Forest Frozen By Time

My second attempt at a more ambient-like track. This one was a b**** to write, with all the damn instruments in this song. Anyway, I am reasonably satisfied with the final result.

I was going for a kinda ice forest type place, where the trees are all covered in ice and light snow is casually falling. If anyone has played Final Fantasy X, think of something like Macalania Forest and that was what I was going for with the theme. Anyway, any feedback you guys could give me would be great.

Two sidenotes: First, ignore the bass guitar slide in the beginnining (where the percussion enters), it's only meant to play the second time when it loops back around, but I got lazy and wanted to condense the score a little bit. So I used the repeat bars.

Second, there is a somewhat subtle quote to one of my previous songs (Wandering Shadows) near the 1:30 mark. If you heard/liked Wandering Shadows, please try to listen for it.

EDIT: I noticed I've been having some problems with my soundclick page lately and the songs seem to want to not stream. If this happens, try hitting Embed player. This seems to get the songs to stream for some reason. No idea why though. If any further problems arise with the streaming of this song, let me know.

SoundClick song info: The Forest Frozen By Time by Guitarplayer52 - Song info page with free MP3 music downloads

You did just what you said. This is a nice mellow dream world. I can see the ice, but I don't feel the ice if you know what I mean. I am warm like in something that protects me from the cold. But the vision of the ice and snow is there. Maybe looking thru a window from inside a warm home out into the gentle snowfall.

At around the 50 second mark there is a jump or a skip in the playback that I heard on all three listens. I think I hear the reference to Wandering Shadows as well.

All in all, a well thought out and executed piece.

Well done.

I totally agree with Rolifer on this one. I see it, but I cant feel it. I think the reason (and I'm just guessing here) may be the bass line and the bass drum. They're both very smooth and.....well, warm. I believe you want the piece as cold as possible (correct me if I'm wrong). I would simply take out the Bass guitar and the bass drum. If you like what you've done with the bass line and dont want to get rid of it (totally understandable....you worked hard to get it figured out, its like breaking up with youre girlfriend the night after you get together) then figure out another part to put the same line in. Or just try it an octave up or something. Do what you will, but I think thats the problem right there. Good luck!

Well, I was going for a kinda contrast type thing. Both a warm and a cold feeling (though yes, I will admit, the warm feeling dominates most of the song). I agree about the bass, it's not out of place, but it doesn't exactly fit that "cold" feeling that some of the other instruments are giving off. I may change the bassline and the bass drum, but I am pretty happy with them. I am confused though, did you like this song Pianoman?

Haha, yeah! I loved it! I understand contrast.....but I dont think this is the piece to do it in. If I were trying to portray an ice forest in one of my songs I would try and eliminate every feeling of warmth I could. You want the listener (or player in the case of a video game) to feel cold. I mentally blocked out the bass parts and suddenly started getting chills. That makes all the difference ;)

lol well thanks then. Yeah, maybe the contrast didn't work so well, I don't know. This is the first time I ever really tried contrasting. I might change the bass, but I don't think I can just get rid of it. I need something to lessen the somewhat repetitive nature of this song. Well anyway, thanks for your comments. That's why I post on this forum, so that people can give me some constructive criticism so hopefully I can improve as a composer. Anyway, thank you. I am going to try to post a score soon for anyone who is interested.

Yeah, I'm definitely interested. Keep me posted on what you do with the bass too k?

Yeah, I'm definitely interested. Keep me posted on what you do with the bass too k?

No problem :innocent:

The chords in this are way to loud... I can hardly hear the rest of the instruments. You should also lower down the percussion a bit. But, not to much or you'll lose the effect you have here. But, yeah the synths playing chords and the repetitive arpeggios need to be lowered volume wise to fit the piece better. I don't know what kind of headphones/speakers you have, but I have what I can safely call high-quality headphones and trying to hear the rest of the instruments almost cost me an ear. Did no one else notice this..?

The chords in this are way to loud... I can hardly hear the rest of the instruments. You should also lower down the percussion a bit. But, not to much or you'll lose the effect you have here. But, yeah the synths playing chords and the repetitive arpeggios need to be lowered volume wise to fit the piece better. I don't know what kind of headphones/speakers you have, but I have what I can safely call high-quality headphones and trying to hear the rest of the instruments almost cost me an ear. Did no one else notice this..?

