What it is like to work with a composer

There is no list price, because a two minute menu loop and a forty minute adaptive score are not the same job. Cost is driven by four things:

• Finished minutes of music. The single biggest factor
• How many separate cues those minutes are split across (Six 2-minute pieces cost more than one 12-minute piece)
• Whether the music has to react to gameplay. See the adaptive section below
• Whether you want implementation as well as composition

Tell me your budget range in the brief form and I will tell you honestly what is achievable inside it, or say so if it is not.

Yes. Small scope is not the same as not worth doing, and a game with three strong cues that fit is better than twelve that do not.

There are real ways to make a small budget work: fewer and longer cues, a smaller instrument palette, or licensing existing tracks rather than commissioning new ones. The worst outcome is that you never ask.

Normally a deposit before work starts and the balance on delivery, with longer projects split across milestones so neither of us is carrying much risk. Invoices are issued in euros.

For a first project together, smaller milestones are often the right call. It lets both sides find out how the collaboration actually works before committing to the whole thing.

Rarely, and only alongside a real fee rather than instead of one.

If your project is genuinely exciting and the budget is genuinely not there yet, say so directly. We will look at what is possible, including a smaller scope now and more later.

The single biggest factor is not composing speed. It is how fast feedback comes back.

Earlier than most teams do. Once there is a vertical slice, or even a mood board and a playable grey box, there is enough for music to respond to.

Music written against real gameplay fits it. Music written at the end, against a deadline and a finished build, gets laid on top of it. If you are planning a trailer or a festival submission, work back from that date.

Two rounds per cue as standard, which is almost always enough when the brief is good and the sketch stage did its job.

Revisions mean refining a direction we already agreed. Changing direction entirely after approval is new work, and I will say so plainly rather than quietly absorbing it and resenting it.

That is what the sketch stage is for. Before any full cue is written I produce one or two short sketches exploring different emotional directions, at low cost and low commitment.

If none of them is right, we have found that out in days rather than months, and you can walk away having spent very little. Discovering a mismatch after a full soundtrack is the failure worth designing against.

I work remotely with teams anywhere.

Adaptive music changes with what the player is doing, rather than looping the same track regardless. It is built in layers, or in alternative states that are mixed and swapped in real time, quantised to the beat so a transition never sounds like a cut.

Not every game needs it. It earns its cost when the player spends long stretches in one space whose tension changes: exploration, stealth, survival, open world. It matters less in a linear, heavily cut-scene driven game.

Yes, and it is worth understanding why before you decide. Every layer has to work alone and work against every other layer, so a four state cue is closer to writing four related pieces than one. Then add implementation and testing in engine.

A reasonable rule of thumb: an adaptive cue costs more than a linear one of the same length, but replaces several linear cues. The totals often land closer than they first appear.

I work in FMOD and can deliver a built project rather than a folder of files, which is the part that usually falls to an already stretched programmer.

I have built adaptive systems myself, including the interactive demo on this site, and I have working experience as a full-stack developer, so I am comfortable working directly with developers. In practice that means talking to your team about parameters, transitions and build integration, rather than handing over audio and hoping.

• Final mixed cues in lossless WAV at 48kHz 24 bit, the game audio standard, plus compressed versions if you want them
• Stems: the piece split into instrument groups, so your audio team can rebalance without coming back to me, unless you want me to help and hire me for that too
• Loop points marked and tested, not left for you to guess

Naming follows whatever convention your project already uses. If you do not have one, I will propose one.

That list covers what almost every team asks for. If your engine, your pipeline or your audio lead needs something else, say so and we will work it out. Delivering music your team cannot easily use is not delivering it.

The usual arrangement: you get a perpetual, worldwide, exclusive licence to use the music in your game and its marketing, and I keep authorship and the right to feature the work in my portfolio and on streaming platforms.

Yes. A standard licence covers the game itself on every platform you ship to, including Steam, itch.io, the console stores and mobile, plus trailers, storefront material, press kits and your own social channels.

I am also happy to release the soundtrack as an album, on Steam, Bandcamp or the streaming platforms. It is good for the game and good for the music, and plenty of players discover a game that way. If you want that, say so early and we will agree how it works alongside everything else.

Not if it is handled properly, and this is worth raising before signing anything with any composer.

Claims usually happen when music has been registered with a content identification system by a distributor, without anyone thinking about the game. Tell me you want the soundtrack to be streamer safe and it will be handled that way, either by keeping it out of those systems or by whitelisting your title and its videos.

Yes. Film and documentary scoring is part of my work and there is a section of it on the home page.

The two feed each other. Writing to picture teaches you to hit an emotional beat exactly on time. Writing for games teaches you to write music that has to work in an order nobody has decided yet.

Yes, and I actively want to. Jams are fast, low risk for both sides, and one of the honest ways a composer and a team find out whether they work well together.

If you are running a jam entry and want music, get in touch, even at short notice.

Use the brief form on the home page. It goes straight to the same person, and there is no sales team in between.

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