# Bulb - The Speech (Work in progress, be gentle)



## Bulb (Oct 12, 2015)

Hey guys,
I haven't shared anything here so far because I am fairly new here, and have been pretty intimidated with all of the immensely talented individuals that peruse and post on VI.

At the same time, I have absolutely no idea what I am doing with this stuff, I am doing it for fun, but I figured I could stand to learn a thing or two by posting up a work in progress.

So here is what I am working on now:

Constructive criticism is welcome, of course, but it's my first time so be gentle haha.


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## Ollie (Oct 12, 2015)

Hi Bulb, nice track has a cool Danny Elfman vibe to it, reminds me of Fable.

Sounds quite reverby. Maybe back that off a bit to retain some more definition, everything sounds quite far away at the moment.

To me the percussion also sounds slightly out of time compared to the orchestral elements. Have you experimented with any delay compensation?

Some great parts in this track. Looking forward to hearing your progress.


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## Bulb (Oct 12, 2015)

Ollie said:


> Hi Bulb, nice track has a cool Danny Elfman vibe to it, reminds me of Fable.
> 
> Sounds quite reverby. Maybe back that off a bit to retain some more definition, everything sounds quite far away at the moment.
> 
> ...



Hey thanks for the feedback dude!
I don't have any reverb on the mix, but I am using Albion 1 and Mural, so the room may be the culprit, I could back off a bit of the Ambient and Outriggers and hopefully that could bring in more definition. I haven't really messed with delay compensation either, do you think the drums are a bit behind?


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## Ian Dorsch (Oct 12, 2015)

Man, this is pretty darn solid for your first time out. Thanks for sharing. The production end of things especially sounds nice and crisp and clean - I love how punchy and articulate your percussion is. (I don't mind the room sound at all.)

A few thoughts:

Writing in this kind of style forces you to think a lot about function and intention, vs. what sounds cool in isolation (although that is often the best starting place for ideas). Dynamics, phrasing, dissonance and resolution--all that stuff tends to work most effectively when approached in terms of function and what musical goals you're looking to achieve. There are some good ideas here, and I think you could probably get a lot of mileage from just going through those individual elements, looking at them in relation to the rest of the orchestra, and asking yourself why they're there and whether or not they are achieving their purpose. For instance, those crescendos at the ends of the melodic phrases at the beginning of the piece--are they there to pull into the beginnings of the following phrases? Or are they there to contrast with them? Is there a reason that there's not much in the way of dynamic shaping around the melodic contour of those phrases? Even if that's stuff you haven't consciously considered, you probably have a gut feeling about what you want to happen there. Find out what that is, and then bend those samples to your will.


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## Lex (Oct 12, 2015)

S*it I'm star truck! Bulb on V.I., welcome dude =)

Sounds great to me, love the second half from 1:04 till the end. Drums sound just right, punchy and in the back. Only advice I have is careful with those scale runs on last bars, they are hard to pull off with samples and somehow always end up sounding cheesy unless they are in Final Fantasy score (why is that?) 

cheers

alex


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## Bulb (Oct 12, 2015)

Lex said:


> S*it I'm star truck! Bulb on V.I., welcome dude =)
> 
> Sounds great to me, love the second half from 1:04 till the end. Drums sound just right, punchy and in the back. Only advice I have is careful with those scale runs on last bars, they are hard to pull off with samples and somehow always end up sounding cheesy unless they are in Final Fantasy score (why is that?)
> 
> ...



Thanks dude, yeah I guess I got a bit carried away with those runs, I'm still feeling out what I can get away with. I was trying to keep this mostly in Albion 1, because I want to get a template going for my laptop, but I probably should try to use Berlin Woodwinds for those runs, might yield a better result. The trick will be to get them sounding consistent with Albion.



