Towering Granite

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Michael Willis
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Towering Granite

Post by Michael Willis »

Here is an unfinished rough draft of an orchestral piece I'm working on:

https://soundcloud.com/user-201997735/t ... ough-draft

This is inspired by the many granite cliffs that are common in the mountains near where I live. I would like to expand upon this, but for now I'm looking for some early feedback. Any commentary on the composition and/or audio production is appreciated.

Tech used: Ardour, Virtual Playing Orchestra, Dragonfly Reverb, of course Linux :D
Last edited by Michael Willis on Fri Feb 01, 2019 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Towering Granite

Post by milo »

I like it. Electronic orchestral instruments always sound cheesy compared to the real thing, but the composition is strong.
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Re: Towering Granite

Post by Michael Willis »

milo wrote:I like it. Electronic orchestral instruments always sound cheesy compared to the real thing, but the composition is strong.
Thanks for listening Milo. I have heard some virtual orchestration that I really liked, so there must be a way to minimize the cheesy sound, but I think I have a long road to walk in learning how to do so. I do take some courage in the fact that some well-known cinematic composers opt for virtual instruments over a real orchestra in some circumstances. Part of it might just be a matter of using better sampled instruments, but for now I'm working on composition and audio production.
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Re: Towering Granite

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Shades of Aaron Copland there. But you definitely need to soften and fill out the trumpet parts. (Try doubling with flutes, violins, or clarinets. Especially the woodwinds will soften the excessively bright sound of those trumpets). And I would use the french horns to add some additional low harmony. Right now, the piece has a slightly pronounced bright, treble sound. It needs more "body and richness" to offset the decidedly brash/nasal sound of those trumpets. French horns and clarinets (or maybe cello and violin) can help here.

In conclusion, those trumpets are just too much "in my face".

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Re: Towering Granite

Post by folderol »

Agree with millo. Something to think about, individual instruments played as such seem to sound quite different when played as part of an ensemble or orchestra - probably due to tiny mis-tuning of the individual ones. It is difficult to get this effect with sample sets in particular.
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Re: Towering Granite

Post by jonetsu »

folderol wrote:Agree with millo. Something to think about, individual instruments played as such seem to sound quite different when played as part of an ensemble or orchestra - probably due to tiny mis-tuning of the individual ones. It is difficult to get this effect with sample sets in particular.
What's interesting, in the case of Sample Tank 3 at least, is that strings are also offered as samples of 4, 11 and 23 violins all playable from a single MIDI note. I presume those numbers mean something in orchestral composition eg. why 11 instead of 10 or a dozen ? Might have something to do with this detuning effect, frequency interactions and having an odd number. With a small stack maybe 4 is all that's needed to get along well.
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Re: Towering Granite

Post by Michael Willis »

New rough draft: https://soundcloud.com/user-201997735/t ... ough-draft

Per advice I got here and at Scoring Central, I evened out the levels, adjusted the reverb to be "more mountainous", and did some automation of the dynamics. I still don't have working cross-faded brass dynamics, but I might have a solution for that in the near future.

I also arranged about 50 seconds more material with high strings, glockenspiel, and woodwinds. The new part still needs some smoothing out; I'm sharing it in the interest of getting early feedback.

I moved the earlier draft here in case anybody wants a before/after comparison: https://instaud.io/3fuO
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