Some Tracks From a New Project

Sounds good, I will be following this project with interest, and I'm glad you landed it - looks like it might get pretty big :D

Hats off! The first piece of you I've listened to and you definitely seem to know what you're doing. The music is very well done and probably pretty effective in such a mod. The ability to systematically work towards a specific mood is something I admire a lot about good composers of incidental music, as it's something I can't. I'll gladly listen to more of your stuff!

(By the way, your profile says you're only 17? If this is still accurate, that makes this even more impressive. There's no way I could have written effective orchestral music at 17.)

Thank you very much, Gardener!

I am still 17, yes, so the profile is accurate, and I'm happy to hear you judge my orchestration as effective - especially considering my utter lack of any manner of formal training on the subject. Just goes to show that you can make progress on your own accord too, even if the official teaching that I hope to eventually receive will no doubt improve things even more. You live and you learn though, and I like to think that every piece teaches me something new.

Thanks again for your kind words. :)

ive heard your themes for this, wonderful work man. you have such a terrific talent at 17!! i guess theres only one thing left to say then....

Marius is the scraggy

Hey Marius, finally downloaded a few pieces of the soundtrack, piano intro, plainitive piano ambience, main theme and theme teaser to be specific.

Out of the 4, I liked theme teaser the most. Playing this piece in the game will definitely give the player a huge boost of adrenaline, which is a great thing. The change at 0:30 was sweet, and the brass entrance just gives the whole piece another great feel of hugeness, of danger to it. I can imagine someone holding a gun, and preparing to kill. Something that nags me though, is the mixing. When the drums came in at the beginning, I felt that it was maybe like 5 feet away from me. Then when the orchestral samples chimed in, I felt that I was in a concert hall. That's maybe because of the EWQLSO samples you used. Maybe try adding slightly more reverb to the percussion?

Main theme: The pitch bending of the wind instrument (is it a duduk?) is great. Gives a sense of mystery. The mixing of this piece sounds better to my ears. The faster part at 1:14 was exciting, though I felt the string melody at 1:30 sounded a little Oriental. It adds a special flavour to the piece per se, but I'm not quite sure if you're aiming for this.

The piano pieces: I like the ambience you used. But the piano part was just too... bland. Just my personal opinion, I hope you don't get offended. If you remove the ambience and the wind instrument, these pieces would go perfectly in a new age piano music album, without anyone thinking it's from an FPS. The plaintive piano ambience especially. The intro sounded waaaaay to cliched and it turned me off already.

So to summarize it up, I would like to hear better piano pieces. The themes are good. Well done!

Thanks a bunch for the detailed review, Nigel!

I agree with your points so I won't bother commenting further, but I will say that the oriental twinge to the string bit in the main theme IS in fact intentional and it makes me happy that it's noticeable, even if it's somewhat subtle. The game has some strong Oriental content in terms of the story.

Thanks again! :)

Thanks a bunch for the detailed review, Nigel!

I agree with your points so I won't bother commenting further, but I will say that the oriental twinge to the string bit in the main theme IS in fact intentional and it makes me happy that it's noticeable, even if it's somewhat subtle. The game has some strong Oriental content in terms of the story.

Thanks again! :)

Guns + Oriental + Tyranosauruses + Choppers = Interesting :)

Definitely - it's an amazingly fun project, I'm very happy to be a part of it.

Hey everyone!

I'm allowed to share another very brief cue with you, so I figured I may as well link to it. It's a march-like introduction to a character - think of it like an impressive introduction to this particular character (who is called Johann for anyone who's curious).

March Intro

Enjoy! :happy:

I never thought I'd say this man, but I think there is something I can criticise on this!!

*shocked*

Anyways, it's a great cue. Love the combination of strings and brass that you've got going, it balances really nicely. It just feels a bit empty, so I think you could do with a bit more emphasis on the percussion in there.

Great little job though, and I look forward to the next one I find a flaw in 50 pieces from now :D

Haha, thanks Fox :P I agree with you, but it's funny you should say that because I've actually been trying to mix my percussion quieter on purpose following some suggestions to that effect from some other people. Figures, eh?

Anyhow, I will remedy the problem in a more complete rendition of the theme - since it will no doubt recur in the soundtrack multiple times.

Hey,

I maybe late to say this, but congradulations on the project. It sounds great and seems interesting enough.

Piano Intro

I was wondering if this is for the title screen or the opening to the game? It's a little short, but it doesn't appear to be loopable so I'm guessing it's for the opening. It's sounds very similar to alot of piano pieces I have heard before. Maybe a little to similar for my liking. Still I can't complain as this piece is very sentimental and sounds good.

