My Personal Orchestra!, Do come in :D Options

[X-M-O]

Your Song of Storms remix sounds great. =D
I love most of the music from LoZ: OoT; you do it justice.


About "happy songs": I somewhat agree, though I can name a few songs that I absolutely enjoy and they are quite memorable. I'd say that some of the OoT music fits this description for me, though I must admit a great deal of anime and Disney music also fits this quite well.

[Stern]

X-M-O: That's great to hear, I'm always worried when I rearrange or remix a well known piece. I don't want to offend any fans by making my own version of a song and they might think that I don't think the original is good enough or something , if that makes any sense.

EDIT: Yes, you're right, there's a lot of memorable "happy songs". I just think that the majority of very memorable songs are sad/dark-ish. A very good exception would be the Super Mario Theme and the Zelda Overworld :]

Something I really want to do, is make all the ocarina songs from OoT fully orchestrated and maybe rearrange some of them, but I suppose that's a project for another time


This post has been edited by Stern: Oct 22 2011, 04:52 PM

[X-M-O]

That's great to hear, I'm always worried when I rearrange or remix a well known piece. I don't want to offend any fans by making my own version of a song and they might think that I don't think the original is good enough or something , if that makes any sense.

Actually, maybe it is just me but I enjoy hearing remixes of music that I love, and because I like it so much, I'm very forgiving if someone remixes a song and screws it up. You haven't done that though, but even if you had I believe I would be thrilled simply that the fact that someone else likes the song so much they'd want to remix it.
Some fans are die-hard "it must be this way or else", and I find that to be childish, lol.

Yes, you're right, there's a lot of memorable "happy songs". I just think that the majority of very memorable songs are sad/dark-ish. A very good exception would be the Super Mario Theme and the Zelda Overworld :]

I can definitely agree with that. =D
And yes, I actually prefer the dark themes/songs much better. Hehehe... XD

Something I really want to do, is make all the ocarina songs from OoT fully orchestrated and maybe rearrange some of them, but I suppose that's a project for another time

Yes! Do this! O_O
I will love you forever unless I see a cookie and love it more! =D

[Stern]

Some OoT stuff!

Bolero of Fire
My 2nd favourite piece from OoT, I haven't gotten very far with this one, but so far I'm happy with the general direction it's going in. It's quite tricky to make an entire composition from a 20 second melody without changing it too much, which goes for all ocarina songs >_>

Gerudo Valley
This one is a bit more finished, but I'm not entirely happy with it, Some of the transitions and the progression sound a bit strange to me.

This post has been edited by Stern: Oct 30 2011, 02:34 PM

[X-M-O]

Bolero of Fire was a little quiet, but very nicely done. =D
For a remix, it is unique and... I like. >:3

The issue with Gerudo Valley is that when you get to the quieter areas, it is too quiet to recognise the notes played on the string instrument(s).
I would like to mention that I've probably listened to this song the most, of all OoT songs, as I have many remixes of this song on my PC.
One of my favourites, so hard to go wrong, and you didn't go wrong but there is room for improvement. =]
I would like to say that you've got a WHOLE LOT right, but just some transitions aren't as smooth as they could be, and the quiet areas are a bit too quiet to recognise the tune.
Despite that, it's very nicely done and I'd love to hear more improvements from this one in particular. =D

[Daven]

first of all thanks for introducing me to Gerudo Valley!! Absolutely one of my favorite Link tunes of all time, it captures a truely unique essence. Your remix has great potential and I agree with XMO, there are some minor things I could hear like at 0:20, the woodwind that kicks in seems unbalanced set to the string pattern that plays at the beginning. I'm not up on musical terms but it sounds slightly out of chord.

But if you pull a link and temper those small details out this remix would sound even more awesome, the instrument quality is very nice btw.

As for the Bolero of Fire overall it sounds like you are on the right track, the reverb in a few places was a bit extreme. I can't remember listening to the original track in OoT, is this in the mountains on the way to fight Dondogo*? Anyway good choices man, some of my favorite music came from the Link series!

ps. i might have to make a Link remix myself now lol, I really like the castle theme of a Link to the Past. Have you remixed it?

This post has been edited by Daven: Nov 11 2011, 11:59 AM

[Stern]

Thanks for commenting Daven!

Gerudo Valley
A while after I remixed this I realized that the original is in a different time signature, at the time of making the remix I was way too tired to even realize that (apparently). So it sounds very funky when the different melodies comes in. I need to go back and fix it along with some transitions n' stuff, but right now I'm spending most of my free time on the competition entry, so it will have to wait

Bolero of Fire
This song is taught to Link when he enters the Fire Temple for the first time as an adult wearing the red suit. Shiek meets him at a bridge over a pool of lava and teaches him the song. The reason why there's a lot of reverb is because I wanted to make the song sound like it's played from within a cave, as the original was. I might have overdone it a bit though .

