New Music for Realm Wars
by Nick Palmer · in General Discussion · 06/11/2002 (9:47 pm) · 11 replies
Here's a start on a new track using my new GigaStudio orchestra and chorus. I have lots of work to do, but this is sort of along the lines of Jerry Goldsmith.
Battle Music
I still need to ratchet up the intensity, but I'm getting much closer than I could with my Roland. The words the choir is singing are:
mica fulmine et interfice illos!
which means "flash lightning and destroy them!" (I think) I actually got the text from the Vulgate Bible, Psalm 142. The whole line, which I'll use, is "Flash lightning and disperse them, shoot your arrows and destroy them." Good stuff!
Nick
Battle Music
I still need to ratchet up the intensity, but I'm getting much closer than I could with my Roland. The words the choir is singing are:
mica fulmine et interfice illos!
which means "flash lightning and destroy them!" (I think) I actually got the text from the Vulgate Bible, Psalm 142. The whole line, which I'll use, is "Flash lightning and disperse them, shoot your arrows and destroy them." Good stuff!
Nick
About the author
#2
06/11/2002 (10:44 pm)
Very nice. :)
#3
Nick
06/12/2002 (5:16 am)
Thanks! Music is like just about everything else that begins with an idea- as Edison said, 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. GigaStudio requires a lot of perspiration because there is so much detail available and, yes, it is all digital detail-- everything was done inside the computer. Nick
#4
Very good chorus and instrumental!
06/12/2002 (6:00 am)
Really nice but a bit short, I would like to hear this in a complete music of 3min! ;-(Very good chorus and instrumental!
#5
Nick
06/12/2002 (6:43 am)
As I said, just a start ;); more to come. Just for the sake of getting some length to the track, I just cut and pasted the orchestra at the end. That has to be developed and lead somewhere other than to dull repetition. Nick
#6
Good work on the demo so far.
Am I correct in assuming that the choir is Voices of the Apocalypse? Overall the choral part sounds quite nice, but there are a few aspects of it that bug me a little. At :27 and :31, the choir sounds like its saying the 'mica' line again, but the 'ch' or 'k' sound (cant tell which it is exactly) is coming on very strong and to me, it sounds unnatural. You may be able to soften that (tweak the velocity or expression of it)... which at least to my ears would improve the sound of the track overall.
The choir might benefit from being less exposed, too... maybe throw a soft bed of strings behind them in that beginning segment... Just enough to make the choir less up-front, but still leaving it audible.
I also think the track might benefit from a bit more reverb overall, which would smooth things out more. Again that may just be my taste, though.
As a last note, Im not sure what you're using for timpanis and trumpets in that demo (they sound decent... maybe a bit underpowered on the trumpets), but there are several really nice free .gigs at
www.projectsam.com
including a trumpet section, timpanis, and flute FX. All are nice sounding and quite useful. They have some commercial libraries in development too that will likely be low cost and high quality, so keep an eye on 'em (and no, I don't work for them, but I do like their samples :) ).
Joel
06/12/2002 (12:58 pm)
Hey Nick - Good work on the demo so far.
Am I correct in assuming that the choir is Voices of the Apocalypse? Overall the choral part sounds quite nice, but there are a few aspects of it that bug me a little. At :27 and :31, the choir sounds like its saying the 'mica' line again, but the 'ch' or 'k' sound (cant tell which it is exactly) is coming on very strong and to me, it sounds unnatural. You may be able to soften that (tweak the velocity or expression of it)... which at least to my ears would improve the sound of the track overall.
The choir might benefit from being less exposed, too... maybe throw a soft bed of strings behind them in that beginning segment... Just enough to make the choir less up-front, but still leaving it audible.
I also think the track might benefit from a bit more reverb overall, which would smooth things out more. Again that may just be my taste, though.
As a last note, Im not sure what you're using for timpanis and trumpets in that demo (they sound decent... maybe a bit underpowered on the trumpets), but there are several really nice free .gigs at
www.projectsam.com
including a trumpet section, timpanis, and flute FX. All are nice sounding and quite useful. They have some commercial libraries in development too that will likely be low cost and high quality, so keep an eye on 'em (and no, I don't work for them, but I do like their samples :) ).
Joel
#7
You are right-- I am using the "Voices of the Apocalypse". I still have a long way to go on the voices to make them acceptable. One of the things that really bugs me is that the vowels have such a slow attack. There are faster attack vowels, but you have to load up one voice for each vowel rather than just the slow attack set that is already set to go. Ah well, I'll figure it out. I have been writing to the creator of the set, whose name happens to be Nick, also, and he tells me that they are creating a utility which will make word formation easier. I sure hope so-- I like to play with the notes, not the technology!
Regarding reverb, you are right that is smoothes out some of the artificial bumps in the instruments and voices and, in fact, I selected a reverberant setting with NFX1. I have been recording with too much reverb on the whole, so I'm trying to go the other way and force the instruments to take up the spaces.
I'll work some more tonight to try to improve the vocal stuff and change the harmonic direction a little sooner.
