in what genre is most of the money?

[Grappadura]

If you can't make your fortune with 8-bit death core, you'll never amount to anything.

it might be the way to become the next hans zimmer

[McQ714]

Of course, there's a wide range of jobs, but I doubt you are asking "How do I become Hans Zimmer" (whose life is probably both well paid and also rewarding).

yeah I was about to mention him, what a life he's living. If you know the answer please share.

ironically, Hans Zimmer is a pirate!
listen to his scores, a lot of what he composes and produces is just copies of something he's already put together for a previous soundtrack.

i guess the same could be said for most music though. how often do you hear the same chords and note sequences being played in songs?

[djshiva]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Seriously dude. Become an investment banker or something. If you're not doing music because you can't live without doing music, then you shouldn't be doing music at all.

[Grappadura]

Of course, there's a wide range of jobs, but I doubt you are asking "How do I become Hans Zimmer" (whose life is probably both well paid and also rewarding).

yeah I was about to mention him, what a life he's living. If you know the answer please share.

ironically, Hans Zimmer is a pirate!
listen to his scores, a lot of what he composes and produces is just copies of something he's already put together for a previous soundtrack.

i guess the same could be said for most music though. how often do you hear the same chords and note sequences being played in songs?

pirating his own stuff then, well who doesnt

[Grappadura]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Seriously dude. Become an investment banker or something. If you're not doing music because you can't live without doing music, then you shouldn't be doing music at all.

so what are you living of?

[djadonis206]

It doesn't matter what style of music it is. If you have both talent and passion that people recognize, you can make a living with music. From Country to House, there's hundreds of genres out there and I bet there's a healthy dose of artists representing each genre making a living.

Either there's some unresolved issue in my life at the moment or I'm disturbed by something because I'm responding to this stupid thread. I'm going to the gym. This is dumb

[Tone Deft]

I'm disturbed by something because I'm responding to this stupid thread. I'm going to the gym. This is dumb

yep.

how young is the OP?

I've met lots of gigging musicians with shitty day jobs, I had a friend make a go of it and quit because there's a LOT more money in writing software and he wanted his weekends back. I have a cousin that whored around the So Cal punk scene and got tired of it even after playing in a pretty major band.

want to know what genre generates the most music? use google.

[Forge.]

If there's one sure fire way to kill your muse it's to get her involved in churning out Justin Beiber ringtones on a harsh deadline, or making MIDI files of classical stuff for the Asian elevator market. Those sort of jobs should be avoided at all costs. Any of my friends who found themselves in those jobs aged ten years in about a month.

yeah I used to work in a studio that started getting into that kind of thing just before I left. Pretty soul destroying. Although even worse is phone prompts "press one, press two...." etc - you can do literally thousands of files and they send you totally crazy.

[von haugwitz]

What a f**ing Question!

[Grappadura]

If you want to get into making music for games, your best bet is to start at the indie level. Go to Indie Game Dev forums and such, offer your services to projects that look good (you don't want to bother being involved in some one-man-team's side project). A lot of these games are freeware, so don't expect to be paid. Instead, as you do soundtracks for more and more small games, you will build up some sort of a reputation in the Indie Game community.

Once you have some freeware games under your belt, put up a portfolio online and start contacting some indie teams working on commercial projects (again, don't expect to get paid a lot for this).

If you do really really well on a few commercial indie game projects, you should be able to put together a great portfolio and then start targeting the big studios. With this step, it helps if you live near a few studios. You also probably want to concretely decide at this point if you want to do freelance or if you want to join a specific studio full-time (there's pros and cons to each - for example, with the former you get a lot of variety, but with the latter you get more financial security [assuming that the studio stays open, like many studios don't]).

Of course, there are ways to fast track this process, like knowing the right people, going to a good music school (this gives you some credibility to the bigger studios, meaning that you may not have to spend as much time developing a great portfolio. More importantly though, having a strong music theory background will allow you to compose in several different styles at the drop of a coin - very very useful when making game music!), etc...

And two things to remember: 1. always treat every track like it's your biggest project ever, no matter if it's just a simple track for some freeware game (you want a game's soundtrack to be solid all the way through so that the player is constantly impressed by the music, drawing attention to your work) and 2. target projects that you think will actually be finished (it's almost pointless to include tracks in your portfolio for a game that's never been released), which means that early on it's useful to learn what type of game dev you are working with before you agree to work on the music (roughly 99% of freeware games never get finished - only spend your valuable time on serious projects!).

Oh, and don't forget to study lots and lots and lots of game music! And play games, making sure to pay attention to the music and how it works in and reacts to the game. Listen to how it sets a mood, to what types of instruments are used, what styles of music, how ambient or upfront it is, if it sounds electronic or organic, what all of this means in the context of the game's style, content and story, etc...

EDIT: and one more thing - if the game is to released commercially, make sure you have a proper contract!

EDIT AGAIN: One one more thing - always act kind and professional! The game dev community is small, and if you're a jerk or unprofessional to one indie dev or one big studio, you can count on word getting around to avoid you. Once you get a bad rep, it's nearly impossible to clear your name 100% (especially in the indie game communities where a lot of the commercial developers are semi-close-knit).

thx man!

[Stolenlogic]

hip hop seems to have a lot of money

[simonlb]

Pretty ridiculous thread really.

I wouldn't bother making a genre of music if I didn't actually like it, that's not why I got into music. It would just become another crap, unfulfilling job.

[Grappadura]

hip hop seems to have a lot of money

they're always throwing around dollar bills in their videos!

[snakedogman]

Was watching the presentation by HedFlux on Pyramind recently (check the Ableton blog) and he mentioned releasing sample libraries as a good (extra) source of income if you're a producer.

Btw I'm sure Hans Zimmer has an amazing and well paying career, but you can bet that once they are in production with studio deadlines looming, movie composers also have to work incredibly hard and be able to churn out high quality music very quickly.

[Grappadura]

Was watching the presentation by HedFlux on Pyramind recently (check the Ableton blog) and he mentioned releasing sample libraries as a good (extra) source of income if you're a producer.

Btw I'm sure Hans Zimmer has an amazing and well paying career, but you can bet that once they are in production with studio deadlines looming, movie composers also have to work incredibly hard and be able to churn out high quality music very quickly.

could be. in the videos of hans zimmer that I`ve watched he says that he gets involved in the whole movie production process, so I think usually he has a couple of months at least, maybe not always though. what a studio he has! if he posted in the "post your setup"-thread, the thread would have to be closed after that.