The other day I broke a laptop monitor in half and I recorded it using four very different microphones with different specifications. I recorded the sounds with a sampling rate of 192 kHz and loaded the sounds into Izotope RX5 to show the spectrogram and pitch down the sounds two octaves. This video demonstrates how different the sounds are when pitched down since some of the microphones capture audio well beyond what the human ear can hear - yet when you pitch the sound down those inaudible frequencies are brought into our range of hearing:
Microphones Used:
Sanken CO-100K (20 - 100'000 Hz)
Sennheiser MKH 8040 (30 - 50'000 Hz)
Rode NTG3 (40 - 20'000 Hz)
Schoeps CCM41 (40 - 20'000 Hz)
Recorder:
Sound Devices 788T
Software Used:
Izotope RX5
The blog is being migrated and merged with multiple Imphenzia blogs so the format and content will be inconsistent for a while.
How Do I Promote My Music Online?
Composing music is something I really enjoy doing but for me it is also very important that my music is being listened to and enjoyed by as many people as possible. Unless what you have is a truly amazing talent, resulting in a viral shock wave that promotes itself, you will most likely remain fairly unnoticed unless you take it upon yourself to promote your music.
In this post I will summarize what I do to promote my music on the Internet. I will also let you know of the efforts involved, the costs and the impact it has had.
This will be a long post and if you have little time, I suggest that you scroll down and look at the headers below and focus on methods you haven't used to promote your music.
Early on I made sure to register my artist name as a .com domain name. That was 12 years ago and you may find that yours has already been taken, but it's still important to create your official site so consider to register the .net domain, or your local country suffix, and build an official artist web site.
My site is now in its 5th generation and I’ve put a lot of effort into developing it. Luckily I have some knowledge in web development so I can design, develop, and maintain my own web site. This may be something you need to get help with if you have little knowledge about development.
Experience, feedback, and statistics from the five generations of my site all point to the following criteria for success:
If, for whatever reason, creating a web site is not for you - I still recommend that you register a domain name and point it to your main point of presence on the Internet whether it'd be a MySpace page or a Soundclick page for example. Remember, an URL like www.imphenzia.com is always more appealing and much easier to promote than an URL such as www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=701131.
Cost: I pay $10/y for my domain name and $50/y for my web hotel, $0 for development
Effort: Very high for custom web site with shopping cart, could be low for simple sites
Visitors/Plays: My artist site averages around 20-25 unique visitors per day
A mailing list is extremely important. It will enable you to reach many eager listeners waiting for your next release. I have developed my own mailing list but many artist sites offer this as part of their functionality.
Make sure that you send relevant information to your mailing list users and whatever you do, don't spam them with useless information as it will only result in them unsubscribing from your list. This brings me to another important feature; make sure it easy to unsubscribe from the list as it will encourage more people to sign up. You can see my example image (click to enlarge) how I announce a new track release, also note the one click unsubscribe feature at the bottom.
Make it easy see and sign up to the mailing list. I value subscribers so much that I give away a digital album to everyone that signs up. If your list supports such a feature, or you develop your own mailing list, consider giving your new subscribers a generous gift.
The image above shows how I've presented my subscribe to mailing list feature. It's located in the very center of my welcome page and signup is easy, just enter an email address and click sign up (the digital album will be sent to the subscriber's email as a welcome gift.)
Cost: I developed my own mailing list for free, and there are free mailing lists available
Effort: Little effort is spend maintaining the list. It took some time to develop but there are free alternatives.
Subscribers: My list currently contains 737 valid addresses
Personally, I hate Facebook and all types of social media sites. I frequently get surprised of how willing some people are to expose themselves and their private affairs. Nevertheless, social media is an essential tool to promote your music and it is very powerful.
Facebook is the most important site to be on. Create an artist page and announce your new releases, special offers, teasers, previews, news and so forth. The more people you get that “like” your artist page the better. Every announcement you make will appear on their "Facebook wall" so in that sense it's similar to an mailing list with the added benefit that you get comments and interaction with your fans.
Twitter is another one I hate, but again, you have to be on it. Link twitter updates with facebook updates (there are features on the sites to do this) to make your updates appear on multiple sites automatically with little effort. You should also encourage people to follow you on twitter and facebook whenever possible.
