stranger is much higher when I have someone with me.

Another tip is to have a flash drive with one or two of your music packs on it you did make music packs like I said in the last section, right? And, going even further, you can record a video of yourself on the thumb drive thanking them for considering your music and giving them next steps if they want to hire you for a custom score. Everyone is connected through the internet, and it makes for a really supportive, inclusive and engaging global community. A great strategy to cut through the noise of fellow composers cold-emailing devs is to offer to compose a free demo track for a developer.

So a few years ago, I polled a bunch of game developers on how they find composers. I found the answers extremely insightful. You can find the full synopsis of my research in this post. This is marketing In the digital marketing world, we live and die by funnels.

The top of the funnel is general, free content with a wide appeal like YouTube videos or blog posts. Lead magnets can be helpful PDFs, checklists, or even the very same game audio packs mentioned above.

This is best illustrated with an example. Steven Melin uses ConvertKit, a powerful, freemium email platform, to maintain his email list and his funnel. On his site, rather than having a smattering of clips set to his music, he has a full-fledged tutorial where he explains how he created custom music, sound effects, and voiceover audio for a demo project. He walks step-by-step through the composition and sound design process, as well as showing screencaps of how he used middleware and game engines to implement the music into a fully-functioning game.

This is incredible , and going the extra mile like this is a surefire way to impress prospective developers and establish your expertise. Check out his full demo reel landing page here. Alec Weesner is a composer and good friend who demonstrates his composition skills by publishing YouTube videos recreating and analyzing popular video game tunes.

This not only helps him hone his craft, but also establish himself as an authority and expert in the composition space. These pieces are picked up by huge publications like Gamasutra, which means they rank very highly in Google. Therefore, guest-posting for big publications like Gamasutra is a fantastic way to build credibility and get your name out there. The best way to get repeat business and positive word-of-mouth recognition is to do great work. For example, you may have a main theme asset contained in this project.

Make a subhead in your Google Doc or Word Doc , name the asset, and describe it in as much detail as possible. You want to have as concrete a plan as possible before you hit up your DAW. This will prevent any headaches or miscommunications down the line.

In addition to this, your statement of work should include:. We have some of the best animators in the biz! We can map your project, develop content and bring it to life in a beautiful simulation! Littleton, Colorado, United States. I've played and written for several projects from video game music, to hip-hop, to death metal in both live and studio settings.

I have a massive array of sample libraries, synthesizers, and instruments to create the unique textures and timbres your project requires. Ripley, West Virginia, United States. I've been composing music for 10 years and have a bachelors degree in Music Production. I take most of my inspiration from video game music, but I've written music for many different projects.

Whenever I work on a project, I like to turn your passion into my passion. I take your vision and make it realized through my original music. Temerin, Vojvodina, Serbia. My name is Norbert Gobor, I am an experienced and trained sound engineer in the market. I'm working as a sound engineer for 10 years now. I really enjoy working as a sound engineer and have developed excellent skills such as working fast and produce great quality of sound.

I design music and audio for games, having worked on creating music and audio on four different games in the last two years. I create music specific to the genres of games, creating music from orchestra to electronic music. While also synthesizing and recording sounds for sound effects. I am also not limited to the game genre, and will branch out to other various projects that needs audio and music.

Holubeche, Poltavs'ka Oblast', Ukraine. I am a musician. I have been involved in music for 8 years. I specialize in writing music, compiling and mastering. Also: I do mastering, compile tracks, edit podcasts, have experience playing the piano View more. Belgrade, Serbia, Serbia. Taipei City, T'ai-pei, Taiwan. Do you have your musical ideas and you need to find someone to finish or arrange for you?

Do you want personalized music for your Podcasts, commercials or even for your phones? Do you need noise reduction on your audio files?

Do you need someone to make your audio quality sound better? Do you need transcription? Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai, Thailand. I''m a Media Designer specialising in sound engineering. I can work on any sound work, including game music, UI sound design, editing, mixing and mastering. My main skill is music production and I have worked for various electronic music productions and releases since on labels such as Fektive, Above All Recordings, Subtraxx, Big In Ibiza and many others.

I have collaborated with many established artists and can do ghost production, collaborative writing and toplines for any publishing wor Bila Tserkva, Kyyivs'ka Oblast', Ukraine. Toledo, Ohio, United States. Robert Howard is an experienced composer of music, with three independant albums to his credit.

Is proficient in writing in a wide variety of styles, and is particularly well suited to game music writing due to his understanding of the industry. Is also capable of doing voice work 2 years as professional on air FM radio announcer. View All. Post a Job. Find Freelancers. Video Game music composers are musicians who compose an original piece of music, either vocal or instrumental to be featured in a video game. They create all the background music that plays throughout the game and direct how music will be used in the game.

On a typical day, a video game music composer goes through the game specs and determines what music needs to go where. Besides this, game music composers also conduct extensive research to seek market trends and incorporate them into their music compositions.

A freelance video game music composer composes different kind of game music, such as extra-diegetic music - music that is added to a scene purely to enhance the emotions that the player should be feeling.