I wrote this song for the upcoming game made by Loli. Thanks to Yur|ko for coming up with the name!
[media]http://soundcloud.com/schmoe222/black-ships[/media]
Holy shit. You did this with vst plugins? If so, it should be illegal to make vst plugins sound so good. Simply amazing work! Reminds me of pirates of caribbean for some reason :v:
[QUOTE=CLungcancer;29150462]Holy shit. You did this with vst plugins? If so, it should be illegal to make vst plugins sound so good. Simply amazing work! Reminds me of pirates of caribbean for some reason :v:[/QUOTE]
Thanks a lot, man! It was rendered entirely with EastWest.
Schmoe you're making everyone else look bad. :buddy:
Sweet track dude ! I'm liking the melody at 0:32 very much.
[QUOTE=LufOo;29154111]Sweet track dude ! I'm liking the melody at 0:32 very much.[/QUOTE]
Thanks! Actually, I started with that melody but ended up making it more of a background theme as I wrote more :v:
Vewwy nice i knew it was gonna be epic:3
This is really good! I love the lower part, really intimidating, and of course Pirates of the Caribbean would be proud. I think main melody part :30 and beyond is a [i]little[/i] too heavy in the mix, maybe tone it down just a bit. If you want to take it to the next level, some subtle harmony parts could help, but just in general add more subtle little touches to make the song more intricate and interesting. I feel after a while the divide between melody and background becomes a little too noticeable so adding in some parts could help. Also, if you really want to get tricky, some weird key changes are always fun to throw in if the opportunity arises. Oh also, during one of the quieter bits, it's either xylophone or bell, but there's a part in there that stands out and sounds a little odd (1:15). It just seems very...Runescape-esque for some reason, like a lower quality midi sound. Probably just me.
Nice work though, 9.5/10. Keep up the awesome stuff dude.
[QUOTE=Biscuit-Boy;29160354]This is really good! I love the lower part, really intimidating, and of course Pirates of the Caribbean would be proud. I think main melody part :30 and beyond is a [i]little[/i] too heavy in the mix, maybe tone it down just a bit. If you want to take it to the next level, some subtle harmony parts could help, but just in general add more subtle little touches to make the song more intricate and interesting. I feel after a while the divide between melody and background becomes a little too noticeable so adding in some parts could help. Also, if you really want to get tricky, some weird key changes are always fun to throw in if the opportunity arises. Oh also, during one of the quieter bits, it's either xylophone or bell, but there's a part in there that stands out and sounds a little odd (1:15). It just seems very...Runescape-esque for some reason, like a lower quality midi sound. Probably just me.
Nice work though, 9.5/10. Keep up the awesome stuff dude.[/QUOTE]
I'll take a look at toning down the main melody. When playing around with it earlier, though, I found that it could be pretty easily overpowered by the drums and marcato strings and decided to add a bassoon to reinforce the melodic motif.
As far as harmony goes, adding a lot of imperfect intervals in a song such as this could become muddy quite quickly and the orchestration would surely suffer. Besides that, imperfect intervals aren't nearly as powerful as octaves and fifths, and the powerful mood which I was going for in this song would be lost. That's not to say that, for example, thirds cannot accompany a powerful melody, but they don't create the same effect as an octave doubling.
Likewise, a very separate background was also an effect I was going for. The motif played by the double basses is very rhythmically driven, and I want to keep that going throughout the song. When going to a more sustained variation of the background theme the music seemed to slow, and when adding new parts in the music seemed to become just a bit too busy.
I actually tried to change to D minor but as it didn't add anything to the song I removed it.
Lastly, I believe the sound you're talking about is the bass guitar. I'll take another look at it and see if I can find any better samples to use.
Hmm, I see your point. I didn't mean strictly 3rds, but just some short 2-4 measure patterns, in the lower brass, or strings. I feel like the song is perfectly fine without.
As for the bass guitar, I don't believe I've ever heard a bass of any variety sound like that, it's a rather high note. It doesn't start at 1:15, but it is much more noticeable there. Either way I'm talking about the instrument that is playing a pattern with some syncopation, that seems to stay on one note for as long as it's audible (most of the song)
Still, it doesn't subtract anything significant so even though I'm unable to effectively communicate what I'm referring to your song is great regardless haha.
