Castle Paradox

[tgfcoder]

I haven't been composing for very long but I LOVE composition. I don't think I'm really good at it yet, I was hoping people here could give me some tips.

By the way, the some end abruptly because they are designed to loop

>>

Album: Orbital Orchestra
Saturn Symphony
Mercury Melancholy
Satellite Solfa

Album: Tales of Lyara Isle Soundtrack
Sailin'
Kwai Island (town music)

Album: Random compositions
Raindance

Thanks in advance

[Calehay]

Overall, these are quite nice. You've created a lot of non-cliche chord progressions that work quite well. You also know how to make a MIDI sound extremely good.

1:
Very nice techno-trance drum beat (In fact, I applaud all of your drumbeats.) The second voice (I believe it's choir ah's) has somewhat questionable voice-leading, but it's still functional.

2:
Very nice melody (and putting it in that range really makes it stick out) My only problem with this song is that it's too thin. I would love for another round of the theme with all instruments at once.

3:
The drum break in this song is far too long. (I'm assuming this song loops.)

4:
This one is quite nice for the mood it seems to setup. I would maybe try another instrument than the whistle (I think it's a whistle) for the pan pipe or the bottle blow.

5:
This one uses a fairly common chord progression, but the sound is fullfilling. The inversions you use make it more interesting to listen too.

6:
Excellent! Reminds me of FF7 so much. The instrument choice is spot-on. The trade off between the harp and the lead synth is a very nice choice.
This is by far the best in the selection.

You work very well with arppegios and voice spacing. My only question is, are you going to use these as BAMs? If so, you're going to lose a lot of your MIDIorchestration to the wrath that is known as BAMS. You'll have to tweak these quite a bit (Remove some of the sound effects and replace the weak instruments.)

Pretty darn good!
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Calehay

[tgfcoder]

Wow, thanks for listening to all of them. (I assume)

>Very nice techno-trance drum beat (In fact, I applaud all of your
>drumbeats.) The second voice (I believe it's choir ah's) has somewhat
>questionable voice-leading, but it's still functional.
>Very nice melody (and putting it in that range really makes it stick out)
>My only problem with this song is that it's too thin. I would love for
>another round of the theme with all instruments at once.

Thanks for that. Just remember MIDI's sound different on all most soundcards It probably sounded better on your card, heh, mine's pretty cheap

>The drum break in this song is far too long. (I'm assuming this song
>loops.)

Yes, I noticed that too! It's 4 bars too long Too lazy lol

>This one is quite nice for the mood it seems to setup. I would maybe try
>another instrument than the whistle (I think it's a whistle) for the pan
>pipe or the bottle blow.

Yup, whistle. I actually notated that section with my recorder.


>You work very well with arppegios and voice spacing. My only question
>is, are you going to use these as BAMs?

Some of them are already converted. I make 2 versions of the MIDI, one suitable for BAM, eg, use timpani instead of bass drum, synth snare for snare, etc etc.

>If so, you're going to lose a lot
>of your MIDIorchestration to the wrath that is known as BAMS. You'll
>have to tweak these quite a bit (Remove some of the sound effects and
>replace the weak instruments.)

Yeah, I supremely dislike BAM. I compose for the sound, sometimes they just go into my games

>This one uses a fairly common chord progression, but the sound is
>fullfilling. The inversions you use make it more interesting to listen too.

Yeah, heh. D, E, C, G.. It reminds me of Croc.

>Excellent! Reminds me of FF7 so much. The instrument choice is spot-on.
>The trade off between the harp and the lead synth is a very nice choice.
>This is by far the best in the selection.

I really wasn't expecting that. This was one of the first songs I ever composed. Also, with the recorder (Listen again- it's not easy to play, especially on recorder..!)

>Pretty darn good!

Thanks again!

Perhaps I should compose longer songs What happens is, it starts of mediocre, but I end up loving the final product and wishing it was longer

Thanks for the comments

[Velduanga]

Very cool stuff.

1-3: Nice mixing. Sounds like you threw different ACID loops together. Odd feel though..not too techno, not quite rock. Nice feel for no. 1.

4-5: Very very good use of the sound effects. Ive actually never heard them used in an actual song before. Plus the interesting part is that they have a lite rock/traditional feel to them.

