How do you typically go about finding a composer?

Hey All,

I was wondering how you typically go about finding a composer for your game, what you think is a fair price or deal, and what you expect their role to be outside of the music?

Cheers!

 

First thing to know is your budget.

Second is do they demonstrate the quality/style of work you need.

Last thing is to work out fair deal that satisfies both parties. There is so many variables at play, I doubt it's worthwhile to play speculation game. Maybe some teenager in vietnam makes awesome music and he don't charge much. Just don't tell them your budget first, try to get them to make an offer and negotiate from there. Goal is not to screw other people. Only to not get screwed yourself.

Where to find? No idea. I happened to find some fantastic music on the asset store and would definitely track that guy down if I needed music like that again. I'm sure there's some reddit's for game musicians looking for work.

One thing to keep in mind, game music is different from other mediums. You don't necessarily need complete, composed tracks. more like modular loops you can apply to variety of situations.

 

it will really depend on what exactly you are looking for in terms of end product.

You can find a lot of composers on indie-based sites. For example Itch.io. The quality varies greatly though but if you're on a tight budget (or have no budget at all) it's a good place to start. There are a lot of new composers who are willing to either forgo payment for their name in the credits, or work out some kind of post-launch deal based on sales.

Twitter is another "main" source (imo) because the indie-related tags usually have composers regularly advertising their services, and most decent composers are on twitter anyway so they're pretty easy to find.

Price can vary greatly too and it really depends on quality vs quantity. For 60 minutes of quality music you will be looking at £2,000 - £3,000 (£30 - £50 per minute) for any decent composer but it's not uncommon to see prices between £70 - £100/minute. There are people who would charge £10,000 for that and some of them are worth it - others are just overpriced. Most people at that price level (and that are worth their price tag) are usually super-professional and have a large catalogue (some are even willing to accommodate example tracks to show they can match the tone you are looking for).

Requirements outside of actually producing the music can vary a lot too so it depends what you want. I guess the basics might be:

- They should be expected to collaborate/co-ordinate with whoever is responsible for managing the relationship on a regular basis. For example, maybe they join a 30 minute discord chat because the topic being discussed directly impacts their specific portion of work (a rework request, some special "one-off" or "special" items that couldn't be predicted beforehand. This would usually require some kind of contract that stipulates exactly how much they are willing to accomodate. ie - they will do a maximum of x minutes rework and x minutes for "additional" items if requested if rework time has not been used.

Apart from that not much. You might expect them to work with whoever is actually doing the mixing but that comes down to studio size but I can't imagine they would be expected to do much outside of actually creating the music.

edit:

Forgot to mention that it can also depend on what rights you want for the music. if you want full exclusive rights (ie - they can not sell them to someone else and you can sell a soundtrack)... and then is this permanent? or maybe just exclusive rights for 3/6 months etc.

If you don't want any rights then I'm not sure anything above £10 - £20/minute is worth it.

 

https://forum.unity.com/threads/start-with-unity-advice.750122/

Also: https://forum.unity.com/threads/new-music-for-your-games-over-1800-tracks.242205/
I talked to him through PMs he seemed to be a good guy and he was kind enough to tell me what can I expect roughly if I want custom music for my project. He gave me a reasonable estimate which I can pay from my personal savings (I do not have budget). So what I can advise you is that look for audio people here on the forums and on the Unity Connect and on other sites as well and simply PM/email them. Try to describe what you need and roughly what solutions would you interested in and ask for an estimate. Also check out the works of people who you write to, so you can filter them right away. If you don't like their style, you probably won't like their game music either. Be prepared that you will need to describe the mood, the subject, maybe events from your game, maybe example art or at least some kind of stand-in art so they can have a bit of an idea what you're looking for.

 

Audio Jungle has a lot of great music. I would start by finding someone with a style I liked, and contacting them there.

 

Look for games that are being Kickstarted and just build a rolodex of the people floating around there. You'll often find some really interesting talents there.

 

The TIG Portfolios forum is full of composers looking for work. Just take all the advice above when evaluating their fit for your project.