Gentlemen, I'm in a pickle.

Alrighty, so I've been working on this piece for six months. By "working" I mean I did all of this in about three weeks and have just been idly pawing at it for ages. The only subsequent changes to it have been in mixing. In my grandiloquent delusions of grandeur I sought to create an almost insurmountably epic piece. Thence, I'm now lost. I don't want to abandon the concepts that drove me to create the piece but I don't know where I'm going to go from here. WHAT DO I DO!? D: Feed me back.

Also, I'm terribly new at this; don't anticipate anything exciting. Furthermore this is that filthy "speed metal" nonsense. Eww, speed metal.

SA . WIP - Chernobog Foreplay Cheesy mp3

Honestly, i thought that this was pretty fun to listen to!

I dunno about the high notes that repeat quite frequently. They were cool in the first part, but then it started to get... cheezy. Some variation of those would be excellent. As to now... I'd say you should repeat the first theme and call it good.

good listen!

Originally Posted by Maelstrom

Honestly, i thought that this was pretty fun to listen to!

I dunno about the high notes that repeat quite frequently. They were cool in the first part, but then it started to get... cheezy. Some variation of those would be excellent. As to now... I'd say you should repeat the first theme and call it good.

good listen!

Thank you.

I'm not sure exactly which "high notes" you're referring to but I think I've got an idea. As it stands, I think I'll leave that as is because cheesiness is kinda what I was going for; just a quintessential power-metal piece. If it's just cheesy and not bad I think that's how I'll keep it. But in the next sequence I'll make sure I stir it up a bit just to circumvent any cheese-overload. Thanks.

Two ideas -

Vary the rhythmn of the recurring power chord motifs by lengthening or shortening, adding or subtracting rhythmns (ex you have approx a dotted quarter+eighth note rhythmn with the accent on the eight note, see what happens when you add two sixteenth notes), shifting the accent.

Change your harmonic colors from predominantly minor to major or something in between.

Lastly, I think you would profit much from 16th century counterpoint and keyboard harmony. The 16th counterpoint doesn't require an extensive musical background - just know your intervals, bass and treble clefs (knowing C clefs would be also helpful but not necessary) If you cantake a course in it that would be great or get the Jepperson counterpoint book. If you are proficient with piano then keyboard harmony isn't going to be difficult but it would be a good way reacquaint your harmonic knowledge (and extend if need be).

The piece is great, but the guitar samples do suck. . .

Pretty epic. I don't really dig the bass line on the C that's just a pure sequencing of the bass line on D. It just doesn't sound right for whatever reason (I'm too lazy to figure out exactly what that is at the moment). Maybe de-emphasize the E natural or something. That's just a dumb guess, actually.

You may want to cut down on the instrumentation, too. I mean, three basses? Two organs? The piece will be more streamlined if you just chop off the fat. Then you can focus more on melody and the like.

Also, I'd suggest listening to some Cacophony (namely "Speed Metal Symphony") and Symphony X ("The Odyssey") to get the creative juices flowing. Both are epic speed/power/prog metal masterpieces. I really look forward to hearing this when it's complete. I think it has potential to kick some ass.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, I'm at the library, and everyone turned and looked at me, and these public computers don't have volume control....

....What I heard was pretty good, pretty, epic, and pretty bass heavy. And pretty loud, so I won't be able to listen to the rest 'till I get home....

~Kal

Haha - this is really fun to listen to. Gives me images of illicit street-motorcycle races with lots of nitrous, sparks, bank robberies and blowing-up-stuff.

If you want to expand it, you might consider looking at some background material (in the accompaniment) and developing it as foreground.

I think you need to cut down on the orchestra hits towards the end, it gets tiring after awhile.

I suggest you look at a few of the guitar riffs and derive a soothing sort of melody out of it. Then maybe back the melody with a piano playing some of the string figures you've got going and then build back up from there. The piece seems to be relentlessly pumping on all eight cylinders; find a way to bring it down dynamically. (the ending feels like a good transitioning point)

Let the piece breathe a little.

Originally Posted by composerorganist

Two ideas -

Vary the rhythmn of the recurring power chord motifs by lengthening or shortening, adding or subtracting rhythmns (ex you have approx a dotted quarter+eighth note rhythmn with the accent on the eight note, see what happens when you add two sixteenth notes), shifting the accent.

Change your harmonic colors from predominantly minor to major or something in between.

Lastly, I think you would profit much from 16th century counterpoint and keyboard harmony. The 16th counterpoint doesn't require an extensive musical background - just know your intervals, bass and treble clefs (knowing C clefs would be also helpful but not necessary) If you cantake a course in it that would be great or get the Jepperson counterpoint book. If you are proficient with piano then keyboard harmony isn't going to be difficult but it would be a good way reacquaint your harmonic knowledge (and extend if need be).

Oi, thanks.

I'll do some research there and try to get my hands on the aforementioned book.

Originally Posted by spherenine

The piece is great, but the guitar samples do suck. . .

Pretty epic. I don't really dig the bass line on the C that's just a pure sequencing of the bass line on D. It just doesn't sound right for whatever reason (I'm too lazy to figure out exactly what that is at the moment). Maybe de-emphasize the E natural or something. That's just a dumb guess, actually.

You may want to cut down on the instrumentation, too. I mean, three basses? Two organs? The piece will be more streamlined if you just chop off the fat. Then you can focus more on melody and the like.

Also, I'd suggest listening to some Cacophony (namely "Speed Metal Symphony") and Symphony X ("The Odyssey") to get the creative juices flowing. Both are epic speed/power/prog metal masterpieces. I really look forward to hearing this when it's complete. I think it has potential to kick some ass.

Thank you. I'll mess around with the bassline a bit and see what I can do but I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out as-is. And the multiple instruments will be amended in the final cut. And I'll indeed check out these songs.

Oh, and I'll be getting some less-suck samples soon enough.

Originally Posted by marsbars

I think you need to cut down on the orchestra hits towards the end, it gets tiring after awhile.

I suggest you look at a few of the guitar riffs and derive a soothing sort of melody out of it. Then maybe back the melody with a piano playing some of the string figures you've got going and then build back up from there. The piece seems to be relentlessly pumping on all eight cylinders; find a way to bring it down dynamically. (the ending feels like a good transitioning point)

Let the piece breathe a little.

Gotcha chief. As for deriving a soothing melody, that's probably not going to happen. I really just wanted this to be a gratuitous and purely ridiculous aural jackhammer. But I will take that into consideration accordingly.

The Jepperson and the 16th century counterpoint benefits most if you have some guidance. If you want to get a taste of counterpoint, check some of the lessons thread.

Also, the long term solution I suggested does require at least a year of study. So don't be too overwhelmed.

As for the piece just experimenting with my two suggrestions (and some of the others suggestions) will improve greatly the piece - it really has some good ideas .