Making Games

This is a niche side topic for most purposes, but composing (although not specifically for games) happens to be the closest thing I have to a field of expertise here, so I may as well drop the resources here.

Note that I am ass at mixing/mastering, which is a big part of sound; I'll try to dig up some resources on this, but it's a Thing. (Among other things, psychoacoustics and the peculiarities of how humans process sound, e.g. "cocktail effect" and acclimation to "loudness," mean that this is not a linear proposition.)

sound design
books
- Robin Beauchamp. Sound Design for Animation.

MUSIC THEORY & COMPOSITION
Note: for purposes of music production, I have not discussed mixing/mastering, mainly because I'm ass at it and it's still on the list of Things to Find Out 101 About.

music theory/prerequisites
Note that this is geared toward Western music theory/notation not because that's the be-all and end-all, but because most Western (classical-derived) texts will assume these as prerequisites. Ethnomusicology is a whole 'nother thing.

websites
- Musictheory.net - This will take you from reading music in treble and bass clefs through Roman numeral analysis and some introductory functional harmony. Most? of the online lessons are free. If you can learn through a website, this is a great starting place.

- Open Music Theory Version 2 - free textbook, which you can read online or download [PDF, XML]. I haven't looked at this in detail but this looks like a fairly in-depth conservatory-style theory text. Musictheory.net is probably a gentler introduction, but OMT2 covers additional/more advanced topics, e.g. species counterpoint, more on functional harmony, chromaticism, jazz (swing rhythm, blues harmony, etc.), popular music, and more.

apps
- ABRSM's Music Theory app (iPhone, Android) starts from the very basics and runs about $5, with fun drills/quizzes. It does require you to "pass" to unlock higher levels so I'm not sure how far it goes yet. Also note that it uses British? note/rest length terminology rather than American (e.g. crotchet instead of quarter note, quaver instead of eighth note).

books
- Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom by Robert Hutchison [PDF]. This is free, assumes NO knowledge of reading music or theory, and starts from zero, progressing through basic theory through form, functional harmony, and more advanced topics like counterpoint, jazz, and serialism. It's gigantic (550 pages) but really interesting.

- Eric Taylor, The AB Guide to Music Theory, Part I and Part II. Thanks to vass for the rec - these are great although compressed and very fast-moving. Part I rapidly takes you through basic theory, Part II goes through introductory orchestration. If you're someone who needs a refresher course, these are great. If you want a lot of explanation/exercises, maybe not so much.

- Edward Aldwell & Carl Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading. Heavy-duty old-school functional theory and voice leading, and probably overkill unless you really like theory. (I really like theory.)

introductory composition
By "introductory" I mean you are at "I have no idea where even to start with composing music." Some of the texts I've listed under "intermediate/advanced" (below) are "introductory" from a conservatory standpoint but not the best starting point if you are starting from zero.

books
- William Russo, Composing Music: A New Approach. Slightly unorthodox but wide-ranging introduction to the topic. Assumes that you read music and know basic theory. (If you've gone through Musictheory.net, you're set.)

websites
- How to start writing music at any age [Bloomingdale School of Music] is a nice article that runs you through an introductory lesson.

videos
- Just Write Music [YouTube] - Avi Blum's videos run the gamut, but he has some "writing a melody or harmony, how do" introductory videos as well as more advanced discussions. He's a guitarist with a conservatory background and he knows advanced theory/composition cold while having a gift for explaining things in approachable terms - full disclosure, I take composition lessons from him (Avi Blum Music), highly recommended.

intermediate/advanced composition
books
- Alan Belkin, Musical Composition: Craft and Art, a more modern approach that also addresses film/game/TV scoring considerations.

- Gregory Young and Steve Roens, Insights into Music Composition. - Some great exercises and discussions not just of craft but philosophy. That said, this does assume that you know where to start, although it's fairly gentle.

- Arnold Schoenberg, Fundamentals of Musical Composition. - A classic. Yes, I consider this ~intermediate/advanced despite the title! It assumes that you already know some basic composition and more advanced theory/terminology. The framework is (given when it was written) solidly Western classical music.

orchestration/arranging
books
- Rimsky-Korsakov, Principles of Orchestration, available for free at Project Gutenberg (public domain). In fact, the larger HTML zip file includes the musical examples. For classical orchestra, well, the instruments haven't changed!

