# 'Battleram' - piece with Symphobia



## RiffWraith (Aug 22, 2008)

Hi.

*Battleram*

Is a 3-min. peice I put together. The beginning is Evolve and a bit of RMX (those really familiar with RMX should know which patch that is), and there is a bit more Evolve in the p part. There is a tiny bit of Hypersonic in the p part as well. The drums are all SD2 - combined and modified MIDI performances (good job, NP!), except for the bass drums in the p part and the drum roll at the end which, well, I won't say where those came from. The piano is Ivory, the cymbals are all EW. The sweeping legato strings (violins, violas and basses) at 2:29, the trem celli and basses at the end, and two quick violin scratches are EW Plat. All other strings, including celli in the sweeping legato string part, and violin fx are all Symphobia (save for those EW violin scratches to end a couple of passages). All of the brass is Symphobia. There are a few Symphobia stac woods, and a little xylophone too. Those are kinda hard to make out, but make a difference in helping to fill out the sound. And the sfx at 2:27 is SD2.

Any comments/opinions/whatever all welcome. 

Cheers.


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## hbuus (Aug 22, 2008)

I love the intro - the way you let the reverb breathe, so to speak, it's almost like it becomes an instrument on it's own. Being a fan of Depeche Mode, it is perhaps not a surprise that I like the intro btw.  It could sound a little like them, at least until the drums kick in at 0:22. You have a little metallic thing flying around in the sound for example, that I find very DM'ish. It sounds great!

You make good use of breaks in the music, so as to keep making it interesting to listen to the piece.

At 0:59 I do feel that the strings that enter the music are at a bit too high volume. I would probably lower the volume and add more of what I personally call FX-stuff, or "filler-stuff", that is, strange sounds that bounce back and forth etc. to keep the listener's ears busy.

At 2:04 I would try remove the beating of the drums completely, letting the piano play with a background of the sparse and differently use you so excellently make of the strings, for example at 2:10 and 2:15.

At 2:29 the drums could then kick back in, further emphasising the major climax that is already there.

Great work, which I enjoyed listening to.
Thanks for sharing!

Best regards,
Henrik


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## JB78 (Aug 22, 2008)

Reegs @ Fri Aug 22 said:


> COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!
> 
> The intensity you've got driving those bass lines is great! And I love the space of those bass drum thuds. Are those in SD2 like that or did you run them through some verb of your own?
> 
> ...



The same thing caught my ear as well, adds alot to the mood of the piece.

Sounds really good overall, great job!

Best regards
Jon


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## Hal (Aug 23, 2008)

put this on abn action track and uve got another pirates one thinig is missing to reach that level a little bit of sound engeneering to give this kind of tracks more punch and dont ask me how cause i am trying to acheive this myself unsecsessfully.
u used the right amount of reverb and the overall Mix sounds extremly good
however u still can go BIGGER with the orchestra.
how many instance of kontakt for this track?


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## RiffWraith (Aug 23, 2008)

JG , Jon & Ned :arrow: thanks much!

Reegs :arrow: Danka. I assume you are inquiring about the ambience on the SD2 drums? A few things: I opened some of them up (specifically the toms) via the ADHSR to let them ring and let the natural amb come through. Then added a little bit a verb to the entire drum mix, then there is more reverb added to the entire mix.

hbuus :arrow: You thought those strings were too loud? Hmmm - I was actually tempted to bring them up more; I was worried they weren't low enough. You're other points are well taken - thank you!

Hal :arrow: What is "abn action track"? BIGGER with the orchestra, huh? Hmmm - i will have to think about that... As for hopw many instances of Kontakt - the better Q is how many projects....bewteen my two computers hooked via FX-T, I do not have anywhere near the resources to do a peice like this in one project. So, I would do just the drums, render to audio, and import that audio into another blank template. Of course, the trick is to have the foresight of how the peice is going to sound in the end, but this is not a problem for me as I sketch everything out in my head in the beginning. Then, do some more work, render that to audio, start a new project, and continue. Many, many instances...LOL

Thanks again!


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## ENW (Aug 28, 2008)

Very cool. I listened to this 4 times.

The low string line in the beginning is great. It's got tons of motion.

There are plenty of twists in the arrangement.

This is a fun piece.

ENW


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## RiffWraith (Aug 30, 2008)

Thank you, ENW!


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## Waywyn (Aug 31, 2008)

Hey Riff,

cool stuff!!
I just feel the string ostinato which drops in at the quiet parts feels a bit lost or thin. Maybe some layering helps, but that's just me listeing to much Transformers OST 

Also I am curious about why you won't mention what the drumrolls are at the end? Why don't you simply say it's custom rather than making just a big mystery out of it? ... or do you want us to bet?


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## RiffWraith (Aug 31, 2008)

Waywyn @ Sun Aug 31 said:


> Also I am curious about why you won't mention what the drumrolls are at the end? Why don't you simply say it's custom rather than making just a big mystery out of it? ... or do you want us to bet?


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## Vision (Aug 31, 2008)

I've also been using the Evolve/Symphobia combo lately. Your piece blends really well. Great Job.


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## Waywyn (Sep 1, 2008)

RiffWraith @ Mon Sep 01 said:


> Waywyn @ Sun Aug 31 said:
> 
> 
> > Also I am curious about why you won't mention what the drumrolls are at the end? Why don't you simply say it's custom rather than making just a big mystery out of it? ... or do you want us to bet?



Well, whatever ...


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## Pzy-Clone (Sep 3, 2008)

Very good, and i immediatly thought this was written very much with the esthetic approach of metal tune, and upon closer inspection i noticed that you are quite an ahcieved guitarist, so there ya go. makes sense.
Its basically a metal riff :D

Impressive nontheless.
I do like the drum prgramming the most tho, and it gives me another reason to get SD2 asap, wich i had forgotten about lol.

good one.


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## RiffWraith (Sep 3, 2008)

Thank you Pzy.

I actually did not write this as a metal riff, but seeing as tho my roots are in fact metal, some, or much of my stuff is going to have that "metal feel" if you will. 

SD2 is awesome. The sounds, with a few exceptions, are awesome. And the MIDI performances are really good. Thing I really like about this approach, is you can completely tweak them, and make them into whatever you want. Import a MIDI file, load the associated instrument mulit, and you can then go and change instruments, alter the beats, whatever. And then you can combine different things, which is what I did here. Pricey, but worth it. I highly reccomend it.

Thanks for listening.


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