Follow other twitter users with similar interests – it is likely that they will follow you in return. This doesn't mean you have to read everyone's uninteresting updates because you can disable email notifications if you are only interested in twitter as a marketing method (as opposed to a social tool.)
Costs: $0 (free)
Effort: Little effort required to maintain presence at Facebook and Twitter
Visitors/Plays: I have 373 facebook fans and 116 twitter followers
YouTube is another great site to maintain your presence. Even if you don’t have music videos, consider uploading your tracks with a simple image because surprisingly many people go to YouTube to listen to music. You can also use free online tools such as “Animoto” to create some visually pleasing videos for your music.
Here are some examples of how I used YouTube (and other video sites such as Vimeo) to promote my music:
Creating tutorials, especially video tutorials, is another very powerful method to reach listeners. Granted, it will mostly attract other artists, but nevertheless they are humans and fans too. My tutorial videos have been viewed over 100’000 times and I'm not sure how many have actually turned into fans but such a large number of views is bound to bring some fans your way. Don’t forget to clearly promote your URL to your artist site in any tutorials you create.
Here is an example of a video tutorial I've created: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO5u7hNA1mo
Cost: $0 (free)
Effort: Little for single tracks, high for tutorials and animated videos
Video Views: 163'139 video views
Everywhere you are present, describe your music and videos with many interesting and relevant keywords. Use details such as equipment you used and sources of inspiration etc. Search engines will index your music and people will find you when searching for music created using a particular instrument or music that sounds similar to a particular artist.
Cost, effort, visitors: n/a
Dedicated artists and musician web sites such as soundclick.com and soundcloud.com are important to be on. You can usually upload your music to be hosted for free although some restrictions will usually apply. Be prepared that the registration and upload process will require a fair amount of your time. Describe your music, preferably with varying descriptions for each site, to increase the exposure to search engines.
These type of sites come and go and some will remain active longer than others. Examples of sites that are no longer active where I used to gain a lot of exposure at were mp3.com, ampcast, and peoplesound but they are since long gone.
Soundclick.com
Cost: I pay $9.95 per month for VIP account, but free account is available
Effort: Little to maintain, initially high to upload music if you have many tracks
Visitors/Plays: 101'083 page views, 370'365 song plays
Soundcloud.com
Cost: $0 (free) I've opted for the free account at this stage
Effort: Little to medium depending on how many tracks you have
Song Plays: 1122 (I am not very active at soundcloud, yet)
Another benefit with artist sites is that they commonly have top lists and you will gain exposure if you can get one or more of your tracks into these lists. I have 370'000+ plays at soundclick.com and this is mainly due to some of my tracks ranking in the genre top lists. In an attempt to get into the top lists I decided to go for a paid promotion. I paid $25 for "Promo Song of the Day" (it is now priced at $50) and it rocketed my track to the #1 spot for the entire electronic music genre. Since then the track has promoted itself just by being present in the top 25 of the sub-genre.
Artists sites also commonly feature music groups that you can join and where you can share your music. At soundcloud.com, join relevant groups and share your tracks. I personally haven’t had much exposure through these groups but it may very well be due to lack of effort and involvement on my part.
Use an "aggregator" (such as Ubetoo.com, Tunecore.com, CDBaby.com, RouteNote.com, Recordunion.com) to distribute your music to digital stores (such as iTunes, Amazon MP3, etc) and streaming services (such as Spotify.)
Peasonally I use Ubetoo for digital distribution because they allow unlimited number of singles and albums for an annual subscription fee of around $80. Ubetoo also distribute the music to 500 digital stores which I believe is more stores than any of the competitors.
Other aggregators usually charge an annual fee per song and album and turns out to be a lot more expensive than Ubetoo if you have 5 albums and 85 single tracks as I do. The exception is RouteNote and they now have a free alternative but they don't reach as many digital stores as Ubetoo so I don't think I will switch.
