New Musician/Audio Designer

[spinkitten]

Hello all,

I'm Rob, after reading about the mod capabilities of HL2 I've decided to offer my services, primarily as a musician, though I can offer full audio design too (in fact, I've had professional games industry experience, only using their sample library, which makes a considerable difference compared to mine).

Anyway, this seems a nice forum, a lot of the Half-Life community is spread out thinly and this is the first devoted site I've found. Anyway, I'll be popping in and out, my portfolio should be up pretty soon, so I'll be able to give u all examples of my work.

If your mod project needs some musical inspiration, then don't hesistate to call - no job too small, no job too large (though I may regret that statement later )

Thanks.

 

[Majestic XII]

Sounds great, welcome aboard!

I might drop you an email about mod work in the future

Ill keep my eyes open for your portfolio!

 

[Reven]

Welcome ! that sounds great, hope to see your work soon

Majestic XII always makes me feel like this forum is a ship

 

[Sprafa]

Welcome.

I'm not even going to say it, but you've lst the good old tradition of the horses...

 

[spinkitten]

i see you like Serial Experiments Lain, it's one my favourite anime series, i've got the first DVD and i'm hooked, i'm waiting on the rest to come out in the UK. I've got the two soundtracks too.

On a technical note - will the HL2 SDK be of any use to me, will it allow me to edit in-game sounds and music, or will I have to wait for the editor with the game. Editing sound is a mixed bag with FPS games, back in the old days (Doom 1&2), it was open and easy, though now people are more reluctant to give their sound away, and editing is more closed (try editing sound in FarCry, though the terrain editor is really nice).

 

[Majestic XII]

i see you like Serial Experiments Lain, it's one my favourite anime series, i've got the first DVD and i'm hooked, i'm waiting on the rest to come out in the UK. I've got the two soundtracks too.

On a technical note - will the HL2 SDK be of any use to me, will it allow me to edit in-game sounds and music, or will I have to wait for the editor with the game. Editing sound is a mixed bag with FPS games, back in the old days (Doom 1&2), it was open and easy, though now people are more reluctant to give their sound away, and editing is more closed (try editing sound in FarCry, though the terrain editor is really nice).

You can import the DVDs from Australia. We dont have the DVDs here in Sweden but stores import them from Australia.

The mod im writing on is a singleplayer, 3:rd person cel-shaded adventure mod (with animestyle graphics and storyline). I think you and I can go along just great

About the technical part. I think you need to work close together with the lead designer, mapper and programmer to get best out of it. HL2 uses Soundscapes for the music/sound. I cant remember it so well what it means, but i think you can find more info about it if you make a search about it.

Hmm... i lost what i was suppose to say...

A´hoy m8!

Edit: My avatar is a WIP sketch of the main character in my mod, Malin (shes called Malin aswell as the mod)

 

[Jammydodger]

Welcome abaord m8, Good to see you offering your services to our community.
Sounds (no pun) like you know your stuff, Are you working atm? The reason I ask is that I post games industry jobs on this site you can find it on the Help Wanted & Offered forum.
Here's the link to my topic - http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=19061

Anyway you made the right choice coming to this site, every 1's tip top here :thumbs:

 

[spinkitten]

Thanks Jammydodger, I am looking for work in the games industry, I'm currently temping after finishing uni last year - I joined a few gaming agencies, but to no avail (due to the killer 3 years experience). I had 6 months great experience working as sound designer at Kuju Entertainment, working on PS2/X-Box title 'Reign of Fire' (a game which co-incided with the Christian Bale dragon slaying film).

The sheer range of ideas in peoples mods means that it gives me a lot of scope in producing music. I'm currently beavering away on making a range of styles due supply the potential demand. The majority of requests tend to be orchestral and electronica, which suits me just fine.

BTW, I'll be getting broadband very shortly, so I'll finally be able to commit myself to being a musician as a second job, as uploading my music on a 56k, getting disconnected every two hours really can really upset you. Anyway, I'm to find more on soundscapes.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Moved to Help Wanted and Offered

Welcome to the forums/editing community

 

[spinkitten]

that's good, I just noticed myself.

Anyway, if people would like to describe potential musical styles they would like, or more ideally specific soundtracks or albums. My google search for soundscapes gave pretty vague sounding descriptions by Gabe, paraphrasing here - but when you come to a scary hole, the scary low rumble sound triggers, then you notice a monster is at the bottom, so the music crescendo's....wow, this is going to take music composition to a whole new level, I only hope they give more details, I feel left out in the cold not knowing how to take on the task of writing this form of music, if anyone was has any knowledge of the editing facilities for music/sound on hl2, they'll be greatly appreciated...think of it this way, all the map makers, modellers and artists, while having to raise their game are still working with the tools they are used to, from the looks of things, the music editing on this thing is going to be like working in an alien language.

Anyway, first things first, I'd really love to hear you music requests, I'm especially interested in that Dawn of the Dead mod I noticed earlier today.

 

[Majestic XII]

that's good, I just noticed myself.

Anyway, if people would like to describe potential musical styles they would like, or more ideally specific soundtracks or albums. My google search for soundscapes gave pretty vague sounding descriptions by Gabe, paraphrasing here - but when you come to a scary hole, the scary low rumble sound triggers, then you notice a monster is at the bottom, so the music crescendo's....wow, this is going to take music composition to a whole new level, I only hope they give more details, I feel left out in the cold not knowing how to take on the task of writing this form of music, if anyone was has any knowledge of the editing facilities for music/sound on hl2, they'll be greatly appreciated...think of it this way, all the map makers, modellers and artists, while having to raise their game are still working with the tools they are used to, from the looks of things, the music editing on this thing is going to be like working in an alien language.