Ian Dorsch said:


> Man, this is pretty darn solid for your first time out. Thanks for sharing. The production end of things especially sounds nice and crisp and clean - I love how punchy and articulate your percussion is. (I don't mind the room sound at all.)
> 
> A few thoughts:
> 
> Writing in this kind of style forces you to think a lot about function and intention, vs. what sounds cool in isolation (although that is often the best starting place for ideas). Dynamics, phrasing, dissonance and resolution--all that stuff tends to work most effectively when approached in terms of function and what musical goals you're looking to achieve. There are some good ideas here, and I think you could probably get a lot of mileage from just going through those individual elements, looking at them in relation to the rest of the orchestra, and asking yourself why they're there and whether or not they are achieving their purpose. For instance, those crescendos at the ends of the melodic phrases at the beginning of the piece--are they there to pull into the beginnings of the following phrases? Or are they there to contrast with them? Is there a reason that there's not much in the way of dynamic shaping around the melodic contour of those phrases? Even if that's stuff you haven't consciously considered, you probably have a gut feeling about what you want to happen there. Find out what that is, and then bend those samples to your will.



Thanks for the detailed comments and kind words! 
Honestly what you are getting at is probably what I'm missing. I'm not really writing with intention so much as writing because I have these amazing tools before me to create music. I don't really know what the "purpose" of the piece is, or why anything is where it is other than it's what I kinda heard in my head at the time.

What do you think I should do differently in terms of approach? I feel like the abstract side of writing this stuff is where I'm not entirely sure how best to approach it. Also what do you mean by "dynamic shaping around the contour of those phrases"? What might have you done differently with those parts? Sorry for all the questions!


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## Jacob Cadmus (Oct 12, 2015)

Hey Bulb, nice composition! Lots of rhythmic interest, which is no surprise coming from you.  The only criticism I have is that there aren't enough dynamic curves in the long notes. Aside from the crescendos, they tend to be somewhat static. I wouldn't sweat it though; learning to control the samples just takes time and familiarity. Otherwise you're off to a really great start!

Also, welcome to V.I. Control from a Periphery fan!


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## Ian Dorsch (Oct 12, 2015)

Bulb said:


> Thanks for the detailed comments and kind words!
> Honestly what you are getting at is probably what I'm missing. I'm not really writing with intention so much as writing because I have these amazing tools before me to create music. I don't really know what the "purpose" of the piece is, or why anything is where it is other than it's what I kinda heard in my head at the time.
> 
> What do you think I should do differently in terms of approach? I feel like the abstract side of writing this stuff is where I'm not entirely sure how best to approach it. Also what do you mean by "dynamic shaping around the contour of those phrases"? What might have you done differently with those parts? Sorry for all the questions!



Haha, yeah, I guess I could have been a little less florid there. 

I'm definitely not trying to second guess your reasons for writing - there are lots of ways to think about purpose and intention in this kind of stuff. I'm thinking on more of a musical/performance nuts and bolts level and less of a grand cosmic capital "P" Purpose level. When you're just writing for pleasure, sometimes you don't make those nuts and bolts decisions until you're looking at a big wall of MIDI data and scratching your head. It's often a process of going back and thinking consciously about what was mostly unconscious (ie what you were hearing in your head) when you were writing it.

Like, what's your goal (or goals) for the first 16 bars of the piece? Create an atmosphere, express a beautiful melody, build to that first big forte? And how are the various elements of the score working to realize that goal, or goals? When I'm talking about dynamic shaping, I'm mostly just talking about how you're shaping dynamics w/mod wheel and expression. Left to their own devices, good classical players will never let a note stand still--every note in a phrase is traveling toward or away from the high points of that phrase. What determines the shape of that phrase is an artistic decision that could have to with where the downbeat falls, or rhythmic accents, or melodic contour (ie the shape of the melody), or whatever you want. In practice, that generally means that the mod wheel is always moving when you are playing long notes or legato lines, and ideally you are making some conscious choices about the way you're approaching that. So basically what Jacob said, but in about 10x as many words, haha.