Some important things to be aware of with aggregators:
Cost: $80/y (Ubetoo)
Effort: High initially to upload all your tracks and define releases (if you have many)
Plays/Royalties: I get about $50 in royalties (100%) from Ubetoo every 3 months. Due to awful statistics it's difficult to way what store or service the royalties come from.
The main purpose of this blog is simple; I write posts to attract an audience through search engines and I hope that my readers will also discover and enjoy my music. A positive side effect of this promotion method is that I may end up helping other artists along the way =) It's also a good way to give your fans insight to what you are up to.
Cost: $0 (free) There are free blog sites available
Effort: Medium, it takes some time to write blog posts
Visitors: 10-60 visitors per day
Internet forums, especially specific to the genre of music that you create, are useful for promotional purposes. The downside to forums are that you may have to spend a lot of time to get involved in discussions before you promote your music in a non-spamming fashion. At the same time, if you enjoy engaging in discussions, this may be the perfect way for you to build a name.
A good approach is to first introduce yourself. in the forum Make sure you have an appealing forum profile signature with a link to your web site. Write feedback to other artists seeking feedback. Announce your new releases only in sub forums for such announcements because anything that could be considered to be spam will backfire. Seek constructive feedback on your music as it will both improve your music at the same time as you will gain some exposure.
Cost: $0 (free)
Effort: High to build reputation and maintain presence
Visitors/Plays: Unknown
I've made a few attempts with paid promotion, such as Google Adwords and Facebook Ads. These cost a fair amount per click so it may be out of reach for independent artists and I don't find it to appealing to go this route due to the costs involved.
The most effective promotion, by far, has been the promotion features at soundclick.com that resulted in thousands of plays in a single day for $25.
Cost: I've paid around $200 for Facebook ads and $100 for Google Adwords
Effort: Little effort is required to create paid promotions
Visitors: Google and Facebook ads only resulted in around 500 clicks. Soundclick promotion resulted in thousands of song plays.
In addition to the above, there are additional attempts I've made to promote my music but they are very specific to my hobbies and interests. I'll mention them anyway for the sake of it =)
Develop Games - I make simple computer games that feature my music. Some of the games are released as freeware and the game Beat Ball, for example, was featured in a large German computer magazine that to this day (10 years on) turns out to be a large source of my German fans.
Sponsor Virtual Racing Team - A virtual Live For Speed race team I founded, Nordic Racing Group, features the Imphenzia logo and Imphenzia URL on the race cars:
There are many creative ways to promote your music online and you have to be prepared to make a huge effort in order to get noticed. I've released over 85 tracks (and 5 albums.) I've spent countless hours promoting my music online for over a decade using the methods above.
You could argue that it's not worth the effort, and solely from the perspective of time and economic reward it clearly isn't. But knowing that my music has been played over a million times (including historic sites such as mp3.com), and looking at the positive feedback I receive from my listeners, I feel that it's been well worth the effort.
I hope you found some useful ideas to promote your music and best of luck reaching a wider audience.
In this post I will summarize what I do to promote my music on the Internet. I will also let you know of the efforts involved, the costs and the impact it has had.
This will be a long post and if you have little time, I suggest that you scroll down and look at the headers below and focus on methods you haven't used to promote your music.
Create an Official Artist Web Site
Early on I made sure to register my artist name as a .com domain name. That was 12 years ago and you may find that yours has already been taken, but it's still important to create your official site so consider to register the .net domain, or your local country suffix, and build an official artist web site.My site is now in its 5th generation and I’ve put a lot of effort into developing it. Luckily I have some knowledge in web development so I can design, develop, and maintain my own web site. This may be something you need to get help with if you have little knowledge about development.
Experience, feedback, and statistics from the five generations of my site all point to the following criteria for success:
- Stylish but simple
- Easy for visitors to navigate
- Easy for visitors to instantly hear your music
- Links to and integration with social media (e.g. Facebook Like and AddThis)
- Search Engine Optimization with Search Engine Friendly URLs
Each one of my tracks automatically get an unique URL, e.g. http://music.imphenzia.com/tracks/time-travel.html. These pages contain keywords and a description specific to the track and the benefit of this that instead of having search engines index just one page containing all tracks it will index, in my case, over 85 additional pages. - Keep your site updated with your latest music and latest news
- Use statistics, such as Google Analytics, to see how visitors find your site
If, for whatever reason, creating a web site is not for you - I still recommend that you register a domain name and point it to your main point of presence on the Internet whether it'd be a MySpace page or a Soundclick page for example. Remember, an URL like www.imphenzia.com is always more appealing and much easier to promote than an URL such as www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=701131.
