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[admin]

Here's a little about my musical tastes.

Some of the more main-stream stuff that I really enjoy fall along the lines of Linkin Park, Evanescence, and Within Temptation.

But most of the music that I really love is found on the Newgrounds Audio Portal (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/). Artists there--such as Milkman-Dan, Approaching Nirvana, and NemesisTheory--create music which, to me, is absolutely incredible. I am truly inspired by these artists, and I strive to reach that kind of perfection in my own work.

So what do you guys think? As always, I love to hear your opinions.

[Jcoaster2008]

I'm a huge fan of film music stuff. Especially music by Hans Zimmer. He manages to move me emotionally in ways that not much music does. Of course, I like tons of composer's music (recently came across Clinton Shorter's District 9 Score, which I love.)

[admin]

I absolutely agree. My music taste has expanded greatly since my first post about this. Some of my favorite stuff now includes Immediate Music, E.S. Posthumus, Steve Jablonsky, and Clint Mansell (who I forgot to mention earlier). I've also taken an obsession to the songs "Dice" by Finley Quaye, "Listen to your Heart" by D.H.T (ft Edmee), and a lot of other stuff.

Btw, Bond is an incredible classical crossover artist. You should check them out at http://www.last.fm/music/Bond.

[admin]

Oh, btw, I noticed on your profile you mentioned that you compose music also! That's awesome; it's always nice to speak with a fellow musician.

I went to your website, and I must say, I'm impressed! I only had time to listen to a few songs, but the ones I did listen to all sounded great. I found it equally impressive that you also create your own short films and have a very active community forum on your site! Wow, it seems like you've achieved so much more than me even though you are two years younger. (Btw, if you ever are too lazy to score one of your own films, I'd be more than happy to let you use some of my tracks in your films.)

Ok, now I am intrigued. Especially because we seem to have so many similarities. How do you produce your music and promote your music? It seems like we could share some ideas and mutually benefit from it.

Ray Li

[Jcoaster2008]

Well, for production, I do the composing in Cubase Studio 5, and have EWQLSO Silver (for orchestra), Stormdrum 2 and Tonehammer Epic Dhol (Awesome) for percussion, and then Native Instruments FM8 for synth stuff. (Sold my cello to buy all that.) I think a major difference is that I've had music lessons for piano and cello for 8 years (and played percussion in pit in maching band).

As for promotion, I've only really recently started doing promotion (but my plays have dramatically increased, so I guess it's helping). Mostly, I've just been using my Facebook fan page and twitter to promote stuff, but I just sent it in to a bunch of indie internet radio stations, and a ton of indie music blogs as well, hoping they'll like it.

I've seen your music all over the place, and I was wondering what your means of digital distribution is. Right now I'm simply using bandcamp, but I'm planning on using CD Baby to get my music out there more.

[admin]

Well, for production, I do the composing in Cubase Studio 5, and have EWQLSO Silver (for orchestra), Stormdrum 2 and Tonehammer Epic Dhol (Awesome) for percussion, and then Native Instruments FM8 for synth stuff. (Sold my cello to buy all that.)

Cool. Selling your cello really shows your dedication. I sold a bunch of videogames to buy my software .

I think a major difference is that I've had music lessons for piano and cello for 8 years (and played percussion in pit in maching band).

Yea, I definitely regret not taking piano lessons as a kid. Although I might start soon! Right now I am practicing a lot of vocals actually, because I might start incorporating lyrics into some of my stuff to increase the variety of my songs.

I just sent it in to a bunch of indie internet radio stations, and a ton of indie music blogs as well, hoping they'll like it.

That's a good idea. I should start doing this. Do you have any specific suggestions for any places?

I've seen your music all over the place, and I was wondering what your means of digital distribution is. Right now I'm simply using bandcamp, but I'm planning on using CD Baby to get my music out there more.

Yes, I use CDBaby. Although most of the digital distribution stuff I do myself. Like I manually listed my stuff on last.fm (a great site for promotion!), reverbnation, iLike, etc. CDBaby was really just to get onto iTunes and other online stores.

Lastly,
I noticed that you were hired to score the music for the game Dirkels. How that that come about? It seems like quite an accomplishment.

[Jcoaster2008]

Well, hired really isn't the word. I was just writing music for it for free, since I didn't really have anything to work on. I've dabbled a bit in game making using Game Maker, and I'm a member of the forum there, and applied as the composer for Dirkels.

I forgot a lot of the blogs I submitted into (probably not a good idea), but I have a couple bookmarked. I mostly just googled around for "indie music blogs" and submitted to pretty much everything, hoping that maybe one will do a review or something:
http://www.hearya.com/
http://blog.welikeitindie.com/
http://www.indiemusicfilter.com/

As for online radio stations, I did the same thing, but more genre specific. Most of my stuff is Electronica/Orchestral hybrid, so I can squeeze it into trance or other EDM genres.

[admin]

Ah, alright. Well, it's still awesome that you were chosen to score the game.

Thanks for the links, I'll check 'em out .