Maquis

*Reflects lazeeeer with glass harp* *Counter-attacks with string ensemble glissando!!!*

So many people have commented on that that I'm sure it's not a fluke... but it's funny since I've never played Final Fantasy 7 before. I've listened to the Voices of the Lifestream project, and that's as close as I've gotten to the soundtrack. A friend of mine even asked if it was based on Aeris's theme, which surprised me, because I have heard the original for that, and it's really not very similar. Ah well. There are probably worse comparisons people could make than Nobuo Uematsu. Glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you like the upcoming theme.

Gaaaaaaaaah, someone was selling Symphonic Choirs on eBay (along with Colossus and Ra), but the bidding went out of my price range. Going to have to wait until East West finishes converting them to the PLAY engine, because they've discontinued the Kontakt versions. I'll also have to wait until I have more money... My next purchase is probably going to be EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Silver, since it does include a few extras that are missing from the Gold version, and paying for the upgrade works out to a net loss of only $40 or so. Plus, I want to make sure I know how well it'll work with my current setup before I throw $600 at a new sample library.

Wow, thanks, everybody! I'm thrilled! This was a great field of competition, and I loved listening to everybody's work. I learned a lot by listening to these pieces at a deep enough level to evaluate them, and I also appreciate the feedback everyone gave on my humble offering. I am hoping to upgrade my samples soon - been looking at Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra; just have to figure out what level I can afford. And, Ubernym, thanks! Glad to hear it tested so well with your focus group! Strangely enough, I didn't come up with the story until after I had finished the music, and I was surprised myself how well it matched up. I really liked the sheer variety in approaches to this theme. I hope there'll be a similar turnout for the next theme, which I have just submitted to Abadoss. I'm excited for the next round!

I voted 2008! Had to split my PM into two messages since my commentary was too long. I also limited myself to three honorable mentions; my difficulty was that I had two pieces I wanted to give first place.

I haven't gotten through all of them yet, but I certainly agree - very high quality here, and there have been a lot of very different takes on the theme. This is going to be tricky to judge.

I could always whip up another one...

I will find an opportunity to vote if grading freshman composition hasn't killed me by then. English composition that is. Not music, unfortunately. Though who knows, that might be worse.

Never mind.

And my entry's away! Really looking forward to hearing everybody's music.

Hi there, been a while since I've swung through the forums, but I saw the theme and inspiration struck. Expect a piece from me, too.

Got some ideas; it'll just be a question of sitting down and trying to make them work together. Had to do some marathon composing last month, but I should be re-fueled by now.

Okay, thanks. I'll still look forward to hearing everybody's submissions! And, as for length, I know the minimum is two minutes. The longest piece I remember being in this competition was eight minutes, and several reviewers said that it really didn't have enough substance to justify the length. It was hard to listen to it without losing interest - it actually would have been a much stronger piece if the composer had cut out a lot of the repetition that made it that long. If your piece is ten minutes long because it has the material to fill ten minutes, I think we'll all be impressed! Otherwise, you might want to make sure you don't have long passages that interrupt the flow or the energy of the piece or long periods of repetition that keep you from getting from one idea to the next.

Is it okay to enter a piece I composed for another purpose? I just finished producing a soundtrack for a radio drama at school, and one of the tracks would fit the theme. The track in question was produced within the time of this competition. I hold the rights to the music and the drama, which was my senior project, so copyright isn't an issue.

Hmm, just in time for Pirates of the Caribbean, too. Loving the theme, and hoping I'll have the time to work on something, even if I'm stuck with general MIDI again.

Aye, I can't access them, either. Sorry, Alex, I very nearly suffered the same fate because of my hardware difficulties. As it was, I was limited to General MIDI instruments. >_< However, on first listen-through, I like your piece, and I'm definitely going to add comments to it when I vote.

Ack. I still haven't been able to repair my laptop, and and I'm running low on free time. Looks like I probably won't have anything ready by the Saturday. Edit: Check that. I've had a rush of inspiration, probably borne of procrastinating on other things. It's not quite everything I had hoped it would be, but at least it'll be submittable.

Well, I certainly was planning on doing something, but now my laptop, which has all my music software, is having a case of RAM failure. Hopefully I'll be able to get it fixed soon enough to play.

Wow, thank you everyone who voted! I'm surprised and thrilled - there was some very good competition, and I know it was really tough for me to pick a favorite. I love the idea of this competition. I've been sequencing MIDIs for several years now, and I just bought Sonar Home Studio a month ago with hopes of seriously upgrading my music. This is just the sort of thing I like to do with my compositions - express an idea, a story, a character. It's a great way to learn, especially with the constructive crits at the end. I've got a few ideas for the theme, so I'll make up my mind and PM one to Abadoss soon. See you next round!

I've just submitted mine. It's my very first composition in Sonar Home Studio, and I would have liked to give it a bit more work, but I'm way too busy tomorrow. Good luck to all, and I look forward to listening to everybody's music!

So here I was, looking forward to making my OCRemix debut through this month's CMC, thinking I'll come out pretty well as long as I don't have to do some sort of electronica... Screw it. I'm doing an orchestrated piece. And I'm going to make it work. Somehow.