Battalions

[Jarkko]

Due to the unusually long holiday pass granted by the army (12 days), I've managed to lay my mind off the ranks for a while. For my personal amazement, the rest, I've longed for last few months, sparked up a few inspiration and one of them happened to be on the musical side. Incidentally I wish to contribute this to Wesnoth.

Therefore I present you a composition half-inspired by the semi-permanent infection, we call national defense:

Battalions.mp3

And that's pretty much all, I've got to say. Open to criticism and gentle nudges to the right direction.

[tr0ll]

love it!
enjoy your break

[charly]

Hi there!

Good work ,man. Sounds great, you are in the right way. Keep working hard!
I think, this piece of music has his place into a game. However, I think strings section
(0:21 to 0:26) sounds really synthetic, but this is only my point of vue. (I know how hard it is to mastering a Vst )

P.S: I posted a demo for Wesnoth project, if you have time, come listen to it (Composer (Contribution))

Peace

Charly
http://www.myspace.com/charlyjouglet

[Tyler Johnson]

Jarkko, I'm glad you would want to contribute to the game.

A couple of things though, you will need to invest in better quality samples. Those that you have just won't do. The brass is very thin and the percussion has that "machine gun" effect.

As far as style, you're right on the money. I would suggest opening up your mix as well, it sounds like a lot of the music is coming from the center, try broadening your sonic spectrum a bit, it adds life to the music. Adding things like reverb and EQ is a must to have a real sounding piece of music using samples instruments.

-Tyler

[Jarkko]

A couple of things though, you will need to invest in better quality samples. Those that you have just won't do. The brass is very thin and the percussion has that "machine gun" effect.

Thanks for the feedback - Just to let you know, the samples, I used, were downloaded from freesf2.com (so this just might be an another "wrong equipment" -type problem).

The thing, that actually bugs me is that I don't really reckognize a 'thin' sound from a a '(whatever the word for it's opposite is)' one. Because I have no educational background in music, I don't really know all the "theory", so to speak.- Could you describe what is the sound like, when it's thin? Really - I just can't compare it to anything in my head... :/

[Ewing]

The thing, that actually bugs me is that I don't really reckognize a 'thin' sound from a a '(whatever the word for it's opposite is)' one. Because I have no educational background in music, I don't really know all the "theory", so to speak.- Could you describe what is the sound like, when it's thin? Really - I just can't compare it to anything in my head... :/

I don't presume to speak for Tyler, but I noticed some of the things he mentioned, as well. I think in this instance the "thinness" is due to the samples' quality having an almost squashed EQ sound. Kind of like AM vs. FM radio, or a telephone vs. in person conversation. It also has a more pronounced synthetic sound vs. a more true to life organic/acoustic sound. This is a problem I've found in a lot of soundfonts. This really has nothing to with being musically educated, it's just something you learn to hear over time. Using higher quality samples is something that can help, though at larger expense obviously.

Sometimes, if music is said to be thin, it could also be due to the composition not really having enough "going on" at a particular moment, or throughout. For example, maybe there needs to be more melodic counterpoint, textural interplay between orchestral sections or the harmonic foundation isn't "thick" or "lush" enough, e.g. if you were using all parallel fifths or octaves and nothing else - all of the time. This would be something that an education in the theory of music and composition could help you fix/avoid. Having said that, IMHO, I think you've done a pretty good job of avoiding that type of thinness for the most part in this piece.

Hope maybe some of this helps!

[Tyler Johnson]

It's pretty easy to tell the difference between a thin and thick sound once you've heard both side by side. It doesn't take a musical knowledge to tell the difference either, once you've had really good wine it's easier to recognize cheap bad wine.

Thin Percussion
Fat Percussion

Thin Brass
Fat Brass

-Tyler