matt milne

really can't argue with that. That's how a pro does it if they're lucky enough. there's gotta be a way, but lets start with some decent reviews. like more than one a month.

There are no hobbyists in the biz ovs, only serious and non serious artists. those who skip about the edges, and those who do the work. we worked hard on off to get it done and out, we are by all measures serious artists, and so we should work equally hard on pushing it out there. for some of us we are the skirt around the edges sort, but there are others on the team who wouldn't mind doing something bigger, myself included, and we aught to get our heads together on that. most people think there are only two camps, those who do what studios do and those who do it in their spare time, would it surprise you to know that those are the same thing. the real deal so to speak, is to come up with a great idea, and get it done fast and well. if we do our jobs right, it sells itself, with a little encouragment. but it takes people who see the world that way to do it, and there aren't that many of us. the real goal of game selling isn't to sell games, it's to sell computers, as we've done, with many members paying over $1400 for a new computer as well as the $70 for the game. That used to be how the gaming industry worked, with manufacturers funding serious artists to make great games. ofcourse nowadays that isn't the case for some odd reason, but if we can pull our socks up and get serious about leaving our dead end jobs for a better more enjoyable but harder life, then that's what we should do. problem is most people talk big, but don't actually want to do what's needed and make up other excuses to fill their unfulfilling lives with mundane anythings. I think our team's got the ability to do something great, and we should do it. as for marketing, send some free copies out to reviewers asap, we need to get many more reviews.

lol, again a project i'd love to do, but there are 8 directors who could do it well, none of whom would get the funding, and even if they did, none of whom were likely to hire me. every idiot wanabe from here to wisconsin would be trying to get it, some of whom have their own agents yelling and screaming about them, so that's not likely to happen, but again, a great project i would love to do. i see will wright finally left EA, about time he found his common sense, finally he might start making the games he should have made ten years ago. i don't know who gave him a kick in the butt, but they deserve a medal. Again another great artist i would kill to work with but could never get 5 minutes with to impress. the simming guys at microsoft were culled by the sim-hating managers, looks like gates was the only gifted guy who valued them, once he went, they went. i'm glad folks appreciate bhah, it shows that hard work and talent can still pay off, in this world where you don't need talent or be an artist to be employed in the talented-artist industry.

yes the overprotecting of copyright is terribly counterproductive. if microsoft had fully exercised theirs we wouldn't have off in the first place, and if apple had done the same microsoft wouldn't exist either. i'll say it again, discretion in our civilised legal systems is fast dying, much to our own detriment. though ovs will take offence, i have absolutely no quams with off users using my music in off videos, so feel free, the title of the main off theme is indeed 'hymn to the fallen pilots of flanders' which you can use in your off videos. Don't use barber's adagio for strings though cause we paid for that privalege, and it's otherwise copyrighted at least for a few more years.

God i would love that, and worship the director that hired me for it. I'd kill for a decent opportunity to write some great music, any opportunity. i'm sorry, do i sound desperate, lol. It's just that with that kind of canvas, the themes, the ideas, the complex story, the interweaving threads, the energy the power and the creative skill required all rolled in one brings such a huge rush and high, as an artist i'd give anything to experience more frequently. plus the chance to work with some great and talented people. one of the many reasons i agreed to do off bhah.

i put together a little music mod for grand ages rome. this is part one, part two to follow later in april. you can download the zip here http://www.mediafire.com/?yozj44jrtym enjoy

i've been waiting over a year to post this. you can get a copy of the off phase 3 theme at http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7021433 click on lo fi or hi fi to play it online. some general details: a simple melody with the obligatory snare drums, timpani, strings, brass and choir backing. it was thrown together in 3 or 4 hours last thing on a friday afternoon, with little more to go on than some off manager screenshots. it was great fun. enjoy

vienna has a bigger set up, but to my ears, east west held a more authentic sound with a custom sound environment. and there are loads of other databases and systems, not to mention a live orchestra which is the ultimate option. so it's a subject that's well worth researching if you're going down the digital music route. a word of warning though, these are audio engineers tools, and i'm not an audio engineer. it can also get very technical and the academic advertising is outrageous. take time to look at the different databases, and set ups, listen to all the different demo tracks, talk to people and composers from everywhere, and pick a system and set up that will provide your means for your ends, something you'll be comfortable with from day one. it can get very pricey very quickly. so really shop around and only go for what you decide to go for, best to avoid salespeople and do it online, so you can make a decision of your own choosing.

