Xenoblade Chronicles - The Sword That Could End the World

[Swifthom]

Update:

v3: http://soundcloud.com/swifthom/the-s...ould-end-the-2 (new lead overlayed in, some trumpets subbed out, overall sound lowered and a slight adjustment to the EQ of the whole track

Update: Listened to it on different speakers... Wasn't happy. The timps have been replaced, some general EQ changes, most the vocal samples removed and replaced with brass instruments. Still a little muddy in places but now it feels like a proper remix at least. (Lesson for life: trombones solve everything)

V2. http://soundcloud.com/swifthom/the-sword-that-could-end-the-1

Original

The product of an afternoon testing the usefulness of FL Studio. This was actually done a while ago but I felt like digging it out to share, pondering whether to continue working on it or lay it aside for more meaningful projects (shameless add: - RECRUITING NOW - )...

Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNR-wsFAfiU

Remix: http://soundcloud.com/swifthom/the-sword-that-could-end-the

First of all... VOCAL SAMPLES!!! NOOO!!!!

Two reasons for this. One: I originally started composing to put background music behind recorded audio stories I had written and got friends to read. The aquisition of a DAW was entirely to make audiobooks sound good... So using the spoken word for emphasiss is something i'm just used to.

Secondly; have you played the game? (sorry NA folks, you'll get your chance ) The characters dont shut up for all of five seconds... The voice acting is a really high standard but they don't half ramm it down your throats.

My main horror is that I completely lost all of the beauty in the original song. It started off so elegent and now it's like a machine of war, a tank slowly dragging its momentum from start to finish. Also, possibly due to my background (how I started composing), I am incapable of putting together a good lead. Rhythm, ambience, sound fillers I'm enjoying, but the lead is just... flat. For my audiobooks that tends to not matter as I dont want to distract the listeners from the spoken words but here it just sounds hollow.

... To me anyway. Curious to know what people will make of it.

[Swifthom]

I'd like to change the status of this thread from work in progress to finished, though I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I'm currently hopping back and forth between this and several other projects that I can't share. Whilst in the short term I can't think immediately of what needs changing from the current song if anyone has any suggestions to improve it, or specific greivences with the production, i'd be glad to hear them

[KM*]

First thing, the song clips badly in places, which is a big no-no. That would have to be fixed before the judges would even consider the song.

The guitar doesn't sit well in the mix, it sounds tinny and low-quality as if it was recorded poorly.

The song doesn't seem to keep the emotional quality of the original, which means it probably needs more adjusting on the midi side of things to make it more human-like.

Also, I think I like it better with the voice samples. It's pretty fitting.

[Swifthom]

Cheers. Until now I had been paying close attention to the individual tracks and the master track, i'd completely ignored the monitor at the top of the screen. Oh well, the point of this was to learn what I'm doing with FL Studio.

I know its not a great masterpiece but more suggestions of things I can do to learn plz.

v3: http://soundcloud.com/swifthom/the-sword-that-could-end-the-2 (new lead overlayed in, some trumpets subbed out, overall sound lowered and a slight adjustment to the EQ of the whole track)