Cost: I pay $10/y for my domain name and $50/y for my web hotel, $0 for development
Effort: Very high for custom web site with shopping cart, could be low for simple sites
Visitors/Plays: My artist site averages around 20-25 unique visitors per day
Mailing List
A mailing list is extremely important. It will enable you to reach many eager listeners waiting for your next release. I have developed my own mailing list but many artist sites offer this as part of their functionality.Make sure that you send relevant information to your mailing list users and whatever you do, don't spam them with useless information as it will only result in them unsubscribing from your list. This brings me to another important feature; make sure it easy to unsubscribe from the list as it will encourage more people to sign up. You can see my example image (click to enlarge) how I announce a new track release, also note the one click unsubscribe feature at the bottom.
Make it easy see and sign up to the mailing list. I value subscribers so much that I give away a digital album to everyone that signs up. If your list supports such a feature, or you develop your own mailing list, consider giving your new subscribers a generous gift.
The image above shows how I've presented my subscribe to mailing list feature. It's located in the very center of my welcome page and signup is easy, just enter an email address and click sign up (the digital album will be sent to the subscriber's email as a welcome gift.)Cost: I developed my own mailing list for free, and there are free mailing lists available
Effort: Little effort is spend maintaining the list. It took some time to develop but there are free alternatives.
Subscribers: My list currently contains 737 valid addresses
Social Media Presence
Personally, I hate Facebook and all types of social media sites. I frequently get surprised of how willing some people are to expose themselves and their private affairs. Nevertheless, social media is an essential tool to promote your music and it is very powerful.
Facebook is the most important site to be on. Create an artist page and announce your new releases, special offers, teasers, previews, news and so forth. The more people you get that “like” your artist page the better. Every announcement you make will appear on their "Facebook wall" so in that sense it's similar to an mailing list with the added benefit that you get comments and interaction with your fans.
Twitter is another one I hate, but again, you have to be on it. Link twitter updates with facebook updates (there are features on the sites to do this) to make your updates appear on multiple sites automatically with little effort. You should also encourage people to follow you on twitter and facebook whenever possible.
Follow other twitter users with similar interests – it is likely that they will follow you in return. This doesn't mean you have to read everyone's uninteresting updates because you can disable email notifications if you are only interested in twitter as a marketing method (as opposed to a social tool.)
Costs: $0 (free)
Effort: Little effort required to maintain presence at Facebook and Twitter
Visitors/Plays: I have 373 facebook fans and 116 twitter followers
YouTube Videos
YouTube is another great site to maintain your presence. Even if you don’t have music videos, consider uploading your tracks with a simple image because surprisingly many people go to YouTube to listen to music. You can also use free online tools such as “Animoto” to create some visually pleasing videos for your music.
Here are some examples of how I used YouTube (and other video sites such as Vimeo) to promote my music:
- New track teaser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f3sjbtrTn4
- New album teaser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgQGuCvel7c
- Created using Animoto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKnevRD3tRU
Create Tutorials
Creating tutorials, especially video tutorials, is another very powerful method to reach listeners. Granted, it will mostly attract other artists, but nevertheless they are humans and fans too. My tutorial videos have been viewed over 100’000 times and I'm not sure how many have actually turned into fans but such a large number of views is bound to bring some fans your way. Don’t forget to clearly promote your URL to your artist site in any tutorials you create.
Here is an example of a video tutorial I've created: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO5u7hNA1mo
Cost: $0 (free)
Effort: Little for single tracks, high for tutorials and animated videos
Video Views: 163'139 video views
Describe Your Music with Keywords and Descriptions
Everywhere you are present, describe your music and videos with many interesting and relevant keywords. Use details such as equipment you used and sources of inspiration etc. Search engines will index your music and people will find you when searching for music created using a particular instrument or music that sounds similar to a particular artist.
