Song: Vengeful Pursuit

[jeremy2]

I've been in a particularly bad mood today, and what better time to start a new war song? Take a listen here:

-- EDIT: this version is gone. --

It has a bit of clipping because it's way too freaking loud, but I currently do not have the patience to adjust it.

EDIT:
For some reason I have decided to give the newer versions a different name. You can find it here:

http://www.gnexp.com/songs/vengeful2.mp3

[Sapient]

I have one word for this: awesome!

[Jetrel]

One avenue for improvement, and I'd appreciate it if West could fill me in on the correct terminology for this.

You have a number of instances in there when you have a solid blare of low brass (presumably trombone, but it doesn't really matter). Right now, it's just generating a solid tone of the instrument playing. A real instrument, when you play a blare like that, will have a number of distinct parts to the blare, corresponding to the physical characteristics of how the sound is actually being made - the lips have just the faintest moment of warmup as they start the thing, and a few factors about it change gradually during the length of one blare; one toot on the horn.


AFAIK, there are two solutions to this:
1] Get some crazy-advanced music software that can do this for you.
2] Simulate this by hand tweaking each blare by hand, and having parts of each one change over time.

As for how you do these, I'm clueless - someone like West, or even better, Alexis, would be your best bet for advice - Alexis's had some rather nice synthesized horns in his music. And believe me, I'm quite interested in any advice they have, as well.

[Temuchin Khan]

It has potential, but it is clearly unfinished. Keep at it and we'll see how it turns out!

[West]

Me like! Dark and threatening with some great percussion sounds. I realise that it's a work in progress though, so I'll keep it short; you might very well have changed a lot of things by the time you read this. As Jetryl says, the brass [in some places] needs some TLC as right now it lacks nuance. It simply blares straight notes with no variance in tone which leads to a stiff artificial sound. Are you using the same trombone section patch to play the entire chord? If so, try using a solo trombone in conjunction with the section to add more width and life to the phrase.
Also, some good old cc#11 for small fluctuations in level on held notes is always a nice trick.

Sounds promising though, I'm looking forward to hearing the next version.

[jeremy2]

West & Jetryl - you are absolutely right. I've just barely figured out how to start using the new samples I got a couple of weeks ago. It's a good thing that I figured out most of it before I got to be in such a bad mood today, otherwise I would have taken it out on a pillow instead and not had such an emotion packed song . I will see what I can do to add some variance. I believe most of the "blat" sound (one of my favorite sounds incidentally) is coming from the tuba. The trombone sound that I am using is actually a solo trombone - I hate making it sound like I have 9 trombones playing instead of three. Perhaps I can find another sound to layer in there, but my computer is already choking on the sounds as it is. I need a faster hard drive, and an expansion card that can handle it.... It's going to be fun to try to figure out how to add variance to the tuba and the trombones without making too much work.

[hiro hito]

in fact, war themes are boring me less than love themes....

it's a good start!!! keep rockin

[vonHalenbach]

This is a good start! Sounds agressive.

[jeremy2]

in fact, war themes are boring me less than love themes....

it's a good start!!! keep rockin

Thanks, hiro - your encouragement is incredible...

[Iris]

If you don't mind, I'll convert it to Ogg Vorbis and put it in my campaign (IftU) to replace Aleksi's Orc theme WIP because it would be much lighter for the poor people that use the in-game add-on download interface. And use it as the boss theme.

I don't have any major issues when listening it except for a strange sound sequence between 0:30 and 1:00 IIRC. Like a drum being played unnaturally quickly. But well, I'm no artist or musician, so my opinion doesn't have much value for this bussiness.

[Aleksi]

Its a good start. Try to make it longer, and maybe for percussive. The brass section at the end it too much in my opinion. I would go more for xylophone, percussions, harp, snare drums.

But its a good start.

Aleksi.

[jeremy2]

If you don't mind, I'll convert it to Ogg Vorbis and put it in my campaign (IftU) to replace Aleksi's Orc theme WIP because it would be much lighter for the poor people that use the in-game add-on download interface. And use it as the boss theme.

