The Siege

This piece is meant to tell a story of a battle of good versus evil. The air is still as the soldiers await their command to go into battle. The anticipation builds until finally they are ordered to attack. Both sides are fighting ruthlessly. Forces seem to be matched. Without warning the good side suffers a terrible loss that seems nearly impossible to recover from. With a bruised moral, and seemingly diminished odds, they continue to fight for at least their honor. Suddenly they are able to gain the upper hand. The obstacles were overcome and they come out victorious. The evil is defeated and the good lives on. Comments and constructive criticism encouraged

The Siege

This is a reasonably high quality piece all in all. Coincidencially, I'm working on a similar sort of piece at the moment :) What sample and software did you use to compose this??

The basic orchestration and harmonies seem pretty good, and this could potentially become a great composition. However, whatever effect you're trying to is somewhat ruined by cheap computerised moments. Like the bass line as the action starts, you need some variation with velocity. There are several otherwise cool moments which are affected in this way too.

Another thing is that the part at the start, you could have exaggerated the tempo, so it builds up the tension and anticipation even more.

It's overall fairly nice stuff, it's just the details you need to work on a little for it to become top-notch :phones:

The piece is composition-wise pretty good, and cleverly put together, but what you need to work on is realistic sound. It had quite a few moments when things started to sound synthy. And take an advice from a drummer and a percussionist, the beat that you got going on, straight 16-ths in the beginning, does not fit in there quite good. I would go with half time, and throw in some heavy toms, flamed, and of course work on the dynamic expression.

What sample and software did you use to compose this??

I use a pretty cheap program called Acoustica Mixcraft, and i use the VST software that comes with it. Composing is just a small side hobby of mine so i have no need to spend much money on high quality VST instruments. Yeah the instruments arnt as realistic as or good quality as would like them to sound, but they are good enough for people to understand what im going for. which is good enough in my case.

For the vst software, that's actually pretty good. Most I've encountered all all really cheap, synthy things, this sounds semi realistic with some work. I honestly thought that this might be commercial libraries.

Don't let a tight budget get in your way though!! I have no budget to use, I use purely freebies. At the risk of sounding like a cheap ad, find the best collection of free soundfonts on the internet here: http://freesf2.com :) Set up by the Battle for Wesnoth music development team.

Don't let a tight budget get in your way though!! I have no budget to use, I use purely freebies. At the risk of sounding like a cheap ad, find the best collection of free soundfonts on the internet here: http://freesf2.com :) Set up by the Battle for Wesnoth music development team.

I have tried soundfonts, but dont understand how to get them to function along with my program. The only freebie type software I understand how to use are VSTi's that have a .dll file that my program utilizes. Im not sure how to make it recognize sf2 files.

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

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

The second half of that post confused me a little. It seemed kind of random, but if you are trying to send me a message, don't worry. I have only just joined these forums yesterday. I have every intention of becoming an active member of the community. Right now I am addressing posts directed at me, as I am still scoping out what else these forums have to offer. Its never a good idea to just go obliviously posting in a topic without first getting a sense of the community and how they interact. Different forums have different social norms, and i would hate to break one off the bat. I am also very new to these styles of music so I think i should learn about them first before i go critiquing the hard work of another member. Thanks for your concern though.

On Topic:

For the most part the velocities were controlled and intentionally made high to increase the driving feeling of the song. But i understand how the beginning percussion can be a little much.

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

guitarplayer:Look at freesf2 Home Page, it should have some links to free VST plugins that can you need to play soundfonts :)

rolifer: You have StormDrum2?? Nice :phones:

for a free sound library the sound isnt bad at all . at 1:46-- the strings sounded a little synthy .

as for the composition . i think this piece has a alot of potential . its epic but it doesnt overwhelm the listener and distract him from the film/game . its continuity or how can i say it ... ( it can be made into loops) helps the music editor or the producer to loop it if he needs it as an entrance scene or as a menu music. The brass at the beginning is pretty good . and i loved the flute around 1:140

overall this is a neat piece , good job

Hey Billy,

Another successful piece. This one reminds me of a less well orchestrated Soul Calibur style piece. Fun to listen to. To expand on what Ron's saying, you should spend more time squeezing every last drop of realism out of your samples. They're not the best, but you can get them to sound better than this with a bit of clever mixing and some extra MIDI sequencing work — not just with velocities (which are consistently high; I understand you want a driving pulse but your writing will elicit that without you having to smack out every note. Just kills the realism) — but also with things like volumes and balance of instrumental sections.

