Reidsan

.Wav? Please, could you compress that to mp3? Goldwave or Audacity have a "save as mp3" function if you've got the LAME codec, which, if you don't, isn't that hard to find online anyway.

You still need judges? I've got a whole lot of nothing to do, I can do some judging.

http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/mp3/5b8398f9be6e866a89c2a2c93b52ffd0_fasteronewithunfinishedbits.mp3 There's a mixture of recorded and MIDI guitar that's not going to be present in the finished cut here, and a timing anomaly I hope to fix with a re-record of the guitar parts, but besides that, where do I go next? I don't want to write one of those songs that's just an endless repetition of my riff, but I've just put a lot of effort into the B-sections and I need a starting point for the next bit now I think. Also, besides answering the question, let me know if you like it :P edit: Also, I was thinking of fleshing out the piano a bit, does anyone have any tips as to how to make it sound more like a complete instrument than just the means to a single melody?

No trouble. I can't promise I'll do it in a timely fashion, but once I have (sometime in the next month probably) I'll let you know about it. Does it have a title other than "Guitar solo" ?

I'm going to have a lot of spare time in a couple of weeks when my exams are over, would you like it if I recorded myself playing your composition? Obviously I'll credit it to you and e-mail you the mp3 and such. All I ask is that I can link to it on my music myspace...it seems like a fun thing to learn and play, with some really challenging elements, so I'd love to have a go at it.

Second one!

I don't think Sibelius does have a quantise button, no. It probably just quantises anyway if you're entering via a MIDI controller - you select the time then press the notes, don't you?

Rather than just commenting on everyone else's pieces, I thought I'd upload my coursework for this year. What do you all think of it? It's really three bits mashed together - at various points, my hero, Dagenham Dave, gets a powerup, goes driving, and fights an evil French supervillain. How do you like it? It's finished and sent off now, by the way, so I'm probably not going to change it too drastically - I'd still be interested to hear your thoughts though :( http://www.b3ta.cr3ation.co.uk/data/mp3/5b8398f9be6e866a89c2a2c93b52ffd0_dagenhamdavegoestofrance.mp3

My main thought through the first 30 seconds was "Will this please drop a beat?" By which I mean, I wanted one to come in and start some sort of definite groove. And when it came, it sort of crept up on me, which I didn't really appreciate - I would much rather have had it go "bomph!" and for something to have happened. I just think it needs a bit more aggression, a bit more passion, a bit more, well, oomph. You know what I mean? It's gradual, it's vague, it seems to move slowly, and I'd rather it just came out and kicked me in the face with a blatant groove. And possibly something big and bassy to move things around a bit too. That might be nothing to do with what you're going for, but if this were my piece, it's what I'd do. And maybe consider a pause before the church-organ sounding thing comes in at 1:20, just to add something. As it is, I feel the piece is too floaty and vague - I want it to go out on a limb and hit me with something, frankly :(

To be honest, I think that's a very solid piece, apart from the percussion. It seems too random and I think it throws it off somehow. The piano is ace, but is there a reason it's only happening on my right-sided speakers? The flute melody was pretty inevitable considering it's about the sea, but nonetheless enjoyable and fun for what it was. Still, it seemed awfully high, kinda piercing - if that's what you're going for, then cool, but I found it to be slightly annoying. But I liked that a lot! So, well done, I guess.

I can't listen to these tracks. Maybe my computer hates .wma files, I don't know. I don't think that's a very good format to use anyway - stick to mp3, pretty much everything in the world supports that by now, and you can get very good sound quality for the size if you go anywhere about 128kbps (my preference is 192). You can convert them in iTunes for sure, and maybe Audacity or Goldwave will do it too - all of which are free. Perhaps windows media player itself will do it as well, I don't know, it's probably worth a try. Reid

I'm by no means an expert, but this seems to me to be far too subtle a song to start a musical with. The curtains come up, the lights go down on the audience, and you have those nice, quiet piano chords? To be honest, I think it'd be much more effective to smack them over the head with a few massive chords and then drag them into some quieter, nicer bits later on. Like they do in Wicked, for example. I quite like the track, especially the way the guitar is dropped in like that, though that synth pad seems to eat all the other instruments. And it also gets a bit repetitive, which, again, doesn't happen in so many musicals - each character would, presumably, be changing moods and feelings more quickly than this, necessitating more notes and variation. It does sound as though it's a mysterious, thriller-style thing, and could easily fit somewhere else. But after 3 or 4 minutes, it starts to get old - maybe use the riff as the theme to a character and juxtapose it with a couple of others later on. Still, for an opening number, I'm sorry to say that the only way I could see something like this working was if the opening was mostly played out in the drama rather than the music, and even then the song would have to build to something, rather than looping the way it does. That's my two cents, anyway. Reid

This. The piece sounds like it's most of the way there to being In Flames or something, but the drums are quite conspicuously absent. It really does need them to get to being what it deserves. I can hear little cymbal hits in my head in some parts, but they're just not there. I would've liked some changes in tempo towards the end, it seems like it wants to go faster. And personally, I think listening to 6 minutes of MIDI is a bit of a trial - it might work for an actual recorded song, but right now I'd say it was too long. & anyway, shouldn't it be called Heroes?