Triumph at Last

Just put what ever ideas that i came up with at the time into this music piece, hope you all like it!

Triumph at Last

Hey there,

This sounds good, though I have a few comments:

- The percussion in the start doesnt sound good, the percussion later on is better. Especially the percussion at 2:55 is cool!

- The piece sounds mechanical, try to "humanize" the ostinato's, the sustained sounds are ok.

When I try to listen through these problems, there are still some things that remain: The start with the strings is nice, but too long, unless there is a movie or game it supports, it will get boring.

Try to repeat some theme's, and create some melodies, it now was more some chord progressions with ostinato's to support them, and sometimes a nice beat underneath.. Hope you can do something with it!

grtz

Hugo

To add some comments here, let me first say that I think this has some really great potential.

The string intro. Let's consider what a real performance sounds like. First, velocities vary because in a live performance players are going to shape whatever kind of line you make for them. It's rather "unmusical" to keep all notes at one consistent dynamic, so if you're going for any kind of realism in this piece (and I think you should), you really need to consider this in the opening where this dynamic/realism is most exposed. The percussion in the beginning is -entirely- unnecessary. I actually believe it hurts the intro. I recommend taking it out simply because the mood you're creating is more ambient. You're creating a stage for some kind of musical drama to play itself out. The intro, to me, seems as though it's not an actual -participant- in the action that will unfold. A counter-melody might help, but I'm more inclined to think the simplicity of what you already have more or less -trumps- anything you can add to it from a content standpoint. Your content is enough, just humanize it with some expressive variance of the pitch velocities. That should be enough to evoke that "oooh... ahhh" kind of sensation.

The chorus. I'm having a similar problem with the "ah's" in the chorus coming in so early. The violins are far too loud at their entrance. When the percussion enters, I'm really getting the effect I think you're going for. You could actually use that Bassoon ostinato at 2'38" much sooner. I'd almost rather here that before I hear the Violins enter at the beginning. It's a tight little figure. The choral ah's overall just aren't working for me. I think the sample is good, but you've got to add some more reverb to the choir. You'll never, NEVER hear a choir sound so tight and unison in the acoustic space of a live performance. It just won't happen. So, the voices really need a LOT more sound space to resonate if you want your recording to evoke a realistic idea of what you're doing compositionally. Also, separating the men's and women's lines the way you are is actually hurting the build of tension and overall scope of the track. I would recommend beginning with the women's voices and adding the deeper texture of the men's voices when your percussion groove is going strong around the 3 minute mark. You'll hear what I'm talking about when you add more reverb to the chorus. You don't hear that now because you don't hear the resonance occuring in the voices, which is really the strength of large choral writing, just so you know.

With all of this said, I believe your content has potential. I think -most- of the work ahead of you is in the mix. Marius could help you with anything I've mentioned here, and he could probably give you more feedback on your percussion rendering in the recording as well.

Good stuff, Jolly! Thanks for submitting the work. Be sure to add the gear/samples you're using to your post in this forum, as we can all offer more suggestions to you when you do so. That's all.

- AA :)

thanks guys for commenting and suggesting, even though i dont know even half the words you are saying!!! i havent been educated in music at all, i just have ideas in my head and put them into FL studio xD

i dont know what bassoon ostinato even means, nor do i know what reverb means OR what counter melody means either!!!!!

anyway what i upload on this site will always be th final version, so i wont be going back to my music and editing it and uploading it all over again just cuz of a suggestion. all i can do is take these suggestions into account and put them into practise in my next piece of music!

