Battle

This is a piece I wrote for the "Game Music" competition. It is meant to loop, so it doesn't have an ending chord. I also didn't put much work into performance instructions since it wouldn't be performed anyway. Criticisms are welcome, as always.

Battle

My critiques:

1. Nice opening; great melody.
   
2. I like your bass groove. I think I want to hear more of it and have you develop it.
   
3. Your strings shouts behind the melody from 0:20 - 0:34 don't always sound like they land on the beat.
   
4. What happened to the bass groove around 0:47? I think this sections needs to drive more and your bass was doing a fine job of that.
   
5. At 0:53-0:55 and 0:57-0:58, I feel like the melody disappeared. Make sure we hear it clearly.
   

It's understandable that you don't have an ending chord. It sounds bad, however, to cut your music like off that. I'd recommend a slow fade out. We've been told to avoid these when writing pieces with actual endings, but for a piece that never ends, I think a fade out is the most graceful way to finish the track.

Good luck on the competition!

Peace on Earth,

-John

Woah....I'm assuming you're not particularly looking for realism, that's a boatload of reverb you've used.

Doovongeman has already said all that needs to be said - I'm presuming that this is for the compstition Tuskle talked about.

Look forward to hearing more :)

Thanks for the comments.

The strings are actually a 16th ahead, which adds to the tension and rhythmic interest in the piece.

The bass is doubled by the trombone in the other problem section, which makes it sound like it disappeared.

And the ending is meant to be that way so that tuskle can just set it to loop. The beginning connects to the end that way.

P.S. That is a lot of reverb

I think John has pretty well covered the comments I wanted to make in terms of writing, so I'll focus on the production side of things using the same numbered format:

1. Kill some of that reverb, the piece is drowning

2. Spend some time panning the instruments into their proper stage placement

3. Use EQ and reverb on individual sections to achieve some depth between instruments (if you've panned them properly, they'll be horizontally situated just fine, so you just need to make sure they're in front/behind each other as necessary, since an orchestra doesn't all just line up at the front of the stage)

4. The mix is very quiet...spend some time playing with the volumes of instrument sections so that the final mix comes out a bit more loudly, this would have to be boosted and that's never good.

Otherwise not bad. It's not groundbreaking, but it doesn't need to be, and I enjoyed the melodic content — there's potential for some great development. You don't really do it over the course of such a short cue, but the point is that it's a very workable theme, which is great.

Thanks for sharing! :)

Hey Matt,

I listened to the updated version of your piece and it still sounds pretty cool.

One thing that struck me as off was that the loop wasn't smooth at all. It sounded like it came in a 16th note too early. I think the loop works musically you just need to properly align the track right after.

there's potential for some great development. You don't really do it over the course of such a short cue, but the point is that it's a very workable theme, which is great

I agree. Why not write a second track where you develop your themes more, add in new and exciting instrumentation and take a few more risks?

Peace on Earth,

-John

Marius, thank you for your comments. If you would like, I do have an updated version in the competition thread without the reverb. I will begin to work more on panning the instruments better from now on as well.

Doovongeman, thank you for telling me about that. I didn't hear it before and will try to fix that.

I very well might update it a final time, but I really need to finish my piece for my audition to college this week, so it may not be soon.