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Milton Nice piece. I do hope you decide to join in the fun here and help the other members out with some tips here and there. Ron

matius Welcome to YC. This does have some very nice moments in it. The various volumes would benefit from some tweaking and of course this could be made to sound a lot better if some work was done inside of a DAW (like Sonar, Cubase, Logic, etc). Notation programs always sound too mechanical. Those of us here in the Games forum try to help each other out by providing feedback to each other. This will help you as a composer and will bring more attention to your own works. Ron

Jem Welcome to YC. I agree with the above. We all hit a point where we have a pretty good idea of what we want to project musically, at that point we have to delve more into the production side of things to get it to sound top notch. This would benefit from some tweaking. Nicely composed Ron

Amana I liked the opening of this but after a little bit I started to drift away from listening because the rhythm became static. Perhaps adding a few bass notes to change the rhythm there might help a bit. Still a nice start. Ron

John Very nice ending! I can hear a muted trumpet playing along with this. But of course that is up to you. Nicely done Ron

Cheese Nice piece but it does need some work. You have gone way overboard with the reverb which is muddying up the sounds. While a piece sounds a lot better with reverb, with too much of it the instruments are no longer crisp and clear. You also want to put different amounts of reverb on each instrument. Those in the rear of the orchestra get more, while the closer ones get less. This sounds like it is notation, but with all of the reverb it is difficult to tell which library it is. Ron

Nice piece The cello seems a bit static from time to time and could benefit with a bit more cc work. But that could also just be the samples not having enough depth. Ron

I had just finished listening to a different guys work and that guy never posts anywhere but his own threads. So I had that on my mind when I posted in your thread. I know that you just joined and I want you to feel welcome here. There is nothing wrong with having some high velocities, it is the sameness of the velocities that ends up giving a machine gun effect which can distract listeners. With many libraries it can be difficult to get away from the gun. Even in higher priced libraries there are still samples that just refuse to be altered enough to not sound gunny or synthy. I have just purchased EW's SD2 and have found a couple of patches that no matter what I do to them, (alter velocities, timing, or volume) they still come out like a machine gun. So I do know what you may be up against in trying to get a more realistic sound. Ron

Welcome to YC. This is pretty good for inexpensive samples. The piece would benefit greatly from some midi work to get rid of the constant velocities. All of us here in the Games forum try to go out of our way to listen to and comment in each others posts. That is what makes this site work, when the members get involved. The guys that only comment in their own posts, rarely last very long here. Ron

I have listened to this now and am not convinced it is atonal. In fact it is mostly tonally centered in a number of different keys throughout the piece. It does have some dissonance in it, but that doesn't make it atonal. BTW... Is this all of the posts that were missing? If so, then keep this in mind. When you moved the piece, it went to the last date on the piece which was "Posted 18 June 2009 - 07:24 AM". So the piece was just way down the page. Whenever you move a thread, you have to add a post to it to get the thread to the top of the page. Ron

Welcome to YC. This work shows a lot of potential. and has a very nice beginning to it. Those of us here in the Games forum try to go out of our way to comment in each others posts. That is what makes sites like these work, its members getting involved. Ron

Max Nice tempo work in this. It is always nice to see a new composer not be afraid to use tempo changes in his piece. One thing you want to add to the score is the tempo in the very beginning. When I first started composing, I did the same as you have, which is the same most new composers do. We fail to add either bowing marks for the strings, or in this case, tonguing notation for the all of the winds. After studying numerous books on orchestration in which all of the authors state that new composers should always include bowing marks and tonquing marks, I finally understand the importance of the new composer doing so. It forces you to think more deeply about what you are asking the performers to do and makes you thoroughly think about each note being put on the score. So I highly recommend that you start adding these articulations to your scores. As Jason said, a mp3 will always get your ideas across to our members better than a general midi file can accomplish, so a mp3 would be nice. Ron