As far as what I'd do differently with that opening melody - I dunno how you feel it, but to me it feels like the high point of each phrase is the last note. If you really wanted to make it juicy, maybe you have some secondary high points on beats 1 & 3--swell out of the pickup note into the downbeat, bring it back gradually around beat 2, swell back toward the onset of that last note. It probably wouldn't take a whole lot of riding the mod wheel to get some nice, lyrical shape around those points. Then I'd probably put a little space in between at least the 2nd and 3rd phrases so our pretend woodwind section has room to take a breath. It's not my melody, and pontificating about it makes me feel kind of like a dick, but at any rate, that's maybe what I'd do.


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## Daniel James (Oct 13, 2015)

Not bad at all mate. If it was a my piece I would fill out that percussion section a bit more, maybe some lower drums to fill out the bass end. You have a lot of room left for layering here. But yeah the track is pretty good non the less.

-DJ


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## Ollie (Oct 13, 2015)

Bulb said:


> ...I haven't really messed with delay compensation either, do you think the drums are a bit behind?



They sound a bit late to my ears. Though no one else so far has mentioned it, so perhaps I'm suffering from some kind of audio hallucination!

Maybe as suggested above, adding more perc would help.


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## Bulb (Oct 13, 2015)

Ian Dorsch said:


> Haha, yeah, I guess I could have been a little less florid there.
> 
> I'm definitely not trying to second guess your reasons for writing - there are lots of ways to think about purpose and intention in this kind of stuff. I'm thinking on more of a musical/performance nuts and bolts level and less of a grand cosmic capital "P" Purpose level. When you're just writing for pleasure, sometimes you don't make those nuts and bolts decisions until you're looking at a big wall of MIDI data and scratching your head. It's often a process of going back and thinking consciously about what was mostly unconscious (ie what you were hearing in your head) when you were writing it.
> 
> ...



Hey dude, thanks for the detailed response, honestly that's the kind of insight and feedback I was hoping to get from this. I know it's abstract, but it's the kind of stuff I hope to eventually be able to wrap my head around. I don't know that I have a real answer for the purposes of the first 16 bars, I guess it was to be a build into the "driving" section. When writing and arranging rock and metal music everything has much more purpose, but I feel like I have so much more option paralysis with orchestral stuff that I'm just kinda going for it and seeing what happens. This piece is definitely the result of that, hopefully over time I'll understand how to chase certain sounds or feels.

The tip about the mod wheel is super useful, I will DEFINITELY start using that more. I was using it more as a way to adjust the level and fade things in and out as opposed to riding it constantly on a long line, I will have to spend some time getting the feel for that. Getting the woodwinds to breathe is something I have been mildly aware of, but honestly I have not put it into practice yet. What is your rule of thumb when it comes to giving them spaces? As far as the musical tips, I'm not 100% sure I understand what you are saying, mainly because I am stupid, but it sounds like you are saying I should be playing with the dynamics a bit more perhaps? At any rate, thanks for taking the time to help me.


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## Bulb (Oct 13, 2015)

Daniel James said:


> Not bad at all mate. If it was a my piece I would fill out that percussion section a bit more, maybe some lower drums to fill out the bass end. You have a lot of room left for layering here. But yeah the track is pretty good non the less.
> 
> -DJ


Thanks Daniel. To be honest, you are one of the people on this board that I'm a bit terrified of haha. Mainly because you seem to have this intrinsic understanding of all the abstract concepts and therefore compose effortlessly, and I don't. With that said I really appreciate you taking a listen and offering some advice! Percussion is actually one of the instruments I find a bit challenging, because I feel it can get very busy very fast. What kind of percussion would you recommend to fill out the bass end? What kind of layers do you think I am missing?


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## Bulb (Oct 13, 2015)

Ollie said:


> They sound a bit late to my ears. Though no one else so far has mentioned it, so perhaps I'm suffering from some kind of audio hallucination!
> 
> Maybe as suggested above, adding more perc would help.


