Aesthete18

We're discussing it now and we've agreed at 80 bucks. I was hoping for at least 100 but I can compromise a bit considering they are doing it themselves. I hope I'm not selling myself short here. Either way, thank you for the tips, I never even thought about an hourly rate. I'll do some research on that.

Thank you! He isn't getting paid, he is doing a commercial for a competition if I'm not mistaken. The problem is I don't know what's a reasonable price and I can't seem to find anything about it online as well. I think that's because it is pretty subjective. What do you think would be reasonable for me to charge? It's a 2:30 minute piece.

Basically, I compose soundtrack type music on FL Studio as a hobby mostly. Mid of last year, a friend of mine asked me to compose a score for his short film which I did for free as he said he didn't really have a budget and I figured since it was my first time anyway for a professional job and he is a friend, that I wouldn't mind doing it for free. He clearly was happy with it because he just hit me up again to write another composition for a commercial he is doing. He only needs one song, maybe 2 - 3 minutes long. I wanted to know how much to charge for it? Keep in mind that I'm not a professional musician and it's all self taught. How much would be reasonable? Thank you.

Tried it, doesn't sound right to me, I might be interpreting what you said wrongly. Do you mind explaining more?

I'm using Fruity Loops Studio, and I'm making a slow ambience kinda track, not sure what's the exact genre. The closest reference I can make is the group Halogen. Their track Millicent has kinda drums that I'm looking for. You can hear the track I was just wondering if there are any tips or tutorial links anyone can provide, maybe some samples that I can download? Most of what I find on youtube are the fast type of DnB, probably because I don't know the genre so if anyone can point out the genre that'd be great too.

Hey Amatoren your advice on asking a conductor makes a lot of sense, I would not have thought of that thanks i'll keep that in mind. Also the tip on using a reference is a good idea, I'm trying but it's a little hard for me to pick apart the sounds, I always feel like I'm not hearing something. Maybe my ears are not trained yet but I'll keep at it. Thanks for the notes!

Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but I did try looking for it first before posting here. Came across a forum with the same question and someone provided the link but the site of that link didn't exist anymore.

I'm not educated in the music field as well and I find it really hard to understand technical stuff. But what I generally do is come up a main melody. It can be simple one within one bar or four bars even and just build my song around it. Try listening to compositions on youtube from soundtracks and what not. One of the melodies I really love is from James Newton Howard in the Lady in the Water soundtrack, I really felt the emotions in the main melody of the songs. You could try watching a movie and writing a song about it after, or looking at pictures, I'd suggest Deviantart for that. This would help bring out some emotions. Let me know if you post anything on here, I'd like to hear it.

Anyone know where I can find a free vocal sample of that sound. I'm making a track using Shamisen and I want to incorporate that sound like the Yoshida Brothers do?

@Dominus Vobiscum I don't understand, the sound of dial-up modem? as in the static sound? What is the relevance of it? I wanted to add more sounds but my RAM was acting up, so I had to make do. I've already mixed the track to the best I can, I'll try your suggestion in the future. Thanks this will be helpful for my next track.

Either is fine with me but I'd prefer email. Could you send me a message with your email address or post it here if you don't mind. I'll have the tracks to you day after tomorrow, I won't have access to my computer tomorrow.

@jackjresq Yeah I would really appreciate that but how? Do I send you the .flp? are you using fruity loops as well? I just finished it, and my first attempt at mixing was not very satisfying.

@SwadianFC I don't generally use reverb and I'm still trying to learn FL Eqs which I heard are not that bad. I will probably end up looking into Ozone i've heard it's very good for mastering? Either way, thanks for sharing. @jackjresq Very good advice. Good thing I just watched a video on frequencies before reading this or I would not have understood a word you said. I will use your tips as reference and will check out the video. Thank you, it's starting to make a little sense now or at the very least I can understand what is being said. Perhaps I will post my track here when I'm satisfied with tweeking it.

Hi there, glad I finally found a forum that has soundtrack music genre composers. I've always had problems mixing and mastering as I do not really understand EQ and compression (I believe these are used to master a track). Anyways, I will start off with the easy question. I'm using Fruity Loops Studio for my compositions and my main plugins are Stormdrum, Nexus and Miroslav Philharmonik. My first question is with regards to a track I just finished. I'm hoping it can be a reference for future work in terms of mixing/mastering. In the track, I use piano, drums, cello, violin, cello stacc and choir. What I want to know is which is suppose to be louder and lower, for instance, should the cello be lower in volume and violin louder, etc. Is there like a general formula for it? I know there is one for beat making as that's all I'm able to find on youtube. My second question is with mastering. I know it is a very subjective thing, but since I don't know the basics, is there any good articles or material that are easy to read for someone without knowledge on music theory? Any advice would be appreciated.