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Extraction

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Level 12
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I'd like to present to you my latest work: Extraction

This piece was inspired by my favorite composer's score for my favorite movie: Inception. I was particularly inspired by Hans Zimmer's use of electronic instruments coupled with strings and brass, as well as the constant flow and development around a single musical idea (one simple idea, eh?). Anyway, I titled this piece "Extraction" as, having not yet achieved Hans Zimmer's level of awesomeness, I felt compelled to pursue a subject of lesser scope than Inception, and figured "what would be better than extraction?"


Enjoy! Comments and Criticism always appreciated.
 
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eye heart hans zimmer

Question: are you more interested in how the piece sounds in MIDI format or how the basic orchestration is?
 
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Hmm. That's actually a bit of a tough question.

I guess it depends on what I'm writing a particular piece for. If I'm writing a piece to specifically be performed live, I'll care more about the orchestration. However, that rarely happens. Almost all of my compositions are composed either for simple leisure/practice, or to be performed digitally (like if I'm writing for a low-budget short film, or something.)

So, In general, I think I'm more interested in how the piece sounds in MIDI format. Why do you ask?
 
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Getting something to sound decent in MIDI is a bit different than trying to produce a good score. There are lots of things I would suggest, but I'm not entirely sure if the program you're using has the functionality.

Just a few things, as I'm pressed for time and can't really listen as well as I would like to:

1. Watch the balance--in the beginning, the violins feel buried.

2. If you have the ability to add accents, add them--there's a section at 2:40ish that feels syncopated, but the instruments don't reflect it.

3. Add reverb if you can. It's amazing what reverb can do to the sound.

4. Where are the other strings, other than first violins? I can't hear them if they're there.

(I've attached a rendition of two measures of the section at 2:40 I'm taking about, where I added accents and reverb. I used a chamber orchestra instead of all the brass so it's easier to see what I mean.)

Good things that I noticed in my quick listen-through: seems like you're inverting your diminished chords (yay) and the scoring itself (from what I can hear) sounds pretty good.
 

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Level 12
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Thanks for the C&C. I actually deleted the whole file for the score of this piece by accident. However, I've now redone the whole thing from scratch, and in doing so have tried to incorporate all of your advice. Here's the new version. Let me know what you think.
(Had to zip it for filesize reasons.)
 

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  • ExtractionV2.zip
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Level 5
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There are still some things I would do differently, but overall I think it's better. Question: what software do you use?
 
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I currently use Sibelius 6 and Garritan Personal Orchestra 4. However, I am planning on switching to a different composition program (probably Cubase) at some point in the near future. (However, I want to get a new computer before I do that.)
 
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Hey, nice piece and the second version definitely sounds better than the first.

If you want any criticism: At first I thought: "this sounds all the same. Does he really just repeat everything over the 4 minutes?" Only after some more critical listening I understood that you are changing your lines for the middle part and it even took me another time listening to recognize that you change back to the beginning way in the ending to get the thing closed.
So my suggestion is: try to make middle parts contrast more, maybe it would even be fine here if you just changed the instrumentation for the middle part (e.g. add some pizzicato or woodwinds), just to underline that it is something different.
 
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I think Cubase is probably the best DAW you can get. Also, once you get a DAW, you'll probably hate Sibelius forever.
 
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