Orchestral "battle" music - Feedback appreciated!!

[Jack]

(noobly reposted from incorrect section!)

Hi there. I've been writing and recording music for quite some time, but this is my first real attempt at doing anything like this. I'm still new to the production side of things so any feedback/criticism that could help me get better sounding tracks would be great!

I made this in Pro Tools using Miroslav Philharmonik for the sounds.

https://soundcloud.com/jack_jack_jack/imminent-war

[Cruciform]

Hi Jack,

Good on you for trying something new.

First, if you want to pursue orchestral music, you'll eventually have to upgrade to better quality sounds. Miro Phil might be ok while you're learning but as you improve, you'll soon find that it holds you back from realising the music in your head.

Quite a few thoughts came to me as I listened. I'll touch on the ones I think could be first steps forward from here.

1. What is the purpose of the composition? What is the intended end use? You don't need to answer me. This is a question to ask yourself and keep asking so as to maintain focus. As an observation, if this were being written to go into a library catalogue, then structurally it doesn't logically flow. A library cue really should create, build and carry a single mood. If this were being written as custom score then it *could* work depending on what's happening on screen - but as listeners we wouldn't know without seeing the visuals against the music. But assuming this might be written for a library, the first section with drums doesn't flow into the next major section. You'd want to either keep the drums and slowly build them even bigger across the length of the piece or cut the first section out altogether.

As an aside, I don't really get that this is battle music, seems more like an adventure.

2. Spend a lot of time listening to the real instruments to develop an ear for how they should sound. Use expression/dynamic layers, whatever method is used by your samples, to add the rises and falls of each instrument. Strings swell and disperse, horns blast thunder or add low support, woodwind players need to take breaths occasionally, etc. This will just take time and practice, there is no instant cure. It's about developing an ear for it.

3. Find an orchestra seating chart and place your instruments in a virtual room, using panning, eq/low pass filters, and reverbs to build a sense of where each sound should come from across the stereo image - front to back, left to right - so that it sounds cohesive, like they are all in the one room and seated at a given distance from you as listener. Again, this will take some practice.

4. Find reference music - film scores, classical recordings - and constantly A/B your work against the reference. Focus on a single element in the ref track and try to reproduce the sound as much as possible. And every so often focus on the big picture to keep the context of how all the elements are working as a whole.

So this may not be that helpful but it's what I see as some starting points.

Again, good on you for trying something new and opening yourself up for feedback!

[Jack]

I think it was incredibly helpful, thank you for taking the time to give me all that feedback!

Yeah actually I played it to some battle scenes from other films and then realized that it doesn't work as well as battle music as it did as more of an adventure underscore for a trailer or something.

Do you have any suggestions on a sample library with better sounds? Just wondering.

Thanks again!

[andygabrys]

Jack - this kind of thing is often discussed here on the forums. sometimes hard to dig up the old threads, but here's one you might be interested in:

http://forums.taxi.com/topic128418.html

good luck!

[2lane]

Hey Jack, welcome to the forum
Rob and Andy are two guys to listen to on this (among others).
Here's another thread that might shine some light
http://forums.taxi.com/topic128293.html
Nice first attempt though, I like the overall composition!

Cheers,
Steve

[Jack]

Thanks, guys. Nice to get such a warm welcome here!