As a constant companion, VGM has been a soundtrack to my life.

How did you discover the VGM community?

I grew up with VGM, and some of my first experiences as a kid on the Internet were searching for and playing around with MIDIs from games like Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger downloaded over a 56k modem. By the time MP3s started getting popular, I was listening to many of the songs from OverClocked Remix as well as CDs featuring fully orchestrated versions of video game music. These songs took the source material and really elevated it in a way that rivaled television and movie soundtracks.

For decades, I have listened to VGM in the background as I read, studied, and worked, and it helped provide me motivation and focus all the way through grad school, the start of my career, and my own projects. As a constant companion, VGM has been a soundtrack to my life.

By 2015, I remember searching YouTube for Mass Effect 2 music and hearing some awesome metal versions, eventually coming across LittleVMills and listening to his "Metal Effect" album. I then went back through his YouTube videos, and while going through them, I came across one announcing that he was starting a Patreon page.

Just as I had enjoyed his music and the music that so many others had created over the years, I thought that perhaps this could be a way of giving back and being part of something that was so important to me. So around 2015, inspired by my love of the Hunger Games and Mass Effect franchises, I created my Patreon account under the name Mockingjay N7 and began supporting LittleVMills and others in the VGM community on Patreon.

I eventually learned of MAGFest (Music and Gaming Festival) and met not only LittleVMills there, but also met many others in the VGM community, and I have supported many of them ever since.