Nick
06/12/2002 (4:28 pm)
Thanks for the tips, Joel-- I will definitely be sampling any libraries on the net that I can find. You are right-- I am using the "Voices of the Apocalypse". I still have a long way to go on the voices to make them acceptable. One of the things that really bugs me is that the vowels have such a slow attack. There are faster attack vowels, but you have to load up one voice for each vowel rather than just the slow attack set that is already set to go. Ah well, I'll figure it out. I have been writing to the creator of the set, whose name happens to be Nick, also, and he tells me that they are creating a utility which will make word formation easier. I sure hope so-- I like to play with the notes, not the technology!
Regarding reverb, you are right that is smoothes out some of the artificial bumps in the instruments and voices and, in fact, I selected a reverberant setting with NFX1. I have been recording with too much reverb on the whole, so I'm trying to go the other way and force the instruments to take up the spaces.
I'll work some more tonight to try to improve the vocal stuff and change the harmonic direction a little sooner.
Nick
#8
Personally, I rather dislike the NFX reverb in most cases. I think it colors the sound too much and just produces muddy results I don't care for. Most people I've talked to (and read comments by) seem to agree.
As a solution to this, I record completely dry to .wav, then apply an external reverb to the sound. There are a billion reverbs out there, hardware based and software based... but I found one I really like, and use on all my music these days... and best of all it was free! Its tough to find on the web anymore, but I saved it in a zip file for just such an occasion.
Its called Freeverb (appropriatley enough). You can get a VST version of it from Shareware Music Machine here:
www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/Freeverb
I use the DirectX version, which I stuck up on my webspace for you to grab if you want it. Link is here:
www.nexuscore.com/audiofiles/FreeVerbX.zip
Instructions for installing it are in the zip. It won't play in realtime with Giga, but thats never really bothered me too much. Just takes a little getting used to.
There are other nice software reverbs out there too, commercially available. Waves Renaissance verb is well liked... On the hardware end, people always like Lexicon reverbs... but they're expensive.
Im sure you'll find one you like if you look around a bit.
06/12/2002 (4:59 pm)
Hey Nick, Personally, I rather dislike the NFX reverb in most cases. I think it colors the sound too much and just produces muddy results I don't care for. Most people I've talked to (and read comments by) seem to agree.
As a solution to this, I record completely dry to .wav, then apply an external reverb to the sound. There are a billion reverbs out there, hardware based and software based... but I found one I really like, and use on all my music these days... and best of all it was free! Its tough to find on the web anymore, but I saved it in a zip file for just such an occasion.
Its called Freeverb (appropriatley enough). You can get a VST version of it from Shareware Music Machine here:
www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/Freeverb
I use the DirectX version, which I stuck up on my webspace for you to grab if you want it. Link is here:
www.nexuscore.com/audiofiles/FreeVerbX.zip
Instructions for installing it are in the zip. It won't play in realtime with Giga, but thats never really bothered me too much. Just takes a little getting used to.
There are other nice software reverbs out there too, commercially available. Waves Renaissance verb is well liked... On the hardware end, people always like Lexicon reverbs... but they're expensive.
Im sure you'll find one you like if you look around a bit.
#9
Great composition and timing, I like it.
I'd say that it really needs a lot more brass, quite a lot more timpani with lots of crash cymbals in there.
I'm not too sure about the flutes you put in some of the attack parts either.
Overall, the structure sounds really good, I'd just like to see a bit more attack from the virtual orchestra :))
Phil.
06/12/2002 (5:12 pm)
My own thoughts on this nick.Great composition and timing, I like it.
I'd say that it really needs a lot more brass, quite a lot more timpani with lots of crash cymbals in there.
I'm not too sure about the flutes you put in some of the attack parts either.
Overall, the structure sounds really good, I'd just like to see a bit more attack from the virtual orchestra :))
Phil.
#10
So far, I'd say the reverb has not been overboard in terms of muddying things, because, as you say, I could use MORE reverb to help hide the flaws in the samples or my handling of them. I may need to use the reverb on my Aardvark card, though, because I suspect that I'll get better performance if Giga isn't trying to do everything. What do you think of Cakewalk's plug-in reverb?
@Phil
Thanks-- I wanted your reaction more than anyone's to see if I'm at least heading in the right direction. I will probably drop the initial choral section because I can't duplicate a real choir singing real loud all by itself.
Regarding the twiddly flutes, I'm trying to match the orchestration John Williams and others (Jerry Goldsmith, et al) use to create a color effect. However, the flute has to have a very particular articulation and blend so as to make it almost unnoticeable without great effort. I'm still working on it! It may not work at all-- i'll remove it if it doesn't.
06/12/2002 (6:56 pm)
@JoelSo far, I'd say the reverb has not been overboard in terms of muddying things, because, as you say, I could use MORE reverb to help hide the flaws in the samples or my handling of them. I may need to use the reverb on my Aardvark card, though, because I suspect that I'll get better performance if Giga isn't trying to do everything. What do you think of Cakewalk's plug-in reverb?
@Phil
Thanks-- I wanted your reaction more than anyone's to see if I'm at least heading in the right direction. I will probably drop the initial choral section because I can't duplicate a real choir singing real loud all by itself.
Regarding the twiddly flutes, I'm trying to match the orchestration John Williams and others (Jerry Goldsmith, et al) use to create a color effect. However, the flute has to have a very particular articulation and blend so as to make it almost unnoticeable without great effort. I'm still working on it! It may not work at all-- i'll remove it if it doesn't.
Torque 3D Owner Robert Blanchet Jr.
How hard is it to actually compose something like this? Are you doing it completely on the computer?