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Welcome back to the series. Please remember to view my previous posts if you are just jumping in (use the links following this blog).

Today, we are discussing how to provide useful feedback to your composer.

I say useful because EVERYONE provides feedback, but providing good feedback is far more difficult. A couple of pointers to consider after receiving the first round of tracks from you composer before going back to them with comments.

Listen, and listen again.
And then AGAIN. Play it with the game. Play it in the car. In the shower. Over breakfast. While jogging. Back with the game again.

Sick of it yet? I hope not! Especially if this is your SOLE track (which many money and download-size savvy programmers are using…) you want to be especially sure that you like this tune. And if you don’t like it, or a part of it, you need to be sure of what that part is. A quick listen and then “yeah — that’s GREAT!” is not a good idea.

In evaluating music, snap decisions are NOT the way to go. This is not top-40 music (unless you’re doing Tony Hawk 9 or whatever they’re at now or something similar…) and this a tune that you must live with. People will associate your game with this music. When they boot it up, they will make the conscious decision to turn up the volume, or put on another CD. Which do you want to do?

A great track one should be one that is both instantly accessible and has long-lasting appeal. If immediately you can get into it AND it sticks with you for quite a while, its a good track. Does it play well with the game? When you are debugging you game are you humming the tune or hearing it in your head? These are all GOOD SIGNS that this is going to work out. But what if its not perfect? What if its NOT sticking with you?

No more Mr. Niceguy…

Not every comment that you make needs to be of the “constructive” kind they always told you to give while you were in school. Remember, you are paying this person, and they are professionals. They can take the blow to their ego if you are not happpy with what they are giving you. This does not, of course, give you the license to be NASTY about it, but don’t feel that you have to baby your composer and always tell them that everything “sounds great” out of fear of making them angry. A positive working relationship will be formed by you simply being honest with the composer. I would rather hear that this track sucks because of x,y,z then “this is great” and then just never work with me again without giving me a chance to improve it.

Here’s what I’d like fixed

Bad news will go over much better if their is a silver lining presented that can save the track.

“Everything is great EXCEPT this part about :40 into it… the transition throws me off when I’d like to stay in this groove…”

Knowing what about a tune you don’t like can really go far in helping describe the problem. A simple “I don’t like it” is very hard to work from and the composer will be forced to either hang up the towel or start pulling your teeth to get the REASON you don’t like something.

If you are having troubld putting your finger on the problem. Try thinking about these common descriptions/problems that might be present. Your beef with the tune probably stems from one of them:

For help with some of these musical terms, visit my earlier post here.

Is the tempo incorrect for the gameplay?
Is the emotion wrong for the scene?
Does the music seem to busy? Is the texture too thick?
Does the music have too much variety? Too little?
Is the instrumentation appropriate?
Is the style appropriate?
Is the production value up to the level that you require/desire?

After running through this checklist, if you see that almost everyone of these is wrong with the track, you should probably FIRST look inwards. What did you ask the composer for in the first place? Did you specify such things? If not, you are really wasting the composers, and your, time. However, if you DID specify these things and they gave you totally the wrong thing you may need to look at…

The Bail-out plan

There are sometimes when your relationship with the composer will have to end before it really begins. This is an unfortunate occurrence, but when it happens, its probably best for everyone involved. If you have given your composer a good description, including reference material, and their track doesn’t come anywhere close to what you are asking for, they probably will not be able to deliver, so you should look elsewhere.

However, note that there are many causes of the bail-out that are unjustified. These are probably the most common:
1) Producer does not listen to the track for very long and gives quick feedback before fully letting the track set in. By the time the first fixes are made, the producer has new ideas, and the circle continue to repeat until someone gets irritated and cuts it off. Some patience and careful examination of the first draft could have prevented this.
2) Producer fails to fully explain what he/she is after. This would be partly the composer’s fault too, of course, as THEY should be asking lots of questions to make sure they are on the same page as the producer. After a few drafts of getting seemingly nowhere, the producer has to bail on the composer.
3) Producer dumps the composer quickly because the track done does not match the “placeholder track”. Note my article about the dangers of this here.
4) Producer dumps composer because of seemingly very low production value. Producers, however, should realize that it is not usually in the composer’s best interest to go through the entire mixing and mastering process before a sketch/draft is approved. If you like the track and its perfect for your project but it doesn’t seem very “professional sounding” make sure that you ask your composer about this element and give them a chance to explain themselves or improve upon it. However, if they are unable to improve the quality to the standard that you seek, you may have to bail and seek out another composer. Granted, of course, that production value is roughly (and I mean VERY roughly) equivalent to the fees that composers seek. In general, the person who can command $1,500/minute will probably deliver a higher production value than the guy popping out tracks for $20 each!

This ends my series on working with a composer.

I hope that I have been informative in helping explain my end of the craft to all of you!

However, I will continue to post resourceful articles related to music and sound production for those of you aspiring musicians/sound engineers so that you can enhance your games yourself. As mentioned before, the next article I will be writing will be How to record Voice Overs that don’t suck. I will also be discussing my project to build a Computer Silencer Box so that I can more quietly track while using high-gain levels on my microphones. Even if you are not recording, it would still be nice to (fairly) cheaply quiet that harrier-jet you use for a computer, yes?

Please post any other requests/comments!

John Seguin
Composer
jseguin@seguinsound.com
www.seguinsound.com