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*NO* Diablo "Village of Bone"


Liontamer
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Artist Name: Zanezooked

It’s the first day of fall, and nothing quite captures that fall-ish feeling for me like Matt Uelmen’s shimmering opening chords for the Tristram theme from Diablo.

I’ve swapped the 12-string for a cimbalom, which is a Hungarian hammered dulcimer. The cimbalom was the instrument used for Gollum’s theme in The Lord of the Rings, and its reverberant sweetness has an edge of menace that works well for the Tristram theme. You can’t strum a cimbalom — it’s hammered — so the chords are opened to work with the arpeggiated playing style, and the fingering is often reinterpreted. I spent a lot of time tuning the notes and dynamics as the cimbalom plays throughout and I wanted it to sound as natural and listenable as possible.

The horns at the beginning and very end are a down-pitched kangling, which is a Tibetan horn traditionally made from human bone (though it can also be made of wood). I thought this would be appropriate for a town that has miles of crypts and catacombs beneath it! (I played the opening for my wife and she immediately went “Ugh, that gives me the creeps” before she even knew what was playing it. She was even more creeped out after I told her what she was hearing!)

In the original track the most energetic part is the guitar-only bit at 3:18, and then at 4:00 it calms down into a moodier melody before ending in a way that lends itself well to looping back to the opening chords. In my version I wanted to work up to the high energy and finish with a bang, but I also didn’t want to lose the beautifully melancholy ending section of the original, so I moved my version of that section to 1:44 and worked it into the calmer, moodier parts at their tempo. Then I built up to my interpretation of the energetic section, beginning at 3:24. I tried to evoke the guitar rhythm in the drums. The cimbalom bangs out the melody, sometimes doubled by violins. Violas add more rhythm, and horns and low strings add punch. The kangling gets the last word, before fading away.

Libraries used:
Strix Instruments Kangling
Spitfire Originals Cimbalom
East West Hollywood Choirs, Hollywood Strings, Hollywood Brass
Aaron Venture Infinite Brass
Aaron Venture Infinite Woodwinds
UJAM Drums

I hope this is an enjoyable remix!


Games & Sources
 
"Tristram" from Diablo 1
Edited by Chimpazilla
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  • 2 weeks later...

immediately recognizable opening, even with the cimbalom. the track feels very early PC with the vocal patch, which is a fun coincidence. it's a very spare atmosphere you've created here - often only a few individual notes playing at any given time, and a surprising amount of unison up front in the couple of instruments you're using.

0:50 brings in some more activity, and the cimbalom really works well for this realization. 1:18 adds in the choirs in unison with the low strings, and i like the idea but think the execution isn't quite there. it's just too robotic in the cimbalom and doesn't sound particularly realistic in the strings/choir. the cimbalom-only section after this has some more velocitization on it which is nice, but it's audible where the velocity pattern repeats. the subsequent building section at 1:57 is nice, but the partwriting is pretty simplistic in here and heavily weighted towards my left ear. there's a wrong note in the bass at 2:21, and a few (probably but not sure) notes that aren't in the key soon after in the middle voices.

this shifts to a new section at 2:35 and how consistently the cimbalom has been hammering away at roughly the same volume and attack speed throughout the song becomes more noticeable in here. the lack of true velocity changes (particularly to more quiet tones) is starting to grate by this part.

there's some intense building action until the big hit at 3:26, and this section sounds pretty exciting. it's also very muddy and boomy due to the orchestral toms being used. there's some neat evocative feels in here but overall the use of heavy unisons and no part-writing in the supporting lines really kills the energy for me. it ends with a kangling note that is cut off, and it's done.

this is a really neat idea! i think there's definitely legs in the arrangement - the combination of old-world instruments is a really neat one. i think first off that there's a lot of room for partwriting that isn't just unison strings and choir layered, especially with the richness of the chords uelman uses throughout. separately, i think that there's a lot more room for nuance in all the instruments - most of them feel like they stay in the same middle range of velocities, and there's no dynamics in the instruments as a result. a track that is so intentionally sparse in instrumentation needs to then be super careful in how it uses those instruments, and i don't track that here.

i think this is a great one to bring to the workshop or a wip review and have some folks talk about how to flesh it out a bit more without losing the feel. right now though i don't think this one's where it needs to be just yet.

 

 

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On 10/1/2024 at 8:25 AM, prophetik music said:

1:18 adds in the choirs in unison with the low strings, and i like the idea but think the execution isn't quite there. it's just too robotic in the cimbalom and doesn't sound particularly realistic in the strings/choir. the cimbalom-only section after this has some more velocitization on it which is nice, but it's audible where the velocity pattern repeats. [...]

this shifts to a new section at 2:35 and how consistently the cimbalom has been hammering away at roughly the same volume and attack speed throughout the song becomes more noticeable in here. the lack of true velocity changes (particularly to more quiet tones) is starting to grate by this part. [...]

i think first off that there's a lot of room for partwriting that isn't just unison strings and choir layered, especially with the richness of the chords uelman uses throughout. separately, i think that there's a lot more room for nuance in all the instruments - most of them feel like they stay in the same middle range of velocities, and there's no dynamics in the instruments as a result. a track that is so intentionally sparse in instrumentation needs to then be super careful in how it uses those instruments, and i don't track that here.

Yep, prophetik articulated the issues better than I ever could. The instrumentation's very cool in a vacuum, but texturally it's relatively basic, straightforward, and repetitive, plus the exposed lack of humanization for the choir and bowed string sustains goes on too long. I also dug the increased intensity at 3:26, which was long overdue. With improved production and a more evolving structure in the middle section, this could certainly make it; good potential here, Zane!

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Co-signing with the guys.  What a cool idea this is!  I love the cimbalom as a lead, and the choir and strings make a great background texture.  But.... that's all there is here for at least 75% of the piece.  The sparse instrumentation reveals the weaknesses of the samples as the cimbalom sounds stiff and mechanical, and every attack on the choir and strings are the same which sounds awkward.  And as prophetik pointed out, the strings and choir almost always play unison which is a lost opportunity to add some more harmonic spice to the mix.

There is some hard panning here that I don't care for.  The cimbalom is the lead instrument, yet it is hammering away about 50-75% left most of the time, and some of the lowest parts of the choir seem to only exist on the right.  This feels unbalanced to me.

The drums sound exciting when they enter at 3:27, but that's a long time to wait for something new in the soundscape.  The drums are intense all the way to the end of the piece, and they are very heavy in the lows, as prophetik pointed out, giving the soundscape a muddy feel.  Those brass hits at 4:01 sound alright to me, except they feel thin, as if the lows have been EQ'd off.

I really love this concept!  It is so eerie.  But with such sparse instrumentation, all the elements have to be firing on all cylinders and they aren't quite, yet.  Just needs a bit more production TLC to get it there.

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