I haven't remixed the castle theme yet, I'd love to see what you can make though!

@X-M-O: At some point, after the R3 music stuff, I'm going to go back and redo much of the GerudoValley remix and change more of the original song. I want it to be more unique

This post has been edited by Stern: Nov 21 2011, 11:13 AM

[titan_jojo]

They're pretty good especially Perspectives of Sacrifices, Recreation and Reflective .

[Stern]

Thanks for listening and commenting titan_jojo!

I haven't posted something for Beneath in quite a while, so here goes:

Obsessed
This is written for a certain scene/plot twist taking place in Chapter 4 in Redland.

This song might not have the same quality as my previous works, it's simply because my 7.1 headset is glitching about. I don't have 100% sound on my left ear-cushion which makes it very hard to pan different instruments/parts of the song (I don't have speakers!). I did the panning on a whim, but I hope it turned out ok.

Also, this silly headset issue is making the work on the R3 competition annoying, because, again, panning becomes difficult. Hopefully I'll find a substitute headset til' the deadline date!

[X-M-O]

Yeah, hopefully you get that headset replaced. D=

It really doesn't sound bad at all, despite you mentioning panning issues related to the headset's left side being inoperable.

I really do love the melody, and the tone, of Obsessed. It's strangely pleasant, and strangely sad. Love it!
(The piano part is beautiful.)

[Stern]

@X-M-O: Unfortunately I didn't get my headset replaced, but hopefully it shouldn't be noticeable :]

Here's something new I'm trying!

This is basically a song broken down into the 5 steps I go through when making a composition. Each part will add more and more to the song.

The first step in any composition I do is live improvisation/midi editing or whatever you want to call it. I basically plug in my keyboard to the PC, pick a scale/key, improvise for about 3-4 minutes and import it into FL studio. From there I edit/cut out what I didn't like and add/remove single notes/chords. At this point, I have spent roughly 20 minutes on this "version".

So here's Part 1 out of 5
Disclaimer: The song may be vastly different in the final version.

Hopefully this should be fun to listen to, but if not, it's still fun for me!

EDIT: Step 2 out of 5!
This is where I choose the instruments and general feel of the composition. Currently, the used instruments are: 2 Violins, 1 Bassoon, 2 Cellos, 1 Viola, 1 Contrabass, 1 Trombone, 1 Trumpet, 1 Tuba, Snares, a Wagner drum, a Timpani, a reversed Cymbal and a French Horn. At this time, I've spent about 1 hour on the composition.

The actual song is still unedited from part one. I pretty much try to create a nice sound to use for the climax, which will be edited in part 3!

So here's Part 2 out of 5

Hopefully you'll notice a difference from part one and two.

This post has been edited by Stern: Dec 1 2011, 03:05 PM

[X-M-O]

I love this idea! Being able to hear each bit as you work on it is quite a treat. ^^

Definitely a huge difference between the two parts, but it is amazing how you go from a single melody on the keyboard to suddenly a fully orchestrated melody.
It's quite well done. ^^

Can't wait to hear the next part; especially since there are 5 parts and that was only the second one! =D

[Stern]

X-M-O: I'm glad you found it interesting. I was a bit afraid that it'd come off as a bit arrogant in the sense of: "I'm so awesome so I shall show you how to do this shiiiizzzz!". Which is the exact opposite of what I was going for! I'm self-taught and I've only been composing music for just a bit over a year and I wanted to show the style I've sort of adapted after trying different methods. Someone might find it useful, someone might have some useful feedback, in any case I'd be happy

I refuse to post without an update of some sort, so here's a bunch of stuff!

Walk The Streets 3 out of 5
This is the third step, where most of the progression is laid down and the intro/outro base is made. At this point I've spent about 3 hours on it.

Walk The Streets 4 out of 5
This is the fourth step, where I actually start editing melodies/basslines to fit the progression a bit better, I also complete the intro/outro parts. At this point I've spent about 4 hours on the piece. Also, I made the download available, so feel free to use the song as long as you credit me!

I also thought it'd be fun to post a few ideas/doodles that I wasn't quite happy with and decided to not finish

So here's a few:

(All of the below links are dead due to clean-up on my Soundcloud. Sorry!)

Poking Around
As a self-taught musician, I often experiment with new methods as I learn them. This is an example of this. It's therefore very short.