Main Theme

I liked the Main Theme alot. Nicely orchestrated and I feel it goes well with the theme of the game (at least what I know of it.) My only critique is the length and the ending, but sense you say this isn't the final version and that you plan to improve on it i'll hold my tongue.

March Intro

I agree about the percussion. Some pieces sound better with light percussion and others sound better with heavier percussion. This is one of the "others." I could still see it fitting in though.

Nice work, Marius. I feel theres little critiue to be said. These work you've done here is good and will help make this game come alive. :D

Great work dude!

Listening to the "main theme" now. really nice... there is a bit that sounds quite Jurrassic Parky... on the brass, think it's a trumpet, has a 5th interval twice.

But good luck with the rest of the project, sounding really good!

Another update in here too - I just finished scoring the teaser trailer for the project. It really is just a teaser and the musical material is negligible, but I'm still sharing it because I did all the sound that you hear in the video: effects, ambiences, etc.

http://www.mathazzar.com/Music/LWR%20Teaser%20Stream.mov

Enjoy :)

Great sound design, especially at the beginning with the shovel... very cute haha. ;)

I'm not so sure about the noise that sounds like a rubber-band though. It starts at around the powered by cryengine screen. I think it's supposed to simulate a bug, right? Maybe if you were to turn down the volume of it, it'd sound more like it should.

By the way, what mic do you use?

Heya Tol! Thanks for the comments.

To answer your last question first, I use this little cutie here:

Samson - Zoom - H4

It's far from a professional device, but people don't seem to be able to tell, which means it works just fine for me right now. Plus, it's portable, powerful, and light.

As for that sound you mentioned, I agree that it could be turned down a bit, though my intention wasn't necessarily to emulate a bug so much as to provide a sort of "strange" background noise element for the CryEngine screen because the lack of an actual sound-logo for the engine meant that I had to put something else in that brief span of time to engage the audience's curiosity in preparation for the orchestral swell and dino footstep.

Everyone seems to love the cute little shovel though :P I was kind of going for a Pixar-like vibe, so I guess I wasn't too far off then! :)

Thanks again for the thoughts!

Yeah, you really can't tell the difference between this and a high-end microphone. Plus, this is relatively cheap. It seems perfect for those looking to venture into sound design, such as myself. Haha. :happy:

Oh, I thought the "bug" noise was supposed to be apart of the whole jungle ambience you had going on. I know what you mean about the CryEngine thing, maybe you want to try something along the lines of the PS3 noise, but that could potentially be very distracting. I guess I have no suggestions. However, I still think you should turn the bug down. :P

Honestly though, I still think my favorite sound effect is the rocks crumbling. :whistling:

Everyone loves that freaking rock crumbling :D Weird.

Anyhow, I think you've got a good suggestion about the CryEngine thing, except that if I put in a more "digital" sound like the PS3 one then I wreck the atmosphere, as you said...so I think I'll stick to turning it down, it's the easiest fix.

Alright, so I got frustrated that I still can't get my sound libraries installed on my new studio (waiting for Kontakt 3 to arrive, long story) but I wanted to write something for this project, so I sat down tonight and put this little cue together with the sounds I had available to me...which means Logic's built-in sound library. It's not the best, but it's not too bad, and I tried to make it sound as realistic as I could. It's only one minute long, but I call it a half an hour well spent. See what you think:

Action Cue

Please enjoy! :)

Hah! I really like it. :D It's has a lot of movement, which I like.

Anyway, nice use of guitar and synths... they blend nice with the pizz at the beginning. Can't wait to hear it when you get your libraries up and running! :thumbsup:

Thanks, Tol. :) It's getting difficult to stay patient with the postal system...grrr. :P

New track! And a very notable one because it's the first done using all the amazing neat things Kontakt lets me do! Turns out it's MUCH easier to get things sounding nice and realistic from within Logic now that I've got Kontakt on my side.

This is a fairly straight-forward action track. Thematically, it's not overly interesting except that it makes use of an instrumental technique which I'm using to represent the Compsognathus (annoying, ankle-biting species of dinosaur); namely, the cello played con legno. You'll notice it subtly in the background and occasionally becoming more prominent.

Anyhow, enjoy! :)

Compy Attack!

Sounds like that jungle level out of that one video game.

Nice sounds effects too O__O

OH! That level! Yes, yes I remember now. Thank you!

Here's another little quickie I threw together since posting that last one:

Sneaking About

And here's a stinger for the appearance of the mighty T-Rex!

"Oh scraggy, it's a F*ckin' T-Rex!"