EDIT: When I typed key changes I meant time signature change, sorry. I've read through several scores of Pirates of the Caribbean and time signature changes are rampant. Once again, these are just little ideas, as a whole the song wants not improvement.
[QUOTE=Biscuit-Boy;29161286]Hmm, I see your point. I didn't mean strictly 3rds, but just some short 2-4 measure patterns, in the lower brass, or strings. I feel like the song is perfectly fine without.
As for the bass guitar, I don't believe I've ever heard a bass of any variety sound like that, it's a rather high note. It doesn't start at 1:15, but it is much more noticeable there. Either way I'm talking about the instrument that is playing a pattern with some syncopation, that seems to stay on one note for as long as it's audible (most of the song)
Still, it doesn't subtract anything significant so even though I'm unable to effectively communicate what I'm referring to your song is great regardless haha.
EDIT: When I typed key changes I meant time signature change, sorry. I've read through several scores of Pirates of the Caribbean and time signature changes are rampant. Once again, these are just little ideas, as a whole the song wants not improvement.[/QUOTE]
Oh okay, I know what you mean. I'll keep that in mind for future songs.
Yeah, it's a definitely high note for a bass guitar and the sample isn't the best. I'm changing it and re-uploading the song now. It's a lot less noticeable in general and has a deeper vibe to it.
Yeah I get what you're saying. I'm not using them in this song, and I don't really change keys or time signatures in many of my uploaded songs, but I'm using them more in my private compositions. I figure as I get used to them I'll use them more and more in both my public and private works.
Incredible as always :buddy:
all dis music talk is making my brain hurt :saddowns:
[QUOTE=FreakySoup;29161534]Incredible as always :buddy:[/QUOTE]
Thanks a lot!
[QUOTE=Yur|ko;29167745]all dis music talk is making my brain hurt :saddowns:[/QUOTE]
:saddowns:
Wow.
Just noticed the song had some pops in the middle section. After a bit of toying around with FL Studio I got rid of them and it should sound a lot smoother now.
One thing a cannot do [b]at all[/b] is make good-sounding orchestral bass drums, and for that, I applaud you. Oh yeah, and for how awesome this is.
[QUOTE=Matix;29177505]One thing a cannot do [b]at all[/b] is make good-sounding orchestral bass drums, and for that, I applaud you. Oh yeah, and for how awesome this is.[/QUOTE]
In movie scores a lot of the drum beats are played by both the timpani and bass drum at the same time. That usually gives a pretty good starting effect, and you can tweak it a bit from there.
The drums I used in this song in particular are the bass drum and a large taiko drum. It makes for a pretty cool action movie sound!
The only EastWest VST I have is Symphonic Orchestra. It's the Gold Edition, but it still only comes with 2 bass drum instruments, each with 3 or 4 unique drum sounds. I don't have as much flexibility with it. :frown:
[QUOTE=Matix;29178465]The only EastWest VST I have is Symphonic Orchestra. It's the Gold Edition, but it still only comes with 2 bass drum instruments, each with 3 or 4 unique drum sounds. I don't have as much flexibility with it. :frown:[/QUOTE]
You can still do it with EWQLSO Gold! For Zimmer-ish drums, go to EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Gold -> Gold Perc -> Drums and load up Bass Drum Concert.ewi Have this play a loud C6 and E6.
Next, create a new instrument and go to the same path as last time, but this time choose Taiko Drums.ewi Put a C4 in there that plays at the same time as the bass drum. There you go! If you're doing this over an entire song though, it's best to randomly place the taiko drum notes so it sounds more varied.
If you wanna go for a John Williams styled hit, load up the same bass drum and then create a new instrument. Go to the same path as before and load up Timp Hits LR.ewi Now, just have the timpani play whatever note you'd like when the bass drum hits. The only thing to keep in mind with the timpani is, if you're writing for a real orchestra, limit yourself to only five notes, as any more will have the timpanist tuning his instrument mid song to keep up. If necessary, you can make the timpanist play more than five notes in a song, but it might not be exactly on pitch.
Wow, I didn't even see that Taiko drum in there. Thanks! I'll try this next time I do orchestral stuff.
Also, I knew I sensed some Hans in your piece... :wink:
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