Exilian Interviews: Eric Matyas!

[Jubal]

A Conversation With: Eric Matyas!

Your Interviewer: Jubal

Eric Matyas is a long-standing Exilian member best known as founder of SoundImage, a website that provides a free to use archive of thousands of music files, images, and sound effect clips for use in games and other projects. We sent Jubal deep into the heart of SoundImage's archives to find Eric and ask him about how this huge library got started, some of the things that have happened on his journey since, and his thoughts on the future... read on!

Jubal: Firstly, tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into producing sounds and images for people to use.

Eric: I'm really an indie filmmaker at heart...one of my goals is to make my own sci-fi and fantasy films (and for them to actually be good...lol)...but I've been playing piano and creating music compositions since I was a kid. I got my first synthesizer, a Korg Triton, quite a few years ago and was interested in maybe making ambient albums although I had no idea how to go about it. So I concentrated on learning the synth, mostly by trial and error since there wasn't much online help available, and I started recording some few pieces which sat on my hard drive for a long time. Then the DSLR revolution hit...indie filmmakers could finally obtain really good images in a way that was cost effective...so I borrowed a friend's camera and started making nature documentaries. I had never tried scoring any of my own films so I looked around online for royalty-free music and discovered Kevin MacLeod's site where he allows people to use his tracks for free with attribution. I thought, "What a great idea...I wonder if I could do this?" I contacted Kevin with some questions and he was very encouraging, so I decided to give it a try.

I didn't know anything about making a website, especially not one for sharing music files, but I found an article in which another musician recommended creating a WordPress site. He mentioned that google likes WordPress sites so I thought maybe that would make it easier for people to find my music.

The site didn't get much traffic at first, so I joined some forums for indie filmmakers and began posting weekly announcements as I released new tracks. Then, somehow, indie game developers began to find my site and use my work. They started sending me links to their finished games and writing to thank me for making my music available. That's when I realized that there was a larger audience for this than indie filmmakers. Today, most of the people who use my tracks are indie game developers and they are a great community to be involved with.

As for the images, I've been slowly teaching myself 3D modeling and animation for several years and texture images are a big part of that so I started creating them on my own. Once the game developers found me, I thought that these images might be helpful as well so I began expanding the site to include them. They're really meant to be building blocks rather than finished textures. 

The SoundImage homepage.

Jubal: On your about page, you say that you're a great believer in the "democratization of media". Can you tell us a bit more about that, and the vision behind SoundImage as a site?

Eric: The vision of Soundimage has always been to make good-sounding music and other assets available to anyone regardless of their budget. Call me an idealist, but I think anyone should be able to produce quality creative work, connect with an audience and be paid for their efforts without having to raise enormous amounts of money to do so. Here in the U.S., popular media is controlled by a handful of mega corporations which, in my opinion, severely limits the range of content that's available for consumers. On a more philosophical level, we face many daunting problems as a species and I think the world needs more creative problem-solvers so I support anyone who is doing creative work.

Jubal: Did you have any idea when you started how big an archive the site was going to end up with?

Eric: I started the site with 100 tracks and tried to add one new track every day. I had looked at Kevin's site which had over 1000 tracks at the time and it really blew my mind so I decided to try to work toward that. Then I started adding other things, like texture images, and the site grew pretty rapidly. I think it's getting a bit out of control now... lol!

Jubal: Have you had any problems with capacity or hosting costs as the site has grown?

Eric: Not really. My hosting service doesn't limit the number of files I can upload, but they do restrict the file sizes. That's why my music tracks are in MP3 format...the original WAV files are usually too large. 

Jubal: What's your favourite track you've composed, and why?

Eric: I don't really have a favorite, per se, but I like "Stratosphere" from my Aerial/Drone page a lot. I thought it came out really well.

Jubal: ...and what's the most surprising use you've seen someone put SoundImage's files to?

Eric: I don't know about surprising, but one of the projects I've seen that I feel the very proud about is a documentary about a struggling wildlife rehabilitation center in South Africa. Here's a link if anyone is interested:[/size]

Jubal: What other projects have you become involved in via SoundImage - have there been any particular highlights or failures of those?

Eric: Well, more and more indie game developers are hiring me to create custom music and sound effects for them because I can do it so affordably. The synthesizers I use (there are 3 of them now) are built for rapid music creation so tracks that might take days to create can be done in a matter of hours. In that sense, I guess the website is like a giant demo reel.

