NodeCraft
- 19 Jan 2014 14:36
#100932
Heh this is an interesting post for how close yet completely off the mark you are
With regards to the lugia piece, this is a discussion Mr M and I had quite a while ago. We had already decided to remove it, I just thought that 3.0 was probably the best time to do it. The flute sample I used for this piece is by Embertone, and it's their Shire Whistle (an irish penny whistle), as I wasn't going for an orchestral flute sound.
For the Apteryx piece, I've never played a MGS game, or listened to any of their soundtracks, so it wasn't based on that. When I wrote that one I was inspired by the Crimson Tide, soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, but it's really just a generic remote control esque sounding piece.
I'm a classically trained oboist (so very close on that one), but I also think that woodwind is very underutilised in modern film music which is why I use so much of it.
I've only heard that metallica song once, but I can hear the similarities to it (awful album btw). As for songs having two unrelenting melodies, that's kinda the point. I'm approaching a lot of these pieces from my classical background, with using the idea of theme and counter theme (though I don't tend to go much into development sections for these pieces so I couldn't really call them sonata form based).
As for the stuff about minor chords, well, that's getting into subjective taste at this point. I use a lot of minor chords because I like the way they sound. I find that major keys tend to be not very flexible in terms of mood. As for using a lot of chord changes, that's mostly due to my studies, as I was fascinated by the idea of axial tone theory while doing my music degree. One of my big influences for composing is the orchestral works of Gustav Mahler, who I studied, and he uses a lot of axial tone shifts in his music.
As for the p.p.s. sorry, but while I do have LASS, I don't use any of the ensemble patches. For ensemble strings I usually use a combination of Albion and Logeria by Spitfire, which I then add things like the LASS smaller sized sections and solo strings to. I also tend to layer it with some of the strings patches by Embertone. Then again, I don't tend to use full ensemble strings unless I want to use them as a pad (which I find funny that you say they're not "designed for that"). As for symphobia, I've played around with it, but I've never liked the sound of that sample library. It's very much the american vs the european orchestral sound, and I must say I much prefer the sound of the Spitfire products.
hunter2 wrote:ZeeCount wrote:MrMasochism wrote:Yeah we've been debating removing it
Yeah, from the next update of Pixelmon the piece "A Simple Moment by the Sea" will no longer be in the mod. When I originally made this it was a nod towards the lugia theme for one of the other developers, but because I do not own the copyright for the piece, or have permission to produce a cover of it, we (Mr M and I) have decided to remove it from the mod.
Sorry for causing such a hullabaloo. To be fair, there's quite a few more legal concerns but trademarks are a bit more lenient than music copyrights~
You don't have to ax the piece completely, you could do what you did with Apteryx's Theme relative to MGS (don't think I didn't notice, you little rascal) and just play a different melody - could even just keep it in a minor chord, why not? (Though rather than what sounds like Vienna to me, I would suggest Symphobia 2's "legato flute" sample with close mic+tons of reverb to get that lugia feel - maybe add an low volume "legato low whistle" behind it to get that more Irish feel.)
Speaking of minor chords, I almost completely forgot what I originally asked about in this thread - the other music doesn't feel like pokemon/minecraft music, man.
Pokemon: Kids game, Japanese, Usually happy/bouncy, lots of marches (at least what I would call a "march", you should know what I mean), centered around bleeps and bloops, Major chords everywhere, battle themes are power chords (though implied major chords) using chromatic dissonance to build tension - rarely if ever minor chords (Find me a minor chord in this, go ahead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_YMW54XtjI, Lots of counterpoint
if Junichi Masuda (the old pokemon game composer) wrote it, it's VERY child-friendly, lots of major chords, lots of scales, lots of descending base notes that fit to major chord patterns, especially that one Pacabel's-canonesqe pattern that Japanese game composers seemed to love for a while in low bit music (Examples: 1 2 3)
If Shota Kageyama (the new "main" pokemon composer judging by soundtrack credits) wrote it: Either along the lines of Masuda's (kidfriendly, happy, bouncy, etc) or he seems to like RnB/Funk/"Jazz" (I don't just throw that word around) a lot - don't know what's up with that lately. Still tons of major chords
Minecraft: Minimalist, seems centered around piano, heavily relies on already existing samples (1 2 3 ), made to build atmosphere and has very little compositional merit but sounds nice, originally just placeholder music by a friend of notch's - but like the graphics that were supposed to be updated - was kept as is for preserving the atmosphere of minecraft.
