Hello everyone !

You probably noticed that I haven't been really active on Newgrounds. Actually, soon after my last post, one year ago, I had to put music a bit on hold because of my studies. For those who aren't aware of this, I study Information Technology and Information Systems and am pursuing an engineering degree - yeah, nothing to do with music, and school projects eat up a lot of my free time.

And yet, as much as I'd like to say that I'll be back soon, I know I won't, at least not before this summer - but for a good reason : I will spend a few months studying in South Korea, beginning in February. I'm really excited, because depending on the courses I will be able to take, this semester abroad may become the missing link between my current curriculum and most of my hobbies and projects - including music, but also something else.

A dream of mine is to create a video game, for the very same reasons that got me into music in the first place : In order to give life to a world, to share it with people. I hope to be able to create a small indie studio and publish a first game after the end of my studies. It's a pretty mad dream, and a quite risky bet, but it's one I'm willing to take.

My trip to Korea also means I may not be able to make music for several months, since I won't be able to move my current home studio setup to Korea, but I am looking for alternative solutions. I still have some things to sort out, but I'm hoping I'll have an operational portable setup before my flight to Seoul. :)

In the meantime, I still have some music to share with you - two tracks I've worked on for Creative Community have been released this month on our Youtube channel :

That one's pretty old, and it honestly shows its age, but it has been received quite positively even despite this.

I already talked about this one in a previous post - if you're not interested in the quieter part, this track builds up to epic proportions, beginning from 1:20 to reach its full power slightly after the 22-minute mark - feel free to skip to the parts that sound interesting to you if you feel like it.

I worked on it using the foundations laid by another composer working on the series, who is great at stuff i'm less comfortable with, and conversely, I'm pretty good where he has difficulties - as you can guess, when we have an opportunity to collaborate, we both learn a lot from each other. We worked again together a few days/weeks ago, but I can't really say anything more about it -- yet. But of course, as soon as it'll be public, I'll let you know ! :)

Hey guys !

A project on which I’ve been working for a while is finally releasing, and I thought I’d share the word. If you’re not interested in the project itself, but would like to see how my music today compares to what I was making three years ago, feel free to skip to the videos at the end ;)

Starcube : Galaxy is a machinima series (movies made using a game’s engine), made using the game Minecraft. It’s a sci-fi series with some influences of games like Mass Effect or Stargate. There is english subtitles, so if you’re interested, you can watch it even if you don’t understand a single word of french. The first episode is here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UO99zj8eGI

The very first episode has been released in February 2013, and I joined the team not so long after – it was my first time working on movies. We kept working on the series and releasing episodes as soon as they were ready, until November 2013, when we released the 4th episode of the series, out of six initially planned. Things were going incredibly slow, a ton of work was needed for each episode, and we couldn’t release them at a steady pace.

After this episode, we ended up making a tough decision. The team had grown a lot since the first episode, we learned a lot of things, and the first episodes were way behind what we were now able to do. We decided to start over, and made a new first episode, a « reboot » – it was a proof of concept, to show why we took this decision.

Yup, the first episode definitely showed its age.

Another big change is that we would make the whole season before releasing the series at a much steadier pace – it was probably the biggest bet on this reboot of the series.

We began releasing the series some weeks ago, and we just released the 5th episode today. This one is especially important for me, because we’re reaching the point at which I began making music for this project in the first season – it also means it’s my turn to see the difference of quality between the first version and the new one, and to see my progression during the last three years.

Here’s the music used for the discovery of Cardis, the « Center Of Everything », in the first season, more than three years ago :

(noticed the weird synths ? On that day, I created a monster.)

And here’s the episode 5, released some hours ago. The piece I am talking about starts at 19:50, where @Auraman began the work (I just arranged some of his ideas here), until 21:20 where I completely took the lead with my own ideas.

Although it’s the resolution of the episode, there is no real major spoilers for the series in this part - it's only spoiling the end of the episode (obviously), so I think you can check it out even if you're planning to watch the series. ;)

(music at 19:50 or 21:20, depending on what you want to listen to. :p)

Ideally, I should have added some synths, but Alchemy literally died in my hands while I was working on this track, and I’ve been able to make it work again only today. It turned out Alchemy hated my SSD. Well, at least, these choirs give a more epic vibe to it.

I don’t release a lot of music on Newgrounds, but I thought you might be interested in hearing what I’m working on outside of my personal projects. So, what do you think about it ?

Hey everyone !

Ok, so, behind this original title, I just wanted to let you know I haven't left Newgrounds already, and I haven't stopped making music ! :)

...Well, actually, I did, but temporarily. Anyway. I'm now too busy with my studies to keep making music for now, but this doesn't mean I completely stopped - actually, I finally found the courage to read about theory when I have some free time. For those who aren't aware, until now, I composed almost only by ear, with little to no notions of harmony and stuff like that (and it's still pretty limited for now, I just finished the chapter about cadences). I decided to change this, and although I haven't been able yet to put it into practice, I've almost learned the basics.