it's amazing what you can do with a computer these days. and being able to listen to what you're writing as you write it makes a huge difference, especially when film is concerned. also with live orchestra making mistakes, you've gotta go bakc and do the whole thing again, with a computer involved, you can identify the erring instrument and replace its line of music digitally in absolutely no time at all, saving huge resources and time, so yea, any composer worth their salt in this biz uses a computer or several computers, at least for writing if nothing more. it's much easier to write something and copy and paste it around the different instruments, than writing each note a hundred times for every bar of music. and all those clips you see of modern composers writing on paper, especially film composers, are staged for those nice dvd features. pc v mac is ofcourse another argument for a different forum. but for my particular and more or less unique set up and situation: i need to be able to stream hundreds of small recordings a second (samples as they're known), one hard disk stores the programs and one disk stores the hundreds of gigabytes of sound data (so you need different disk capacities, makes and speeds) the cpu has to be able to seamlessly hold and process the information live and layer it together in different programs simultaneously to form even a simple second of music (and it has to be able to record all that at the same time too if recording with absolutely no glitches or other clicks and pops and hisses in any shape or form), so multiple cores are a must. And due to extensive data use there are hardware failures, so you need to be able to swapout without altering the setup in any other shape or form, a pc's specialty. If you can get 12 macs hooked together so that you've got one instrument database per machine, then you can use macs in a nice studio and they'll share the load, which is the usual set up, but since i usually don't get paid and since i'm pro but without the nice industry qualifications and grants that go with them, i had to do it all without hassle, without audio engineers present, and it had to fit all on one computer, and macs just aren't ideal for that sort of set up. wheras a custom altered off the shelf pc could do it, so that's what i ended up going for.

3-5 million bucks, that's roughly how much the london symphony orchestra, london voices, watford hall and abbey road cost to rent for a week. So no since music budgets tend not to be that size these days, i'm forced to work with lesser equipment. lol, seriously, it's an all digital process. since i score by what i see and hear, i'm usually the last process before printing, on a film, so i'm all set up to recieve the digital film, load it into the sequencer, write and record on the computer, and send the audio files back to be mixed into the edit, or product in this case, and all to be done in a week. It's highly efficient and has a production cost of virtually zero. Sample databases are the wave of the future as they say. since my mixing skills are non existant it's a straight record off the computer, there's no effects or additional audio processing like you get in most game and film productions, what you're hearing is the basic, raw audio. and because of the fact that it's low quality, but still very good, i tend to turn more than a few heads. if i had the budget to do it properly you'd get something better, but unfortunately idiots have taken over swathes of the industry and so i don't get much of an opportunity, unless i come across another gifted artist, and those are few and far between these days.

the music has the same status as off, so anything to do with off i imagine would be fine, it appears in all the preview videos. lol, well i'd love to write more, bigger and better scores, but projects that are bigger and better than off are in extremely short supply. the whole industry doesn't know whether it's coming or going, and it's hard to find people who know what they're doing. most of the biz is concerned with industry focus groups and not a case of giving the public what they need more a case of giving advertisers what they want, so i can't work with such people. i need creative artists on creative projects, off was one such project, which is why i did it, but there aren't that many more epic productions out there, or at least not many with people who know how to use the skills i have. anywho offtopic rant aside, it's great that so many people have come here to carry on with off, i'd imagine we'll see quite a few more join before the week is out.

i want my money back! lol. that was good, plenty of attention to detail. somebody was pissed at not getting their favourite french crate in, but notes for improvment were included. 4 1/2 stars, 5 if i'm feeling generous, well written.

I guess ride of the valkyries is a bit too cliched for off. still worth a shot though.

hello hello everybody. special special thanks and a big wet sloppy kiss to combat ace for providing these nice new diggs. finally a forum the industry hasn't pre emptively banned me from, for now, lol. special thanks to everybody who commented on phase 3's theme, i am humbly sorry for not being able to thank you before as soh wouldn't let me join for some bizarre reason. anywho here i am, it'll be great to exchange posts with you guys i've been watching for over a year. thanks again combat ace and those involved for our lovely new home.