sswave

Hey @AngelCityOutlaw! This is really cool! It's great to see how much effort you put into creating this and providing it for others to use is very respectable. I hope the drop on the GameDevMarket is going well. I would be curious how long it took you to build this out and release, maybe the process required to do it so that others can have an understanding of what is required if they are interested in following in your footsteps! Looking forward to hearing more about and the next thing you are working on!

Hey everyone! Here a battle them I wrote for a game I am actively writing the soundtrack for (fun, fun)! Let me know your thoughts, any feedback, and also any questions you are curious about. I love to answer questions that will help everyone learn and grow in our composer journey! Fishing for Trouble - Battle Theme This piece is the battle theme for an action RPG game. While this is playing, players will be engaging in combat akin to God of War Ragnarok (since this is recently relevant). The overall feel of the game, graphical expression, and battles is closer to a Pixar movie (think action scenes from The Incredibles, Brave, or something like that). The overall story tone is layered with melancholy, determination, a journey of maturing, and all that good stuff (think hero's journey). The average length of a battle is around 1-2 minutes, but can last up to 5 or more. For this reason, the piece appears to loop around the 1:30-ish mark, but actually is not looping and goes into Part 2 which builds tension and progresses to a more upbeat rhythm heavy version (enter drums, etc) because if the player is still in battle, it is probably a challenging fight. The primary scale of the entire soundtrack is Bminor with secondary of Cmajor. That said, this piece has Bminor, Cmajor, B Phrygian, and D Major (see if you can spot them all!) I haven't posted in a long time and thought I would share. Thanks everyone - enjoy!

I'm interested in entering this competition! This seems like a great opportunity to help others learn and pick up a thing or two along the way. Some things that would be useful here - What is the game these tracks are from? Some say, some don't. This is important for us to conduct research and find the composition details, MIDI/sheet, discovery where - what - how it is used in game for additional context to spark creativity and create something that really embodies the original work while having our own original twist on it. This would help people complete #2 if you don't provide the answer! Where can I find a MIDI version of this so I can evaluate the track to remix? For example, #5 actually says it is from Castlevania 2, so I can find the Castlevania 2 MIDI soundtrack here: http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/nes/ and, specifically I can find the selected track The Silence of Daylight here: http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/nes/c2town.mid Great! Now I can easily import this into a DAW and start arranging my own piece! This is great, but #3 would be even better! Can you just provide the MIDI and maybe the sheet music for each of these tracks? This will allow us to prevent error in finding the wrong MIDI or sheet, or for those composers that might not know to do #2 at all, try to wing it and figure out what the scale, chords, notes, etc etc. BONUS: if you do all #1, #2, and #3 (you are my hero)! Separate from the above, should we say which track we are entering for on this thread? You mentioned anonym but didn't mention this part. I'm assuming the answer is "yes, state the track you are entering for", so... my entry will be for "Harvest Moon - T8; Mountain" as it shown in the mp3 player above. Excited to hear more and looking forward to participating + seeing the other participants works!

Good sound design. I agree with you that the lack of a strong tune weakens it, BUT since this is a title sequence - it's okay. Personally, title sequences are hard because there is no story or anything happening. It's literally a user interface/menu. That being said it is the first impression for the consumer and needs to create the mood and tone of the story. This piece does that correctly. Great job.

This is a WIP of the opening for a new game I am composing. The opening scene is a deputy in a blizzard/winter storm that seeks shelter in a town. The main tune is prominent with the strings, but can be heard throughout. This game takes place in the 1880s. The story is about a deputy who goes to a town that has a pandemic of mercury poison due to a mining operation higher up on the mountain and he eventually becomes insane because of the mercury that is affecting the water, fish, and even the agriculture in the area. Note: I rendered this on a laptop in a lower quality. The final version will be recorded and rendered with the appropriate hardware and software. Any comments, critique, or advice are welcomed. Thanks for listening! Also, you are a badass 😉

Hmm. Well, everything you said is basically true. Things I do feel like I do without thinking about them at this point. Depending on what I feel like writing or need to write I do try to deviate from that, but that concept is what I grew up in music writing on, for a lack of better words. Mainly, what you've done is classify and explain the logic behind the structure of most pieces in a way that is understandable to the average person.That is my opinion at least. I like the way you explained unity and diversity; the metaphorical explaination of the concept. All and all, a well written explaination of the basic concepts that are put into the writing of progressive compositions.

