song for feedback

[azrael1322]

Hi there,
I started playing Wesnoth about a month ago and am totally addicted! I love the music and thought it would be fun to try composing some myself. I'd love to get some feedback so anyone who cares to comment please do, I really appreciate it.

Lastly, I hope I am within posting guidelines (this is my first post and I couldn't tell from the legal discussion) by saying that should anyone want to use this or some future version of it for anything that's awesome but please let me know! Thanks!

http://www.box.net/shared/h22xr5c01s

[Kenpachi]

I'm not quite sure if it fits the Wesnoth mainline style.
It is a nice piece, but there are a few things I don't like because I am a percussionist, and that is featured in this piece.

With the first 1:16
It starts loud, but then only repeats that theme once (at volume), till quite a ways into the piece.
When it does repeat under the flutes it is very subtle and quiet, I missed it the first 3 times I listened to it.

The crescendo at 2:45 - 2:50 feels awkward for the percussion and the horn.

At 2:53 the theme changes, it's quite cool, but then at 3:25 it changes yet again for a single bar (repeating), My thoughts are it needs more percussion like the double bang theme you have at the start, fading out toward the false ending at 4:03.

Shift the Trumpets up from 4:08 to 4:03. 4:03 is a false ending, but you have 5 seconds of a very quiet something, that will be missed on most people, till the restart.

All in all a nice piece.

[azrael1322]

Hi there, I appreciate the suggestions!

With the first 1:16
It starts loud, but then only repeats that theme once (at volume), till quite a ways into the piece.
When it does repeat under the flutes it is very subtle and quiet, I missed it the first 3 times I listened to it.

Yes, I need to remix 1:16, as well as work on the sample there. There's some weird chopping things that I somehow didn't notice before in addition to it just being too soft.

The crescendo at 2:45 - 2:50 feels awkward for the percussion and the horn.

At 2:53 the theme changes, it's quite cool, but then at 3:25 it changes yet again for a single bar (repeating), My thoughts are it needs more percussion like the double bang theme you have at the start, fading out toward the false ending at 4:03.

Shift the Trumpets up from 4:08 to 4:03. 4:03 is a false ending, but you have 5 seconds of a very quiet something, that will be missed on most people, till the restart.

Yeah, I'm not sure if the quiet thing is working for me. I may try to put something else there. Not sure yet. If I leave it I'll definitely turn up what's there, thanks!

All in all a nice piece.

Thanks for listening!

[West]

azrael1322, thanks for your submission!

It's obvious that you've put a lot of work into this piece, there's a lot of things going on and many interesting musical details. And therein lies one of its main problems -- there's too much going on. It doesn't really strike me as a composition per se, i.e. a piece of music with a sense of unity and flow and logic. It sounds more like five and a half minutes of musical ideas that has been connected into some semblance of completeness. I'm not saying I didn't like it, in fact it has a few very cool parts. The folky passage at 4:29 is excellent and I wish you would create an entire piece from that idea instead of tacking it on at the end like this. But overall there's just too much happening for me to feel one way or the other about your tune.

Some technical problems:

- Levels are all over the place, and for the most part very odd. The percussion is thunderclap-loud and the melodic instruments sort of sit in the background, sometimes barely audible. You need to find a better balance between instrument groups.

- The reverb levels on the woodwinds are very odd. The flute(s) appears to be waaaay off at the back of the hall whereas the reed instruments are completely dry and seemingly in the listener's face. This point and the previous leads me to believe that you're not quite sure how to position instruments in an orchestral mix. If you need help with this I'd be glad to give you some tips, but I won't go into it right now.

- I'm kinda iffy about using snare on soft passages, like you do in this piece. I mean, I wouldn't say it's a no-no but personally I don't think it sounds good. The snare drum is anything but a subtle instrument (after all it was originally designed to cut through the din of a battlefield) unless you're playing it with brushes, and the samples you're using -- the ProjectSAM snare, right? -- are really too strident to work in this context. I would either make the rest of the instruments louder and bolder or lose the snare.

Generally speaking your music bears the telltale signs of someone who has been seduced by the power and possibilities of midi and sampled instruments, but has yet to reach the point where one starts to think about making everything sound realistic. And that's not an insult nor anything to be ashamed about. Everyone who does this kind of music has been there, it's a stage we all go through. For me it's easy to hear it in the way you use samples to approximate the sound you want instead of really digging into it and making every note come alive and every phrase sound natural. There's many things you can do to make that happen with midi, but aside from varying velocities I hear no attempts in that direction. In other words, your music sounds slighty robotic and you need to work a lot harder on humanizing everything.

All in all I think you're on the right track -- you sure don't have a shortage of ideas and many of them sound quite mature musically speaking. It's the midi orchestration bit that needs serious work.

Finally a question: during the folky part I mentioned you're using some very cool jangly guitar (or other stringed instrument). Is this by any chance a set of free samples?

[azrael1322]

Hi there, thanks for your comments!

It's obvious that you've put a lot of work into this piece, there's a lot of things going on and many interesting musical details. And therein lies one of its main problems -- there's too much going on. It doesn't really strike me as a composition per se, i.e. a piece of music with a sense of unity and flow and logic. It sounds more like five and a half minutes of musical ideas that has been connected into some semblance of completeness. I'm not saying I didn't like it, in fact it has a few very cool parts. The folky passage at 4:29 is excellent and I wish you would create an entire piece from that idea instead of tacking it on at the end like this. But overall there's just too much happening for me to feel one way or the other about your tune.

I've been playing this for some others as well and general consensus is that it's too all over the place. I'm considering chopping this up into some different songs. Possibly keeping the first section in terms of mood and basic instrumentation, but changing the melody or something so that I can use the later part as another song (or changing the melody in the part around 4:29).

