Calum

ah i didn't think it was too cheesy or epicish - i thought it was pretty suitable and subtle if a little grandiose and sinister. I liked the solo voices. OK some of those horn lines are pretty cheesy epic film music BUUUUT. I liked it. It was slow, tense and had a great atmosphere. Looking forward to some more in the new year!

The electric piano is real muddy to me - i think it gets over shadowed by the bass which is a little to loud to me. Maybe boost the high end of the evp88 or use a quite bright piano sound. It's also because the bass is quite high that it's in the range of the low chords in the evp88. The sax playing and recording sounded pretty good to me - although it's clear that it's the only live instrument (correct if my wrong though) - it sounds like it's in a different place to the other instruments. A really reverb on the master might fix that. Or perhaps rev on the sax as it sounds quite dry. Maybe a little spacialisation might help - might make the evp88 a little more distinct. Sounds like sax (center) bass (centre/little to the right) chords (center) drums (left-ish). It's a strange spatialisation. Consider - sax (center/maybe little to the right or double track hard left & right), bass (center), drums (center), chords (left). The arrangement was alright - pretty faithful to the original but with a little swing and some melody interpretation. Some of the walking bass notes i felt were a little off. The drum writing was generally pretty good i thought. The ending was a little cheesy but alright That's all i've got to say really. If I were doing this, i'd probably add another keys (maybe real piano or a pad or something different) track and pan that the opposite side of the electric piano, put the bass down an octave and make it a little less busy and turn it down a little. The drums were generally alright could do with a slightly more present snare - i know it was a brushes kit but i felt like it was kinda just washing away in the background. OK i've probably said more than enough. P.S. This is a personal thing but try building up huge chords multi-tracking your sax - i've always had a thing with huuuge scrunchy sax chords Obviously you don't have to do this!

Thank Gallen - these seem like some good resources. I've been having a little scan Although i think he uses examples from his own pieces a lot (all of the string quartets and stuff) and i'm not a huge fan of what i've heard. Nethertheless, i'm sure there's a ton to be learnt from it all.

These are all fair comments - it was one of the first things i did on the piece and i guess i got a little complacent. The way i imagined it was sort of like the drum beat from cantaloupe island which has a snare click on every beat. Dissidia - you're right it is very present in terms of freq+vol so i could back it a little more background and it could also do with a little more rhythmic interest. Thanks guys.

oh contra, huh - really honky! The bassoon encapsulates the owl's (at least this owl) character so much it's unbelievable. The second part of this melody reminds of me of canon in d so much so that i thought you were actually gonna drop that in there! Possible remix in there maybe What can we expect from the deku tree?

Yes, yes - i'm definitely here I'm enjoying the owl theme - is the main instrument a bass clarinet? bassoon? Enjoyed the woodwind chords - sounded pretty medieval at times, spesh with the harp. This one was nice - and the string harmonics (right?) at the end too.

A jazz/bossa number for an iphone game inspired by the sims - sounds a lot like 'cantaloupe island' Hope you enjoy http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen/duties-of-the-white-house p.s. - it's a loop so it stops suddenly.

also Rekcahdam's Gimme My Sword (can't find a direct link) from 25YEARLEGEND (posted on OCR not so long ago) - it appears from 3:40 onwards - i think it's a pretty good use of it - awesome turntable scratching!

Good job on the collab guys - this reminds me of the ending themes of a lot of games - they're always brilliant - in particular "world with me" from phantasy star online (meaning world with me is particularly brilliant but it doesn't necessarily remind me of yours that much - not because it's not brilliant). I've always wanted to do a track like this - just a brilliant vocal pop song. Good integration of zelda themes - they work really well. Rambling cos i like it.

For me, the best way to make progress with music software is a good balance between experimentation and just having fun with it and knuckling down to read/watch tutorials online and hopefully get a lot out of them. The free instrument option is a really great one - there are some real good soundfonts and free synths. And there are probably a lot of hidden gems within your DAW as well. Mac format is .component i think.