This was a very calming piece that I could easily see in a romantic film. Very hollywood-esque, nice length, and good use of instrumentation. Good work. ;)

Hey guys, Thanks for commenting! Wendell: Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you liked it! Ron: That says it all. I can get the louder sound with the brass, but it will really eat up all the other instruments playing and make sort of a nuisance of itself. However, there are somethings I can do such as lower the reverb and pan it more towards the center to make it sound slightly closer and clearier than the other instruments. Although I don't know that will do much because I only have EWQLSO Silver and Silver XP which does not have the mic position controls and as you may know, the brass is very uncooperative in affords to fine tune it in EWQLSO. I currently am unable to purchase any more realistic samples, but if I could I would try to get my hands on Project Sam's Brass Orchestra which could give me that sound. As far as the drums, I can tweak the compression and bass to get a bigger more fuller sound. Perhaps I will look into that. And yes, unfortunately nothing is as good as the real thing, orchestra or otherwise. I suppose we always have that special music player in our heads that seems to be able to pull that off, right? :P Thanks again for your comments! They are greatly appreciated.

Hm, that's strange. Try the alternate link I have provided, it leads to the host site instead of directly to the player. Just click play hi-fi to listen after clicking the link.

Hello everyone, It's been a while since I last posted anything, so I thought I would do just that. This piece, God of War, is a battle theme for a game I have been working on called Epsilon-Alpha. Some may remember that I posted the http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/epsilon-alpha-theme-20986.html a few months ago. The soundtrack is almost entirely based on the main theme with the exception of a few other themes that provide conflictions every once in a while. I think that God of War is a good example of this. The name God of War is given to this piece because the main character of this game uses a weapon called the ARES, giving reminisce to the Olympic God of War bearing that same name. Anyway, here is the link to the piece: God of War: Start Player Alternate link (just click play hi-fi to listen): SoundClick artist: sswave - page with MP3 music downloads Hope you enjoy it! Any comments or advice are welcomed. Thank you for listening! P.S. For any of you that are interested, I have just completed part 1 of the Epsilon-Alpha soundtrack (the game is split into three parts) which will be available whenever that part is publically released (currently TBA 2009.)

Interesting piece, Ron. I liked the overall feel of this piece in it's portrayal of the Sun and the situation. I wouldn't mind watching the DC type show to see this implemented. However, I must say that this is much shorter than most if not all your other pieces. Are you planning to write the other segments for the show as well, if so how is that going? Anyway, nice piece. Looking forward to more. :P

I thought this was a fitting piece for a sort of victory march. It reminded me in a way of Zimmer's piece for a similar scene in Gladiator, although I think his was actually more melancholy. It felt a little short though and the snares in the beginning could use some mixing. Actually the sample was pretty nasty itself, I would recommend replacing it. Also, during the sort of climax/louder segment in the middle the percussion sounded almost muffled in comparison to the brass instruments. Still, good work! Just needs some fine tuning. :)

This was a very melancholy piece and although I'm not entirely sure what was happening in the scene, other than somebody dieing and later being preyed on by a vampire, it appeared to fit the scene quite well. I thought it was cool that you have managed to get the vocals recorded and implemented into the final product for your exam at college. Good work and I wouldn't mind hearing the rest of the pieces or, since I have never watched the movie Dracula, watching the movie with your version of the soundtrack in it.

Hey, I thought this was a nice start if you disregard the seemingly poor samples. What samples are you using for this? I agree with the previous statements about the dynamics, it really makes, an otherwise exciting and progressive piece, anti-climatic and boring. Other than that, it sounds coherent and solid in arrangement with fairly smooth transactions. Except near the end, it seemed a little rough. A score would probably help us, understand what you were trying to do in these parts. I would suggest cleaning up the mixing, possibly using clearier and drier samples, and it should turn out a good piece. :thumbsup:

