Soundtrack In Progress: Fishing For Trouble - Battle Music

Hey everyone! Here a battle them I wrote for a game I am actively writing the soundtrack for (fun, fun)!  Let me know your thoughts, any feedback, and also any questions you are curious about. I love to answer questions that will help everyone learn and grow in our composer journey!

Fishing for Trouble - Battle Theme

• This piece is the battle theme for an action RPG game. While this is playing, players will be engaging in combat akin to God of War Ragnarok (since this is recently relevant). 
• The overall feel of the game, graphical expression, and battles is closer to a Pixar movie (think action scenes from The Incredibles, Brave, or something like that). 
• The overall story tone is layered with melancholy, determination, a journey of maturing, and all that good stuff (think hero's journey).
• The average length of a battle is around 1-2 minutes, but can last up to 5 or more. For this reason, the piece appears to loop around the 1:30-ish mark, but actually is not looping and goes into Part 2 which builds tension and progresses to a more upbeat rhythm heavy version (enter drums, etc) because if the player is still in battle, it is probably a challenging fight. 
• The primary scale of the entire soundtrack is Bminor with secondary of Cmajor. That said, this piece has Bminor, Cmajor, B Phrygian, and D Major (see if you can spot them all!)

I haven't posted in a long time and thought I would share. Thanks everyone - enjoy!

Hi!

First of all, it would be nice if you had a score but this is perhaps unlikely (right?) in this case since this is not meant to be performed. It's just that I like to read as I go through the piece.

• The "guitar" or similar plucked string instrument mini-solo is nice, though some more notes (mostly arpeggios) would likely add a more natural feeling to it.
• Doing a comeback to the main theme but with some more power instead of a plain loop is a nice idea.
• The sound is, in my opinion, decent enough for the desired purpose, though I'm no production expert. I must say though that the drum-set wasn't of my liking as it sounded too "far away", in my end at least. The string tremolos don't sound very good either, but since this is not actually an issue of the score but of the sound libraries you used I'll stop my criticism in this regard right here.
• I imagined a 2D pixel-art RPG instead of what you pictured, but I don't think this matters.
• There are some quite nice moments, but I can feel neither a significant variation in volume nor in dynamics, not even whenever the guitar-like instrument goes solo. Just putting more contrasting and noticeable dynamics would surely enhance the piece a lot.

• On a final, more personal note, knowing the details on points 2 and 3 have not varied my judgement, and likely would never do as otherwise I wouldn't be sure of judging your piece alone. Don't get me wrong, it is nice that you provide some context, but it's not that nice if you need to tell me that so I "better get" the piece. In other words, that I must think on X,Y,Z while listening, and here's why I believe so: it will often put an image or a set of images in someone's mind, which in turn may make such individual constantly try to fit the piece into the image/s suggested and the music associated to it (by the individual), thus distracting and deviating the judgement of the presented piece, for its better or worse fortune. 

Anyway: in summary, a decent piece with very nice moments that I would say that fits the purpose and which at the same time has lots of room for improvement, mostly in the sound aspect. Which software have you used to produce this?

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

Hi @sswave,

Overall I actually enjoy this track! I think it fits for a battle music.

I agree with Daniel that the drum sound and tremolo not forceful enough, but I am not an audio type of audience so it's fine for me.

I think that synthesizer(2:16) quite of tone actually. I would use woodwind instead like flute to signify the naivity of the suffered people.

The ending is quite abrupt for me, probably you should prolong the brass for a few more seconds and add some echo from other woodwind instruments.

17 hours ago, sswave said:

The primary scale of the entire soundtrack is Bminor with secondary of Cmajor. That said, this piece has Bminor, Cmajor, B Phrygian, and D Major (see if you can spot them all!)

I think it's more E minor throughout with added C# as a dorian flavour though!

Thanks for sharing!

Henry

HI! 

(I apologies for my bad english btw)
First of all, I love the Pan of the instruments in the first half. It gives it a better rythem.
I can definetly imgain this playing in a game like god of war and overall I really liked it.

But i think that the precussions from 2:14 onwards are a bit out of place.

I also agree that the ending is to aprupt. You should let it pan out a bit more.

Thank you for sharing this piece!

Dave.