Sil
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All I'm saying is that you can't hold small-ensemble stuff up to the same "realism" standard as large-ensemble stuff, which makes sense considering realism isn't the end goal in the first place. I agree that reverb would help in our case this time, but if it doesn't, then we're looking at a whole new set of problems. For example, if I wanted to write a sonata for violin and piano, there is just not a real enough sampleset for a solo violin, no matter how well it was written or how long you spend making it sound real, to compare to the "wall-of-sound" orchestral samplesets that can be thrown together in seconds. That's kind of forcing my hand to write towards the large-ensemble, reverb-heavy stuff I've always done in the past if I wanted to get posted here.
But let's just see how it goes before I complain any further.
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Meh, all it needs is some reverb. What we were attempting to do is not possible with samples in our price range; that is, give a small-sized orchestra a natural "dry" sound. In the end it just sounds like we forgot the reverb. That means the issue of certain samples being incompatible with reverb arises, so you have to go back and play with the volume/velocities/instruments and that takes time, and anyone who knows me knows I hate spending time catering to samples. Time spent trying to make a computer sound realistic is time not spent composing other things.
OC ReMix might need to consider a new (special case) standard for small-ensemble orchestral sampling because the available software and samples are severly limiting in that area. It's easy to forgive a piece that uses a 12-piece horn section and 70-piece string orchestra because the reverb will cancel out the unnaturalness of the sound. But reduce that to a few soloists and a string quartet and suddenly it's 6 hours of sampling for every 1 hour of composing just to make it sound passible for realness. So if anyone is confused as to why this one sounds "off" in comparison to Derek's and my previous arrangements, it's because this intimate small-ensemble sampling stuff is 100 times harder than the wall-of-sound, epic orchestral stuff.
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I heard Dennis Hopper is playing the villain. He was pretty good in Blue Velvet.
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Hooray! Another opportunity for me to post this:
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I've found that a lot of well respected composers who claim to have no musical training or knowledge of theory are actually well-versed in the same conventions that general musical theory attempts to explain. Let's face it; most of us are exposed to the same music growing up, especially where movies and their soundtracks are concerned, and really the best understanding of theory comes from exposure and pattern recognition over time. You don't have to know what V-I is to know it sounds good or to use it yourself. You just hear it all the time so you're bound to be influenced by it.
Similarly, classical theory doesn't attempt to explain the VI-VII-i progression you hear in 99% of pop music (especially J-pop) and film scores, but it's a convention you pick up just from listening to a lot of those things.
So really there's no need to sit down and study textbook theory unless you want a classical understanding beyond what you pick up naturally.
Also consider that theory is more a way of explaining why something works rather than a source to draw ideas from. I've actually found a balance between the two where I would say I "feel" my way through composing a melody, and then use theory to enhance the counterpoint and voice-leading.
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You are expected to be as flexible as possible and not be snowed in on a niché, and they want the goods as fast as possible. That's why there are so many successful hacks out there using 80% pre-made loops, those unfamiliar with prefabs/sample libraries won't know the difference.
Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Sorry, I wasn't reading the initial question correctly (I spend way too much time at soundtrack sites.) No, I don't have the score.
But the melody is very simple, it should be good practice for those transcription skills.
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Yes, I have the entire soundtrack to Snow Storm. Sviridov is a very underrated composer, and the music is quite good. The theme, in a track called Troika, was used as the theme for MGS with some note modifications.
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I had some interesting conversations with Gray a long while ago and now I wish I'd saved them because they might have offered some clues. Not really clues as to who he was, but more why he left. He did ask me to keep a secret once. Does that sound familiar to anyone else?
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Before all else, the timpani is your most valuable percussive instrument, the second being the xylophone that is a godsend for wind doublings.
Some advice about the timpani if you're unsure how to use it, the less variance in notes, the more realistic it will sound. If you're in F minor, you're going to want the timpani hammering away at F and C most of the time. I can imagine the rhythm to Gogo's theme would go something like this: F CCCF F F FCCCF if that makes any sense. Might want to save that for the very end, though. Don't be afraid to use sustained rolls on F or C that cover several measures too.