Cost, effort, visitors: n/a
Join Artist Sites
Dedicated artists and musician web sites such as soundclick.com and soundcloud.com are important to be on. You can usually upload your music to be hosted for free although some restrictions will usually apply. Be prepared that the registration and upload process will require a fair amount of your time. Describe your music, preferably with varying descriptions for each site, to increase the exposure to search engines.
These type of sites come and go and some will remain active longer than others. Examples of sites that are no longer active where I used to gain a lot of exposure at were mp3.com, ampcast, and peoplesound but they are since long gone.
Soundclick.com
Cost: I pay $9.95 per month for VIP account, but free account is available
Effort: Little to maintain, initially high to upload music if you have many tracks
Visitors/Plays: 101'083 page views, 370'365 song plays
Soundcloud.com
Cost: $0 (free) I've opted for the free account at this stage
Effort: Little to medium depending on how many tracks you have
Song Plays: 1122 (I am not very active at soundcloud, yet)
Artist Sites Top Lists
Another benefit with artist sites is that they commonly have top lists and you will gain exposure if you can get one or more of your tracks into these lists. I have 370'000+ plays at soundclick.com and this is mainly due to some of my tracks ranking in the genre top lists. In an attempt to get into the top lists I decided to go for a paid promotion. I paid $25 for "Promo Song of the Day" (it is now priced at $50) and it rocketed my track to the #1 spot for the entire electronic music genre. Since then the track has promoted itself just by being present in the top 25 of the sub-genre.
Artist Sites Music Groups
Artists sites also commonly feature music groups that you can join and where you can share your music. At soundcloud.com, join relevant groups and share your tracks. I personally haven’t had much exposure through these groups but it may very well be due to lack of effort and involvement on my part.
Digital Distribution / Digital Stores / Streaming (Spotify)
Use an "aggregator" (such as Ubetoo.com, Tunecore.com, CDBaby.com, RouteNote.com, Recordunion.com) to distribute your music to digital stores (such as iTunes, Amazon MP3, etc) and streaming services (such as Spotify.)
Peasonally I use Ubetoo for digital distribution because they allow unlimited number of singles and albums for an annual subscription fee of around $80. Ubetoo also distribute the music to 500 digital stores which I believe is more stores than any of the competitors.
Other aggregators usually charge an annual fee per song and album and turns out to be a lot more expensive than Ubetoo if you have 5 albums and 85 single tracks as I do. The exception is RouteNote and they now have a free alternative but they don't reach as many digital stores as Ubetoo so I don't think I will switch.
Some important things to be aware of with aggregators:
- All aggregators have awful terms and conditions - you give them exclusive rights for distribution with terrible termination clauses but as an independent artist you can't do anything about this other than leave it or accept it.
- Reporting and processing times are what you'd expect from a third world country. It takes weeks and weeks for tracks to appear on Spotify and the statistics make it very difficult to understand where the royalties come from.
Regarding Spotify, simply having your music in the Spotify catalog will likely not result in much exposure by itself. Saying this it is still important to have your music on such popular streaming sites because once a fan has discovered they will probably enjoy having easy access to your music through such services.
Cost: $80/y (Ubetoo)
Effort: High initially to upload all your tracks and define releases (if you have many)
Plays/Royalties: I get about $50 in royalties (100%) from Ubetoo every 3 months. Due to awful statistics it's difficult to way what store or service the royalties come from.
Blog
The main purpose of this blog is simple; I write posts to attract an audience through search engines and I hope that my readers will also discover and enjoy my music. A positive side effect of this promotion method is that I may end up helping other artists along the way =) It's also a good way to give your fans insight to what you are up to.
Cost: $0 (free) There are free blog sites available
Effort: Medium, it takes some time to write blog posts
Visitors: 10-60 visitors per day
Music Forums
Internet forums, especially specific to the genre of music that you create, are useful for promotional purposes. The downside to forums are that you may have to spend a lot of time to get involved in discussions before you promote your music in a non-spamming fashion. At the same time, if you enjoy engaging in discussions, this may be the perfect way for you to build a name.