I'm very passionate about science, so I've been combining that with my love of filmmaking and creating short films that teach kids environmental stewardship in a fun way through stories and characters rather than as informational documentaries. In essence, I'm taking learning concepts and building stories around them that kids can relate to. I've done seven films so far and am working on two more this fall. The organization I made them for uses them all the time with visitors, but schools have started using the films in their classrooms as well which is really cool too. One school district even put together a team of educators and created their own curriculum based on the films. So now I'm working on creating my own activities and things to share with the rest of the world. Eventually I'd like to create software and make the whole thing an interactive learning world. It's all experimental at this point so it will be interesting to see where it leads, if anywhere, but I love the idea that the films can be used for years and years rather than being watched once and forgotten.

Three out of the many texture and image files found on SoundImage.

Jubal: Smaller creators continually worry about things from a financial perspective, and your work is very much part of that scene. Do you worry, though, that free repositories like yours mean fewer opportunities for smaller scale paid texture artists or composers?

Eric: As I said, I do paid tracks as well, at pretty low cost, so I'm one of those smaller-scale paid composers. Do my free tracks take business away from my paid work? I honestly don't know, but a lot of folks who use my free assets seem to be indie game developers and filmmakers who are learning or just starting out...often one or two-person teams...and original custom assets can be prohibitively expensive for them...especially music. The current going-rate for custom music (I am told) is $100 per finished minute of music which, in my opinion, just isn't doable for a lot of people. I certainly couldn't afford it for my films. I'm not saying that composers shouldn't be properly compensated...they absolutely should...but content creators who are just starting out probably can't afford them anyway, so I don't see free music as taking away business. Looking to the future, I imagine there will always be people who will opt for free assets as well as those who will raise the necessary funds to pay for them. 

Jubal: SoundImage has its own license which is a variant on a creative commons license - was it difficult for you to produce that, and what would you advise to anyone who might want to produce similar open-with-restrictions type licenses for their work.

Eric: My license was very easy to create because it was identical to the creative commons license...I simply added a restriction that prohibits my music and such from being used in works that are obscene or pornographic in nature. I think that anyone considering doing something like this should think about situations in which they don't want their work being used and be very clear about it.

Jubal: Do you think there's space for SoundImage's model to be used more widely and for more photographers and composers to start open media archives like yours? Do you think there'd be any scale issues if many more people tried to do so?

Eric: I think sharing assets is a great way to network with creative people. As for scale issues, I really don't know, but the internet is a pretty big place so I would hope that there's room for everyone.

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/eric-matyas/still-of-night[/soundcloud]
One of Eric's tracks, Still of Night, from his Urban collection.


Jubal: Finally, any upcoming plans for SoundImage - what can we look forward to seeing more of?

Eric: Besides using my music in their games, developers have written to me and said they enjoy listening to my tracks while they work on their projects. Some have even said that my music inspired them or gave them ideas for games which is great. With that in mind, I may put together some albums and make them available for a small fee. I've also had requests for the original super high quality WAV recordings of my tracks, so I'm looking at doing something similar with those as well. If you think the MP3 tracks sound good, wait until you hear the original WAV versions!

As I said, I'm really a filmmaker at heart and shooting footage is something I love to do... whether it's for my own films or just to explore the world through my lens...so I'd like to see if there might be a need for that. I've visited some stock footage sites while working on my own projects and the prices seem pretty prohibitive so perhaps that's something I can help with in a way that's actually affordable.

On the graphics side of things, I've started experimenting with other kinds of game art besides textures...backgrounds and sprite objects mostly...but I'm always trying to find out what kinds of things might be useful to the community. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

Jubal: It's been great talking to you! Thanks for doing this and best of luck with everything in SoundImage's future.

Eric: Thanks for having me on your website...I sincerely hope that some of my work is helpful to everyone. Keep being creative! 




Eric Matyas' work is free to use with attribution in both commercial and non-commercial projects: non-attribution licenses can also be purchased. You can get updates on new work from Eric via his forum threads for music/sound effects, textures, and game art, or via his twitter @EricMatyas. We hope you enjoyed this interview, and do stay tuned for more interviews and other articles in the near future!

[Tusky]

Fantastic interview. Thanks jubal and Eric.

Really awesome to learn more about the site and your motivations.
I have listened to your tracks on more than one occasion for a little inspiration

Keep up the amazing work!

[Eric Matyas]

Fantastic interview. Thanks jubal and Eric.

Really awesome to learn more about the site and your motivations.
I have listened to your tracks on more than one occasion for a little inspiration

Keep up the amazing work!

Glad it was helpful!  :-)