作者：Li Xiao’an

关于定制音乐的逐步引导：

雇佣一个人为你创造音乐是一个非常玄妙的过程，但事实上这却是完全不需要的。

我将通过以下内容简要地解释我自己的工作过程以及为客户创造一个音轨的专业方法。为了实现有效的沟通，有效的工作流程以及创意注意事项，我将涵括一些有用的建议，同时也会详细分析如何将音乐从一个简单的理念变成具有商业性的产品。

custom music(from tockdom)

需要注意的是，因为预算的不同，有些步骤很容易被忽视。完整的高水平制作将伴随着必要的工时，金钱与资源。

1.建立风格

如果你想要创造某一特别的“声音”，你最好能够参考现有的音乐从而将其传达给编曲者，而不是尝试着只用文字进行说明。Youtube，Sptify，Grooveshark以及其它公开的流媒体服务都是你寻找这些资源的好去处。

使用参考能够让编曲者快速理解所需仪器的类型（管弦乐，大型爵士乐队，流行金属等等），速度，氛围以及其它相关细节。

总之：你需要进行搜索！需要接触到音乐的开发者和主观需要花更多时间于音轨的创造性部分，并与编曲者和客户进行轻松地交流。这让你能够正确地选择一个编曲者。这也能与良好的雇佣政策达成共鸣，因为找到一个风格和作品更适合自己的审美的人总是比强迫优秀的管弦乐编曲者去编写电子乐有效。

2.初步勾勒

一旦商定了音乐的风格和感觉，我将致力于旋律或将构成剩下组块的基本元素的主题理念。在像游戏和电影等叙述媒体中，这一音乐材料的小碎片并不能被夸张化。这将成为听者让听者记忆犹新的内容，并且正是这一内容创造了特性（如《夺宝奇兵》，《星球大战》等等）。

当所有的这些旋律被削减到只剩一些最优秀的旋律时，我将把他们呈现在客户面前供他们挑选。一旦他们选择了最喜欢的一个旋律后，我们将进入下一个步骤。

3.编曲/编制草案

这时候，伴随着已选择的旋律材料，我将编制一个具有完整结构，且伴随着客户所同意的渲染音频进行音乐的部分编制。

到这时候为止，客户总是能够指出一些需要改变的特定内容。例如，在0:53处，客户可能会决定他并不想要在此出现吉他演奏，或者他可能更喜欢呈现出敲打乐器的声音等等。

一旦记下了所要求的改变，草案将进行完整的编制便根据客户的需求进行渲染，然后转向制作阶段。

提示：这时候并不适合想出全新的音乐理念，如“比起‘My Little Pony’，我们决定（并未咨询你的意见）选择‘Inception” would be better’的音轨之类。”

4.MIDI序列和配乐

几乎完成了音乐的编写，客户已经从3个选择中挑出了1个。

1）伴随着最棒的程序库和软件样本的配乐的电子呈现

2）在其中一个世界级的音阶中伴随着一个活跃的合奏组记录配乐

3）混合制作——从电子方面强化记录音乐

选择1——最廉价的选择。你必须意识到自己面对着程序库样本。其中的一些样本非常棒，但他们并不适合好莱坞的团队，即带有管弦乐队以及大咖们的热门电影。伴随着管理期望值，这将会非常有效。关于这些程序库需要多少钱，一个产业标准的管弦乐程序员需要1000美元。

选择2——最昂贵的选择。你可能需要支付给每个音乐家75元/小时的费用。加上工作室的租赁费，搬运费，工程师以及承包商的抽成，1段3个小时的配乐（通常是最短的），包括2次15分钟的休息时间，一个40个人的专业管弦乐队需要花费15000美元。排演和录音通常是同时进行的，录音的时间将基于音乐的难易度进行变化，但通常是在20分钟至30分钟之间。

在波士顿有更廉价的配音选择，即20人的室内管弦乐队录制3个小时只需要4000美元，其中还包括了工作室的租赁费。

选择3——介于中间。使用更小的管弦乐队进行配乐，并用程序库样本/合成器去强化配乐从而呈现出更棒的整体效果。这种方法越来越常见，并非常适合没有太多预算的项目。

一般情况下，我们总是需要一些活跃的音乐家，因为关于生活记录的真实情感将能够有效地把你的音乐和市场上千篇一律的音乐区别开来。

5.混音和后期处理

将音乐发送给合作的混音工程师，这时候配乐和序列音频都已经完成了，像均衡，压缩以及混响等效果都用于提供给音轨所需的声波属性。

一旦完成了这些工作，混合音轨被交给同样的人或其他特别擅长后期处理的人完成。这将进一步强化音频，优化音轨让它能在更多重现系统中听起来更棒，并伴随着完全专注于单一重现系统的选择（如电影）。

如果这是音轨的一部分，那么后期处理将确保所有的音轨彼此保持一致，并在可兼容的水平上重放，如此听者便不会觉得需要在音轨间调整声级。

6.正视现实

质量将消耗成本。如果你选择的是廉价且快捷的方式也是可以的。我会建议你使用一些在网上能够找到的常见音乐程序库。它们是没有太多预算并且不想雇佣有技能的编曲者去创造定制音轨的人的理想资源。

定制音轨并不总是必要，但当你需要它们时，你就不应该偷工减料。请一定要重视质量，这么做的话你将能够得到应有的回报。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

So You Want to Hire a Composer

By Li Xiao’an

A step-by-step guide for custom music:

Hiring a person to create music for you has the potential to be an extremely mysterious process, but it does not have to be.

