[Recruitment] Looking for a musician for Touhou Mecha VN

[Graph]

Hello all, it's been over a year since the last installment of my webcomic, Touhou Mecha.  I've been busy working on the visuals for Eastern Starlight Romance for a while, but that's done until we get closer to the final release of ESR (That means writing has to happen first).

For those of you who haven't heard, I'm turning that webcomic of mine into a VN project!
Info and screenshots here.


Now then, the point is that I'm looking for a musician to compose a few pieces for this upcoming VN project, Touhou Mecha. As I understand it the musicians who worked on DSD's other project, Eastern Starlight Romance, are pretty busy at the moment, so I'm seeing if someone else wants to take on this one.  I was planning to announce it publicly on the DSD blog, but first I thought I'd see if I can reel in someone who knows what Touhou is about.

Bearing in mind that this is not going to be a commercial product, I'm willing to pay a small commission for the work; something like 20 to 35 US dollars per song, depending on the length. Naturally, my standards will be higher if you take this one for commission.

Although our group's previous project had a soundtrack almost entirely made of arrangements (source being the Touhou Project shooting games), you can do all original compositions for this one if you want. As for what kind of pieces I want, I'm looking for something you might hear in a mecha anime, the rare mecha VN (like Muvluv Alternative) or Super Robot Wars. I'm leaving the overall music genre up to the composer; Rock, Orchestra, Techno, anything that can take on a "military" edge.  It's probably fine so long as it doesn't sound overtly 80's like Mazinger.

Definitely want someone who can do an energetic action piece suitable for gunfire exchange and explosions. I'd say the general tone of the story is somewhere between Super Robot Wars (pretty upbeat) and the lighter side of Gundam (like Gundam X. I'm pretty sure it won't have two-thirds of the cast killed off like in Zeta). If you want to make the call yourself, I have a working demo of the game with placeholder art so you know exactly what's going on in the story. For the first installment of the VN, I think it can use somewhere between 5 and 8 songs.

If you're interested please post in this topic, or send me a PM on these forums or on the DSD forums.  If you want to speed things along, put up some samples of your work as well.

Thanks for your time.  I'm looking forward to everyone's replies.


EDIT: General list of songs I have in mind for the first Chapter:

-Utsuho's theme (not necessarily Nuclear Fusion or even a Touhou arrange.  It shows during victorious moments)
-Enemy attack
-A storm is brewing (grand, dangerous feeling; war)
-The usual business
-Tension (politics, negotiation)
-Bad premonition (something bad is going to happen soon)
-Mystical (godlike presence)
-Idle talk, relaxing

[Zengar Zombolt]

OH BOY.
Excuse me for jumping in here without offering to do something but I heard about this thing coming off the ground a while ago and didn't have the chance to say FUCK YEAH in your face until now.
So yeah.
FUCK YEAH
:getdown:

[DX7.EP]

Hm, this sounds quite interesting!

I'd definitely consider writing a few tracks for this, though now I'm rather busy with things and haven't gotten much inspiration for music lately. But usually I find original composition easier than remixing, especially when starting from scratch. I'm leaning more with a commissioned system for the music, given that.

My style generally leans towards hard rock/metal with some electronic and orchestral influence.

At the current time I've only uploaded a few redos of Touhou MIDIs done for fun and boredom back when I had a more free schedule. I may upload more of it later.

[flamezero16]

I wouldn't mind takin a crack at it, but i'm afraid i'm out of commision as far as recording for the time being xD If the project is still active in a few months, i'll drop a line~ As with the last guy, i'm more of a metal/rock enthusiast, though I also love adding classical elements to my music.

[Ex-Nue]

I'm pretty interested. I have a couple of completed tracks that you could probably use.

Link

If there's any you like to use, pm me a list and I'll email you the tracks. 

[Graph]

Hi all, thanks for stopping by.

あややや: I'll wait until you've got something you want to show, but in case it wasn't obvious, no MIDIs.

flamezero: Your guitar arrangements are pretty impressive.  If you're still up for it by the time you can record again, I'll gladly let you on the dev team.  If you're wondering about the timeframe, I'm planning to be done with the first Chapter's art early next year (January or February).  But getting onboard later works too, since I think there'll be room for more emotional songs as the story progresses.

Ex-Nue: Pretty good.  From what I've heard in your sample work (10 songs or so) I can probably pick out something for the more aggressive side of the soundtrack.  I'm thinking 2 out of the 8 max for this Chapter's music.  ( For an enemy attack, and a "bad premonition" theme )  When I have a better idea of who's contributing, I'll go through the list and let you know which ones I'd like to use.