J I could compose countless 30-60 second pieces as exercises in getting to learn the tools. But one of the things we have to do as composers, is to also do exercises in development of our ideas. I force myself to go further just for that purpose. At this point, I don't think we should be thinking whether a piece is worth more work; we need to realize that our composition skills need the extra work. So it really doesn't matter if the piece is all that good or not. What matters is that we do the work. I am probably not explaining what I mean very well. What I am suggesting though, is that you force yourself to expand on your ideas without wondering if they are worth it or not. The experience of doing it is what makes it all worthwhile. Sometimes it takes quite a while to figure out if a composed piece is as good or as bad as we initially think. I have worked on many pieces that I thought were great until later I realized that they were total crap, while the opposite has also occasionally happened. Also at this point I wouldn't worry too much if you are the only one that likes your music. In the end, we compose for ourselves so we just have to make ourselves happy with the music. Ron

Phant I think alot of us started out with Notation of some sort and then once we got into the world of sequencers, let our notation program skills go away. I know how to transfer from DAW back to notation, but what's the point? I don't see Tim Burton giving me a call today asking me for a score. This version does show more work and that unfortunately is what is involved in getting a piece finished. I usually spend 6-10 hours work on each minute of music, with 90% of that time just doing the midi work. I still think the high-hat hits in this one would benefit greatly from some more velocity work and maybe even a touch more reverb to set them back a little further in the mix. What programs and Libraries are you using? Are you adding reverb to each instrument or just an overall reverb? You want to set up some sends in your DAW so that you can add reverb to each individual track at different levels of intensity to give your pieces more depth. The last 13 notes all need some velocity changes to get it to be more realistic. That's one of the problems with copy and paste. It is getting better. Ron

Jason This is very nice and works well without the winds in 2's. However, you may want to rethink having just one Horn. Just about every book you will ever read on orchestration says to always have more horns than the other brass. Otherwise they just will not be heard. This can be overcome by having the horns play at least one dynamic step above the other brass (which is what is normally done anyway), but is still not considered to be good practice. The timbres than fight each other too much, so 2 horns in unison, will work with 1 trumpet or 1 trombone, etc. Just from a sound viewpoint, it would work better if the piano was a little closer to center. (Center left is typical). Nice work Ron

I assume you mean GPO not Garritan. GPO has reverb, but you cannot add reverb inside of GPO unless it is GPO's reverb or Kontact reverb if you are using the NI version. Once outside of GPO in whatever host (DAW) you are using, you can then add reverb in many ways depending on what program you are using to compose your stuff. So what programs are you using to compose with? Ron

BDW I want to thank you for joining in. As you can see it brought immediate results and will help you in many ways as a composer. Here in the Games Forum we not only look at a piece based on its composition, but also on its sound. The reverb you are using in this makes it sound as if we are out in the hallway trying to listen to the piece through closed doors. If that was your intent, then well done. Ron

Phant This is a great start with a very nice build up in the beginning. It does need some midi work done. Some of the velocites need some major alterations. The hat sounds like the typical machine gun but it is easily fixed with putting in the time. I am also hearing some distortion here and there so it does need a limiter and some more midi work to bring down some of the volumes before it hits the limiter/compressor. Ron

This does work better than the previous one but I am curious as to why you don't take your pieces further? This one as is isn't ready to loop and just ends in mid sentence. Ron

Welcome to YC. This is very nice. What was it rejected from? Ron

BDW Sites like these only work when the members critique each others works. To post works asking other members to listen and comment without ever supplying your thoughts to their music, will quickly get your music ignored. Join in and others will return the favor. Ron

Well your profile doesn't say you are from Missouri, but I assume you are. This piece has been done by many different artists in many different styles but it was nice to hear it done for a small chamber ensemble. Nicely done. Ron

Luca Welcome to YC. This was indeed a fun little piece and I did enjoy it. Nicely done. BTW I am a Math Teacher so I enjoyed the Fractal in your Profile. You should use that as your avatar. Ron

Matthew This is pretty good for a first composition. Duets are a good place to start for a new composer and the Piano and Cello always go well together. I will offer one piece of advice and that is that you should start now with adding the Bowings to your scores. This will force you to think more deeply into exactly what you want the String Player to be doing. Nice start. Ron

This is very pretty and could work in a number of situations. We here in the Games forum try to help each other out as much as we can by providing comments in each others posts. Please feel free to join in yourself. Ron