huge symphonic piece - updated!

[kensuguro]

still working on stuff for my friend's wedding.. this is the song for a part of the wedding concerning the rings. So it's an emotional part. 10 minutes is the target, I'm at 7-ish. I think I'm doing good so far in terms of build up and theme distribution. The last part will be the "slow singing strings" part, which I'm working on right now. It's "getting into it", but not "in the middle of it" yet.

Again, hats off to synful. I got this far in about 7 hours. Some parts of the song is simple, and most of it's just strings, but playing in the parts is the fastest of anything I've ever used, and I really like the result.

help me check for any errors. It's cool that it's my friend's wedding and all, but writing a 10 minute symphonic piece that's well bound together will be a personal achievement. (and good promo if I want to do scores!)

it's pianoteq 3.5 for piano
k2 freebie orchestra percussion. (them idiots forgot to put in a triangle, instead there's a bunch of wood blocks)
random hypersonic patch for tubular bells. I think they sound fake.. but I couldn't find anything else.

Please comment, I want to make this piece a composing milestone.

for one, something's up with my signal chain and there's some premature clipping.



UPDATE ----------------
The tune is now done. Not much of a finale, but I revisited all the cool themes and finished it off.

http://kensuguro.com.music.s3.amazonaws ... er-192.mp3

[dawman]

Nicely done Brotrha'Man.
What Mark Tree/Bar Chimes are you using?
I use a real one live when I have the oppurtunity.
I like the arrangement and the Piano is dynamic and well played.
I do hate those shrill Kontakt strings though. You used them well, but they are the usual lame freebies. I was hoping to hear the Synful Ones.....
Nice piece for sure.
I have been working on Orchestral lately too. It is actually challenging trying to mix so many virtual instruments.
I find it easier when I use 100% AUX mixing and LFO pans.
It keeps the instruments seperated better and the mixer has built in LFO panning.
I am sure it will be a nice wedding.
Whoever it is should be thankful.

Cheers,

[kensuguro]

the strings are all synful.. the higher registers sound a little harsh you think?

the marctree is from k2 freebie orchestral percussion.

[paulrmartin]

The composition stands up very nicely.

1. Can you find a flute to replace that horrid piece of crap? I am partial to a nice chinese flute in these settings...

2. Is there anything you can do about that constant shimmer in the strings? It sounds like the loop points are all wrong. Or could it be the vibrato setting? Slower in slow passages, please.

MP3's just don't give a good enough listen to criticise adequately, I know...

[siriusbliss]

nice composition...

yeah, the strings seem to need a roll-off and maybe some stereo spread.

m-puke-ees make everything sound glurpy...
somebody shoulda shot MP3's dead back in '90.

Greg

[netguyjoel]

+1
If and when a stereo .wav file of 10 megs can be permitted to upload here...that would be sweet..
Onto the music...nice composition....all that work for your friends wedding...you are a good friend for doing that...

[kensuguro]

ah, awesome! thnx guys for the comments. I guess so far it seems like the strings are shimmering a little too much? The "shimmer", or I guess more like the rosin sound/bow sound is looped at a constant speed regardless of the song tempo, which I don't think I can change. But ya, now that I listen to it that way and it totally makes sense what you're saying.

I did tone down the artificial harmonics. It gives good shimmer, but the preset I used was one I made for a disco song, so I guess the exaggerated high end doesn't carry well to a mostly symphonic piece.

Flutes.. well, not sure if I have a good one to replace it with. The flute has a strange vibrato that kicks in at the wrong moments... will try to find a better one. I have 2 real chinese flutes, with the vibrating membrane and all, but they're in keys D and G (if I remember right)... The shorter one in G has a great sound.. it's a nice mid range signature model... it's hard that these things are locked in their keys, and even if they'res fingering to get half notes, they don't resonate as well. You're supposed to get 12 flutes for all 12 keys.. which I don't really want. But when the membrane is put on right, they have such a captivating sound, I wish I could used the flutes everywhere possible.

[paulrmartin]

Maybe I can find the chinese flute SF2 file I manipulated. If you remember the old tune "Easter moon" form a few years back you can remember how beautiful that sound came out.

[dawman]

Actually those are perfect Saturday Night Fever/Bee Gees strings. That high would cut through for those choppy, spliced Marcato bowings.
But when sustained strings are needed, the Celli. Contra and Viola are better suited. Violins at their lowest register would work, but the natural warmth is really more of a placement issue IMHO. Even if the strings were rolled off with EQ it might be better to just transpose them first. Just a thought.
Disco strings should have that high end cut though. I remember using the Miraslav strings for disco and it sucked, but the Smart strings and Ultimate strings from the Akai samplers wasw perfect, and only 64MB's too................
But again the composition is alluring enough to not even notice these meger criticizms, but seeings how ya' asked........................

[kensuguro]

updated..

paul, were you able to find the flute sound font? I might also try replacing the current one with a physmod one. Physmod flutes are so hard to get right since they need a crap load of control data.

[garyb]

that sounds good enough to be a major budget motion picture piece...
my only question is why the bell and tambourine solos? shouldn't they be a bit less out front?

which samples are used or not influences a certain kind of listenability, but good music, writing and performance always transcends that, witness 8 bit...

[dawman]

The Bell and Tambourine is when the Father gives his daughter away walk down the isle....

[kensuguro]

bell and tambourine solo? which part is that?

[garyb]

when they come in...

everyone's a critic.

[kensuguro]

ohoh, you mean they sound as if it's a solo. I guess the bells are a bit too loud. The tambourines are part of the orchestra perc patch so i need to fix through velocity, bit of a drag..

[garyb]

ohoh, you mean they sound as if it's a solo. I guess the bells are a bit too loud. The tambourines are part of the orchestra perc patch so i need to fix through velocity, bit of a drag..

sorry to make trouble, just speaking as a listener. there have been worse transgressions in human history....

it would be nice if i were able to communicate more clearly.

[kensuguro]

np at all gary. It's a much larger challenge to be a skilled listener.