Also, while I have too many incoming school projects to compose music freely, some of these projects will actually need some music, and this means I'll probably have some stuff to upload soon ! :) I will also participate in a local gamejam the 1st of April (and given the date, the theme will most likely be pretty stupid), so it'll probably help a bit as well. Unless this whole gamejam thing is a joke. I hope not. xD

So, yeah, I didn't completely disappear yet, and I'm expecting to come back to music somewhere around June or July. See you ! ;)

Quick edit, in case someone ever see this : After publishing that post, I ate something and came back to my now dusty keyboard. About two hours later, I can tell there is a real difference. I was often afraid of some things when making music music, but now that I have a basic understanding of the rules, I tend to modulate WAY more and try many more things. I can't wait to see how it'll influence my music in the near future.

Just thought it could be useful if anyone is interested in the (almost) complete list of stuff I have. If you want feedback on a specific item, feel free to ask in comments and I'll tell you what I think about it. ;)

Hardware :

        Headphones : Sennheiser PX-100 II (now retired), Sony MDR-7506

        Guitar : Ibanez RG1570Z-BK

        Keyboard : Yamaha PSR-225GM

        Mic : Shure 5655D

        MIDI controller : An Xbox controller + GlovePIE

        Sound card : POD Studio UX1

Software :

        General :

                REAPER

                Komplete 9

        Orchestra & Choirs :

                CineSamples CineSymphony LITE

                East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Silver

                SoundIron Olympus Elements

                Spitfire Albion Legacy

                VersilianStudios' VSCO2 Pro (NGAIM '16 prize - thanks @samulis !)

        Drums & Percussion :

                LuxNox Perc+

                NineVoltAudio TAIKO 2

                NineVoltAudio Sync'd Cymbals Plus

                NineVoltAudio Stickbreakers Vol. 1 & 2

                NineVoltAudio Shimmer and Shake

                SoundIron APE Micro

                SoundIron Crystal

                SoundIron Drip

                TaleWeaver Ancient Crushed Cymbals

                WaveFactory DrumCircle

        Effects :

                POD Farm 2 + FX Junkie Pack

        Solo instruments :

                Embertone Blakus Cello

                Embertone Chapman Trumpet

                Embertone Crystal Flute

                Embertone Friedlander Violin

                Embertone Jubal Flute

                Embertone Shire Whistle

                FrozenPlain Chordophone

                FrozenPlain Dual Music Box

                Impact Soundworks 8-string Bouzouki

                Impact Soundworks Highland Harps

                Impact Soundworks Kazakh Dombra

                Ilya Efimov Armenian Duduk

        Synths :

                AudioModern Abuser

                CamelAudio Alchemy Water

                Heavyocity Evolve

                Impact Soundworks Juggernaut

                Impact Soundworks Celestia

                StudioWeapon Underscore

I've been thinking a lot lately. About music, about trying to become a professional composer. Actually, it's been a longtime dream of mine, working on video games, movies, animations, as a composer - probably one of the thoughts that made me try again and again to improve myself. And now that I begin to have a decent level, decent gear, etc, I am less and less interested in this.
 

I've been able to work on several projects already - nothing really "professional" yet, some machinimas, some little games, only made by hobbyists who do it only out of passion. Eventually, some of these projects grew, and more and more, I felt working with them - or working with people, generally - was becoming "industrial" in some way. This made me wonder how the professional music industry works - if it's a matter of quantity instead of quality, I'd happily give up that mad dream I had. For one single reason.

I don't want my music to become industrial. I don't wan't to be restrained by things like productivity or deadlines, neither I want to stick to a project for years, doing the same thing again and again. I now want to have full creative freedom, to be able to express what I want to, without having to rush it because "we already announced the release date" or other similar reasons. And lately, music wasn't a hobby to me anymore - just another woadload I was bored carrying. Probably I just need a change of scenery, probably staying on the same projects for a long time didn't help, but I don't even want to work on collaborative projects, at least for now. I only want to make music I like.

By the way, I am especially grateful to everyone who contributed in some way to the Newgrounds Underdogs Contest or to the Summoner Of Sounds challenges at rpgmaker.net, because this is where I learned to enjoy making music again. And, of course, I am not blaming the people I've been working with. They're great, I probably just need to go back to the good old time when I had no obligations.

Did anyone felt this way before ? I actually don't know if it's because working on projects is not for me at all, or if it's because I spent like two years working on the same project and can't bear it anymore. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments ;)

Hello everyone !

Since I'm new here, I thought it'd be a good idea to introduce myself. I am a french 18-year-old student, but also a musician in my spare time, since 2010-2011. I have little to no knowledge in music theory, and learnt most of what I know through practising and training (oh, and from harassing MetalRenard too :D).

I came on Newgrounds because I was looking for a community of musicians. I used to be on Soundcloud, before their "New Soundcloud". I really learned a lot from the reviews I got there, but sadly, the community then slowly faded away, and I finally left too. Then I spent some time publishing my music on my Youtube channel only (and occasionnally working on some projects), before having the idea to look for another place. I already heard about Newgrounds by a friend of mine, so I decided to give it a try.

For my music, I use Reaper, along with EWQLSO Silver, CineSymphony LITE, Komplete and a lot of little sound libraries bought or grabbed here and there. I also have a guitar (an Ibanez RG1570Z I had with an huge discount when a music shop not very far from where I lived closed), although I do not use it very often in my tracks, a keyboard (a Yamaha PSR 225-GM), an Xbox controller I use as a MIDI controller and a Pod Studio UX1 as soundcard.

Well, I think I covered the essential about me, but feel free to ask if you have questions ! ;)