Some technical problems:

- Levels are all over the place, and for the most part very odd. The percussion is thunderclap-loud and the melodic instruments sort of sit in the background, sometimes barely audible. You need to find a better balance between instrument groups.

- The reverb levels on the woodwinds are very odd. The flute(s) appears to be waaaay off at the back of the hall whereas the reed instruments are completely dry and seemingly in the listener's face. This point and the previous leads me to believe that you're not quite sure how to position instruments in an orchestral mix. If you need help with this I'd be glad to give you some tips, but I won't go into it right now.

I am working on remixing this. It was done pretty fast and I have heard a bunch of problems in addition to what you've said. You are exactly right, the balance is all over the place. I'd appreciate any tips you have in mind! I know how instruments are placed in a real world orchestra, but I don't always know what that means in terms of a digital mix. This is really my first attempt at mixing on more than a very basic level, and I was trying to do some things in the moment to get the song done, that now I realize make no sense (like exciting random reverb). It will be a little bit but I will post a remixed version to see if I can get closer.

- I'm kinda iffy about using snare on soft passages, like you do in this piece. I mean, I wouldn't say it's a no-no but personally I don't think it sounds good. The snare drum is anything but a subtle instrument (after all it was originally designed to cut through the din of a battlefield) unless you're playing it with brushes, and the samples you're using -- the ProjectSAM snare, right? -- are really too strident to work in this context. I would either make the rest of the instruments louder and bolder or lose the snare.

Hehe yep that's the one! Yeah, this whole section I'm unhappy with, it doesn't sound like I envisioned. I will see what it sounds like if I mess with the balance of the winds, and see if that works. Also there are some big problems with the cello that need to be fixed and you can't really hear the theme clearly. It's still working with the snare in my head, so I'll see what I can do with it before I just cut out the snare.

Generally speaking your music bears the telltale signs of someone who has been seduced by the power and possibilities of midi and sampled instruments, but has yet to reach the point where one starts to think about making everything sound realistic. And that's not an insult nor anything to be ashamed about. Everyone who does this kind of music has been there, it's a stage we all go through. For me it's easy to hear it in the way you use samples to approximate the sound you want instead of really digging into it and making every note come alive and every phrase sound natural. There's many things you can do to make that happen with midi, but aside from varying velocities I hear no attempts in that direction. In other words, your music sounds slighty robotic and you need to work a lot harder on humanizing everything.

Yes, that's all pretty accurate I guess! I'm pretty new to this stuff... One thing that would be awesome is if you could point me in the direction of some other midi techniques I should look into. I worked a lot with the velocities in some parts, but I don't know many other tricks. I did some volume automation after bouncing each instrument to audio (I can only run about 3 instruments on my system through samplers before I start having problems...) but that and my fun adventures in reverb were about it. I'll be looking for some other ideas, and hopefully this piece (or pieces) will improve a bit, but I'm pretty happy about how it came out for a first try!

All in all I think you're on the right track -- you sure don't have a shortage of ideas and many of them sound quite mature musically speaking. It's the midi orchestration bit that needs serious work.

Finally a question: during the folky part I mentioned you're using some very cool jangly guitar (or other stringed instrument). Is this by any chance a set of free samples?

Thanks!! This was a very helpful review. I will post an update to this as soon as I have it. The instrument at the end is a dulcimer, and unfortunately is not a free sample as it came with Reason, which is what I used to play all my samples. I MOSTLY ended up using the free ones that you provided on this site, and am hugely grateful! I will keep my eye out for a free dulcimer sample and will send it your way if you like. Thanks again!!

[azrael1322]

An Update!!
Well, despite this taking WAY longer than I was expecting to get back to, I have done a "remix" of my song. I think it's a bit more effective compositionally. It's missing the fast part which people seemed to like, and I'm considering developing that into a companion song as well or something... when I have the time. I have worked on some of the technical elements, and I think this is getting closer, though I know there are still some issues. I would really appreciate anyone willing to give further feedback, even if they're not interested in using it for anything. Thanks again for all previous feedback, and I hope some is reflected in this version.

http://www.box.net/shared/ke28vlp7ph
Thanks!!

[Kenpachi]

I can hear the improvement.

[West]

I don't have time to give you a detailed review at this very moment. But let me just say that this does indeed sound *much* better than the previous version (IIRC, it doesn't even sound like the same piece). It makes a lot more sense compositionally. I still hear a lot of problems, but nothing that can't be fixed with some work.

I'll return with some more in-depth comments in a day or two.

Nice work!

[azrael1322]

Hi there!
Thanks a lot to both! Yeah, I still hear some problems...for one thing I am still unhappy with the cello solo. I'm really sure it will sound good if I can just get it there, too bad I don't just play cello haha. I look forward to hearing some other ideas, I'm gonna continue to work on this some more over the next couple weeks. Also sorry for the long response, but was enjoying the memorial day weekend as I hope you were! Thanks again!!

[H-Hour]

I really like the cello solo, but it definitely needs to be improved. I don't know any of the technical stuff, but it still sounds just a little fake. You should definitely keep working on it!

[azrael1322]

Hello again,

Just wanted to post another update to my song. I have worked on the solo bits some, and worked on getting the mix down. I think the cello solo (1:30) has improved but if anyone has any particular humanization tricks I might try there it would be appreciated... I also changed reverbs, I like the new reverb much more than the old one, which might be evident in overdoing it a bit? Some of the sounds are still a bit mechanical, particularly near the end, so I'll keep working on them. Thanks to West for his very informative Orchestration posts, which has been very helpful!

http://www.box.net/shared/a1puo1rdy2