A good approach is to first introduce yourself. in the forum Make sure you have an appealing forum profile signature with a link to your web site. Write feedback to other artists seeking feedback. Announce your new releases only in sub forums for such announcements because anything that could be considered to be spam will backfire. Seek constructive feedback on your music as it will both improve your music at the same time as you will gain some exposure.
Cost: $0 (free)
Effort: High to build reputation and maintain presence
Visitors/Plays: Unknown
Paid Promotions
I've made a few attempts with paid promotion, such as Google Adwords and Facebook Ads. These cost a fair amount per click so it may be out of reach for independent artists and I don't find it to appealing to go this route due to the costs involved.
The most effective promotion, by far, has been the promotion features at soundclick.com that resulted in thousands of plays in a single day for $25.
Cost: I've paid around $200 for Facebook ads and $100 for Google Adwords
Effort: Little effort is required to create paid promotions
Visitors: Google and Facebook ads only resulted in around 500 clicks. Soundclick promotion resulted in thousands of song plays.
Fun, Odd, and Individual Promotion Methods
In addition to the above, there are additional attempts I've made to promote my music but they are very specific to my hobbies and interests. I'll mention them anyway for the sake of it =)
Develop Games - I make simple computer games that feature my music. Some of the games are released as freeware and the game Beat Ball, for example, was featured in a large German computer magazine that to this day (10 years on) turns out to be a large source of my German fans.Sponsor Virtual Racing Team - A virtual Live For Speed race team I founded, Nordic Racing Group, features the Imphenzia logo and Imphenzia URL on the race cars:
Conclusion
There are many creative ways to promote your music online and you have to be prepared to make a huge effort in order to get noticed. I've released over 85 tracks (and 5 albums.) I've spent countless hours promoting my music online for over a decade using the methods above.
You could argue that it's not worth the effort, and solely from the perspective of time and economic reward it clearly isn't. But knowing that my music has been played over a million times (including historic sites such as mp3.com), and looking at the positive feedback I receive from my listeners, I feel that it's been well worth the effort.
I hope you found some useful ideas to promote your music and best of luck reaching a wider audience.
Astrofighter.Net Development Update
Last night and today I rewrote the weapon class for Astrofighter.Net so that it can support a wide range of custom properties for each weapon. I've added about 40 properties so there will be a great number of ways to upgrade weaponry using powerups.
Here is a short video demonstrating two of the properties named "ChargeUp" and "Multiload." If "ChargeUp" is applied to a weapon you can hold the fire button down to increase the power/velocity/life of a shot. The "Multiload" upgrade allows you to hold the fire button to load X number of rounds before discharging the weapon.
Here is a short video demonstrating two of the properties named "ChargeUp" and "Multiload." If "ChargeUp" is applied to a weapon you can hold the fire button down to increase the power/velocity/life of a shot. The "Multiload" upgrade allows you to hold the fire button to load X number of rounds before discharging the weapon.
Mood Switching Platform Game Music
Today I've been working on a new addition for the non-exclusive music library and to totally switch from the orchestral music I composed yesterday I have taken a memory trip back in time. "Once Upon a Platform" is a new Level Kit of music mainly designed to be used in happy cheerful and cute platform games.
So far I have composed the short, medium, and long stage loops - but during a discussion with a good friend of mine, who listened to the preview of the long loop, he noted that the long loop varied quite a bit in mood - as if it should be split into two separate tracks. My initial intention was to keep the long loop interesting by alternating the music quite a bit, but I have to admit that he was on to something.
When he added (I translate from our chat conversation in Swedish) "In my mind I have just sorted out the first transition in the track... He [the player] just ate a mushroom."
This spawned the idea. Yes, [email protected] it, it's a classic Super Mario moment and what I'll do is break out the two loops into separate pieces of music and, since they run at the exact same BPM, encourage the game developer to play them simultaneously during game play (keeping them in sync) and cross-fade between the two to switch the mood.