In the following points, I will briefly explain my own work process and professional approach to creating a single musical track for a client. I will be including some useful tips for effective communication, efficient workflow and creative considerations, as well as detailing the expertise required to take music from just an idea to a commercially acceptable product.

Note that some of these steps may be omitted depending on the budget. Full high-level production is only possible with a requisite number of man-hours, dollars and resources. If you’d like to find out how much it costs, just drop me an email.

1. Establishing style

If there is a particular “sound” that you are aiming for, it is much more effective to reference existing music in order to communicate this to the composer, rather than attempting to describe it with words alone. Youtube, Spotify, Grooveshark and a host of other publicly available streaming services are great resources for this.

Using references allows the composer to immediately understand the type of instrumentation desired (orchestral, big band, hair metal group etc.), as well as tempo (or speed), mood and a whole host of other details.

In short: Do your research! A developer or director well exposed to music can spend more time on the actual creative aspects of the track, and ease communication between composer and client. It will also allow you to pick a composer correctly. This echoes simple good hiring practices, because it is much better to find someone whose style and work fits your aesthetic closely than force a great orchestral composer to write dubstep.

2. Preliminary Sketches

Once the style and feel of the music has been agreed upon, I will work on a melody, or main thematic idea that will form the basis for the rest of the piece. The importance of this little fragment of musical material in narrative mediums such as games and films cannot be overstated. It is what listeners remember, and what creates identity (Indiana Jones, Star Wars etc.)

When the bulk of these melodies have been whittled down to the best few, I will present them to the client to choose from. Once a favourite has been selected, we move on to the next step.

Tip: Listen to Steven Spielberg and John Williams talk about their work process on what is possibly one of the most successful themes of all time, for the importance of building blocks.

3. Composition/Orchestration Drafts

At this point, with the selected melodic material, I will draft a structurally complete, partially orchestrated piece of music with rendered audio for the client to approve.

By this point, the client is usually better able to pinpoint specific parts of the piece that could use changes. For example, at 0:53, the client may decide that he does not want a guitar playing there, or that he would like the percussion to be more “present” and so on.

Once the requested changes have been noted, the draft will then be fully orchestrated and rendered for client approval before moving into the production phase, in the next step.

Tip: This is not the time to have brand new musical ideas. i.e. “Instead of “My Little Pony”, we decided (without consulting you) that a soundtrack along the lines of “Inception” would be better.”

4. MIDI Sequencing or Recording

The music has been fully written and finalised, and the client has chosen one of three options.

1. Electronic rendering of the score with top of the line sample libraries and software

2. Recording the score with a live ensemble in one of several world-class soundstages

3. Hybrid Production – Recorded music reinforced electronically

Option 1 – The cheapest option. You have to realize that you are working with sample libraries. Some of them are very good, but they’re no match for the teams in Hollywood who work on blockbuster movies with real orchestras and players. With managed expectations, this can be quite effective. To give you a general idea of how much these libraries cost, “LASS”, an industry standard orchestral strings library, costs 1000 USD. Just strings.

Option 2 – The most expensive option. You can expect to pay 75 USD/h per musician. Including studio rental, cartage and engineers and a contractor’s cut, a 3-hour recording session (usually the minimum), including a couple of 15 minute breaks of a modestly sized 40 person professional orchestra can cost 15000 USD. Rehearsal and recording usually happens at the same time, and the number of minutes recorded can vary depending on the complexity and difficulty of the music, but will probably fall within the 20-30 minute range.

Cheaper recording options are available in Boston, with a 3 hour session with a 20 pc chamber orchestra going for 4000 USD including the studio rental. This can translate to most kinds of ensembles, including big bands etc.

Option 3 – The middle road. The music is recorded with a much smaller orchestra, and sample libraries/synths are used to reinforce the recorded music to give the impression of a bigger ensemble. This is increasingly common, and highly recommended for mid-budget projects.

As a general rule, live musicians are extremely important to have, because the imperfections and emotional sincerity of a live recording can immediately set your music apart from most of the cookie-cutter music that’s available on the market.

5. Mixing and Mastering

The music is sent to an mixing engineer who I partner with, where leveling of the recorded and/or sequenced audio is done, and effects such as equalization, compression and reverb are applied to give the track the desired sonic profile.

Once this is done, the mixed track will be “mastered”, either by the same person, or by someone else who specializes specifically in mastering (recommended). This further enhances the audio, and optimizes the track to sound great on as many playback systems as possible, with the option of focusing entirely on a single playback system (i.e. cinema).

If it is part of a soundtrack, the mastering will serve to make sure that all the tracks are consistent with each other and play back at compatible volume levels, so that listeners do not feel the need to adjust sound levels between tracks.

6. A Dose of Reality

Quality costs money. If you are into the cheap and fast, that’s totally ok. I would recommend in that case that you patronize stock music libraries that are readily available online. They are a fantastic resource for people who do not have the budget or the inclination to hire a skilled composer to create a custom soundtrack.

Custom soundtracks are not always necessary, but when they are, it’s not advisable to cut corners. Invest in quality wisely and you will reap the returns. As always, you can only have two of these three things – Cheap, Fast and Good. A contractor offering all 3 should raise some red flags.

I hope you’ve learned something from these short peeks into the process of creating customized music. If you have any questions at all, I’d be happy to answer them. Just drop me an email!(source:gamedev)