Rum & Gold

Hey everyone!

Since I've been back from Ireland, I decided to take some time before I jump into new projects to assemble something from earlier in the year. I participated in an orchestral recording session dedicated to showcasing good orchestration among young composers in the Guild of Canadian Film Composers (now the Screen Composers Guild of Canada) and I was fortunate enough to have my piece recorded.

The performance was not up to my expectations, and so, discouraged, I left it on my harddrive and moved on. Having had some time pass now though, I wanted to take it up again and try my hand at salvaging it. And so, from the 165 various audio stems (spot mics, hall mics, etc etc.) I have assembled the following version of the recording, which manages to omit most of the worst intonation issues. It's not perfect, but it's a good representation of the piece:

Rum & Gold

With this version done, I'll be going over it again with samples to add the missing Trumpet 2 part, to beef up the low end, and to assist any other sections that could use a virtual boost. But for now, have a listen and see what you make of it! Live recording! Woo! Also, here's a score if you want to read while you listen:

Rum & Gold Score

Enjoy! :happy:

This sounds great, its cool that you have the opportunity to get real recordings. I listened to it 3 times on my laptop speakers so I'm not sure if this is accurate but the strings are super quiet! (Or maybe the brass and clarinets just too loud)

As far as the composition goes it seemed a little short, but I'm not really complaining or anything. The themes were there but I felt as though they could have been developed a bit more

You're right on both counts!

In terms of the volumes, this is about as good as I can get them using only the live recording audio, which is why I'm going to go over it again with samples to help out the sections that aren't speaking enough. This is just a work in progress recording.

As for the length, we were restricted to a maximum length of 2 minutes for the session, so that's a product of the guidelines rather than my choice...oh well!

Thank you for listening :D

Ooooh, lucky you, getting a wonderful live performance like this. Indeed, even great samples are no equal for the real thing :)

I love it -- it's so fun and adventurous sounding! And the progressions are really nice, especially the more striking ones like the rise at about 1:08. It's like an overture for the movie's introduction credits.

It's a shame about the artificial-ish ending caused by the 2-minute limit, but if you ever for some reason decided to go back and for its own sake, I'm sure you couold easily develop it more. But I find it likely you're just going to move on to greener pastures.

Thanks for sharing, this was really nice to listen to :happy:

Going by the title, I expected something Pirates of the Caribbean-esque. And it very much did live up to that expectation!

I loved the instrumentation and overall feel. And like has been said before, too bad you were limited when making it. But great work nonetheless!

Thank you very much, guys, I'm very happy you enjoyed it! :)

I may one day go back and extend it, but for now I'm just interested in making this version of it as polished as possible so that I can toss it into the demo reel as a portfolio star. Having a live performance is always an honour, but in this case I feel like it needs a bit of help, which is why I'm going to be augmenting with samples.

O_O

This is sexy.

I love the Pirate feel this gives.

hey marius,

fab piece, your composition skills are beginning to sound intimidating. i agree about their performance, even though it gives it kind of rag time drunken feel.

afraid to ask how will it sound with your mockup?

i love how you come up with those different parts for each section combining them somehow with the stronger motif. your balance is always spot on, you put those quiet parts right where they are supposed to be and then go to creating a bigger drama going back to the first one.

this will require bigger study by me now that you have a score to really comment on your orchestration, but there are some strong clarinet parts in there i like.

maybe post this on big orchestral forums also, as they can comment on your orchestration probably better?

Hey Marius,

Fantastic man. What a treat to have a piece performed live (despite the intonation problems). The orchestration sounds pretty awesome though. Always a pleasure to see what you've been up to!

I suppose the best compliment one can receive is that their score is interesting enough to be worthy of study — I really appreciate that, J! :)

As a personal project partly inspired by this exercise, I've been doing some cues that are again done in Sibelius only, just so I can focus on my orchestration. The lesson has gone two ways: one, I've learned to pay more attention to orchestration obviously, but two I noticed that it's not making me orchestrate any better or worse than when I work from my sequencer. This particular piece is more embellished but it was intentionally so because it was an orchestration exercise (and it also followed some months of me writing very ambient stuff so I needed the change).

Anyway, just food for thought. I'm happy you guys enjoyed it! Working on some projects now but I'll come back to it soon and do the sample pass to get a finished project. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to grab a few cues from me for that other Sibelius-only dealie, just PM and I'll be happy to send you scores.

I feel like a baller for being there Marius. It's a very smooth recording you've spliced together. Glad that the horns at 0:12 were in tune in at least one take. They often were not.

The live recording almost has a "Man With A Machine Gun" sound to it.

Sweet work, Marius. Do you suppose that if your piece was performed earlier in the night there would've been fewer mistakes?

-John

Very nice, alot of complexities in the orchestration but it doesn't get too tangled up. I know how reading with a live group can be- even professionals rarely get it sounding really good on the first run. I also know where you're coming from with working on orchestration in Sibelius- orchestration in a sequencer and for live instruments can be very different, and I've found it's very easy to form a habit doing something that sounds great in one that does not sound so good in the other. I guess you just have to learn it both ways and remember which one you're doing at any given time! Congrats on having the opportunity to get some time with the 'real deal'! :)

marius -

TO be honest I felt the piece was tooo short - your motives are crying for more room. Nevertheless considering the imposed time constraints you did an excellent job and the mock-up is very good. Again, as posted earlier the challenge is the volume level stays a little much at the same level but you explained it was another limitation imposed by the original recording.

I'd really like to hear from you something teased out over a longer period of time. Why not take one or two of your motives from this piece and see how you could stretch into a work of 5 + minutes. I think there is a movement of a larger work in what you have.

Nevertheless considering the imposed time constraints you did an excellent job and the mock-up is very good.

mock up? i thought that's the term for using samples and not live.

Oh man, yes! I need to assemble some photos/video from the session cause John was there and it was rockin'! :D

Interestingly enough, the horns gave me very little trouble in terms of intonation. The trumpet was a royal pain, especially near the end....anyway, came together alright. I don't know if it would have been better earlier in the night. They may have been tired but it's not like the sessions were difficult. I think mine might have been the most demanding from a purely technical standpoint because of the tempo and vertical orchestration complexity compared to the others, but I'm not sure it would have made too big a difference either way.

Jared, thanks! You're exactly right — knowing what samples vs. live players can do and writing to each one's strengths is key. It's a good exercise to try out even if you don't get to work with live players ever, or very often (like me). It was a truly spectacular experience though.

Chris, you're right, of course. The motives could certainly use more room, though being of the media school of composing I actually find that having to be concise and keep it satisfying is also a great exercise. It's much easier to blab on for 6 minutes on a theme, I find, than to present it in a thoroughly satisfying way in half that time. So while it was frustrating to only have 2 minutes available, I don't resent the challenge it brought up and I remain proud of the result. As I said, maybe one day down the road I'll extend it.

And yes, mock-up is used to describe a sampled/synthesized version, so I assume Chris meant the assembly of the live material. :happy:

Thanks for listening, everyone! I can't wait to get time to do the sample pass.

Yeah I meant the assembly of live material ... pardon the loose application and no insult intended.

Marius - I agree wholeheartedly about conciseness. Again it is just something I was hankering for - a longer piece.