2 orchestral compositions by a metalhead ! (need advice)

Hello,

I compose for thirty years but rather rock/metal and I think my orchestral compositions are too unrealistic, I dont know if it comes from the orchestration, the way of composing, mixing ...
If you can help me on that ? 

The first one was composed when working on "orchestral vibes" and is about space trip : 

I mean, maybe the choice of instruments isnt good (I never had classical training), maybe the mix is not good, I really dont know, help me !

@Cyril Vincent These are really good. It sounded like you have had a ton of experience. These pieces could definitely be played in real life.

Here is my 2 minor complaints:

1) Towards Andromeda, there is some type of person singing type thing in the middle.... I'm not sure what effect it has, it was interesting but in my opinion it doesn't relate with going towards Andromeda, you know what I mean?

2) To Adventure, and the end there was a wolf howl(I'm pretty sure) I could see how it goes with the theme, I could totally imagine a view of a castle at night with a howl from a wolf. But if your aiming for this to be realistic, something an orchestra can reproduce, extra non-instrument noises make it harder.

That my 2 cents.

This was really good, both were fantastic. (I imagine its easy making this music with a DAW compared to regular notation.)

Please make more, and maybe a Tutorial so I can make music like this 🙂

Hey! Realism isn't the main thing you should be preocupied about. If it's produced in a DAW, someone who listens to classical music regularly will notice it. So it's not a problem to have it sounding a bit unrealistic, because hopefully the intention is for it to be played by an actual orchestra.

Besides that, I love the pieces, especially the first one. What I would change about the mixing on that is the piano. It sounds as if it was recorded on another room (and it's a sample, so it probably was), but you can maybe better position it within the orchestra. How you would do that would depend on a factor: do you want the piano to be considered a soloist or part of the orchestra? If the former, try listening to some piano concertos and see how they are positioned (in front of the orchestra) and how it sounds. If the latter, lower it's volume and pan it to the left.

Also, this instrumentation sounds very "video-gamie". If that's what you were going for, I think your orchestration is fine. If you were going for a more classical vibe, then perhaps you could analyse some scores of the period you're more interested in and see how composers from the past have done it.

I hope it was of any help! Cheers!