Epic music. Well, I hope it is.

[abitofBaileys]

You know that you can do very impressive stuff by spending money into instrument samples and spending time on learning to understand music and then throwing half your life away to make a song?
No? Damn. That's what I did.

I thought to make a movie score like music. Especially for my own little game project, so after near four weeks of working in FL Studio I can show something. It's not finished though and has a fast ending. But I hope, some of you can give me constructive critique. I would appreciate it =3

http://www.npshare.de/files/36/2293/kramzeuchs.mp3

That's the song. Uhm. I don't know what to say more. See ya. =D

[KidPhantom]

The intro was not bad, it gave me a good mental image.

However, the transition from the kinda gentle piano to the drums and loud brass was not something I particulary liked. It confused me a bit on what you wanted the mood of the song to be. However, the drums that come in after the brass is quite good, and after that it gets good again. The choir effect that comes in afterwards is not bad either.

During the second transition back to piano, hate the hard drums there, didn't like it. Otherwise, the piano solo is very nice. So far, the piano parts are the parts I like the most.

Then the drums come in... Good effect, and now the loud low guy choirs... They make a nice effect. Quite impressive.

The dramatic change, abruptly stopping everything going to the choir was good, but yes, you're right, a bit of an abrupt stop for the ending. Would like to see it continued... It's quite nice.

(I wrote this review while listening to it)

In general, would make great in-game music, the piano was awesome, but work on those loud brass noises... I felt like they were out of place after the piano... Hmm...Unless you want to show evil impeding on good or something in that part, but just don't like the brass here.

The second transition to piano... The first light part of the piano where it's just fast.... Then pauses, and goes back to the first piano melody seemed somewhat unneeded... Or needed changing...

Well, all in all, it was a great job. I liked this song^^ And of course, it's much easier to critique and pick at things like I did than to compose something, so if I'm just ranting about something, ignore me=P

[abitofBaileys]

Thanks for this. It's more than I excpected from the MB community^^

This music is supposed to be a trailer or teaser music. There are lots of different scenes and situations, so I was forced to make hasty transitions, though I tried to make them smooth. I will work over the transition between the piano and the brass + drums, as you mentioned. I didn't like that part either.
The drums with the brass after the first piano part were the ones I spent most time with. The timing, setting and the hall effects were quite difficult to arrange. I am very proud of this part.

You mentioned the delay between the fast playing piano and the melody in the 2nd piano part. I thought a little pause would be something to play with, but I see now, that I need to change this.

And I will try to arrange the brass so that it's not extremely loud. This was it what you didn't like about them, right? It's difficult to find the balance between the instruments, though X_x


Thanks for the critique. You really helped me out. =D

[KidPhantom]

Lol, no problem, and ouch, sorry about dissing the part you worked really hard on...

When your teaser comes out, send it out, hm?

[abitofBaileys]

Ahaha, yes. When it's done XD

[Devereaux]

Just curious, what channel plugins did you mainly use to make this.

[abitofBaileys]

I am not friendly with channel plugins. I manually edited every single instrument in Audacity to make it sound like I wanted. This is propably the reason why it took 4 weeks for this.

[lhitmanl]

yea Kidphantom, u really know ur sht there, some good outcome of the nodame experience, oh wait who introduced you to nodame?    (pick a talent show song, now, or I will dominate the stage myself)

ok onto your song. First of all ur awesome, i would ever have the skill or patience to create a piece like that (trust me, ive tried), and ur piece was... epic
Now for my one and only suggestion (for now)
Starting at 0:45, ur motif of the "A E ABC A" comes in twice, then the drums come in and the brass stops. For some reason i felt it was kinda empty there when it was 4 bars of just the drums. I understand you wanted to have a quiet period to build up excitement for the tuba?(not pro at identifying instruments), but personally, I was feeling a little variation of the "A E ABC A"

