Music composers

Hello all, I was wondering if I should sell some of my music at the Unity store but I prefer selling on my own but haven't had much luck in the job forum here. I can understand a lot of indie game makers would love cheap to free music.

Would I benefit selling at the unity store ?

Love the indie games so far.

 

My suggestion is that you look at some of the top sellers in the store and emulate their business model.

In particular, you might begin with doing what Stephen Lu has done. Put one of your smaller, more universal pieces out as a freebie and see how people respond to it. Then put together one or more small themed packages at low prices (with samples on Soundcloud) and see how they do.

 

How does customize music work with Unity, as I'd love to provide that service for clients here

 

I also want to know what developers find annoying about music composers, and what would you want from a music composer ?

 

I've seen threads put up by composers looking for work. But if you have a body of work in the store I bet it helps draw interest to you.

As for the other question ... beats me. Probably standard issues of reliability and cost and so on, the same as with any contract type work.

 

I am one of those composers who post how affordable I am and share my music scores(doing what everyone else is doing haha). I should really share the work I have done for mobile,pc and console games. But, maybe it gets a little bland for indie game makers. Just want to help change it

 

Thank you for your help hopeful and if anyone has any helpful tips or what you would like to see from a music composer to help you out please do let me know. I'd be happy to help indeedy

 

If you're selling music for the asset store, one thing I haven't found much of is some epic cinematic trailer music. There seems to be plenty of stuff that would fit in-game but not enough dramatic, cinematic-type music for trailers.

 

That is something I can do, I will make up a compilation of trailer music. Also, if I don't go the asset store way how much are indie developers willing to spend on music ?

 

From what I can see, different markets have different rates and different sales volumes. They also take a different percentage of what you charge. You'll have to research and test each one.

Unity is a decent sized market, but it is generally aimed at lower cost than other ones. Maybe that's because so many Unity indies are hobbyists, or make small games for mobile, or are living in countries with low wages.

 

It all depends on the quality. There's some stuff on the APM music store I'd love to use, and I'd even be willing to shell out the money for a serious project but the problem is APM adds some pretty frustrating/confusing restricitions with their license.

 

I'd be willing to compose music as good as APM but this does take a little time and not sure I'd be losing out selling it here, I'd love to meet half way with the unity developers. I want everyone to be happy as I know how hard it is starting out(I have been there)

 

I am thinking of selling packages on here as well as free music, if everyone would be happy with that ?

 

I don't think there's any issue with doing free and paid. Several composers do both free and paid packages.

I think it would be a good idea to put out a short piece or two that you think might have general usefulness, and make them free. Try to get some good reviews and a positive reputation. Then put together a themed pack of a few short pieces and charge a modest amount, to see if you can get some traction in the store. Doing this - maybe a few different times as experiments - and seeing your results, you will start to get some sort of an idea of what sells. This is what Stephen Lu did, and judging by his popularity and ratings he's doing reasonably well.

Once you have a better idea of the market, the next major strategy would be to put together something kind of like what La Manna has with Badlands, or what French has done with his Combat Collection. Both of these composers have seen success selling such relatively large compilations of work, especially once they got them on a 24-hour sale by Unity ... which is excellent exposure.

 

Can I share my site here to give an idea what music I have done ? http//charliearmour.com

You have been very helpful and good to know theres help cheers!!

Sounds like a good plan to me

 

Judging from your website, it looks like you have a few pieces that could fit a fantasy adventure theme, a few pieces that could fit a carnival theme, the Doll Dance is nearly like a bit of casual game music ....

I'm sure you'll figure it out.

 

Some indies/others, might pay more, for custom made music soundtracks, made exclusively, for their game.
Meaning that, that music, is only for their game and it wouldn't be heard, in anyone else's game.

They might work with you, to make it sound, just right too.

 

Thanks hopeful Brandy, I have done a lot of costume made music soundtracks for games companies and they have all been exclusive for their game and wouldn't mind doing that again if indie/others are happy with that.

