Love Song: Reminisce

Website · Post by **Sapient** » September 7th, 2007, 11:07 pm

This song is excellent! It will be a nice addition to the game for the cutscene music. (Or for music to play at end credits

).

Post by **West** » September 8th, 2007, 9:03 am

jeremy2 wrote:the xylophone is Campbell's Grand Xylophone (an old, but incredibly awesome, soundfont imported into Kontakt)

Same one I use IIRC

jeremy2 wrote:I'm not a big fan of GPO...

Me neither. It has a few decent-sounding instruments, but most of it sounds very cheap. I've heard free soundfonts that sound a lot better than GPO.

jeremy2 wrote:I will be getting the EastWest symphony collection with choirs here shortly. SoundsOnline.com slashed their prices and I couldn't resist.

I have been considering getting EWQL myself, but I'm still on the fence. As mentioned I'm putting together a custom setup from various sources right now, and hopefully it'll be enough for my needs.

jeremy2 wrote:As for the LoTR five seconds, I'm going to take that as a compliment and think about changing, but I will probably leave it as is . What part has that little melody?

I was thinking of the the final phrase of that reoccuring heroic LotR theme, I don't know what it's called. Just listen to The Ring Goes South (from Fellowship) at 1:32

jeremy2 wrote:Ok, updated it with a different reverb plugin. I put as much reverb in as I could stand, and also did a bit of EQ'ing. Same links as before. Oh, and I changed that LoTR section a bit - just a couple of notes.

The reverb sounds better but I think you misunderstood me on the EQ thing. I meant the EQ on the reverb, i.e. roll off a lot of low end from the reverb so everything doesn't turn into a huge rumble when you increase the reverb time. Unfortunately I overwrote the previous version so I can't compare, but I think this version sounds sort of flatter and thinner. Might be because of the EQ'ing.

Post by **jeremy2** » September 8th, 2007, 2:22 pm

West wrote: I have been considering getting EWQL myself, but I'm still on the fence. As mentioned I'm putting together a custom setup from various sources right now, and hopefully it'll be enough for my needs.

I've done that once (when I had SeerMusic's Reality) and had a fairly decent orchestra - but there was so much work involved and it still did not sound quite as good as the professional samples that I figure it's worth the money (especially when it's over a 60% discount! with a free upgrade) to go with the professionally edited samples.

The reverb sounds better but I think you misunderstood me on the EQ thing. I meant the EQ on the reverb, i.e. roll off a lot of low end from the reverb so everything doesn't turn into a huge rumble when you increase the reverb time. Unfortunately I overwrote the previous version so I can't compare, but I think this version sounds sort of flatter and thinner. Might be because of the EQ'ing.

I am in the process of recording without the EQ and will have it reuploaded here in a few minutes. I think I've heard it so many times now that just about anything different sounds good....

Post by **West** » September 11th, 2007, 3:56 am

What happened to the new version?

Post by **jeremy2** » September 11th, 2007, 4:34 am

Oh wait - there are some parts that cut out. Dang it, I'm going to have to start recording in parts again instead of all at once. Gr.... I hate recording. I'll do it when I wake up in the morning. I hate going to sleep PO'd.

Post by **jeremy2** » September 11th, 2007, 2:55 pm

Ok... turns out that I had uploaded the updated file, but to the wrong location. Let me know what you think.

Post by **vonHalenbach** » September 11th, 2007, 4:17 pm

jeremy2 wrote:Ok... turns out that I had uploaded the updated file, but to the wrong location. Let me know what you think.

Which link is the actual link to the right song?

Post by **jeremy2** » September 11th, 2007, 4:34 pm

I've now put them in the locations that were listed before. Sorry about that... Is there something that I am not getting? I've heard it so many times now that my critical analysis of the sound might be worth very little. Just make sure that you don't have a cached version of the song. You can usually do that by appending some random number like so:

http://gnexp.com/songs/remin.mp3?12345
http://gnexp.com/songs/reminisce.ogg?12345

Post by **Jetrel** » September 12th, 2007, 7:05 pm

This sounds pretty nice, from a layman's (e.g. my) perspective.

Post by **vonHalenbach** » September 12th, 2007, 8:02 pm

Jetryl wrote:This sounds pretty nice, from a layman's (e.g. my) perspective.

