The Last Command (Star Wars EU soundtrack)

I think that I posted my scores for the first two books of the Thrawn Trilogy from the Star Wars expanded universe here a while back.  I've finally finished the third of them, The Last Command.  The idea was to write somewhat in John Williams's style, incorporating his leitmotifs but also writing new themes for the new characters.  The main title and end credits open with the traditional formula from the films, but apart from these bits, but apart from these bits, and the leitmotifs, it's all original music.  I wrote all of this directly in the sequencer, so unfortunately I don't have a score.

Counting all three scores, this was a project I worked on, on and off, for over a decade, and it amounts to a total of about three hours of music, so it's satisfying to bring it to a close. 

The full soundtrack is an hour long, but if anyone cares to listen, please feel free to jump around and just listen to individual tracks.  Any comments or criticisms would be most appreciated!

YouTube playlist:

Quick thoughts from track 1: the transition from one composer to another is quite noticeable because the new instrumentation is immediately too busy to match the original and would work better, I think, if 1:16 transitioned directly to 1:28. After that, while I wouldn't be fooled into thinking that JW wrote it, it's at least as good as some of the music made for some of the SW games. The ending, though, is not nearly elaborate enough to properly emulate JW or SW...add at least 4 more bars, I would say.

Sounds like your instruments are just basic MIDI, maybe with slight enhancement. Certainly something to look into is what I've done most recently: importing your MIDI files or exports into Cakewalk (which is free) and using BBC Orchestra virtual instruments (which are also free) to get a much nicer orchestral sound.

I am speechless. It is incredible what can be done with a Commodore 64 and a sandblaster audio card.

On 8/30/2022 at 7:18 PM, Jaspo said:

BBC Orchestra virtual instruments

How would you rate these in comparison to Garritan Personal Orchestra or EW?...if you've used those...I am always looking around for new instruments because you never know what you are going to find in a chocolate box. 

The composition seems fine for what you're going for

If you're looking at better sounds, I would really not recommend BBCSO and especially not the free version. The free version would make this sound only very-slightly better and in certain parts I don't think it could even handle it at all.

Romantic-style orchestral music is the hardest thing to realize with samples effectively because most orchestral samples are actually really bad when it comes to their playing capability.

You'd have to spend some money. The Cinematic Studio Series would probably be the best bet.

Hi Christopher,

I am happy to help you since you are open to suggestions. Actually your work on Star War cover was good but since I have been listening to John Williams scores for more than 45 years the comparison suffered greatly by the quality of the library. As one said before me, even the most stupid melody played by great musicians can become great again. The proof is here where Stravinsky re-composed “Happy Birthday” his way. https://youtu.be/99s0tVk7s24

Short answer:

I used EWQLSO on Sonar for many years and found it sounding better than the Garritan Personal Orchestra that my friends were using. However, my friend Robert John Brooks https://soundcloud.com/robert-john-brooks  is using it and I consider that he really get the most out of it. Two years ago I discovered Spitfire Audio (SA) and it changed my life. The level of fidelity, the number of techniques and the control over the dynamic and articulation is outstanding. I use mostly BBCSO Pro and the Albion libraries and if you listen to my work on soundcloud you will understand the difference. https://soundcloud.com/user-461764443

Long answer:

After 20 years on 4 PC using Cakewalk (which became Sonar) and Steinberg V-Stack I got tired of writing my music on score and the limited functions of both Sonar and EWQLSO. I migrated to Logic Pro on a Mac 2 years ago and that was a game changer. Writing on a score is great to structure chords between the staffs but it is an inspiration killer. I now compose classical music or soundtrack as I was doing for jazz by plying most of the part on the piano keyboard. I have this terrible problem where each time I hit the REC button I play horribly. Logic has this special feature where if you improvise and then realise that what you played was good, then there is a special button that recalls everything that you played since the last STOP or PLAY.  I then correct it in the piano roll window and add dynamic controls if necessary. I rarely go in the score page since I want to control the start and the end of the notes when I need it, which you can’t do on staves. Same for the dynamic when you want to go from ppp to fff and then to ppp. With Finale, Sibelius you can write it but you do not control exactly when it happens unless I did not understand the functions behind the crecendo and decrecendo. Garritan (150$) and EWQLSO (300$) libraries can only control the volume of the instruments, not the real played dynamics and that makes them unrealistic on long notes. Moreover, the legato is not great. Spitfire Audio have 3 (Albion)  or 5 (Abbey Road) recorded dynamics of the real instruments. You have the control over the volume, the dynamic (which makes sense if it has 3 or more dynamics), vibrato, articulations, variation, etc.

As Jasper was saying, the free version of SA BBCSO is a good start. I would add to that the LABS free libraries also from SA are interesting. I prefer the BBCSO Pro version because of all the articulations available (including the great legato they made for most instruments), all the microphone selections but mostly the string legato with selectable slur or glissando. If you are composing by section the Albion or the Abbey Road libraries are great. They also have a selection of specialize techniques library that I use depending on the style and context.