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. I will agree that the drums (particularly the bass drum) maybe a bit too loud and that with so many instruments, some parts tend to get blurred. But for the most part, I think the volume is where I want it at. Most of the song consists of long suspended chords anyway. In fact, out of about 10 instruments playing at all times, only four of them are palying anything besides chords. The Glockenspiel, Dulcimer, Piano, and Bass. Anyway, I probably will end up re-recording this when I decide what I'll do with the bass, but I wouldn't expect much of a change as far as volume goes.

The chords in this are way to loud... I can hardly hear the rest of the instruments. You should also lower down the percussion a bit. But, not to much or you'll lose the effect you have here. But, yeah the synths playing chords and the repetitive arpeggios need to be lowered volume wise to fit the piece better. I don't know what kind of headphones/speakers you have, but I have what I can safely call high-quality headphones and trying to hear the rest of the instruments almost cost me an ear. Did no one else notice this..?

You realize that this is ambient music dont you? I think the volume levels are fine (except the Bass and drums.....but thats being changed I'm sure :P)

The piece is well excecuted and does do justice to the scenery described. The variety of instrumentation is very welcoming as well. There is more depth, so it doesn't seem as repetitive as you may feel it. I did the same thing as pianoman216 and felt the chills. The warmth is good, and the contrast is a good idea, but what it needs is balance. For a cold scenery, it has too much warmth, as if you went outside for 2 minutes, decided it was too cold, and then back inside and drank hot cocoa while looking out the window. I think if you balance the contrast, perhaps more cold than warmth, you'll be satisfied with the result. Good job and good luck!

I guess I wasn't being that clear.

Before the piano in the beginning comes in you have an instrument playing a melody, but you can bearly hear it over the chords. When it is reintroduced later on in the piece you turned the volume up much higher though. I'm pretty sure you did this intentionally. If so, then that would explain it. My bad, I guess I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been :D

I actually like this piece. But, I do still think the drums need to be adjusted.

Yeah, I am definetly going to turn down the drums a bit and make the bass drum less noticeable. I've tried to change the bass but nothing I've come up with has worked so far. I'll keep trying but until I find something that works for the bass, I won't update. On a side note: I am currently working on a piano rearrangement of Wandering Shadows. It's going pretty well and I am almost done. Once I finish the piano rearrangement though, I am thinking about trying harder, more challenging songs of mine to rearrange for piano. And I was thinking about rearranging this one. I am wondering if anyone would actually be interested in hearing this and if it's a good idea or not?

There's something wrong on the server I think. When I click hi-fi there's an error while loading songfile... But I listened to lo-fi - it's really good. I think it would fit to RPG or (more) to adventure game.

Very good job :(

TEST

There's something wrong on the server I think. When I click hi-fi there's an error while loading songfile... But I listened to lo-fi - it's really good. I think it would fit to RPG or (more) to adventure game.

Very good job :(

Thank for alerting me to that. It seems the server is down since I have tried like three different songs of mine and none will load. I guess try back later or be satisfied with the lo-fi version. Anyway thank you, most of my music is geared towards RPG type adventure games. Mostly due to my love of the RPG's (more specifically the Final Fantasy series). So anyway, glad you enjoyed.

Heh Final Fantasy you said? That melody reminds me Fable I don't know why (the best music is in Oblivion for me). I'll try hi-fi version, maybe it will work in future. . . :(

Heh Final Fantasy you said? That melody reminds me Fable I don't know why (the best music is in Oblivion for me). I'll try hi-fi version, maybe it will work in future. . . :P

I take it your not a very big fan of Final Fantasy. It's alright, Final Fantasy wasn't all that good (musically and in general) until FF7 and hit it's peak for me at FF10. After FF10-2, the series started going downhill. Hoping for FF13 to be better though lol. Anyway, yeah I've played Oblivion and enjoyed the music. It's alot more ambient and doesn't really stick out during gameplay, so you really have to pay attention to hear it. But I don't remember ever hearing it do an annoying loop every couple of minutes so nothing wrong with that. As for Fable, I played and beat the game, but it's been so long ago I don't remember what the music was like. I'm going to assume it's the same deal as Oblivion. Anyway, thank you for your comments and I think I will check out some Fable music later.