At this point I might as well mention what I have in mind for the first Chapter.  Let me know if you'd like more details on how they're used in general, but I'll only mention specific usage in the game if you get on the dev team.

-Utsuho's theme (not necessarily Nuclear Fusion or even a Touhou arrange.  It shows during victorious moments)
-Enemy attack
-A storm is brewing (grand, dangerous feeling; war)
-The usual business
-Tension (politics, negotiation)
-Bad premonition (something bad is going to happen soon)
-Mystical (godlike presence)
-Idle talk, relaxing

[DX7.EP]

あややや: I'll wait until you've got something you want to show, but in case it wasn't obvious, no MIDIs.

That makes sense, completely understandable for the first part. :V

Heh, don't come in thinking it'll be another MSGS Synth work. I've got tools and synths to mitigate the effect.

[Anunsew]

Mecha yay!

I'd like to contribute something, but I'm not really familiar around mecha themes...
I've watched Gundam Wing a long time ago; are you looking for tracks like in Wing?

[Graph]

Anunsew: Gundam Wing is fine.  In general I'm leaving the genre of music up to the musician, but I'd like the soundtrack to feel somewhat consistent overall, which will come into play if we get multiple contributors.  That's why for now I'm seeing who'll be able to make something within the next few months. (that would be Ex-Nue so far)

[flamezero16]

Well, it's really more of a matter of me not bein able to record acoustic stuff. Which shouldn't be too much of an issue for somthin like this xD I should have some kind of sample up tonight or over the weekend. Coincidentally though, Nue~ I seem to be lacking a drum/bass player, would ya care to collaborate on a few songs for this? It wouldn't really be the style your present stuff fits into, but Ifin ya need a guitar player for any of your current songs, I'd be happy to help with that as well.

[Graph]

I've let flamezero onboard the Touhou Mecha project team.

Anyone want to take on his collab offer and put in drums and bass?  I got a nice rock guitar segment based on Hellfire Mantle from him; you'd be working with something like this:

http://www.4shared.com/audio/HS2EKkHB/Helios_Sample.html

[flamezero16]

Here's an updated sample with the backtrack I've been messin with. If anyone wants to take a crack at it, the first section is 120bpm 4/4 time. And the second part is 480bpm in 3/4 time.  Have fun~

http://www.4shared.com/audio/ERngnF6L/Helios_Sample_1.html

[Ex-Nue]

Well, it's really more of a matter of me not bein able to record acoustic stuff. Which shouldn't be too much of an issue for somthin like this xD I should have some kind of sample up tonight or over the weekend. Coincidentally though, Nue~ I seem to be lacking a drum/bass player, would ya care to collaborate on a few songs for this? It wouldn't really be the style your present stuff fits into, but Ifin ya need a guitar player for any of your current songs, I'd be happy to help with that as well.

Yes, would like to collaborate. Sorry about the late reply but I gonna be offline for a while so I won't be able to send anything. :/ I'm not even at home right now. :/

[Anunsew]

War theme contribution

My contribution for the "Storm is brewing theme". I've always wanted to make a theme like this, but never got any chance to do so until now. :3
I hope this one fits this VN's needs.

It's a marching, ambience theme. Like the one's used in movies just before a big battle or something. Or at least, that's how I wanted it to be.

It's designed to hard loop, so it doesn't have any fadeouts or resting time.

nowlemmetrysomethingcompletelydifferent...

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Anunsew: That's a good start, it's got about the right mood.  I'll have to wait until a few more pieces come in to make this call, but I wonder if it's possible to make the synth sound a little less flat-- I think it stands out the most with the vocals.  (It might just be because the notes are held for a long time, which is why I'm not sure yet).

Though I'm basically waiting to see what Nue does about the collab, I'll keep my call for music open a bit longer.  I'm thankful that it's pretty active in here despite it being in the midst of the school year, so I probably won't have to bring my request outside of the Touhou community.  Touhou Mecha has been driven by the zeal of the fans since its beginning, and I'd like to keep it that way as long as possible.  Keep rockin'!

[Anunsew]

War theme (re-eq'd)
This one focuses on the vocals a bit more.

My try at a bad premonition theme.
Okay, maybe it's a bit cliched.

I'm going to try something more energetic next.

[Graph]

Anunsew: The war theme sounds a bit better, I think.  It's kind of a subtle difference.

You actually got an interesting bad premonition theme there.  It's got a real drama/ suspense thriller feeling that reminds me of the Ghost Trick OST.  It seems like this soundtrack may get pretty eclectic, but that should be fine to a point.  I'll just have to see once we have entries for most of them.


A little announcement, I'm going to be heading overseas for the next couple of weeks to visit relatives and sightsee, so my replies to this topic may be a little more sporadic depending on the availability of wi-fi.