...and allow me to demonstrate with this simple video:
Before creating the video above, I must admit, I almost bought some stock Flash animations to put together a little demo video of a platform character picking up a power-up. After 2 hours of browsing for suitable animations to buy I gathered my senses and thought - let's just focus on what I really do - make music instead and just do something "good enough" for a change =)
If I've kept you reading so far, maybe you are sold on retro game music as well? This morning I launched Cubase with intention to create a set of music hits and loops for cheerful, child friendly, platform games. This meant a simple beat, a nice little base line, retro feel added by some background arpeggios, and a saw lead with portamento (gliding.)
It didn't take long until I had the beat and bass-line in place and after striking the keys on my Roland FP-7 stage piano for a few minutes I also had a cheerful piano added to the mix. I don't actually use the sounds from the FP-7 (other than while playing freehand.) Why not, it's a great sounding instrument? Yes it is - but I just can't bring myself to have ANY external audio hardware as it would spoil the amazing Audio Mixdown feature in Cubase which just renders the entire song into a WAV file much faster than in real-time.
I use my headphones when I make music, a pair of Sennheiser PXC 450, so neither my wife nor my son could hear what I was working on. I always get a big smile on my face when I create (or listen to) retro style game music. It's something about the melody and the sounds, an in combination with my child hood memories that flips the little switch in my head making it impossible to remove the grin. This is when my wife walks into the room. I unplugged the headphones to reveal the source of my smile and let's just say that she doesn't share the same passion for this as I do. She is, by the way, pregnant again and she muttered something about that she'd rather give birth, with a long and painful labor, than listen to that ["that" being MY cheerful retro platform music].
Just as quickly as my wife left the room, my 1.5 year old son walks in. Apart from scattering some soil from the large plant onto the floor, something he feels compelled to do every time he walks past it, he walks straight over to me. I lift him up onto my lap and he listened to the full loop, twice, totally mesmerized. He is either frozen in shock (wife DNA) or unable to move in amazement (my DNA.) I choose to believe it's the latter. It's all the convincing I need to be sure I should continue and as a result I have now released the preview video.
I initially called my project "Platform Heaven." As I was out driving in the afternoon I had time to think a bit more about it. I remembered that some of my recent tracks (that hint on what game genre it may be suitable for) have the genre at the end of the track name, not in the front. I should stick to this pattern.
Coincidentally, this morning I also searched the internet for a web shop to buy the DVD box "Il était une fois… l'Espace", a french cartoon from 1982 that I fell in love with as a kid. The english name for the series is "Once upon a time... Space" and I plan to buy it so I can re-watch it myself and, of course, force feed this amazing series my son. I can't foresee any problems competing with the super hi-tech 3D animation masterpieces of today.
It goes without saying that I put half and half together = "Once Upon a Platform." which also reflects the retro aspect to the track. There. I said it anyway.
As usual, I use my trusted Cubase 5.5 as a sequencer and apart from the percussion (which I use the Cubase native Groove Agent One for) it's all exclusively Nexus2 (by ReFX). I use the original sound banks along with the expansions Omnicron 2 and Omnicron 3. The SID / chip style arpeggios are also Nexus2 leads with arpeggio enabled with a rate of 64th.
This is what my project looks like at the moment (the combined loop of casual and uplifting moods):
I hope to finish Once Upon a Platform tomorrow and upon completion I will add it to the library of non-exclusive game music.
So far I have composed the short, medium, and long stage loops - but during a discussion with a good friend of mine, who listened to the preview of the long loop, he noted that the long loop varied quite a bit in mood - as if it should be split into two separate tracks. My initial intention was to keep the long loop interesting by alternating the music quite a bit, but I have to admit that he was on to something.
When he added (I translate from our chat conversation in Swedish) "In my mind I have just sorted out the first transition in the track... He [the player] just ate a mushroom."
This spawned the idea. Yes, [email protected] it, it's a classic Super Mario moment and what I'll do is break out the two loops into separate pieces of music and, since they run at the exact same BPM, encourage the game developer to play them simultaneously during game play (keeping them in sync) and cross-fade between the two to switch the mood.
Dim the lights please...
