Release Autopsy
Release Autopsy: scoring Red Dust under deadline
Theo Andrade opens the books on a shipped game soundtrack: 20 pitch cues, 3 winners, the provenance sheet that closed the deal, and the invoice.
SunoFetch Editorial with Theo Andrade · 2026-06-25 · 12 min
When the developers of Red Dust, an indie survival game set in the sertão, opened their scoring search, they gave every composer the same brief and nine days. Theo Andrade shipped twenty distinct cue sketches in the first three. He won the contract. This is the complete anatomy of how, with numbers.
Red Dust (Title Theme)
72 BPM · D min · 2:09The pitch version of the title theme: a Suno v5.5 sketch. The shipped version was re-orchestrated with live strings.
- Pitch cues generated
- 20 in 3 days
- Cues advanced to rebuild
- 3
- Final delivered cues
- 14 (11 written traditionally after winning)
- Generation cost
- Less than one hour of a session quartet
- Live musicians on final score
- 6
- Provenance disclosure
- Per-cue, in the delivery sheet
“The disclosure sheet did not scare the studio. It won the contract. They had been burned by a composer who lied about samples.”
The metadata work took a full day: cue titles, ISRC-ready naming, per-cue provenance, and a rights attestation letter confirming every generated element originated from his own authenticated account under his plan's commercial terms, with model and date logged.
His advice for anyone pitching with generated sketches: disclose in writing, rebuild what wins, and never let a sketch ship unexamined. The sketch is a promise you then have to keep by hand.
Favela Dawn
82 BPM · E phry · 3:45A cue from the shipped score: generated storyboard, rebuilt orchestration, live percussion.
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