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Old 08-15-2016, 12:24 PM   #1
cerendir
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Default Musical fantasy suite/concept album type of deal

Hey all, long time no see.

Some months ago I posted about setting up a basic orchestral template on my netbook. It's been a lot of fun and it's amazing how inspiring it can be to work within hard technical constraints. Ever since then I've been trying to tie these various tunes I've written (on the bus, in parks, at cafés and resturants, etc) together into a storyline. Just for fun, basically.

The music can be found here.

An (incomplete) outline of the story can be found here.

This is all a work in progress, mind you, and don't expect modern ultra-realistic virtual orchestrations. I think this falls more into the retro sampling category
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Old 08-16-2016, 03:15 AM   #2
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Have you ever seriously daydreamed? I mean like going into a meditative state, entering a dream and being able to control it, because you stay conscious?
That's what I will do with your music tonight!

Your compositions are really great. And I like the sound. Reminds me a bit on old(ish) computer role play games like Gothic. It's actually better, because of its narrative approach.

Thanks for putting this great work online!
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Old 08-16-2016, 03:35 AM   #3
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Mattias, your orchestral template is "basic", but your music is not.
Pretty melodies, fine harmonies.
I like what you do, really.
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Old 08-18-2016, 07:35 AM   #4
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Thank you guys!

Chapters VII and VIII are now up (albeit unfinished), and the story description has been updated
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Old 08-18-2016, 10:36 AM   #5
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Nice. Do you mind revealing what instruments, VST plug-ins if any, you are using to get the orchestra sound?
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Old 08-20-2016, 10:37 AM   #6
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Beautiful pieces, as always!!

cheers
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Old 08-21-2016, 11:00 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DKDiveDude View Post
Nice. Do you mind revealing what instruments, VST plug-ins if any, you are using to get the orchestra sound?
Thanks! No fancy stuff at all, for this I'm using an old soundfont player called Jeskola XS-1 (which was the most CPU-frugal plug I could find for this purpose) loaded with a whole bunch of old orchestral samples. Roland strings, layered with E-MU strings (or Digital Sound Factory, more correctly), Advanced Orchestra brass (layered with Miroslav brass), Miroslav woodwinds, Roland percussion plus a lot of other lightweight stuff. Basically an orgy in nineties samples I use the old SFZ Player for the layering bits, combining all patches into banks with the Polyphone sf2 editor. Reverb is ValhallaVintageVerb. There's also a few JS midi effects in there. It's really quite amazing how much you can squeeze into a window of 1.6GHz CPU/2GB RAM when you put your mind to it, so this is a valuable lesson for setting up templates on my main machine as well.

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Beautiful pieces, as always!!

cheers
Thanks Hugo!

Also, I made a map for the setting (pretentiousness warning!)



Just for fun, basically. Trying to visualize the setting. And I needed some images for Soundcloud as well.
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Old 08-22-2016, 08:11 AM   #8
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Really enjoyed it! I feel like I should go on an adventure after listening;-)
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Old 08-24-2016, 11:47 AM   #9
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Really enjoyed it! I feel like I should go on an adventure after listening;-)
Thanks henge! I'm going for a retro late 90's/early 00's RPG soundtrack sort of style here, so I'm glad to hear it conveys the right feeling

Chapter X (which is just a crap placeholder) and Chapter XI is now up.
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Old 09-02-2016, 05:34 PM   #10
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Great stuff Mattias! I really enjoyed it. Listened to chapters 1 through 15 and the music certainly takes you on a journey. I dont know why but somehow it brought to mind a Bo Hansson album - The Lord of the Rings I have on vinyl LP.

Thanks for sharing it. awesome.
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Old 09-10-2016, 11:50 PM   #11
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Thanks keys!

If everything goes as planned, I'm looking at a December (no date decided yet) release for this project, which now also has a title:

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Old 09-11-2016, 04:46 AM   #12
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To me, "concept" albums will never go out of fashion. I tend to only get inspired when I have a full concept for the sound of a whole album. A theme is what draws me in like a story. I have to start it, get to the middle part of the journey, and them complete it somewhere else.

Music is a journey, and Mattias' music truly brings me on an unexpected adventure.
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Old 09-11-2016, 06:19 AM   #13
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Great music. Luv it!
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Old 09-16-2016, 11:32 AM   #14
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Dimaension X, cyrano, thanks!

The storynline has been updated and wrapped up (though the chapter descriptions need to be fleshed out in places), and the music has seen some updates as well.
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Old 10-04-2016, 12:25 PM   #15
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Final round of public WIP updates is up before my compositional deadline on November 1; I will be removing all tracks except three from Soundcloud in about a month pending the album release in December.
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Old 10-04-2016, 01:48 PM   #16
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Love it all. Really atmospheric and imaginative.
Your little map on Soundcloud looks suspiciously like the north-west coast of Europe, but the UK appears to have disintegrated into something called The Grey Islands - do you know something we don't?!
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Old 10-05-2016, 08:34 AM   #17
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This is really cool, reminds me of elderscrolls in places! I like how you wrote a back story. The story is pretty much what a game director would hand to you and say 'make it like this!' that's an awesome idea for practice.
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Old 10-05-2016, 02:46 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bass6 View Post
Love it all. Really atmospheric and imaginative.
Your little map on Soundcloud looks suspiciously like the north-west coast of Europe, but the UK appears to have disintegrated into something called The Grey Islands - do you know something we don't?!
Thanks Bass6! Hah, now that you mention it, the West Brenland coastline does look a lot like France!

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Originally Posted by GreatBigThings View Post
This is really cool, reminds me of elderscrolls in places! I like how you wrote a back story. The story is pretty much what a game director would hand to you and say 'make it like this!' that's an awesome idea for practice.
Thanks GreatBigThings, and yeah, Morrowind and other old RPG's (like Baldur's Gate I and II) were definitely a big musical inspiration. I like to think of this as a reaction against the trend of terabyte-sized sample libraries and ultra-realism in virtual orchestral music.
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Old 10-05-2016, 07:46 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cerendir View Post
Thanks GreatBigThings, and yeah, Morrowind and other old RPG's (like Baldur's Gate I and II) were definitely a big musical inspiration. I like to think of this as a reaction against the trend of terabyte-sized sample libraries and ultra-realism in virtual orchestral music.
Agreed, I think you can do a lot with very few tools. In fact, i have feeling that limiting yourself creatively can create some really good results. When I first started making music (i'm a newbie so that's only a couple of years ago) I was trying a new VST/sample library every other day. In the end I deleted so much rubbish off my system because I figured out the stuff that sounds the best. I think if you don't do that you'd spend hours worrying about whether you picked the right vst, instead of concentrating on writing good music and making the samples you do have sound there best.
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