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I ask this question because I hate not knowing a better way to describe or create this, and I also wonder whether music theory might not reveal some light on the issue. I took music theory in high school, but had only been acquainted with the art form seriously for about three months prior. The instructor was understanding, and though I didn't do great, I learned a lot. Of course, since I didn't use it, it dropped out of memory. I don't imagine, of course, that a chord analysis will explain everything, but it may help. So can anyone help me?
No, music theory won't help unless you're curious about the conventions of Japanese music in general (such as use of melody and harmony.) If you have a specific question about the music other than why you feel it is "epic" then that can be answered. The way the music makes you feel is entirely connected to your own personal experience that not many other people are going to share. For example, I've never played a KH game so I don't have a clue what you're talking about when I listen to these pieces.
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At 0:30 you have this bouncy accompaniment against long held notes in the strings and brass. Get rid of anything sustained and figure out how to create harmony using more pizzicatos or staccatos in other instruments. See what happens if you add a pizz with the rhythm that only plays F, only moving it from F when it clashes with the harmony.
To make the violins stronger, make them play with another instrument in unison like flutes or oboes or clarinets. To make the trumpet stronger you'd usually add a doubling down the octave like horns, or violins at the unison.
Same thing at 0:45, you don't want those sustained notes unless they're doing something like fp. If the melody is in triplets, why not have the harmony move around in quarter notes? I think you're doubling the violins with clarinet here but it is barely audible. Try piccolo an octave above the violins.
At 1:00 you're still stuck with the sustained harmonies (also called "block chords.") I'd bring back the pizzicato cellos and basses and make that a prominent aspect of your accompaniment. Also the melody is becoming too treble-dominant and the bass should have the melody at some point.
So get rid of those block chords, and create a more bouncy accompaniment a la Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King or Dukas's The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It also might not be a bad idea to develop the piece similarly starting slow and soft and gaining speed, all the while using louder and louder instruments until the ending is blasting with brass and percussion (the timpani is suspiciously absent from your piece.)
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For the first 53 seconds the melody and ostinato is the same, but the counterpoint and harmonies are different. I think it's safe to say that it meets the 50% minimum for those 53 seconds (or what I like to call, Variation I.)
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You want psychotic tempos? Try making a 4.5 minute orchestral arrangement of Burger Time. In 2/4 at 160 bpm. In the style of Shostakovich. No one's going to be able to sample that. It just wasn't meant to be.
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Yeah, I already knew that much. It isn't going to stop me from complaining about it every time one of these kinds of threads pop up though.
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Well, a bad thing for you since your competition will be producing music far more epic and realistic than yours in a fraction of the time.
It might be epic, it might be realistic, and it might be done in an hour, but it is far from being good, original, thoughtful music unique to the composer. In many respects you can consider this library an alternative to licensing existing music as it gives sound designers free reign to sound like Media Ventures without actually having to hire Media Ventures.
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Well, it sounds leagues better than the score to The Clone Wars.
I don't know if it's due to the compression, but the percussion seems extremely subdued compared to the brass. It's like it's in mono while the rest of the orchestra is in stereo.
I also like how every time a reviewer talks about non-Williams Star Wars music they have to mention Joel McNeely's score to Shadows of the Empire. In that score McNeely just rearranged classical pieces to suit the Star Wars style without attributing proper credit, so it's not exactly the best model to measure future efforts against.
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Yes, Pirates had a memorable main theme, but a lot of it was paint-by-numbers scoring with some Drop Zone thrown in. What's insane about it is that it took a team of people to make. An entire team to sound like a sample library such as this one. It won't be long before producers realize they don't need to pay 10-20 people (not to mention an entire orchestra) to work on a score if they can get these sounds for the price of one library. I'm more a one movie-one composer kind of guy myself, but not like this.
Anyway, now that I think about it, this library seems good for additional sounds as long as it's not an "be all end all" solution to running out of original ideas.
