Hello again. It’s me, your friendly neighbourhood musician.
Last time around I brought up problems related to composing for visual novels, and to an extent all games. Today I return to encourage other musicians to take the leap and join a project. I’ve also got a challenge to you composers out there, and last but not least: The premiere of my YouTube channel, with a new track from ESR.
When I first joined DSD back in 2009, I was a lazy musician. I would often come up with a short riff or a chord sequence, and then just abandon it. Upon joining this lovely group of people I was more or less forced to complete my songs, even if they were arrangements.
So, getting things done. Why is that important? Derek Yu has written a very good post on this, concerning game development, but lot of it applies here as well. When you do complete something, you get a huge confidence boost. You can lean back, start up that mp3 of yours, and listen. Even if it isn’t great, it’s complete. Finishing things is a skill, that you need to practice.
Derek also says “They say the last 10 percent is really 90 percent, and there is truth to this.” While getting a melody and some chords down might seem like the main work behind writing music, there’s still a long way to go. Keep at it! I promise you’ll get better at it soon enough.
The challenge
I want all of the musicians reading this to compose or arrange a song, and complete it. Upload it somewhere, and link it in a comment. Play it on a real instrument, make a midi file, it doesn’t matter. I look forward to hearing from you!
And now, without further ado, Dolls’ Teatime.
And of course, a download link.
Whoo~ A music channel!
I must say, this Alice theme is awesome.
And it sounds like VN music! How did you make danmaku music into VN music!? No way! That’s impossible!
Anyway, this is why the readers are demanding an OST and a music room function.
Thanks. Remember to subscribe to the channel, as I will release the OST piece by piece there.
A music room will be there for the second demo.
Glad to see the gang is updating a bit more then usual! Your music is developing at a rapid rate in quality since the last time I posted on here, Mixtape. It has a more natural feel to it rather then some of the music from the beta that had some lacking of emotion in ’em. I really can’t wait for the next beta to be released so I can see how everyone has been progressing these last few months.
Can I ask you what music program/sound samples you are using to make your songs?
Well they do say practice makes perfect. It’s actually one of the reasons I decided to join DSD, to get better at music. I’m not alone though. I owe a big thanks to the staff, and everyone else who has given me pointers. Without them I wouldn’t have improved at all.
I use FL Studio for sequencing. For people new to digital music I highly recommend Reason, as it’s very user-friendly. I started out there.
For my samples I use a wide range of VSTs, but Kontakt from Native Instruments is an all-time favourite.
“A music room will be there for the second demo.”
I admit, I was thinking of keeping the music room developer-only until the final game… >_> but at this rate, it’d be a shame if it weren’t in demo 2. I’ll at least make the music room presentable by demo 2 then.
Oh! Well I’m sorry about that, Kirby. Although I’m glad it’ll be in after all.