6: This song is just great. Its cool how you got the seashore to match. Plus the recorder melody adds to the layers.

Keep up the good work.
_________________
If you hit a plane with the soccer, could you afford to fix it? - Shaolin Soccer

"If it's worth shooting, it's worth shooting twice"-Tom Clancy

[tgfcoder]

Yeah, who knew birds and the sea could play in tune?

I think some of my earlier songs are missing something, something I can't quite put my finger on.. I guess most of my compositions are for a little instrument group, I've never really done any huge concerto orchestra compositions.

Notes about drumbeats: All drumbeats were from myself. Not to say they were originally made by me, but being a beatboxer, along with playing the piano and recorder, the drumbeats come naturally

Thanksyou

[LeRoy_Leo]

I too enjoyed listening to these. The first few sound like remixes of the same theme, but I like the concept of interstellar orchestra, so I payed little mind to this. My personal favorite out of all three versions was Mercury melancholy, which I liked for the bouncy beat... Really, doesn't sound very sad to me. Melancholy probably wasn't the choice of word you want, but I donno'. You are the artists here.
These would sound perfect in a game together if they were like, different stages in the same level. I think, you might want to either make the drum brake shorter or make it faster and more compelling. That might use some work, but maybe it's just me...

The next song, song #4, has an interesting beat and a pretty cool melody. The clashyness (forgive me if I don't know all these musical terms) seems to be working. It's a fresh style to me. :o

The island was the most interesting. The birds sound great! That took creativity and hard work, I am sure. Allow me to dispose of your sweat band, sir. I would be honored.

The final song sounds like it belongs with the other two island songs. Think about that. They both have a sort of water/island feel to them. The last song sounds like an interesting conflict/boss theme to me, if this were in a game... Hope that solves some organizing issues for you.

Finally, I think you should add these to our community song list. Have you been to that on the CP main page? I'd give these fours and threes for sure. I'd highly consider adding these to our growing list.
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Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

[tgfcoder]

I have never visited CastleParadox.com, only /ohr, albeit the community song list. Thanks I'll take a look now.

[tgfcoder]

All the MIDS here plus more are on the songlist. Knock yourself out

[LeRoy_Leo]

I did. And I need an asperin now.

What is up with your avatar? Did you draw that stuff?
_________________
Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

[tgfcoder]

Yeah I drew most of it. Others I only CG'd.

EDIT: I'll expand on that.

In order:

My photo: Yeah, that's a photo. Pixellized.
Mages by Xandinavian: Just CG'd that.
Yuna X-2 Title: Drew and CG'd.
Angel person: Drew and CG'd.
A Magical Ride: Drew it.
Mantis Mech: Just CG'd it.
Marion&Toby: Drew them
My mum: Drew her.
Flower: Watercolour painted.
Vermilion Storm Title: Drew then CG'd.

[Setu_Firestorm]

Dayamn, boy!

Now at what point did you actually believe you weren't good with composition? Your work is, without a doubt, amazing! It's obvious by your skill that you've been doing this for quite some time.

Not one time did I suspect your drums to be samples. I don't know about you, but the number one thing that pissed me off when I submitted some of my compositions to some sites was when they'd say stuff like "Great work, man. But you might want to get better samples." I'm sure that as a fellow composer, you know how freaking insulting that is.

I'm very impressed with your work, and with skills like that, you probably are going to be signing your life away to some of the game authors here.

Welcome to CP!
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Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/georgerpowell
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[beau_rl]

WOW! These are EXTREMELY appealing expecially Mercury and the Kwai Island song. Can you tell me how you composed these and how old you are? I am very jealous.

[tgfcoder]

[KainMinter]

I like your style. These songs are outstanding.

[Kenji Murasame]

1. The intro there is classy! Would make a nice tower dungeon music.
2. This is nice. The harp reminds me of Mario 3.. The rest is pure RPG.
3. Good
4. It's okay but the flute strikes some really akward notes.
5. This is pretty brilliant. Perhaps the ambient stuff is a bit overdone but it's really cool sounding anyway!
6. Quite haphazard but nothing sounds bad indivudally.

Most of these would translate horribly to BAM.. hopefully you don't intend on that.