Thank you - i'll have to listen to some chrono cross then - that soundtrack (and game) completely slipped under my radar despite being real popular. oh - i think it's 'cos it never came to europe (according to wikipedia) and i never sought it out!

I really dug this. Although my knowledge is pretty limited, i feel like every dubstep-ish zelda track i've ever heard has used the "hey listen" sample so i felt like that was a little uncreative - there may be some kind of reason for this that i'm totally missing but i'd heard that sample many times before. I have no specific advice on improvements - it was a nice interpretation

occasionaly i open up a virtual instrument find a preset speedily and with no real purpose and play around and something comes, if not move onto the next preset - tweak it randomly and rapidly. With my compositions i've been trying to start with a handwritten score - there are merits but more often than not i simply don't have the time. EDIT: my songs nearly always start with a chord sequence/harmonic language - harmony is usually the driving force in the stuff i write

i'm listening to this http://i.mixcloud.com/CxmS4 cos i made it

Wasn't a huge fan of the chocobo theme but i'm actually really warming to that linked song - like A LOT. I liked the battle systems of FFXIII and FFXII - FFXIII was a chore that i only played because i really wanted to like it - come to think of it maybe FFXII was as well.

Thanks swifthorn . I think a visual novel is a great medium - although you have to be careful not to get in the way of the reader's internal voice when they're playing, the lack of dominating visuals/animation means that the music is able to carry the narrative quite a bit so I didn't feel like i had to hold back too much! I'm really glad I was able to make the music regardless of where it goes

That's really strange because i've never listened to any PMM music! I guess the topic just struck me in the same kind of way as the composer of the PMM stuff. Mmm, My Oath might be my favourite. Thank you for listening Dissidia @Rukunetsu thanks so much, i'm really glad people can finally hear it

Good work with the cineharp - sounds really really good. The vocals feel a little late - they change note slightly after the beat to me. And their melody seems a little random (particularly at the beginning). I'm not sure if you're basing this on a different fairies fountain that has all these things or if it's very interpretative? I really like all the key changes, they work a treat. I think all the other stuff is very subtle and I had no problems with it at all. Good work.

Thanks Mokram, it really means a lot. For Dreams of Happiness, I was using my own cheap acoustic guitar recorded with an sm57 i think and then some samples from stormdrum 2 for the percussion (there was some really nice folky stuff among the epic drums) and EWQL pianos gold for the piano. Real DI Bass. The flutey thing was something somewhere on the EWQL Composers Complete Collection. But yeah, i really strived for live instrumentation and a really nice folky feel. I'm glad you saw a bit of windwaker in it - it's an absolute favourite of mine. You've given me a lot of stuff that i've never heard of in my work which is only a good thing! Thanks so much for the in depth feedback.

Good work again ruku! Nice to see you back on the final fantasy stuff - the FFXIII remixes were what i first fell in love with

Nice work tweek - i'd love to hear a full on remix from this! One thing - the violin melody (the main one) doesn't flow so well - i find that the quavers are a bit too detached - i imagine a real player (this was midi right?) may play this in one bow, well perhaps not. All it is is I think the rhythm was just a tiny bit jerky in that section - just needs is a little tweek in my opinion. Extend this please

A visual novel project that started here on OCR has unfortunately died today - fortunately for you though, the soundtrack I wrote is now available for free (or pay what you like, as i put a whole load of work and time into it)! It's sad that the project didn't work out but i'm glad i can finally get this music out there. http://calumbowen.bandcamp.com/album/soul-magic-original-soundtrack p.s. the tracks were designed to loop so some endings may appear a little strange

guhhh, i'm afraid the reference is lost on me. Yeah, I think I milked that one bar vocal phrase quite bit!

A project I was a part of recently dived so i'm releasing the soundtrack. Here's one track from it - a quite intense dubstep/orchestral piece which took some inspiration from the new tron soundtrack: http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen/blossoming-insanity let me know what you think.

Deku is lovely - so relaxing. What was the instrumentation for the chords?