On the beat at 0:57, repeat the "A E ABC A", but add a 'E' above the last 'A' to make a fifth, which stays in the I chord. For the very next bar, repeat the "A E ABC A" again with no break in between the bars and not repeating the 'A'. So its like "A E ABC |A E ABC|A" (| is suppose to be a bar line). Additionally, add a 'F' above the last 'A' this time and make a vi chord in 1st inversion. Finally, on the beat at 1:03, you got your nice triplet snares, and right after that, on the 3rd beat of that bar at 1:04, add 3 notes "E C B" in the same rhythm as ur snares, and this leads to the resolution of the vi chord previous by the deep "A" of the tuba(?).
The entire thing, starting at the first beat at 0:57. (* = drum)

              E              F
A  EA B C|A  EA B C |A      E A B| A(tuba)
                             * * *

anyways this is what I was feeling at the moment, use them or not is completely up to you 
Ill give suggestions like this for the rest of the song if you want me to, but for now Im not going step over the boundaries of the rights of composers.

[KidPhantom]

Ahhhh fcking bitch.

I forgot that HE still goes on this forum.

Frikkin piano major. -_-

Oh, and you can go dominate the stage yourself. I've pretty much lost all self-confidence in my violining.

[abitofBaileys]

Fuck yeah. I will try this, lhitmanl. It's surprising every time if you talk about music with a normal human or with someone who had piano lessons more than 3 or 4 years. You feel like talking to a composer or something.

I'm in hurry now, but I thank both of you. KidPhantom gave me a very good analysis + impressions and lhitmanl gave me advices for improving the part in detail. I will try to make it perfect^^

+HEAT for both =D

[Hier]

O.O-Wow

That song painted quite the picture.
I really like the end and the build up, then a settle release that made it seem like a slow-mo cgi scene.

As for whats wrong with it, nothing really stuck out to much in my ears.
You say that this would be an in game song, I would love to hear the OST.

PS: For being in band/lessons for 4ish years, im no where near lhitmanl level O.O

~Good Luck With Your Project

[KidPhantom]

lhitmanl's been taken piano lessons for more than a decade.... He's really pro... He may become a world-class musician someday O.O

So... Listen to his adviceXD

[Pikachu_Fragger]

I'd say something more, but lhitmanl pretty much did a /thread. The song itself is pretty good, I can't really say anything else good/wrong about it that anyone here who is better at either making or playing music hasn't already said.

What I could say though is regarding the kind of genre the music would go well with, since you're mentioning that it would be the soundtrack for a game. It seems to have some kind of Lord of the Rings feel to it (I dunno, I felt some of the movie's OST influence on it), so it would go quite well with either a fantasy-themed game, or if you want to stretch it a bit, a medieval game. Heck, I could see this being played maybe on a WWII game. Any game that has that "one manly man/group of manly men against millions of odds is serious business" kind of thing going on would have this music in it.

Now if you're going for something else like a fast-paced 2D fighting game, a survival horror FPS, or a side-scrolling shooter that's got rocket lawnchairs in it with the intent to create some laughs, you're probably doing something wrong here.

[abitofBaileys]

What I could say though is regarding the kind of genre the music would go well with, since you're mentioning that it would be the soundtrack for a game. It seems to have some kind of Lord of the Rings feel to it (I dunno, I felt some of the movie's OST influence on it), so it would go quite well with either a fantasy-themed game, or if you want to stretch it a bit, a medieval game. Heck, I could see this being played maybe on a WWII game. Any game that has that "one manly man/group of manly men against millions of odds is serious business" kind of thing going on would have this music in it.

Now if you're going for something else like a fast-paced 2D fighting game, a survival horror FPS, or a side-scrolling shooter that's got rocket lawnchairs in it with the intent to create some laughs, you're probably doing something wrong here.

A genre mix between shooter, fantasy (swords, magic etc) and beat'em'up. You can switch between styles instantly (if you learned and mastered them; guns, blades and martial arts, something for everyone). It's in 2D, classical RPG view, but not static, you can move 360°, jump, crouch, run, roll and the usual suspects. The track here is for later appearance, in the fantasy world. I am currently trying some dark science blah music to train for the future parts. And I must improve the one above. And I have to finish the game. This WON'T happen THIS year, I tell you XD

Thanks!