# New Piece - The Final Battle



## A.C.Edwards (Mar 10, 2012)

Hiya,

It's been a very long time since I've posted any tracks so I thought I'd post up a track I just finished mastering. It was originally an experiment in being as epic as possible - it starts of BIG so be warned hehe 

[flash width=450 height=110 loop=false]http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F39383483&secret_url=false[/flash]

I'm really keen to hear what everyone thinks!


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## A.C.Edwards (Mar 11, 2012)

Bump?? Cmon guys I'm curious to get some feedback!!


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## TGV (Mar 11, 2012)

I might be tempted to listen and comment, but I don't see any link...


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## robteehan (Mar 11, 2012)

sounds pretty good all around. really excellent use of choir. as far as the mix goes I would say that I can't really hear the strings over the drums when they come in. 

I really like the hybrid electro 'breakdown' midway through. Great use of dynamic contrast and tension, for me this is the most successful part of the cue. 

Just a point about the composition of it - it starts really loud and stays that way for quite a long time. believe it or not this makes it less exciting for me. kind of a non-stop onslaught. you start at maximum volume, it means there's nowhere to go. I think I would try to tame that opening percussion and save the full force of it until 1:48.

This final section, by the way, sounds to me less loud than the choir section preceding it. and you can clearly see by examining the waveform that both have been squashed pretty tightly. so you might consider trying to leave yourself a bit more headroom in these opening sections so that the final section can be slightly louder and therefore hit harder instead of weaker. love the strings here by the way.


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## Rob (Mar 11, 2012)

I find it excellent, I'm listening as I type... one of the few times where I hear a choir sitting right where it should in the mix. Percussion, spiccatos and strings in general are also very good. I'm not dying for the electro bits, though... grat job, I'd say


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## TGV (Mar 11, 2012)

Ok... works now. I was kind of glad when the percussion stopped. It felt as a relief. The percussion is pretty loud. Might work in film.


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## lee (Mar 11, 2012)

The battle scene better be epic to match this überepic track! Good work!

And now the standard vi-control question:

What libs?

:D 

/Johnny


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## shadoe42 (Mar 11, 2012)

Have to agree that the percussion pretty much eats everything for awhile. The strings entrance could be louder or the drums in general brought down a touch. And my headphones were getting distorted pretty hard at the choir bit at 1.30


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## Justus (Mar 11, 2012)

Cool track!
I like the drums, which lib is it?


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## A.C.Edwards (Mar 11, 2012)

Hey everyone, thanks for the feedback! It was by choice that the drums are so overbearing, but I can definitely see how they could become grating after a while  

The libraries used were:

Perc- 8Dio Taiko Ens, Epic Toms, Sd2
Strings - LASS, Symphobia, CS Monster Stacc patch, Sonivox
Brass - Cinebrass, Symphobia, Project Sam Classic Brass

and the choir is a slightly reprogrammed Requiem (the full version.. is it pro? I don't remember lol)


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## Gabriel Oliveira (Mar 11, 2012)

A.C.Edwards @ Sun Mar 11 said:


> and the choir is a slightly reprogrammed Requiem (the full version.. is it pro? I don't remember lol)



tell us more, please


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## A.C.Edwards (Mar 11, 2012)

It's nothing huge, I just took the marcato samples, gave them a release in the ADR that was playable, and timestretched the samples to about 60%. For this just makes the epic factor of the marcato samples alot more usable 

The staccato stuff is straight Troells awesome work though


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## Dan Mott (Mar 11, 2012)

Hello.

I though it was cool. The loud parts sound way too compressed and the quality isn't there for me personally. I hear distortion and that limiting effect. Might be soundcloud though.


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## A.C.Edwards (Mar 11, 2012)

hi Dan jay. There's definitely no distortion. Perhaps it is soundcloud? Or maybe your speakers? 

I can guarantee you that there's no distortion though, I mean maybe it's even the synth lines under the choir stabs thats throwing you off?


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## Dan Mott (Mar 11, 2012)

A.C.Edwards @ Mon Mar 12 said:


> hi Dan jay. There's definitely no distortion. Perhaps it is soundcloud? Or maybe your speakers?
> 
> I can guarantee you that there's no distortion though, I mean maybe it's even the synth lines under the choir stabs thats throwing you off?



Well it's not my speakers. Sounds the same on my headphones. Maybe it is the synth stabs, but to me, the choirs have that limiting effect to my ears. It's like they are trying to go throw a brick wall. Must be soundcloud that's giving this no breathe. To be honest, it sounds like a mess in the loud parts. 