Spend some serious time working on the mixing aspect...EQ, reverb, and panning can elevate your piece to a whole new level of cool, so don't neglect them.

Fun stuff though, thanks for sharing!

What exactly is "MIDI sequencing"? I know what MIDI is, but don't understand what it means to sequence it. I'm exclusively working with VST's in the program I use so i don't know exactly how MIDI sequencing can be applied.

Sequencing is basically the craft of precisely and intricately manipulating MIDI values in your sequencing program (hence the name) in order to get the VST instruments to sound as realistic as possible. Since all MIDI is doing is triggering the VST sounds, you want to make sure you get the samples to sound as realistic as they can, which means working on tweaking the MIDI values (key velocities, note durations, modulation data, expression data, etc etc) in order to achieve that. That's what sequencing software is for. I'm not really familiar with Mixcraft, but if it doesn't let you do any of that, Reaper will and it's free for non-commercial use:

www.reaper.fm

Hey Billy,

As mentioned previously, your samples could use a bit of work. What particularly stood out for me was the opening. The low strings at 0:10 and the choir directly afterwards. Otherwise, the machine-gun has already been mentioned. It happens to me too :P Keep working on that.

I find the voices work a lot better in the background like at 1:43 because we're distracted by the other melodies and we don't notice the sample quality. You might want to take them out of the foreground at the beginning; they don't sound great. Maybe you could give the line to some brass or french horns instead.

More buildup to 2:12 would sound cooler. Right now, you do a roll but it's not really cutting through the mix.

Very musical writing. A few more surprises, especially harmonically, would have been nice.

One of your instruments around 1:10 got buried under the track. Can you bring this line out so that we can hear it better?

I'm feeling heavier drums at 2:12. I can barely hear them and I want more oomph to this part of the track.

Keep polishing this track and I'm sure it will sound excellent!

Peace on Earth,

-John

which means working on tweaking the MIDI values (key velocities, note durations, modulation data, expression data, etc etc) in order to achieve that. That's what sequencing software is for. I'm not really familiar with Mixcraft, but if it doesn't let you do any of that, Reaper will and it's free for non-commercial use:www.reaper.fm

I do know it does allow tweaking of that stuff, but im only really familiar with editing velocities and effects such as EQ, reverb, etc. Not familiar with modulation or expression data. If it could help make violins sound more real taht would be great. my biggest issues are with the violin and the choir sounds in this program.

Hey Billy,As mentioned previously, your samples could use a bit of work. What particularly stood out for me was the opening. The low strings at 0:10 and the choir directly afterwards. Otherwise, the machine-gun has already been mentioned. It happens to me too :P Keep working on that.I find the voices work a lot better in the background like at 1:43 because we're distracted by the other melodies and we don't notice the sample quality. You might want to take them out of the foreground at the beginning; they don't sound great. Maybe you could give the line to some brass or french horns instead.More buildup to 2:12 would sound cooler. Right now, you do a roll but it's not really cutting through the mix. Very musical writing. A few more surprises, especially harmonically, would have been nice. One of your instruments around 1:10 got buried under the track. Can you bring this line out so that we can hear it better?I'm feeling heavier drums at 2:12. I can barely hear them and I want more oomph to this part of the track.Keep polishing this track and I'm sure it will sound excellent!Peace on Earth,-John

Thanks a lot for the specifics! really helpful

Anything for a fellow 19 year old ;)

Edit: What if you combined the vocal lines at the beginning with some strings? Have the strings get featured with just a little choir behind to give it a slightly different colour.

Peace on Earth,

-John