Anyway, first things first, I'd really love to hear you music requests, I'm especially interested in that Dawn of the Dead mod I noticed earlier today.

Just a tip:

I think you should lay low for a while (about a year or so) before you start working on any mods. The thing is... we dont have the engine yet. We can do a thing with our designs atm. When we get the SDK, we have to map, code, skin, model, animate and so on before we need music. Im a huge fan of game music, and it will be a big part in my upcoming mod (Malin... see avatar), but im waiting with the music until we got a stady code and something playable. The music is meant to improve the whole experiance... so we cant make the music before we have the actual gameplay in place first.

You might do a helloffa lot work for one mod... but it turns out wrong it useless... which is a huge waste.

I will keep you in my special book of "People to take a closer look at", so i might contact you in the future

 

[The Dark Elf]

Spinkitten, if you want to work on a mod that is going to succeed, gimmie a shout. Though I want to hear some of your examples long before I'll consider you. Par for the course. But if it helps, I've been in the film/tv/games industry since I left high school, and I'm 27 now so you'd not be working with amature's or people without a clue.

 

[spinkitten]

i'm concentrating my efforts to get my website and music uploaded together, so I can efficiently handle requests. Though I can understand the need for samples, I'll get some new stuff together - I do have some old stuf for u, if you goto:

http://artists.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Spinkitten/

there are some examples, I'd concentrate on the two raven tracks, as they were the most recent tracks - 6-12 months ago if my memory serves me correctly.

Big Blue Sky is a nice little dance tune I wrote, not really HL-2 material I guess. The spinkitten tracks vary, I guess it proves computers can't do guitars.

I'm constantly upgrading my setup, my next purchase are orchestral samples, I'll post my current orchestral tracks, but they're defintetly an area of improvement.

Thanks.

 

[The Dark Elf]

i'm concentrating my efforts to get my website and music uploaded together, so I can efficiently handle requests. Though I can understand the need for samples, I'll get some new stuff together - I do have some old stuf for u, if you goto:

http://artists.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Spinkitten/

there are some examples, I'd concentrate on the two raven tracks, as they were the most recent tracks - 6-12 months ago if my memory serves me correctly.

Big Blue Sky is a nice little dance tune I wrote, not really HL-2 material I guess. The spinkitten tracks vary, I guess it proves computers can't do guitars.

I'm constantly upgrading my setup, my next purchase are orchestral samples, I'll post my current orchestral tracks, but they're defintetly an area of improvement.

Thanks.

Well I'll try have a listen, but its giving me speeds of like 1 or 2kb/s, your not hosting this on your dialup are you?

 

[spinkitten]

http://artists.iuma.com/site-bin/mp...audio/Fallen_Angel_Records_-_Fallen_Angel.mp3

Here is 'Fallen Angel', a pop song I referenced in my earlier post, IUMA states it's going under maintainence, which would explain the low bandwidth, the mp3's are uploaded to their server, so downloading speeds should improve after their maintainence, maybe later today.

 

[The Dark Elf]

http://artists.iuma.com/site-bin/mp...audio/Fallen_Angel_Records_-_Fallen_Angel.mp3

Here is 'Fallen Angel', a pop song I referenced in my earlier post, IUMA states it's going under maintainence, which would explain the low bandwidth, the mp3's are uploaded to their server, so downloading speeds should improve after their maintainence, maybe later today.

hope so cause relieving the dialup years isn't something I was planning on

 

[spinkitten]

bandwidth problems have gone. will hopefully upload some newer tracks tonight.

 

[The Dark Elf]

bandwidth problems have gone. will hopefully upload some newer tracks tonight.

Nope its still bad this end. Firewall isn't even reporting more than a few bytes a time. If anything its got worse. Bare in mind I can normally DL an mp3 in a few seconds, even on my clunky NTL line. So I know its not a problem my end.

 

[spinkitten]

OK, try this file, this is a small string piece I recently done - more importantly I've placed on my geocities site:

http://www.geocities.com/robertprice45/hl2_song_03.mp3

 

[spinkitten]

if it works I'll post some more in an hour or two - I'm applying for a sound design job, so it's full steam ahead on my online portfolio and CV.

 

[The Dark Elf]

"We're sorry, but this page is currently unavailable for viewing.
If this site belongs to you, please read this help page for more information and assistance"

I have to say, if your looking for a job in the industry your first concern should be finding somewhere decent to host your mp3's. Because I can tell you now, not one company out there will bother if they have any problems like these.

 

[spinkitten]

http://robp.dmusic.com/

for the love of god I hope 'this' site works. Again HL2 Song 3 is on there.

 

[spinkitten]

i was getting a really good d/l rate from this site, so all things should be OK, I get 75megs on this site too...along with the 15 mb when the broadband comes, so I should be set up pretty nicely.

The track was more of a test of if Reason (my sequencer) could do realistic string work, more so than an example of my composition style. If it works, I'll begin uploading all my stuff there.

 

[spinkitten]

just uploaded HL2 song 1, this is a better example of the music I'm currently in the process of writing.

 

[spinkitten]

right, I can guarantee these files are to d/l. I got my girlfriend to download them on her broadband system, and they were pretty quick, apparently the site itself was pretty slow, but the download was fine.

Again, the site is:

http://robp.dmusic.com/