Ventura Ira (Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor - Demon of Darkness)

[frustratedrocka]

Ventura Ira: Dropbox

Original Song:

by Takami Asano

Ok, so, first time posting here. I started this one as a distraction from a Golbez piece I'm working on and ended up banging out an arrangement in a few hours. Over the last few days I've mostly been recording and tweaking.

Originally the idea was to take the incredibly theatrical opening song from Devil Survivor, Demon of Darkness, and modify it to sound like something resembling an actual hymn. Then I realized that I'd have problems stretching that out to two minutes, so I decided to bring back the original sound of the song and try to make it even more theatrical. Hopefully, the effect is something along the lines of a very angry Archangel kicking in the door of a cathedral halfway through the piece.

I am aware that the production probably sucks. This, hopefully, is temporary. For one thing, I'm a college student, so I have neither the money nor space for audio equipment beyond my laptop and a pair of bookshelf speakers. For another thing, I'm a college student, so I live in a dorm with really awful acoustics. For yet another thing, I'm a fairly mediocre singer to begin with, so having to do all the vocal recording by myself is a bit more than I'm actually able to pull off.

As a result, while I always welcome feedback and tips on production, I'm more concerned with how you like the arrangement. I have my own concerns, but I'll withhold them for a bit if nobody else picks up on them.

What I need before I'll call this complete:

- At least one alto, probably two.

- At least one soprano, probably two.

- I'd like to see if I can record my violinist / viola...ist? former roommate, since I'm not thrilled with how the samples ended up sounding on this one.

Production notes:

- The live vocals consist of two tenor parts, a countertenor, two baritones, a bass (I cheated on this one and used an octaver; I'm going to try and get one of my friends who can actually hit that low D to come in and record soon), and a fake soprano (My falsetto CAN go that high, but given that I'm naturally somewhere between tenor and lyric baritone... well, you'll hear how it sounds for yourself). The rest is placeholder midi.

- The latin is from a hymn called Libera Me, and essentially translates to "Please God, spare me when you come down to pass judgment." Given that the plot of Devil Survivor essentially revolves around that very scenario, I thought it was appropriate.

- Drums are DrumMicA. Because decent and free.

- The guitars run through Guitar Rig into a mesa rectifier cab impulse I dug up a few years ago, and while I've gotten reasonably decent results that way in the past, I'd still much rather mic up a real cab, or at least record from the preamp out into that same impulse.

- Bass is guitar through an octaver and into guitar rig. I'll borrow a friend's bass and rerecord when I get the chance.