Soundtrack recording?

[basketballleia]

Hey peeps, I’ve received an interesting proposal the other, but I’m in need of guidance. I consider myself to be a decent player. I’m no Marcus Miller, but I can play Marcus Miller if that makes any sense. Anyway, I record tidbits of music here and there, which I mostly share with friends. Recently I’ve been contacted by this small startup that is looking to build slot games. They want me to record a theme song for their game.


I already took the gig, because they really liked my samples and the money was good, too. However, when I sat down to work on it yesterday, I hit a wall. Every riff and progression I drop just doesn’t fit. Also, it doesn’t help that the theme of the game is super generic. They basically gave me this list Top 10 Music Themed Pokies and told me our project will be something similar.


How in the world do I clear a riff as good enough? I’d like to hear from anyone who has done this professionally. The deadline isn’t exactly near, but I’m already losing my cool over this.

 

[LBS-bass]

My experience is that the key to good writing is repetition. When I first started writing music, I wrote multiple songs daily. Not every song was a keeper by a long shot. I challenged myself daily by deliberately setting out to write something completely different from what I'd written previously.

So my advice to you is to just start writing. Write way more than you need; don't worry about making everything great; just write. From that you should be able to cull the best work you've done and put finishing touches on it. Good luck.

 

[bassbrad]

Like @LBS-bass said just start writing as many ideas as you can, let the client decide which works best. Once you have that direction then you can flesh out the rest of the needed music for the project.

For me it has always been a collaborative process between myself and the director and production staff to choose theme music, character themes and other incidental music. Sometimes it is new music and other times it is from my portfolio. Other times they will like a particular sound and I need to create or use a melody.

 

[danielcoop]

Writing soundtracks these days is easy. After all, you can use online services to adjust your head. But by the way I would like to add that professional tracks are worth it. Here it is right see it here cool sounds of real slots that were made by special gadgets.