- Paul Gilreath's The Guide to MIDI Orchestration, 4th ed. Anything this says on software is QUITE dated, but specific sequencing techniques are helpful.

game scoring specifically
- Winifred Phillips, A Composer's Guide to Game Music is the gold standard here, discussing specific techniques for game scoring as well as industry workflows, but assumes you already have a handle on "composing, what do."

SOFTWARE
middleware
If you get serious into sound design/music for video games, you're going to come up against middleware for e.g. Unity. My vague understanding is that the two dominant players here are WWISE and FMOD, but if you're at this point, you know more than I do and I hope you drop us some wisdom. :)

DAWs (digital audio workstations for music/sound)
- A roundup of free DAWs (I have only used GarageBand, Cakewalk, and Audacity).

- Cubase (Windows, Mac) - I use Cubase Pro 13, which is spendy and hardcore, but my main hobby is music composition/production.

- GarageBand - look, if you're a Mac user, you already have this.

- Cockos Reaper (Windows, Mac, Linux) is $60 for the discounted license. If you like customizing EVERYTHING, scripting capability, and are a Linux power user type, you may enjoy this.

I also note that some people in game audio like Reaper because it is EXTREMELY scriptable, which makes a huge difference (I'm told) when you are batch-processing hundreds of sound files.

Instrument VSTs for music
Note: I suspect most of these will run in Windows and Mac for sure. I'm not a Linux user but I also suspect there's much less support for that. Decent Samples has a free VST host that does claim to run on Linux, although I have not verified this.

free options
- Decent Samples - very quirky/fun selection, including a lot of low-cost and some free instruments. These run in their free host (Windows, Mac, Linux).

- Spitfire LABS - quirky selection, but hey, free. These run in Spitfire's free host.

- Spitfire BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover is free; limited articulations, but will get you started. These run in Spitfire's free host.

- Orchestral Tools SINEfactory has a smaller selection. These run in OT's free SINE host.

- Native Instruments Komplete Start has a selection of effects and instruments to get you started. These run in NI's Kontakt 7 Player, which is free. (Kontakt 7 Player = free, Kontakt 7 = paid, I know it's confusing.)

GIANT CAVEAT: there are many free VSTs out there, but also many of them use the full version of Kontakt as a host, and that's NOT free. Kontakt 7 (full version) normally runs $300 (currently $150) on sale. The pricier Komplete 14 Standard is a bundle, normally $600 (currently $300 on sale), that includes Kontakt 7 and a ton of other synths and instruments. If the instruments/synths are useful to you, and you can swing the $$$, Komplete 14 Standard may be the better way to also get Kontakt 7; among other things, NI tends to give VERY generous/discounted upgrade paths if you later decide you want a fancier/more up-to-date version of Komplete.

Note that a lot of sampled instrument VST makers have a few free VST instruments lying around if you poke around their websites; alternately, Googling "free [instrument] VST" will often turn something up.

There are five zillion free synth VSTs. Googling "free synth VST" is your best bet. Ditto effects (reverb, equalizer, limiter, compressor, etc.). I'm not an expert in mixing/mastering so I'll leave it there.

paid options
Look, if you're getting into orchestral/cinematic, just ping me with your specs and I'll talk you through the current options. :]

"Wet" = recorded with some built-in reverb from the sound stage/recording environment, "dry" = recorded with minimal reverb so you'll typically have to add it yourself.

Some players in the sampled orchestral/cinematic library VST space, by no means a complete list:
- 8dio (cinematic, quirkier libraries)
- Cinesamples
- EastWest (cinematic, very wet)
- Heavyocity (cinematic/modern orchestral instruments, some cinematic/modern percussion)
- Impact Soundworks (some interesting non-Western-tradition options, dry)
- Musio (somewhat eclectic, but interesting smorgasbord of options)
- Native Instrument (they've got something for everything)
- Orchestral Tools (glorious orchestral stuff, very wet, but also RAM hogs)
- Soniccouture (some interesting boutique stuff)
- Soundiron (some interesting boutique stuff)
- Spitfire Audio (tons of orchestral libraries aimed at scoring, somewhat wet)
- Vienna Symphonic Library (very spendy and considered professional-level, even I don't go here, dry)

software: sound effects/Foley
Forthcoming. I picked up some software from Krotos Audio but haven't had a chance to play with it yet.