Prehaps someone else might chime in and see if they agree.


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## A.C.Edwards (Mar 11, 2012)

haha apparently my lighthearted joke your speakers struck a nerve. Tis an opinion mate, thats what I'm here for  Just making sure you've got the full story.


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## Dan Mott (Mar 11, 2012)

A.C.Edwards @ Mon Mar 12 said:


> haha apparently my lighthearted joke your speakers struck a nerve. Tis an opinion mate, thats what I'm here for  Just making sure you've got the full story.



Hello

No, it didn't strike a nerve.

I wasn't meaning this in a bad way, I was just expressing what I hear, which is I feel that in the really loud parts, it has that wall of mess type sound, where by I had to turn it all the way down to listen.

Just my ears, which are of course one set of ears out of billions.


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## A.C.Edwards (Mar 11, 2012)

cool, cheers...


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## A.C.Edwards (Mar 11, 2012)

If anyone has a similar opinion I'd love to hear it your thoughts! I mean to me it honestly sounds fine. I mean yeah, the limiter does kick in a little on the first choir entry, but its not enough to make me "turn it all the way down to listen"... IMO


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## albatone (Mar 12, 2012)

I had to turn it down as well. Slightly distorted towards the end.


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## shadoe42 (Mar 12, 2012)

I mentioned in my previous post about the distortion. At times this overwhelms my headphones and any clarity is lost in the jumble. Both sets. my medium quality ones and my good ones. Does sound cloud compress files similar to you tube? I have never noticed any artifacts on my tracks but that doesn't mean they aren't there


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## A.C.Edwards (Mar 12, 2012)

see thats weird.. I don't hear any distortion on the choir when playing back through soundcloud. As I said earlier there is a huge perc / synth stab under the choir thats running through a metal amp, maybe its that thats throwing everyone off? If that's the case, its intentional


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## bryla (Mar 13, 2012)

whatever it is, it sounds like it is distorting the choir


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## Gabriel Oliveira (Mar 13, 2012)

its the synth, people


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## stevenson-again (Mar 14, 2012)

This is really superb. Not hearing any distortion here - all is fine. Don't like the sound quality on sound cloud much having experimented with it myself, but by jeeves - this is a cracking track. Excellent drum programming and I love the elctronica - very much. If you do a version 2 you could some fatter electronica maybe and really go for it.

Don't agree with comments regarding the percussion - it comes out at just the right time for me and leaves that nice space and then on we go. Great treatment of the choir. It would be awesome in a game or a Michael Bay flick.


Not anything remotely like distortion at all - not understanding where this is coming from.

Last thought - brass stabs at the end aren't quite sitting in the mix just right to my ears. They are a bit too loud relative to the other stuff around. how about sitting them back a fraction and doing a general crescendo or maybe smudging them with a Tam hit or something. It's a very minor quibble. A really good track.


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## A.C.Edwards (Mar 15, 2012)

Hey Stevenson, thanks for the wonderful comments! I'm really glad you enjoyed :D
That's a good point about the brass, I'll have a play around 

In terms of the synth I personally like the big drop in dynamics in that section.. maybe I could bring in more during the second half, the synth is a bit 'guitar' sounding in the second half so maybe I could beef it out a bit... great points though :D thanks again for the comments


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## Marius Masalar (Mar 15, 2012)

Awesome stuff, what a fun track!

Personally, I felt that my interest was most firmly held by the first 1:30. I adored the drop to the synth and I wouldn't make it any louder, though I would have loved to hear that section have a bit more room to grow and develop before everything climbs back up.

Mix-wise, I think it's unnecessarily over-compressed. It's not the worst offender I've heard, but if it was brought back to the right side of the loudness war, I'd be happier with it, as a listener. Like this, you're losing a lot of definition and clarity in your climaxes as the compressor struggles to keep things balanced.

Anyway, just some food for thought — excellent work and very fun to listen to regardless.


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## A.C.Edwards (Mar 16, 2012)

Thanks mate! Glad you liked it 

Yeah I would probably agree on the compressor side, I'm by no means an engineer haha but I was trying to go for that 'epic trailer' vibe. I'm going to get it professionally mixed and mastered eventually so I'm sure they'll make it sound, you know.. good 

In terms of composition, it's funny you say that, because I actually wrote up to just before everything starts to come back in originally, then the rest was tacked on later. I was thinking of expanding but eventually I want to get a trailer music album together, and I didn't want the track too long (so the directors / editors would get bored and start jumping around..) Maybe I'll do a 2nd version with an extended build; I definitely agree with you there


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