Cheers,

Syrel

2 hours ago, Syrel said:

Actually your work on Star War cover was good

So was Aiwendil's! :-)

I started out with Sonar and stayed with it when it became Cakewalk. Now I have Pro Tools for audio recording; also Cubase as it's MIDI functionality is supposed to be the best. I have EW Composer Cloud and  have only started getting into it recently. Use to use GPO quite a lot. My friend also recommended Spitfire so maybe I will try that one day. I used the Pianoteq product when playing piano digitally. It's also the best piano virtual instrument that i have used. It automatically saves everything you play. But you don't tend to play as much as you would in a regular recording session so maybe that type of thing wouldn't work well in a DAW. 

The EW articulations do not allow control of dynamics? More, perhaps, later.

On 9/1/2022 at 4:19 PM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

You'd have to spend some money.

Which libraries are best for Beethoven? Which are best for real music like Schoenberg? One, two, three...GO!

17 hours ago, AKAChristopher said:

Which libraries are best for Beethoven? Which are best for real music like Schoenberg? One, two, three...GO!

 

When you say what is the best library for Beethoven or Schoenberg I hope you mean composing in one of those styles and not simply get Finale play the original score “as is”. Playing “as is” in Finale will sound horrible with any sound library as you need to create some sort of interpretation that is not written on the score. It’s the job of the musicians and the conductor to get the score alive and Finale is not very good at that. You will have to go for a DAW to get the most out of it.

What makes a library (or a set of libraries) sound good (recording of the samples set aside) are:

1. 1. The room or hall it was recorded in (Church, Hall, Dry Studio, Abbey Road studio, etc.)
2. 2. The number of articulations (legato, long, short, pizzicato, staccato, etc.)
3. 3. The number of techniques (Swarm, Flautando, Harmonics, Hairpin, Random scratching on the bridge, harmonic blow, flutter, etc.)
4. 4. The number of dynamics (ppp, pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff, fff) because the sound changes with dynamic
5. 5. The realism of the legato
6. 6. The direction of the bow for the strings (I haven’t heard any library yet doing it correctly)

To my humble point of view there was less articulations and much less techniques during the Beethoven era than during the Schoenberg era and so it is easier to find a library to play Beethoven style music. Reproducing the Schoenberg strings extended techniques may be a challenge with many sound libraries.  However, re-bowing the strings is still an issue with most libraries if not all.

I used EWQLSO (300$) for 15 years until I realised that I was badly missing items 3 to 6 to sound good.

I now use Spitfire Audio BBCSO PRO (600$ when on discount) as well as ALBION I, III, IV and many other specialized libraries from SA. I usually wait until there is a 40% discount to buy those. Apparently the Spitfire Audio Symphonic Orchestra Professional is a great workhorse but I already spent too much on other libraries. Vienna is also very good but I don’t have 20K$ to spend on a single orchestra.

Cheers,

On 9/1/2022 at 6:34 PM, AKAChristopher said:

So was Aiwendil's! 🙂

I started out with Sonar and stayed with it when it became Cakewalk. Now I have Pro Tools for audio recording; also Cubase as it's MIDI functionality is supposed to be the best. I have EW Composer Cloud and  have only started getting into it recently. Use to use GPO quite a lot. My friend also recommended Spitfire so maybe I will try that one day. I used the Pianoteq product when playing piano digitally. It's also the best piano virtual instrument that i have used. It automatically saves everything you play. But you don't tend to play as much as you would in a regular recording session so maybe that type of thing wouldn't work well in a DAW. 

The EW articulations do not allow control of dynamics? More, perhaps, later.

 

EWQLSO only control the volume, not the dynamics. EW claims that Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition has control on volume and dynamics but they don't say how many dynamic levels. For instance, Spitfire Audio ALBION libraries has 3, BBCSO has 3 and SA claims that Abbey Road One has 5. I must admit that EWQLSO was sounding quite static compared to BBCSO and ALBION.

17 hours ago, AKAChristopher said:

Which libraries are best for Beethoven? Which are best for real music like Schoenberg? One, two, three...GO!

 

Oups, I finally forgot to say what was appropriate for Schoenberg. I would say Spitfire Audio London Contemporary Orchestra Strings. Indeed, the extended techniques found in this libraries are the closest I could find up to now to Schoenberg intentions.

On 9/1/2022 at 1:56 PM, AKAChristopher said:

How would you rate these in comparison to Garritan Personal Orchestra or EW?...if you've used those...I am always looking around for new instruments because you never know what you are going to find in a chocolate box. 

 

I'm no expert - listen to Syrel instead - but from what I remember of my cousin using Garritan, BBC sounds quite a lot better.

4 hours ago, Syrel said:

best for Beethoven? Which are best for real music like Schoenberg

Actually that was only a sly call-out to AngelCityOutlaw with whom I used to have heated discussions about various artistic matters. It has been a while since I have been on YC so of course I am trying to rile the place up a bit! Just kidding...I think.

Thanks for the all of the comments, some things I already knew and some things not. Only 3 to 5 levels of velocity in string libs? That seems pathetic! So are the 10-12 layers in most sampled software pianos. But the Pianoteq instrument does not need samples, all sounds are produced algorithmically, so the number of levels is limited only but the degree of precision your keyboard has when sending MIDI. Theoretically there are 127 possible layers. The tone of the instruments available in Pianoteq sound as realistic as in sampled pianos. And after playing it and switching to a sampled instrument it is easy to feel the lack of all those levels in the latter.

Please give me a heads up when Spitfire goes on sale again, it almost IS like i need another library!