Meet the Game Composer: Julian

Mar 25

This month, we sit down with Julian, also known as ComposerJF, who has composed an amazing selection of music and sound effects for Advent of the Reaper. What started out as just composing the title theme has evolved into an impressive variety of music for the game. Be sure to check out his social medias at the end of the post!

What is your background in music?

I am pretty much self-taught. Learning from Youtube videos and such for more technical things, like mixing and mastering. Unlike most musicians who learn an instrument by playing numerous songs along with teacher guidance, I never really liked playing songs (except ones I really like and try to play by ear) and just improvise my own things. I do listen to quite a lot of music, and I guess I just passively absorb what I like to hear.

Music samples from several games Julian has worked on

What does your process look like?

When starting a new track for a client, I first get what they want from the track: Sad? Battle? Heroic? How long should it be? References? (I find references are one of the best ways for clients to communicate their vision.) Once I get the details and such, I usually like making a sketch with just a piano or sometimes a more rough sketch/draft with more instruments and send it in for client approval. Then, I make any edits/changes, or just continue working if all is good. I continue writing with continuous check-in approvals until it is done, and have a final approval before considering it completely finished.

When I work on my own personal pieces, it’s all the same except without the client approvals!

I use Cubase as my digital audio workstation to make and edit music. For instruments, it’s all virtual, and which ones I use depend on the project. I own many different products from different companies, so I can’t exactly specify, but I do own a chunk of sample libraries from Native Instruments’ Komplete bundle.

Physical setup is nothing special, just my computer, two speakers, headphones, and a MIDI keyboard and a sustain pedal.

Julian liked writing this one because “it’s silly and feels like a Fire Emblem support conversation”

What’s your favorite type of project to work on?

When the client likes my work, haha! I don’t really have a “type” (visual novel, TRPG, etc.), but if I have to be somewhat more specific, I definitely prefer making video game music than film music. With film, you usually have to make music according to the video and its edits, which to me feel restricted. Like, if you come up with a nice theme but then it doesn’t hit the video edits well, then you either heavily edit it into something else or just make something new. If you listen to a film score on its own, whenever there’s a sudden change, you know the music is closely following whatever’s happening on screen. I’ve heard anime does it similarly to video games, where the music is its own piece and they just edit the animation to the music (and yes, of the many anime soundtracks I’ve listened to, the tracks feel like their their own piece and not written to picture). I would love to write music for an anime one day!

“This one was interesting too as you generally don’t write battle music with sad feelings.” — Julian

Who or what would you consider to be your influences or inspiration for your style?

Hands down, Thomas Bergersen. He’s the one who got me into music, and I still follow him closely. Although a lot of his work is orchestral, he doesn’t restrict himself to a genre. He’s done electronic and ethnic. His piece “One Million Voices” showcases a lot of his inspirations mixed together masterfully into one song.

Of course there are more, but to name a few off the top of my head: Hiroyuki Sawano, Kevin Penkin, Mili, DJ Okawari, Joe Hisaishi, Kensuke Ushio, Gareth Coker, Christopher Larkin, Christopher Tin, and probably thousands more!

I’m always open to any piece of music. If I like it, I’ll continue listening to it and I guess, eventually, it’ll influence my music.

“Not Advent but I enjoyed combining orchestral and rock” — Julian

Do you have any favorite games? Especially those you liked for their music?

I mainly play competitive multiplayer games with friends (they usually don’t have fantastic soundtracks, and I am too focused on voice/gameplay) and don’t play single player games as much nowadays, but a recent one would be Stardew Valley. Really loved the charm in everything from gameplay, to characters, to art, and to music. And to top it off, it was all made by one person through blood, sweat, and tears!

Although I’ve never personally played them, I know about them:

Bloodborne (great atmosphere), Octopath Traveler (awesome pixel art), Hollow Knight, Hades, Cuphead (cool old school style), Nier Automata, Blue Archive (mobile gacha game with lots of awesome tracks), Ender Lilies, Ori and the Blind Forest, Mario Odyssey, Fire Emblem, Steins;Gate, Journey, Persona 5 and way more!

You can probably tell I don’t have favorites. There’s just too many awesome games and they all excel in their own areas! Just gotta find time to play them all.

Do you have any advice for someone who would like to work on game music? Any resources you could point to?

I think first is to get good enough at music, and then go looking for projects. With the internet, there are tons of resources available for learning, and most of which are free. The important thing is to know what you’re looking for so you can find the thing you want efficiently. Another thing is to not over learn. I have read so many articles and watched videos of a specific subject but really, all I needed was 2 or 3 and then getting my hands dirty. You think you’re productive by learning from all these different mediums, but you just need to actually do it and you’ll gain way more experience than reading/watching endless educational mediums. Like, I’ve watched dozens of 8+ hour music production streams when really I needed to sit myself down and make music myself instead of watching others’ process.