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The fact I can't tell your demos apart from Media Ventures scores and crap by Brian Tyler and Marco Beltrami shows just how far film scores have sunken these days. Not that your demos are bad or anything, but it's just not the same caliber of scoring from pre-1995.
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I don't think orchestras in Japan put any more game music/anime music into their season schedule than any other orchestra in the world puts film music into theirs. They're both kinds of novelties that capitalizes on popularity. Give it more time.
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1. I've been composing and using Finale for years, however, I've never pursued higher quality sounds all that much because I've never planned on exporting anything directly from the program with the intention of it being a final cut. I know there are some sound upgrades, but even the upgraded sounds I've heard have never sounded that great to me - not on par with ones I've heard from mixing programs. So my question to more experienced Finale users is - do very high quality Finale sounds exist - enough as to make it a viable platform for serious music production?
In my experience, notation software is great for printing sheet music, and not much else. Unless Finale or Sibelius develop an interface for working with midi controllers and velocities (beyond traditional articulation markings) their staff notation will never be as useful as the piano roll in sequencers. Working with VSTs requires special attention to detail in the midi that predefined articulations don't accomodate too well.
For example, in Finale to increase the volume I'd click in a cresendo under the staff and leave it up to the performer to interpret. In Cakewalk I actually draw the volume as a curve and tailor it to perfectly match the capabilities of the sample. It takes some getting used to, but the more control you have over the midi controller data, the more realistic you can make the sample sound.
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Amazing stuff. Good counterpoint and good doublings all around. I'm jealous that you got such a great sound out of your orchestra.
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One of the damning things about synths is that sustained notes aren't so great. There is no blend, correct vibrato, or other environmental factors that can enhance the sound.
That said, what you might want to get rid of those sustains in the harmony and make them move around more.
For example, the bassoon is often playing whole notes for the bass line when it could be playing counterpoint. If you're looking for a good bass instrument, look no further than pizzicato basses on the downbeats. It seems this piece is harmonically-driven so you might want to have more in the ways of ostinatos before 1:48 such as harp, more pizz bass, and other instruments playing staccatos figures like the one you began with at 0:08.
The fast violins at 1:48 are good, but the bass line leaves much to be desired. For one it could be deeper (basses down the octave), and the sustained brass could be a lot more rhythmic, probably with timpani doubling.
2:22 is good, but again it's a great opportunity for pizz bass instead of long notes.
There seems to be a wrong harmony at 3:02, or it's wrongly voiced.
At 3:12 there's an even better opportunity to use pizzicato so you don't get texture-fatigued. Also, don't forget to use the winds as much as you can, even if they're just doubling the strings.
I'm not sure if there was supposed to be a climax at 3:32 but it could definitely be louder going into the pause with lots more timpani.
You might want to recheck those harmonies at 3:56 because there are some notes that sound out of place.
4:15 again has those long notes in the bass that are very distracting. This is the perfect time to reiterate that rhythm from 0:08 in the basses, cellos and violas. Good bassline at 5:42.
Are you a Vaughan Williams fan?
Final Fantasy 8 'Devotion & Deception'
in Post Your Game ReMixes!
Posted
It IS a great remix; one of my best orchestrated ones yet. It's already over the bar in terms of both arrangement AND sampling. Of course if you focus on the shortcomings, you're not going to like it as much. It's going to seem like it could be better. Like we're holding out on some special sampling technique that magically ups the realism (aside from the reverb issue.) The impression I get from the judges isn't "this sucks compared to Valse Aeris" but "we can't post this until it's 100% where right now it's hovering around 98-99%." They want it to fly over the bar instead of just inch over. Maybe that's possible; I don't know. If you consider all those remixes that get resubmitted over and over until they can just inch their way over the bar it definitely makes me feel like I've been typecasted, and I'm sure Derek is feeling the same way right now. The funny thing is that people have complained about my sampling abilities in the past and still thought the music was arranged well enough to forgive me for them.