Thanks for your input and I am very grateful for the advice from people here

 

Having a skilled composer writing good music exclusively for a game especially makes sense for situations, when u want some kind of very catchy, unique music - stuff that people remember, when they play the game. Writing music like that need to be compensated with proper payment and of course with a higher fee than nonexclusive music.

Most indie game developers probably would use such nonexclusive music for the better part of the project, because this is more of a budget question (which is only true of course, if they cant find a composer, which they can exploit successfully ).

 

Well, if it's exclusive or non-exclusive, I'd be happy to provide whatever it takes to help

 

We have our own studio's and a composer etc., what we do outsource is VFX sounds and ambience I'd of thought there's a bigger market for that sort of thing.

 

I see ShadowK, makes a lot of sense and I have done VFX sounds as well as Ambience. thank you for the information

 

How about getting some old game footage and composing some music to it and put it on YouTube (if that's legal). Then people can see what kind of music you make and if you're any good at doing game music.

 

I have already done a number of games, I'll share some of them here. Also, here is one I am in the middle of doing http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=228032217

 

Instead of posting "how affordable I am", I wish people would post actual rates. I see posts in the jobs forum all the time that say "affordable rates", but affordable to one person is not affordable to another. I generally don't contact anyone because I'd rather not have to contact everyone and ask what their rates are and then find out that it's not actually affordable. What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that someone will undercut you? I'm sure I would have hired several artists to create custom work if their rates were posted. If I were selling my programming skills, I would definitely post how much a person would expect to pay. I know every project is different, but posting a baseline price would probably do a lot to make job seekers more approachable.

Is affordable 25$ an hour, or 100$ an hour. Is it by model/music piece, or by the hour?

 

Yes, we tend to hide the rates which is a problem and also make good points.
My rates go by minutes of track than per hour.
A 1 minute piece would be $100 2 minutes $150 normally and these are normally exclusive deals
But I am indeed flexible with my prices. Hope this helps and I'd never act like an a-hole with anyone on prices

Thanks for your help

 

Thanks. Simple things like that can help someone build a budget for their game. Knowing that music will likely cost x amount of money and art will cost y amount of money can help build a strategy for when you need what and how much you can expect to pay.

I'm slowly working my way through my indy game. I don't know if I'll ever finish it as its more of a dream/hobby than something I plan on making money on, but that hasn't stopped me from spending plenty of money on it. I generally put off dealing with the custom stuff I need/want and rely on asset store because I know what its going to cost up front. When it comes time to replace my placeholder music with custom music, I would definitely be willing to pay that amount for custom work.

 

I understand the S***e indie artist go through and not knowing full information doesn't help.

Keep working at it, never stop what you are doing no matter how hard it can be, work, work, work at it. Wish you luck and maybe we can work together at some point.

Thanks again for your help

 

That indeed is a quite fair point and probably would help both, the composer and the dev. On the contrairy though as a composer, I probably would need to give people a "from 50 $ to 200 $ per minute" like fee rate, since the effort and working time may vary for quite a deal from music to music. Wouldn't you prefere to know a price for the complexity of the music?

Lets say specifications for 1 min be like:

- low complexity as for a standard track with a single melody (2-5 instruments) XX $
- mid complexity as maybe for some generic orchestrated backround music (~10 instr) YY $
- high complexity for some detailed, rich themes with the sound a fully scored orchestra (~25+ instr) ZZ $

I think something like that makes sense, because this reflects our working time & the effort in a more accurate way.

 

So... Is this a general thread, on how composers & musicians can position themself in the most practical way around here in the unity community and the asset store - or a place for mostly promoting your music ;-) ...?

 

Oh no I want to be as helpful and practical as possible to everyone here, I was just giving examples of the work. I demand you all not to use my pond5 page haha This was merely giving examples of prices/rates. I'll be sure to use the unity asset store for my music.

 

lyncisAt, I think you have the right idea of the complexity building/composing a music scores and what it means price wise. I just wished to make it easier for everyone if I should use the Asset Store or places as Pond5 for example and set a standard price for everyone that is do-able for all.

 

Oh really like your scores by the way lyncisAt

 

Did you have something like this in mind? http://u3d.as/jVx