I agree! In my humble opinion this is a very fine piece of music and worthy to be included into mainline. This is a welcome addition to very few mainline songs. We need new songs like this and we should be glad to get such fine music for this game from artists like West and Jeremy2.

I can almost hear, how much work you put into this piece, Jeremy. Thank you!

Post by **Iris** » September 12th, 2007, 8:09 pm

*grabs it*

Everyone here talks about your last update as even better than the first one (is it possible for it to be any better?) so I'll check it out.

Post by **jeremy2** » September 12th, 2007, 9:48 pm

Just minor updates to the reverb and to the melody line - nothing too major. Thank you all for your kinds words.

Post by **West** » September 18th, 2007, 9:50 pm

Hmm. I was just listening to your latest update in headphones, and there are two things that bother me with the overall mix. Namely: z-depth and low end.

First of all, I can't get a feel for the front-to-back positioning of the instruments. Somehow it sounds like there's an equal amount of reverb on *all* instruments (you didn't just add a reverb to the stereo mix, did you?), which gives the piece a very flat, 2-dimensional sound. Like all the musicians are lined up in a long row from left to right. IOW, the effect levels on the individual instrument groups need some serious tweaking. Keep in mind that the further back an instrument is, the wetter it should be, and vice versa. Strings and woodwinds -- a medium amount of reverb. Brass -- a large amount. Percussion -- swamp it! YMMV of course, it all depends on what reverb plugin you are using and how big and bright the reverb is. If you start getting reverb artifacts (i.e. those ugly ringing "zzzing!" tails on bright instruments), try rolling off some high end from the reverb. Also -- and this is an approach I haven't experimented with myself, but I've read about it -- for even better results with z-placement, one can use two separate reverb sends, one for the front of the orchestra and one for the back. IIRC the back reverb should have longer early reflections than the front one. Anyway, sorry for the lecture, I just wanted to share a few tips.

Secondly, I think your piece needs more low end. I can hear some basses playing in there but the bottom is still quite weak. If EQ isn't helping, you could always try doubling the bass notes with some discreet synth pad (yes, a synth pad

) an octave lower. Just be careful so that it blends with the strings and isn't really audible; it should be felt more than heard.

Post by **jeremy2** » September 19th, 2007, 12:03 am

Yes, I did just add the reverb on all of it at once.

I've been composing for a long time now, but I am still sort of a novice when it comes to mixing and what not. Thank you for the tips, I will see what I can do. One of the nice things with the EastWest Orchestra is that they have recordings in three different locations in the hall, and so you can change that z-depth by changing the volume of those three recordings. I'll start using it as soon as I can figure out how to use the blasted samples - it's a bit complicated. I've never been big on having a lot of bass (in spite of being a trombone player), so that's probably why it sounds like there is not enough in there. I can probably up the sample volume for the bass instruments.

Post by **West** » September 19th, 2007, 9:41 am

jeremy2 wrote:Yes, I did just add the reverb on all of it at once.

Nooooo!

jeremy2 wrote:I've been composing for a long time now, but I am still sort of a novice when it comes to mixing and what not. Thank you for the tips, I will see what I can do.

No problem. You know what, I think I might post a topic containing some links to various good articles about getting the most out of orchestral samples. It might come in handy for people wanting to contribute music for Wesnoth. After all, there's a lot of helpful stuff available for artists, so why no musicians?

jeremy2 wrote:One of the nice things with the EastWest Orchestra is that they have recordings in three different locations in the hall, and so you can change that z-depth by changing the volume of those three recordings.

Excellent! That will probably sound better than using an traditional reverb. However, if you find that the sound is still to dry, you *can* add a slight reverb to the master mix, as long as it blends well with the ambience of the samples.

jeremy2 wrote:I've never been big on having a lot of bass (in spite of being a trombone player), so that's probably why it sounds like there is not enough in there. I can probably up the sample volume for the bass instruments.

I think that would be a good idea. You don't have do increase it by any outrageous amounts of course, it's classical, not hip hop so there's no need for a really booming low end. But on my system it sounds a little weak.

So you're a trombone player, huh? Cool. I might consult you about some stuff in the future. Writing for brass is still something of a gray area for me.