P.S

if you're all wondering why most of the music has different themes and such, it's because i am not writing for a specific scenario or event, i aint scoring for a film here, i just get ideas from here and there and mix them into my music.

thanks again for the comments and suggestions, keep it up!!!

see ya'll

Well, an "ostinato" is a repeating rhythmic figure performed by a pitched instrument. A Bassoon is an instrument in the lower pitch range. I don't know what kind of samples come with FL Studio xD, but the moment I was talking about in your piece -sounded- like a Bassoon was playing the figure. Reverb is short for reverberation. The higher your setting, the bigger the "space" of your sound. A lower setting will sound like your piece is being played in a closet. A higher setting will sound like your piece is being played in a giant space like a warehouse or a concert hall. The recording should represent the "space" that an actual ensemble would need to perform the work. You won't fit any ensemble, choir, and percussion in a closet. But your recording sounds exactly like that.

You don't have to edit your music. The music ideas you're using are interesting enough. I think you can edit some of the settings in FL Studio (could take 2-10 minutes, depending on how familiar you are with the software) to reconfigure how the sounds are recorded through the software into the audio file. So, what I'm suggesting is really not -that- time consuming, nor would re-uploading the piece to the forum. But it's up to you. If you don't want to do that, it's your choice. But it's kind of a slap in my face when I spend time offering you comments and feedback in a forum that exists to serve that purpose when someone then says, "Well, I don't really care what you say, I'm not interested in improving the current work." I don't take that personally, though, it makes me wonder why you're even posting work at all if you're not interested in making improvements on the works you post. It's really your choice, and writing music, recording it, that's all a revision process. We all have to go back and make changes from time to time based on quality feedback from others.

I hope you realize that almost none of my suggestions relate to -edits- to your music. My suggestions pertain specifically to how your -recording- sounds and what you can do to make it better. Use my suggestions or don't. That's entirely up to you. I just hope you'll try to make changes in the effort to learn from our feedback and improve on your own. Otherwise, it's pointless for me or anyone else here to even review your work. What does our feedback do for you if you don't intend to use it?

That's all I'm hoping to get across here. Give it some thought. :)

- AA

Hi Jolly,

I like the stream-of-consciousness kind of writing that you've got going on here, but I think the result needs a bit more polish. That being said, you've already said you won't be making revisions to this piece, so I'll give you some thoughts to keep in mind for future pieces:

First off: be conscious of where instruments are placed on a stage and how loud they are relative to each other in a live mix. Listen to some real orchestra recordings and you'll notice that certain elements in here are way louder and more "up front" than they should be. Some of the percussion, the piano, vocals, etc. In terms of the writing, my only comment is to explore a bit more...this is very safe and generic writing. Toss in some richer harmonies, use unconventional instruments, add some more rhythmic and dynamic changes.

The production side of things is also lacking. Besides the volumes and placements of instruments that I alluded to above, you also need to make sure that you're making the best of the samples you have....make sure things don't sound mechanical. Real players play with some emotion and feeling, some imprecision, some character. Also, Hugo's right: your percussion samples really need to be replaced, they sound terrible and are dragging the rest of your mix down.

Overall this is a solid effort, but practise and some more exploration will yield superior results for your future pieces. :)

to AntiA: i wasnt implying that i will ignore your suggestions just cuz i wont edit my song based on them.... so why you took that as a slap in the face i dont know. i said i will take suggestions into account in my next pieces..... the fact that you took that as a slap in the face ACTUALLY hurt me and pissed me off.

TO EVERYONE ELSE, thanks for listening to my music and keep the views, comments and such coming!!!

bye for now.

by the way, I put my music on this site for it to be heard by people. REVIEWING is a seperate thing, because you dont have to do it if you dont wanna. all im trying to say (this mostly goes for AntiA) is that if yur gonna review my music just to tempt me to edit that particular song the review is for, then DONT BOTHER. like i said in my above post, I will take suggestions in to account for my next productions, but my uploads are always the final versions, no amount of reviewing is gonna change that!!! so dot get worked up or upset (i.e AntiA) just cuz i dont edit my song because of a suggestion or advice.

peace out...

I dont think you are doing the right thing here. If you want to improve your composing skills, you should take the opinion of other people in account.

That's fine. I'll honor your request and not review anymore of your works. Just send me a PM if you change your mind.