Biography
Born into a musical family in Atlanta, GA, Melin began playing piano at age 7 and picked up other instruments, including violin, guitar, and percussion while participating in school orchestras and choirs. Melin attended Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA, earning a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance. During this time, he began scoring his own personal projects, as well as writing for music libraries and independent video games. [3] Afterwards, Melin obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Music Composition for the Screen at Columbia College Chicago in Chicago. While enrolled in Columbia College Chicago, Melin worked as an intern for Joel Goodman in Los Angeles, where he helped score new films and create temporary tracks using music from Joel's archive of compositions. After meeting composer and orchestrator Penka Kouneva, Steven accepted a part-time, assistant position and returned to Georgia where he married and started a family. [5]
Some of Melin's primary musical influences include video game music composers David Wise, Nobuo Uematsu, and Koji Kondo. Over the course of his career, Melin has collaborated with composers including Hitoshi Sakimoto, David Wise, Grant Kirkhope, Yuzo Koshiro, Garry Schyman, and Austin Wintory. [6] In 2013, Melin began working with Fool & Scholar Productions, composing Dark Dice, Liberty, The Boar Knight, and The White Vault, [3] winning awards and serving as Melin's first projects with a live choir and orchestra. [7] In television, Melin's work has been featured on shows such as The Bachelorette, Dancing with the Stars, and The Dr. Oz Show. Melin has also composed music for trailers. [2]
In the video game music industry, Melin is most known for his work on Monster Sanctuary and Beard Blade. He is also notable for creating the best-selling video game music pack Game Music Treasury, featured on game asset stores Unity Asset Store, Unreal Marketplace, Itch.io, and Game Dev Market. [8] In 2022, Melin's video game music packs were featured in a Humble Bundle audio sale that sold over 14,000 times, grossing over $320,000 in sales. [9] In the summer of 2024, Melin composed transition and logo music for the Guerilla Collective and Indie.io showcases, as part of the IGN Summer of Gaming. He is also the composer for Aethermancer, the spiritual successor to Monster Sanctuary. [3]
Melin has six children and is the author of the book “Family-First Composer”, a #1 Amazon best-seller about ways for composers to support their families through a career in music composition. [3]
In January 2022, Melin launched the Video Game Music Alliance®, a community for music composers dedicated to growing skillsets in video game music composition, production, technology, and business. The curriculum of Video Game Music Alliance® focuses on building passive income sources, the nuances of working with game developers, and negotiating contracts for custom music. [8] Video Game Music Alliance® also offers peer review and virtual masterclasses with many of the leading composers in the video game music industry, including Penka Kouneva, Jeff Rona, Adam Gubman, Jack Wall, Austin Wintory, Tom Salta, Jon Everist, Brian Schmidt, Winifred Phillips, Jason Graves, Grant Kirkhope, Darren Korb, David Wise, Mike Patti, Peter Murray, and Wilbert Roget II. [10]
Melin also hosts a weekly livestream on YouTube called the Live Composing Show, where he composes music for commercial projects live for the audience and occasionally reviews sample libraries and music software. [11]
