Music for Film and Game Soundtracks with FL Studio

Music for Film and Game Soundtracks with FL Studio

by Joshua Au-Yeung
Released September 2022
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781803233291

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Book description

Create and compose production-quality music with the power of FL Studio 20 along with MuseScore and Wwise

Key Features

  • Develop widely applicable music composition techniques and create full orchestral scores
  • Leverage the power of FL Studio to create your own production-level soundtracks
  • Use cutting-edge tools to fuel your creative ideas and launch your composer career

Book Description

FL Studio is a cutting-edge software music production environment and a powerful and easy-to-use tool for composing music. In this comprehensive guide, you'll discover how to use FL Studio's tools and techniques to design exciting soundtracks for your films, TV shows, video games, and much more.

You'll start by understanding the business of composing, learning how to communicate, score, market your services, land gigs, and deliver music projects for clients like a professional. Next, you'll set up your studio environment, navigate key tools, such as the channel rack, piano roll, playlist, mixer, and browser, and export songs. The book then advances to show you how to compose orchestral music using MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) programming, with a dedicated section to string instruments. You'll create sheet music using MuseScore for live musicians to play your compositions. Later, you'll learn about the art of Foley for recording realistic sound effects, create adaptive music that changes throughout video games, and design music to trigger specific emotions, for example, scary music to terrify your listener. Finally, you'll work on a sample project that will help you prepare for your composing career.

By the end of this book, you'll be able to create professional soundtrack scores for your films and video games.

What you will learn

  • Compose production-ready music for films and video games
  • Plan and deliver a soundtrack music score for clients like a professional
  • Apply practical music theory using themes, leitmotifs, scales, and modes
  • Compose orchestral music with MIDI programming
  • Design music for specific emotions
  • Create sheet music with MuseScore, score music for films with Fruity Video Player, and make diegetic music
  • Design interactive music by leveraging horizontal resequencing and vertical remixing

Who this book is for

This book is for musicians and programmers who want to take their music composing skills to a professional level. Film directors and game designers who want to get involved in scoring music for their own productions will also find this book useful. All you need is a computer and FL Studio to get started.

Publisher resources

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Table of contents

  1. Music for Film and Game Soundtracks with FL Studio
  2. Contributors
  3. About the author
  4. About the reviewer
  5. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. Challenges associated with composing soundtracks professionally
    3. Thinking like a composer
    4. What this book covers
    5. How to get the most out of this book
    6. Download the color images
    7. Conventions used
    8. Get in touch
    9. Share Your Thoughts
  6. Part 1:The Business of Composing for Clients
  7. Chapter 1: The Business of Composing for Clients
    1. Landing your first composing gig
      1. How to establish yourself as a professional
      2. How to network
      3. What if I don't already have a portfolio of music?
    2. Preparing for meeting clients
    3. Planning a music score
      1. Composing for films
      2. Composing for video games
      3. Gathering soundtrack requirements for the design document
      4. Watching the film with the client
      5. Creating a Soundtrack Planner
      6. Researching music ideas for the project
    4. Collaborating with others
      1. Problems with collaborating
      2. Version control with Splice
    5. Advice for avoiding rookie mistakes
      1. Get the project in writing
      2. Ask for feedback
    6. The day-to-day tasks of composing
      1. How to collect music royalties
    7. Summary
  8. Part 2:Composing Tools and Techniques
  9. Chapter 2: Navigating Through the Key Features of FL Studio
    1. What is FL Studio?
      1. Get FL Studio
    2. FL Studio core tools
      1. The Channel rack
      2. Using the Piano roll
      3. The Playlist
      4. The Mixer
      5. The Browser
    3. Recording audio
    4. Exporting music
    5. Summary
  10. Chapter 3: Designing Music with Themes, Leitmotifs, and Scales
    1. Toolkit of the composer
    2. Themes, motifs, and leitmotifs
      1. Motif
      2. Theme
      3. Leitmotif
      4. How to use motifs, themes, and leitmotifs
    3. Understanding scales
      1. What is 12-tone equal temperament frequency (Hz)?
      2. Why does Western music use 12 notes?
      3. What are scales?
      4. Why are scales important for composing and how do you use scales to compose?
    4. Understanding modes
      1. How to use modes
    5. Understanding sharps and flats
    6. Using the Circle of Fifths chord wheel
    7. Summary
  11. Chapter 4: Orchestral MIDI Composing
    1. Why learn orchestral composing?
    2. Recommended orchestral tool plugins
      1. Recommended paid instrument plugins
    3. What makes instrument plugins sound real?
      1. Using velocity
      2. Using articulations
      3. Using expression
    4. Orchestral MIDI programming
      1. Composing for string instruments
      2. Tips for composing orchestral chord progressions
      3. Tips for making sampled instruments sound realistic
      4. Considerations for mixing orchestral compositions
    5. Summary
  12. Part 3:Designing Music for Films and Video Games
  13. Chapter 5: Creating Sheet Music with MuseScore, Scoring with Fruity Video Player, and Diegetic Music
    1. Creating sheet music in MuseScore from an FL Studio project
    2. Syncing music to visuals using Fruity Video Player
      1. Setting markers
      2. Setting time signatures
    3. Diegetic music (The Art of Foley) and sound effects
      1. Sound effect examples
      2. Recommended sound effect plugins
      3. Sound effect libraries
    4. Summary
  14. Chapter 6: Influencing Mood with Music and Designing Emotional Music
    1. Composing spooky music
      1. What is fear?
      2. Designing a jump scare
      3. Designing creepy music
      4. Creepy and scary music note combinations
    2. Composing music for specific moods
      1. Composing happy music
      2. Composing sad music
      3. Composing romantic music
      4. Creating tension/composing epic music for trailers
    3. Summary
  15. Chapter 7: Creating Interactive Music for Video Games with Wwise
    1. What is interactive music?
    2. Getting started with Wwise
    3. Understanding horizontal re-sequencing
      1. Implementing horizontal re-sequencing in Wwise
    4. Understanding vertical remixing
      1. Implementing vertical remixing in Wwise
      2. Creating music for vertical remixing in FL Studio
    5. Summary
  16. Chapter 8: Soundtrack Composing Templates
    1. Overcoming writer's block
    2. Soundtrack composing templates
      1. Soundtrack requirements checklist
      2. Composing music checklist
      3. Mixing music checklist
    3. Summary
    4. Share your music
    5. Next steps
    6. More from the author
      1. Video courses
      2. Social accounts
    7. A few final thoughts
    8. Conclusion
    9. Further reading
    10. Why subscribe?
  17. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Packt is searching for authors like you
    2. Share Your Thoughts

Product information

  • Title: Music for Film and Game Soundtracks with FL Studio
  • Author(s): Joshua Au-Yeung
  • Release date: September 2022
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781803233291