Grab your phone and use a voice recording app to just record ideas / humming / whistling. I did this when my daughter was born - I literally had no time or energy to sit at my computer with my guitar for a few months.
Hey Jonathan,
just curious, what is up with the code bootcamp, are you planing a career change from an audio engineer to a programmer? The same thought is spinning in my mind for a while now, as it is damn hard to make a living in this profession, at least where I come from.
Jonathan doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. A few days ago I thought he wanted to be an entertainment lawyer. Then the coding thing came up. Keyboardist, publisher, audio engineer, and guitar amp maven have been alternate choices. Sounds like the “multipotentialite” from The Matrix. Hmm, I don’t know anybody like that in my world.
I’ve always seen the publishing and licensing avenue as the ticket out of having to play and record music. That never changed. Once I understood how money works in that part of the business, I thought the legal side was where I belonged. But once I took a few steps into that world, I realized it wasn’t. So yeah, I’ll always be a keyboard player and sound engineer by trade…but the money off of playing music, selling records, and renting your studio to record music can’t hold a candle to the income potential of a well built publishing/licensing enterprise. It wasn’t a whim or an impulse decision to back out of music performance and recording facility rental. I based the decision on what I felt was the most productive way to use the music and studio skillets + equipment If you want to make recordings and sell them, THIS is the way to do it.
The publishing and licensing avenue involves much deeper understanding of law than playing in a band and selling CD’s does. The legal training certainly helped me really understand how things work. It gave me the tools to ask the right questions when I was out of my depth, and to do my own research on the parts I wanted to know more about. So it wasn’t for nothing.
So, you have talked quite a bit about this in other threads, and probably for a long time even back to RR. The theory of it makes a lot of sense, but that logically leads to the application. You had talked about acquiring publishing and licensing portfolios etc. Now, I completely understand if this is not something you wish to divulge details about, but if you’re doing this successfully it would be really interesting to know how you have gone about implementing the strategy to build the enterprise.
I knew a guy who had taken that route some years ago, but I don’t know how successful he was with it. I think he was mainly composing background music tracks and then licensing them for use through a number of websites (and even his own eventually) that specialize in that. He may have got into the publishing acquisition part too. He definitely saw some potential there, but as with anything else turning potential into actual is the challenge.
Good luck with that one mate! I personally ventured out in the film post production while in collage, and worked full time for about a year for a French dubbing company, but at the end, the footsteps, ambiances, SFX and music editing just drove me insane. A lot of the same audio concepts come into play with video games, but I’m guessing it’s waay more fun. Keep us posted on the progress.
OMG! It’s an amazing world to work in. Seeing those sound effects become a part of an interactive world is a whole different experience than watching them pass from left to right on a DAW. What company in France?
I can’t wait to show off this new 3d space shooter…been working on it for months…hoping to launch on Steam later this year Think Deserts of Kahark / Age of Empires engine with 3-dimensional space battles and a crazy hierarchy of ships, weapons, alien planets, and commanders!
I bet it is, some of my friends and colleagues just launched their game on Steam, although it’s been grueling work, it payed off at the end, and they more than happy with the results. Here’s the trailer if you’re interested
The company name is Europa Dubbing Group, and it focuses mostly on B production movies, series and documentaries, so I did my time of grunt work there, replacing every single sound , and creating it from scratch, while maintaing the 35 min of film per working day requirement. Ouch.
Post a link once your game is out, it sounds badass.
Yeah man it’s out on Steam as of March, here it is: http://store.steampowered.com/app/588210/agecheck
As for the type of the game, let me quote the team, to be PC: "Hellion is an open world multiplayer space survival game set in a distant star system amidst the ruins of mankind’s first interstellar colony.
Fight for survival in a cruel and mysterious world of humanity’s ruined hopes. Gather resources, build your outpost, navigate the ship through the vast outer space, find friends to help you and defeat your foes. Explore derelict ships, discover the hidden story and find your way to stay alive!
So there u have it Jonathan, grab it while it’s hot!
Oh and can’t wait to see your game, keep me posted