I listened to the first few pieces on your site and I have to say they are very minimalistic. Not to say that is necessarily a bad thing, it sounds similar to Philip Glass, but in minimalistic pieces- dynamics, tempo changes, and atmospheric/emotional expressions are really crucial and need to be heavily developed. Conceptually all these pieces will work in a game, but I would like to see you work more on the presentation of the arrangement. A lesson in sound mixing would probably do you good in this department. Perhaps you should look into minimalistic music similar to your own and pick up techniques as well. Again, I don't necessarily think that your music is bad, I just know that you can improve it and produce a very sentimental sound. Keep it up! ;) Also, I'm not sure if it's just me, but it appears that I am only able to listen to the pieces in a certain order instead of being able to select which I would like to listen too. If it isn't just me, than I would suggest using a different host such as soundclick or box.net.

Thanks, glad you liked it. Your a flute player, how long can a flutist hold a note on average? I understand that it depends on how loud they are playing and thier level of training, but do you know how long? I tried searching the question and I didn't come up with anything useful. It would help in future compositions to make it sound more realistic.

Actually, I have this same problem and so does everyone else, except that my computer can probably stand a bit more than yours. I have a year old HP with a Core 2 Quad processor and at a certain point I suffer the same limitation. The problem is the RAM; my computer has 2 GBs of RAM, but when using samples from libraries like Project SAM and EWQLSO it gets used up quickly. What I usually do at that point is: 1. Increase the buffer length (the time it takes for samples to load) This makes rendering and loading take a lot longer, but it's worth it since you can use more samples. Your DAW that you are running the samples and VSTs through should have an option to configurate this. 2. When playing back and working on a piece in a notation program or DAW try temporarily turning off instruments that you are not focusing on at that time, specifically percussion samples as those tend to eat RAM up like a pack of pringles. 3. On the rendering, there is a basic concept to remember: Quality v. Instruments You will have to compromise between the two and see how far you can push your computer. From my understanding, most big sample products (in the GBs) recommend several computers to run perfectly with many instruments and top notch quality. For most of us, that is not a tangible recommendation unless we feel the need to acquire a debt. So, we are forced to compromise. Hopefully, this is useful. I would recommend getting a better computer though, even if it's not fresh from the factory. 98 is a little 90's. :P

Not a bad start. It really needs the mastering you mentioned and some volume and velocity work. It doesn't have that big bang feel that it is destined to have. Nice instrumentation and arrangement. I'm not sure I like the sound of the synths you used. They seem very cheap and fake which doesn't fit with the fairly good Vienna sample you are using. The orchestra instruments sound good though and will be captivating when the mastering work is done. Nice work so far. Keep it up!

Well, fist off... :D I fixed the post. Yes, those are from Indy Free, thanks for the suggestion. It has a nice variety of guitars that can sound very real with some mixing work, but mainly just serious thought in the dynamics to make it sound how I guitar would. Glad you liked it and glad you can see it playing as you wander around a military base.

This is a piece written for Epsilon-Alpha, a sci-fi game for which I have already composed and posted the main theme of. Out of Order is played when you wander about a military base in the beginning of the game. The tone is pessimitic and morale is low at this base as the united nations who occupy it are losing their war. Start Player I hope you enjoy it. Any comments or advice are welcomed. Thanks for listening!

Very nice piece of music. I felt a lot of sorrow in it. I agree with what recantra commented. I thought it ended to quickly and would have liked to see it continue on and develop more. Still, very sentimental. Good work.

I felt a very mysterious and anxious mood to this, which I believe was your intentions based on the title. I agree that the piano gets repetitive, you mentioned that it felt empty without it, I would recommend experimenting with other instruments to replace and possibly developing it more in the later parts of the piece to move elsewhere (emotionally and arrangemeent wise.) You can always pull out the lower range of some of the instruments to fill the sound space. I would say experimenting with a tuba, cello, double bass, bassoon, bass clarinet, the list goes on. Have fun with it and see what you can come up with. :) I did enjoy it as is though.

I see your a quick learner. You'll fit in well if you keep this up. :) This was very sentimental and enjoyable. I did feel the production was a bit sour though. You seem to have your hands on some very nice samples, I would suggest reading a few tutorials on mixing to help you make the best of them. This is EWQLSO right? *crosses fingers and hopes I'm right*