Hmm, I guess I could mess with the delay compensation and see if I get favorable results. I purposely tried not to quantize the drums since that kinda ruins the realism, but it's possible I just played them very badly and late haha


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## JCmusik08 (Oct 13, 2015)

Bulb, great piece! I hear a lot of video game influence in it. The production is great, verb and eq sounds good to me. There is a nice dynamic range too. Like Ian said, riding the mod wheel will go a long way. You do a good job of adjusting for dynamic cresendos and decresendos, but theres even more that can be done. 

For example, when a string instrument plays a note they have down and up bows, so with every note or every few note (however you want to imagine how it would be bowed) each note can have its own motion. An upbow would start weaker and cresendo as the frog approaches the strings, and a down bow would do the oppisite, decresendo as the pressure from someones hand on the bow moves away from the strings. 
Cubase's parabola too works pretty well for editing these curves quickly as well!

Hope this helps!


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## Ollie (Oct 13, 2015)

Did you quantize them by a percentage?

With regard to the delay compensation that's usually not to combat bad playing but more to do with how the samples are recorded. Usually more noticeable on instruments with a slower attack you sometimes need to drag your midi back a bit (or delay it) in order for the notes to line up correctly as either the initial breath or bow movement can make it lag behind. 

This article explains it better than me: http://www.pendlebury.biz/using-negative-track-delay-to-pull-your-track-into-time

Might not be applicable for this track but still worth knowing about.


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## Darthmorphling (Oct 13, 2015)

Bulb said:


> The tip about the mod wheel is super useful, I will DEFINITELY start using that more. I was using it more as a way to adjust the level and fade things in and out as opposed to riding it constantly on a long line, I will have to spend some time getting the feel for that. Getting the woodwinds to breathe is something I have been mildly aware of, but honestly I have not put it into practice yet. What is your rule of thumb when it comes to giving them spaces? As far as the musical tips, I'm not 100% sure I understand what you are saying, mainly because I am stupid, but it sounds like you are saying I should be playing with the dynamics a bit more perhaps? At any rate, thanks for taking the time to help me.



These two videos are great for showing how to make samples breathe. Mike Verta's for the more traditional style of orchestration and Daniel's for general purpose. That being said it is hard to do correctly. Or maybe that's just me!


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## Ian Dorsch (Oct 13, 2015)

Bulb said:


> The tip about the mod wheel is super useful, I will DEFINITELY start using that more. I was using it more as a way to adjust the level and fade things in and out as opposed to riding it constantly on a long line, I will have to spend some time getting the feel for that.



You can get a pretty good feel for how much mod wheel and expression (CC 11) are involved in convincing orchestral writing by checking out stuff like Colin's 8Dio Adagio and Agitato videos on YouTube. This kind of thing:  
If you look at the controller data on those legato lines, it's just nonstop.



> Getting the woodwinds to breathe is something I have been mildly aware of, but honestly I have not put it into practice yet. What is your rule of thumb when it comes to giving them spaces?



I like double checking exposed melodies by making sure you can sing or hum the parts on a single breath. If you're running out of breath, your imaginary wind section maybe is too. There are wind players around here who probably have some better advice, but that works for me. 



> As far as the musical tips, I'm not 100% sure I understand what you are saying, mainly because I am stupid, but it sounds like you are saying I should be playing with the dynamics a bit more perhaps? At any rate, thanks for taking the time to help me.



Yeah, man, I'm sorry for word-puking there. It's a topic I've been thinking about a lot lately with students, and I obviously haven't yet figured out how to boil it down in an accessible way. Yeah, use dynamics. One of the main challenges of writing for orchestral samples is that you're using static recordings to represent instruments that, in the real world, are unamplified and powered by a bow moving across strings, or a breath moving through the instrument. With a real orchestra, nothing is static, nothing stands still.


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## Bulb (Oct 13, 2015)

Ollie said:


> Did you quantize them by a percentage?
> 
> With regard to the delay compensation that's usually not to combat bad playing but more to do with how the samples are recorded. Usually more noticeable on instruments with a slower attack you sometimes need to drag your midi back a bit (or delay it) in order for the notes to line up correctly as either the initial breath or bow movement can make it lag behind.
> 
> ...