Random Orchestrated Beat
I made this piece at a LAN party. All the beds were taken so I couldn't sleep anywhere. It was made 6am in the morning and I thought it sounded kickass. That was until I woke up and realized it was pretty lame.

String Beat
I made this because I was bored and thought I'd make an entire song with just string instruments. Yeah.... No.

A Pitch for a Friend and A Doodle For a Friend.
Both of these are/were melodies I pitched to a friend that I'm composing a sountrack for. Still awaiting response on the first one!

Battle Theme Idea
While making this I thought it sounded cool, then I changed my mind :>


Hopefully some of these will be fun to listen to!

This post has been edited by Stern: Apr 7 2012, 01:31 PM

[X-M-O]

Still loving the "Walk The Streets" series, and can't wait to hear the final one. It's beautiful thus far.

Poking Around couldn't be named better. I also like to dance my fingers on the piano at times. XD

Random Orchestrated Beat is also well-named, lol. It's short and sweet though. ^^

String Beat is definitely RnB-ish, as you describe. It's interesting, and can turn out all right, but you'd have to really put some powerful strings in there (it's too smooth and quiet, as-is). =]

A Pitch for a Friend & A Doodle for a Friend are pretty cool. The former sounds like it could belong in Fire Emblem, and the latter is very short but sounds about as good as Poking Around; fun. =D

Battle Theme Idea sounds very close to something that could belong in Donkey Kong Country 2. Has a Samba-ish sound to it, but overall I think it could develop into something really good, even if you don't seem to like it as much.

[Stern]

@X-M-O: Thanks for the reply! I'm quite surprised that you seemed to like some of the "scrapped" stuff I posted . To me they weren't really ever meant to be revisited in any way ;p.

Here's something short, but sweet (imo)!

I'm sad, so I'll whistle for a bit.
For once I think it came out pretty nicely, not much more to say!

[X-M-O]

The whistling song almost has the same tune as one of the old classics I've listened to in the past (can't place it with a name at the moment...).

It's really fascinating, as I usually avoid whistles in music because it almost always comes out wrong, but you've done quite well with it. =]

(You need to make shorter song titles, lol. Just for convenience if anything. XD)

[Stern]

@X-M-O: Hey thanks! I'm happy that it didn't sound wrong as the other whistle-tunes you've heard did D:

---
I haven't uploaded anything in a while now so I think it's time. Here are two very different, yet quite similar pieces.

The Desperate Pianist
A very piano focused orchestrated piece. It's quite short. This is mostly because I wasn't entirely happy with it.

Ostinati-Classical Inspired
A piano-only piece that was made more like an experiment rather than a full song. Hence it's length.

This post has been edited by Stern: Feb 9 2012, 09:53 AM

[X-M-O]

I think I know what you're missing in The Desperate Pianist. A second melody that matches well enough to be played in the song. I hear the same melody played throughout the entire song with only a few slight variations to it, where I'm thinking it needs a second melody to match up with it (similar to how a song has verses and then the chorus; this piece sounds like several verses and no chorus, though it has the right amount of everything else). I'm not sure if that helps or not. D=
At any rate, this is a beautiful piece.

The Ostinati-Classical Inspired piece does sound very much like a classical piece; almost all of the elements are correct. ^^
The only thing I'd say sounded a bit off was the dynamics. You crescendo and decrescendo a little too early in some places and a little too late in some places. I think a little work on that, and this will sound much better. =]
It's a very nice piece though, and I think it definitely matches the classical style you were going for. A "hit", not a "miss".

[Stern]

@X-M-O: Yeah, I think you're right about the second melody. The song gets quite monotonous. As for the second piece, I will remember the advice, I didn't make it to much of a song and therefor the crescendos started very early just to rush to that special "classical" feel.

Funk n' Death
I've grown weary of RPG-style fully orchestrated themes and I started working with other instruments. I have a few tracks similar to this one in the works. It mixes some elements of jazz/funk with more traditional sounds. It should be an insteresting listen.

The Amazing Me!
This was my submission for the RRR Music competition. Just thought I'd throw it into this post.

Also, I've been lazy with posting music lately and it probably won't get better as I've been commissioned to write about 40 songs for an original soundtrack. As of now, I'm unsure if I'm allowed to post them here.

This post has been edited by Stern: Mar 8 2012, 06:17 PM

[MrGuy0250]

Oooo you has some good stuff here. Listening to "The Amazing Me!' right now, I like the noble (if that's the right word?) tone of it, especially when contrasted against the more somber piano part that pops in for a bit. I don't have much time to listen to anything else at this moment, but I'll definitely keep my eye on this page :3

What VSTi plugins do you use? I want to expand my collection a but and I enjoy the quality of your instruments a good deal.