I enjoy composing music, so I don't have a problem if I need original music for my games, but what do people that can't compose music do? I can't make sound fx, so I search on the internet for royalty free ones, which are hard to find. I can't sprite very well, so that stops me from making a lot of games that I would have liked to make.

This time around I've paid for sound effects by Michael Huang (www.gamenoise.com) - worth every bean he's going to charge me :) The sheer amount of time it saves having an expert on the job can't be underestimated.

Cas :)

Hi

We create music and sfx for all kinds of projects, from shareware games to filmscores.

You can find demos of our music and sfx at:

www.equinox-music.co.uk (http://www.equinox-music.co.uk)

Drop us an email or ask any questions on our forum page. We're a friendly bunch of people :)

Marie

I've done music for my own games (so I can't answer the music question) but I also do my own sound fx, but they're usually "musical" (analog synth blops and such) since, luckily, I haven't required many realistic sounds.

Searching the internet for royalty free music/effects and making do with what you can knock up yourself is exactly what I did with my first game, but I wouldn't do it again. It wasn't worth the money I thought I was saving, because of the amount of time it wastes and the difference in quality.

This time around, I decided to pay a musician to write some really good tracks for me. I listened to a lot of sample tracks and decided to ask Equinox ( see post above ) to write the songs for me. I received the six final tunes on CD yesterday and I'm very, very pleased with the results. It really was worth a small outlay to get professional music in my game. Otherwise, it would have been something horrible I knocked together in EJay or something :eek:

www.edgen.com/music

Pick out the songs you wanna use, email him, give him credits... thats all it takes. All he asks is a little blurb with his name and a link in your help file...

He is EXTREMELY nice, and is willing to do next to anything to see a project succeed.

How expensive is it to have someone compose music for your game?

Maybe *Equinox* can answer this?

Hiya

The cost of music for your game/project/film depends on many things:

1. What kind of music you require - eg. full classical scores take far longer to produce than 'dance' styles, also using 'real' instruments may require us to hire guitarists/sax players etc.

2. How long the tracks need to be - obviously a 5 minute track takes longer to write and record than 1 minute.

3. Does the customer wish to buy the full IP (copyright) to the tracks? It is cheaper to just buy a licence that allows you to use the music in your project, but other people will also be given the opportunity to purchase licences for the music too. Due to the high demand for Royalty-Free music we have a CD for sale in the shop area of our site: Equinox-Music Shop (http://www.equinox-music.co.uk/shop.htm)

Equinox-Music.co.uk quote for every project on an individual basis. We request a detailed design brief of the game and your requirements for the music/sfx, then calculate a price for the project. All of this is undertaken with the strictest confidence and after receiving the quote you are under no obligation whatsoever to go ahead.

I hope that this answers your question Night Elf. If you've got any further questions please feel free to either email us or contact me through MSN.

Kind Regards
Marie/Equinox