Your music: Adventury (Very full, not minimalist at all), key changes out of nowhere, based around minor chords, seems to be centered around woodwinds (you're a flautist aren't you?), feels a lot like this, ii-IV-I-V everywhere (I'd like to point out, starting on a minor chord), generally feels a bit like you sat down and said "I need to think of something that feels desert-y" and that was it, one melody per section of a song, some songs have two unrelated melodies that don't seem to lead into each other, one song (think it's the night one) reminds me of a merger between the my little pony theme and the guitar part in this, which is very confusing - let me tell you, orchestrated like an arrangement to be played by a live orchestra - not like it was arranged to sound great using sample libraries.
I still like your music - really. Don't get me wrong here. But I don't understand how this all comes together.
P.S. If you're going to insist on using LASS ensemble patches as a pad (P.P.S. stop that - not what it was designed for at all) at least layer Expressive (trilayer, Full volume)+Sordino (full volume)+Tremolo (10%-25% volume), will sound much better than a single patch. That being said, just layer that behind single sections at REALLY LOW VOLUME, to add a sort of fullness feeling to what you should be doing with single patches from each section of strings having their own parts. (I also recommend putting Symphobia 1's Ensemble string patches (Exp+sordino, not tremolo - 5 things loaded in kontakt in total) at slightly lower volume - makes it feel even more full if you have it.)
Heh this is an interesting post for how close yet completely off the mark you are
With regards to the lugia piece, this is a discussion Mr M and I had quite a while ago. We had already decided to remove it, I just thought that 3.0 was probably the best time to do it. The flute sample I used for this piece is by Embertone, and it's their Shire Whistle (an irish penny whistle), as I wasn't going for an orchestral flute sound.
For the Apteryx piece, I've never played a MGS game, or listened to any of their soundtracks, so it wasn't based on that. When I wrote that one I was inspired by the Crimson Tide, soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, but it's really just a generic remote control esque sounding piece.
I'm a classically trained oboist (so very close on that one), but I also think that woodwind is very underutilised in modern film music which is why I use so much of it.
I've only heard that metallica song once, but I can hear the similarities to it (awful album btw). As for songs having two unrelenting melodies, that's kinda the point. I'm approaching a lot of these pieces from my classical background, with using the idea of theme and counter theme (though I don't tend to go much into development sections for these pieces so I couldn't really call them sonata form based).
As for the stuff about minor chords, well, that's getting into subjective taste at this point. I use a lot of minor chords because I like the way they sound. I find that major keys tend to be not very flexible in terms of mood. As for using a lot of chord changes, that's mostly due to my studies, as I was fascinated by the idea of axial tone theory while doing my music degree. One of my big influences for composing is the orchestral works of Gustav Mahler, who I studied, and he uses a lot of axial tone shifts in his music.
As for the p.p.s. sorry, but while I do have LASS, I don't use any of the ensemble patches. For ensemble strings I usually use a combination of Albion and Logeria by Spitfire, which I then add things like the LASS smaller sized sections and solo strings to. I also tend to layer it with some of the strings patches by Embertone. Then again, I don't tend to use full ensemble strings unless I want to use them as a pad (which I find funny that you say they're not "designed for that"). As for symphobia, I've played around with it, but I've never liked the sound of that sample library. It's very much the american vs the european orchestral sound, and I must say I much prefer the sound of the Spitfire products.
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