John Axon

Thanks for the comments, guys! The J: Were there specific places where the horns were too soft or was it an issue throughout the entire piece? What do you mean by accenting the transition? Do you mean I should lead up to it better? The grungy bass and smooth horns are a pretty stark contrast. Maybe they don't have to be playing directly overtop of each other but they could play sections side-to-side of one another. What I don't want is an incredible smooth synth that just fades into the horns. I want them to sound distinct from each other. Good points, The J. Murr: Thanks man! My only memories of Duke Nukem were blowing propane tanks on a roof top and going to strip clubs. Edgy stuff =P. I didn't notice how rough the transition was until you guys mentioned it. It must have been from the early days of writing this track when I was still figuring out the form. I was probably thinking, "Alright, I'll put a transition from here to here, cuz you gotta have a transition..." but then I never wrote it properly. Bad composing. My bad. Thanks again! -John

That's some scary mountain music. Oooh, I love the swell at 0:25. I wish you didn't cut it off but let the sound naturally decay. Cool beat and synth work at 0:33. Really good supernatural sound here. Awesome stuff! -John

Don't worry about the spamming. We've had worse =) If you do have a lot of tracks you wanna get on here, take your time. Put one or two up a day, and you'll get more responses from people. Nice to meet you Saigen! I like the colours your creating with choirs, horns, strings, and wood winds. Do more with that. Throw in little sparkles of sound around us. Try some beautiful block chords that just hang there. You have a really good foundation here for a lovely, rich piece. Nice work, -John

Welcome to YC, Mystical Divinity! Pretty track! One thing I'd suggest would be to have clearer phrases. Your melody lines are very serene, but they carry on a bit to long for us to appreciate them. Break them up, so we can tell where they begin and where they end. Don't be afraid to explore other keys or other harmonies. It will keep things interesting. Good stuff! -John

Welcome to YC, KralcA! Nice mix of styles in this piece. Oh no's! Yeah the drums are acting strange. Go back to your file, and check them out. Are they going above the 0 dB mark? Might want to turn them down or put a limiter on them. I think you could pan everything around a bit. Give every instrument its own space so that we can hear individual part. Strings are a little slow at the beginning. You could spruce them up with a trumpet or oboe or something. Or you could give the strings more of a melody line rather than just block chords for the whole beginning. Sounds cool KralcA! Fix the drums and try reuploading the file. That way, we won't be distracted by the drums. -John

Sounds like a pretty epic description. Very soft and sensitive. I think the soprano's first two notes of every phrase could be a little more audible. Love the full sound when you bring in the strings and drums. Sweet piece, TRK! It's a bit short, but you use your time efficiently. -John

Welcome to YC, Cactus-Mac! Very pretty incidental music. Love the piano to strings and guitar. Very pretty. The strings randomly get quiet and then swell back. See if you notice the same problem. Pretty crazy contrast in styles. I think you could use more synth to compliment the string lines. Be careful using the bass drum with the synth bass. They muddy the track up a bit. Try panning the bass drum around so its not directly interfering with the synth or try other bass drums. Cool stuff, Cactus-Mac! -John

Cool piece! Sampling the speeches is a really cool idea. Its a neat alternative to adding choirs. The strings and taikos are pretty badass. One thing you should sort out is where you want the focus of the piece to be. Is the orchestra supporting the speeches, or are samples supporting some melody line in the orchestra? Figure it out, and mix them accordingly so we can tell which we should pay more attention to. Holy harps, Batman! That was a quick transition at 1:20. The piano and the harp work together really well. Good choice. Bringing it all back at the 3-minute mark. Cool stuff.

Cool piece! Sampling the speeches is a really cool idea. Its a neat alternative to adding choirs. The strings and taikos are pretty badass. One thing you should sort out is where you want the focus of the piece to be. Is the orchestra supporting the speeches, or are samples supporting some melody line in the orchestra? Figure it out, and mix them accordingly so we can tell which we should pay more attention to. Holy harps, Batman! That was a quick transition at 1:20. The piano and the harp work together really well. Good choice. Bringing it all back at the 3-minute mark. Cool stuff.

We meet again, Asmudee31! Neat piece. I like the use of marimba and tubular bells. Feels a little empty around 0:40. You add in some strings at 2:38 that fills out the orchestration quite nicely. Try doing that at 0:40 and see if it sounds better. Also at 0:40, the marimbas and violas don't need to be doubling the repeated 16th notes. If you let just one of the instruments play that rhythm, it frees up the other instrument to play counter melodies or different accompaniment. Cool stuff, Asmudee31! -John

Welcome to YC, Asmudee31! Nifty track. Do you plan on orchestrating it for the complete piece or will it always be for solo piano? Compositionally, it's pretty solid. You have a lot of different textures to play with. You could use a key change here and there to spruce it up. 0:40 melodies could be a little more interesting. What if you had violins playing that melody line with 16th note tremolos? You probably couldn't have your busy bass line because it would get too congested. Looking forward to hearing the real deal! -John

Neat piece, Kenny! The shifting time signatures are definitely cool. I like the trumpet breakdown at 0:47. My only suggestion now is to make it longer! Throw in some new sections after the looping point. See if you can add another minute of new material. Nice work, Kenny! -John

Same old story; it's been a while since I've posted =P. Work has kept me from posting anything lately. Fortunately, I'll be posting more tracks from this project in the near future! This track is one of a few that play while you're playing the game. Its sort of an RTS with a TRON: Legacy sort of feel. Drop me a comment and let me know what you think about it. P.S. It's made to loop. Fail-Deadly Battle Theme Fail-Deadly Battle Theme

Nice title. Neat theme. The piece has this strange groove to it. It sounds like Schoenberg was starting to get into heavy metal or something. Turn up the drums for added energy. All your melodies, harmonies, and instrumenation are good. Now mess around with them! Listen to "Decisive Battle", a track from the anime, Evangelion http://youtu.be/OxDisS69PHM. It's a similarly edgy piece with recurring ostinatos. Pay attention to how they change up the melody and the instruments to keep everything fresh. Tbh, they don't change the harmony very often, but somehow they still pull it off. Nice listening to your piece, forsakethis! -John

I'm in it for the long haul, Nimrodia. Don't disappoint me. Nifty beginning. Pretty soft stuff at the beginning. Can you turn up the guitar at 1:10? It needs some help standing out. I think you should change chord progressions around 1:00 or 1:20. Repeating them too much can really wear a listener down. The instruments sound pretty good mixed together. Nice delay on the guitar at 3:15. Turn it up. Later on, it's accompanying the lead guitar, but for now, it's the most important thing in the world and it needs to be a bit louder. That synth or accordion at 4:20 sounds kind of Portaly. Neato. 3:15-6:10 could be shortened a bit. There's a fair amount of repetition that you could get rid of. I like how you bring it all together in the end. Neat track, Nimrodia! Try being a little more adventurous with your harmonies. It'll really liven up this track. -John