I don't have any major issues when listening it except for a strange sound sequence between 0:30 and 1:00 IIRC. Like a drum being played unnaturally quickly. But well, I'm no artist or musician, so my opinion doesn't have much value for this bussiness.

No, I don't mind - I can send you an OGG or the AIFF file so that you can do whatever you want with it. Let me know what you want and I will post a link. Bear in mind that it is not finished, so things are going to change (including the length).

As far as the drum sound goes, I do need to add a bit more variation there but the drums can be played that fast (though it's quite a workout!).

[West]

The trombone sound that I am using is actually a solo trombone - I hate making it sound like I have 9 trombones playing instead of three.

Well, I wouldn't worry overly much about realism in that respect actually. After all this is a virtual orchestra, and while it may have the same sound and instrumentation as a real one it's a completely different medium. Hence I think that, in some areas, going overboad on realism might hurt a piece rather than help it. If using 9 trombones instead of 3 makes a part sound *right*, then to hell with realism. I frequently take little liberties with things like that and as long as the end result is good, I don't think twice about it. I don't look upon creating orchestral music on my computer as conducting a large group of virtual musicians, I look upon it as trying to make instrument samples sound like a large group of real musicians. It's an important distinction, I think.

The thing is, no matter how good samples someone has, they're never going to be *quite* as good as the real deal. Thus I think you should do what it takes to make this or that part sound as good as possible, even if that means using unrealistic doubling/tripling, using a synth sound, playing the keyboard with your feet or whatever. It's the end result that counts, not the means of getting there. The way I see it, I would rather listen to a piece that's unrealistically arranged but sounds convincing, than one which is realistically arranged but sounds thin and fake. Something that is both realistic and sounds convincing is of course the ultimate, but it all comes down to the samples we're using. Even with the high end libraries some instruments are less convincing than others and thus you might need to cheat a bit. Having a contrabassoon playing solo for one minute is fine in a real orchestra, but unless you have a crazy-good contra sample it's going to sound like crap if you try it on your computer. Possibly all that's required to make that not-so good sample come alive might be subtly doubling it with some other instrument -- maybe even a synthetic instrument -- and here comes the dilemma: realism or a good sound? Me, I'd go for the latter as the contra might very well sound more realistic when you "cheat".

Simply put: when in doubt, trust your ears and not knee-jerk orchestration principles.

That said, if you honestly thinks it sounds strange, don't let me talk you into it. Just pointing out that we are, after all, not writing for a real orchestra. We're trying to make software instruments *sound* like a real orchestra.

Purists and scholars are likely to contradict me on this but it's just my $0.02. I've heard lots of virtual orchestrations that are realistic to a T in terms of arrangements but still sound incredibly fake. Just because some instruments aren't convincing enough when you use them "correctly".

Um, sorry for the rant

Perhaps I can find another sound to layer in there, but my computer is already choking on the sounds as it is. I need a faster hard drive, and an expansion card that can handle it.... It's going to be fun to try to figure out how to add variance to the tuba and the trombones without making too much work.

Can't help you much with that I'm afraid, as I have no insight into EWQL and how it works.

[esr]

Jeremy, do you have a new version of your piece with the loudness fixed? I'd like to evaluate it and, quite possibly, commit it.

We don't have enough battle music. This could be a worth addition.

[Iris]

If you don't mind, I'll convert it to Ogg Vorbis... because it would be much lighter for the poor people that use the in-game add-on download interface.

No, I don't mind - I can send you an OGG or the AIFF file so that you can do whatever you want with it... Bear in mind that it is not finished, so things are going to change (including the length).

As far as the drum sound goes, I do need to add a bit more variation there but the drums can be played that fast (though it's quite a workout!).

Jeremy, do you have a new version of your piece with the loudness fixed? I'd like to evaluate it and, quite possibly, commit it.

We don't have enough battle music. This could be a worth addition.

Perhaps it won't be necessary to increase my campaign's download size at all. More like it could decrease.

I think devs have nothing against including high quality WIP in the development branch. I recall BfW 1.1.2a shipped with an almost finished version of Aleksi's gameplay03.ogg, which I still keep in my HD because of nostalgia.