...and allow me to demonstrate with this simple video:
Before creating the video above, I must admit, I almost bought some stock Flash animations to put together a little demo video of a platform character picking up a power-up. After 2 hours of browsing for suitable animations to buy I gathered my senses and thought - let's just focus on what I really do - make music instead and just do something "good enough" for a change =)
More about "Once Upon a Platform"
If I've kept you reading so far, maybe you are sold on retro game music as well? This morning I launched Cubase with intention to create a set of music hits and loops for cheerful, child friendly, platform games. This meant a simple beat, a nice little base line, retro feel added by some background arpeggios, and a saw lead with portamento (gliding.)
It didn't take long until I had the beat and bass-line in place and after striking the keys on my Roland FP-7 stage piano for a few minutes I also had a cheerful piano added to the mix. I don't actually use the sounds from the FP-7 (other than while playing freehand.) Why not, it's a great sounding instrument? Yes it is - but I just can't bring myself to have ANY external audio hardware as it would spoil the amazing Audio Mixdown feature in Cubase which just renders the entire song into a WAV file much faster than in real-time.
Passion for retro game music
I use my headphones when I make music, a pair of Sennheiser PXC 450, so neither my wife nor my son could hear what I was working on. I always get a big smile on my face when I create (or listen to) retro style game music. It's something about the melody and the sounds, an in combination with my child hood memories that flips the little switch in my head making it impossible to remove the grin. This is when my wife walks into the room. I unplugged the headphones to reveal the source of my smile and let's just say that she doesn't share the same passion for this as I do. She is, by the way, pregnant again and she muttered something about that she'd rather give birth, with a long and painful labor, than listen to that ["that" being MY cheerful retro platform music].
Just as quickly as my wife left the room, my 1.5 year old son walks in. Apart from scattering some soil from the large plant onto the floor, something he feels compelled to do every time he walks past it, he walks straight over to me. I lift him up onto my lap and he listened to the full loop, twice, totally mesmerized. He is either frozen in shock (wife DNA) or unable to move in amazement (my DNA.) I choose to believe it's the latter. It's all the convincing I need to be sure I should continue and as a result I have now released the preview video.
Why the name?
I initially called my project "Platform Heaven." As I was out driving in the afternoon I had time to think a bit more about it. I remembered that some of my recent tracks (that hint on what game genre it may be suitable for) have the genre at the end of the track name, not in the front. I should stick to this pattern.
Coincidentally, this morning I also searched the internet for a web shop to buy the DVD box "Il était une fois… l'Espace", a french cartoon from 1982 that I fell in love with as a kid. The english name for the series is "Once upon a time... Space" and I plan to buy it so I can re-watch it myself and, of course, force feed this amazing series my son. I can't foresee any problems competing with the super hi-tech 3D animation masterpieces of today.
It goes without saying that I put half and half together = "Once Upon a Platform." which also reflects the retro aspect to the track. There. I said it anyway.
Equipment and Software used
As usual, I use my trusted Cubase 5.5 as a sequencer and apart from the percussion (which I use the Cubase native Groove Agent One for) it's all exclusively Nexus2 (by ReFX). I use the original sound banks along with the expansions Omnicron 2 and Omnicron 3. The SID / chip style arpeggios are also Nexus2 leads with arpeggio enabled with a rate of 64th.
This is what my project looks like at the moment (the combined loop of casual and uplifting moods):
- Once Upon a Platform - Cubase Project View
I hope to finish Once Upon a Platform tomorrow and upon completion I will add it to the library of non-exclusive game music.
Imphenzia Soundtrack Video Showcase
Creating music for Imphenzia Soundtrack is great fun as it offers such a variety from my normal Imphenzia trance music. I've put together a new Youtube video to showcase the different styles:
The music still targets independent game developers (indiegames) with very competitive pricing and it's royalty free ofcourse.
The music still targets independent game developers (indiegames) with very competitive pricing and it's royalty free ofcourse.
State of Confusion remixed by Adraw
A while back I was approached by Adraw through Soundclick who expressed a request to remix State of Confusion. I'm always welcome to remixes so naturally I accepted the request. Some time went past where I didn't hear much about it but little did I know what was to come. The remix is now finished and will be released under Emona Records but you can already listen to the entire track on Adraw's Soundclick page for this remix.
To help promote this track, I've put together a preview video that you can watch as well:
To help promote this track, I've put together a preview video that you can watch as well:
