Brandon Higley’s ‘blog

Seriously.  I’m a wizard at Creakos now!  See what I mean here.

I’m really glad to have found a project to keep me busy until Encore and Type 3 go into production.  Anticipating my first jobs in the game industry sounded like a horrible way to spend Spring.  Creakos is a game company that specializes in mobile games, specifically, games for cell phones.  Most of its members work for profit share, a trend among independent development groups.

Luckily, I can still take care of pre-production with Koru Entertainment and Ethereal Muse Studios while I compose for Creakos’ iPhone project codenamed “Genesis.”  The total music assets for the game will be just around five minutes, so at the speed I work, I should be able to complete the soundtrack in just under fifteen work-hours.  If I decide to use loop software such as ACID Pro, I may be able to cut that in half without sacrificing quality.

I’m excited, too, to be the sound designer for Creakos, as well.  I can’t reveal too much about the game, but I should start working on explosions, gunshots, and engine sound effects.

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A screenshot of the plug-in.

For the most part, the balance of instruments sounds pretty good in my work.  Occasionally, one piece may sound as if it doesn’t have the same quality as the others, making my overall body of work somewhat inconsistent.  That’s why audio engineers get paid so much to do such a specific task–master tracks.

So, I decided I’d try out a program which masters audio for you.  It’s called T-RackS 3, and so far, it’s amazing.  I’ve re-mastered all of my music, and I’m very please with the results.  Check out my portfolio and see if you can spot the differences.  The best so far is Chopin’s Sonata in Bb Minor No. 2 Opus 35, which I arranged for symphonic orchestra for my Orchestration & Instrumenation final in late 2007, because the piece now sounds full at every frequency, and the instruments blend much better than before.

There are even lots of fun presets to play around with, such as AM broadcast, which makes your music sound nostalgically horrible, or Vintage, which makes your music sound like it’s being playing from an LP.  If I ever get into sound design, and hopefully I will, this will help broaden my options and make my job easier!

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Normally, I don’t shamelessly plug stuff.  However, JustHost.com, a web hosting and domain registry service, really fits the needs of a composer who wants to direct potential employers to his or her personal website.  Not only is it cheap, which is great for a starving artist, but it offers unlimited bandwidth and storage space.  Basically, this means that a composer can post their portfolio or demo reel to their website, and allow visitors to stream high quality audio files without having to worry about bandwidth or storage limitations.

Other nice features include detailed statistics about how many visitors view your webpage, which individual pages are more popular, etc, as well as a site builder, unlimited email addresses, unlimited subdomains, FTP accounts, and lots of other cool stuff.  If you’re interested, just click on the banner below.

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A picture of my workstation, with the new digital piano.

I recently invested in a tool which will make composing so much easier: a digital piano.  It’s an entry-level piano, but as I do not actually play the piano, it suits my purposes perfectly.  It has MIDI input/output, so I can connect it to my computer.  This allows me to do something very clever; my old routine involved writing out sheet music in Finale, then saving it as a MIDI file, then opening that file in ACID Pro, then finally using ACID to sequence a sample library, all just to see how a melodic idea sounds.  Now, I can simply turn on the piano, open the sample library, and play the melody.  If I don’t like it, I just play it differently or scrap it altogether.  The best part is that my piano will use a sample library on my computer instead of its own if I tell it to, so I can actually hear what the music will sound like on the instrument for which it is intended.

It also has other great features, such as a sustain pedal, and my favorite, weighted keys.  They actually simulate the feel of a real piano.  And, I bought a book which I can use to learn how to play the piano.

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