I manually moved some of the off hits to the grid and used Cubase's iterative quantize for other offenders, definitely was not trying to get a "gridded" feel. I didn't realize that was the delay compensation control in Cubase, thanks for that link, that is very useful info!!



Darthmorphling said:


> These two videos are great for showing how to make samples breathe. Mike Verta's for the more traditional style of orchestration and Daniel's for general purpose. That being said it is hard to do correctly. Or maybe that's just me!



Just quickly skimmed those (will have to watch in depth later) but those are great resources as well, I definitely see what you are saying, and I will do my best to integrate this into this and future writing, thanks so much!



Ian Dorsch said:


> You can get a pretty good feel for how much mod wheel and expression (CC 11) are involved in convincing orchestral writing by checking out stuff like Colin's 8Dio Adagio and Agitato videos on YouTube.
> If you look at the controller data on those legato lines, it's just nonstop.
> 
> I like double checking exposed melodies by making sure you can sing or hum the parts on a single breath. If you're running out of breath, your imaginary wind section maybe is too. There are wind players around here who probably have some better advice, but that works for me.
> ...



Ah the humming trick makes a lot of sense, and I guess the exposed sections are the most important ones to pay attention to. I think I just need a bit of practice, and hopefully I will develop a more intuitive feel for it in time! 
As a fun side note, I honestly have not really been into the 8dio products that I have, have tried, and have heard, but damn that video kinda makes me want to get Agitato haha!
Thanks for trying to explain as much as you have to a layman as myself. I have so much to learn with this that sometimes it just feels so depressingly overwhelming. I just want to have fun with this, but thanks to your guys' tips I have a lot to work with. Hopefully you guys won't mind if I post more stuff in the future!


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## Ian Dorsch (Oct 13, 2015)

Bulb said:


> Ah the humming trick makes a lot of sense, and I guess the exposed sections are the most important ones to pay attention to. I think I just need a bit of practice, and hopefully I will develop a more intuitive feel for it in time!



Dude, I have absolutely no doubt that you'll ease right into it.


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## musicman61554 (Oct 14, 2015)

Great job Misha, you are def on the perfect forum for critiques. Keep rocking man.


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## Bulb (Oct 14, 2015)

Yeah you guys have seriously been so helpful with your constructive critiques and suggestions, I really appreciate it!!


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## Daniel James (Oct 14, 2015)

Bulb said:


> Thanks Daniel. To be honest, you are one of the people on this board that I'm a bit terrified of haha. Mainly because you seem to have this intrinsic understanding of all the abstract concepts and therefore compose effortlessly, and I don't. With that said I really appreciate you taking a listen and offering some advice! Percussion is actually one of the instruments I find a bit challenging, because I feel it can get very busy very fast. What kind of percussion would you recommend to fill out the bass end? What kind of layers do you think I am missing?



Get some big Taikos in there perhaps, they are great at filling out the low end. Spitfires Hans Zimmer Perc 01 has some awesome low hits you can play with, with great mic control. You might find that useful. Also dont be afraid to try out some big electronic drums if it works in the style. Don't try to write music to fit a style as much as apply a different style to your way of writing!

-DJ


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## Bulb (Oct 14, 2015)

Daniel James said:


> Get some big Taikos in there perhaps, they are great at filling out the low end. Spitfires Hans Zimmer Perc 01 has some awesome low hits you can play with, with great mic control. You might find that useful. Also dont be afraid to try out some big electronic drums if it works in the style. Don't try to write music to fit a style as much as apply a different style to your way of writing!
> 
> -DJ


Ah I actually have HZ01 (your video actually was one of the main reasons I got it haha), I haven't played around with it too much yet but I'll definitely add some Taikos in as per your recommendation. I have been having some fun with Damage as well, so maybe I'll try that too for more of an electronic edge. I like your philosophy, I guess sometimes I am just getting in my own way over silly arbitrary constraints. Thanks, I needed to hear (read) that.


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