# New piece, "Into the Lair"



## Alex Temple (Mar 16, 2011)

Just finished composing a new piece for orchestra that's pretty much a relentless scherzo. Many parts of it are unapologetically bombastic, and I'm sure the horn players would kill me if this were a live ensemble. 

I may be making a few more changes to this, most likely subtractions, so if you have any notes on the form - be it sections you thought seemed out of place or ideas that have overstayed their welcome - I'd love to hear those. In particular I'm thinking about eliminating the first instance of the main theme at the beginning and just cutting right to the point where it comes in full with the 1st violins on top. I think the performance sounds better with the violins in octaves than with just the 2nds, but perhaps some more tweaking will fix this. 

Libraries are VSL (winds, percussion and choir), Hollywoodwinds, The Trumpet, a lot of SAM brass, Hollywood Strings, and where the range permitted it, that one-octave xylophone demo from Spitfire.  

http://www.alexandertemple.com/_music/org_sm_intothelair.mp3 (http://www.alexandertemple.com/_music/o ... helair.mp3)


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## sherief83 (Mar 17, 2011)

Alex man. Your works are in my intunes for study. I dare say the future john Williams here. Brilliant as always.

If I may have a slight suggestion for this perfection of a piece. its to tell you that once it starts. I know that the strings are fake. mostly your legato playing in the Viola/low violin register. I think its because at the Transition of every note and then the tail end of your melodic phrases. the samples feel as if they cut out too soon or Transition too quick from note to note. I feel This only when you play your A theme at the intro. as you get deeper and your brass and woodwinds cover up everything, they sound perfect.

I think a slight increase in Reverb on your legato executed melodic phrases would help cover that up. Brass, harp and woodwinds all sound beautiful and realistic though. 

I hope I made any sense.

That said, Dude I can't stop listening to this awesomness great job.

Edited.


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## Alex Temple (Mar 17, 2011)

Thanks Sherief. The strings in that section do bother me a lot and I think as the first thing you hear in the piece, it isn't really putting my best foot forward musically. I'll probably do an alternative edit today and see what works. I appreciate your thoughts on the piece!


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## Colin O'Malley (Mar 17, 2011)

Alex, 

This is excellent. There is something circular about your writing - the way the changes lead into each other. I can't quite wrap my head around it (in a good way). It's really compelling how things keep rolling forward. Anyway, great job. Keep doing what you're doing. 

Colin


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## hbuus (Mar 17, 2011)

Alex,

Being a hobbyist let me first say that your music is one of the reasons why I still keep on lurking here at VI Control after giving up making music myself.

Having said that, I feel this piece does not have the bombastic beginning it deserves. IMO it should start with a blast exactly like the Star Wars theme. You know? All up to 1:11 sounds like a middle piece to me instead of the beginning of a piece. Then the action starts and the piece really unfolds.

Still, this is an incredible piece. It goes to show that the best results hands down comes from combining the strength of various libraries, instead of settling for using just one library.

Best,
Henrik


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## bryla (Mar 17, 2011)

This IS great to listen to! 

I seem to find the phrasings of the first melodic statement a bit phony. Weird articulation. Also after 2:00

Other than that it's excellent and a nice listen for me. Do you have the score?

It would be fun to make a piece only using demo products and their limited range!

Thanks,
Thomas


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## Casey Edwards (Mar 17, 2011)

This is outstanding Alex! I still stand by what I said about one of your other pieces in SoundCloud; your use of thematic development is very well handled and very pleasing to the ear! Well done!


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## Guy Bacos (Mar 17, 2011)

Very skilled work with a high level of enduring musicality! You're always improving, I can hear the difference from a year ago, which was already great. This is your best piece, great orchestration effective brass as usual, love the sound. I am a fan of yours! I'm tempted to want all this fast pace, very well driven music wind up to some sort of sustained climax at the end, just a few powerful sustained chords at least, a sort of AHHHHH!!!! but that might be a personal thing,  and you probably considered it, I felt slightly short changed at the end. But it's being very critical, cause there is so much merit here.

Congratulations Alex!


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## Alex Temple (Mar 17, 2011)

Colin, germancomponist, Henrik, Thomas, Casey, Guy, thanks for the enthusiastic responses. I'm very happy to see that my own assessment of the piece's flaws is pretty consistent with everyone else. I'm going to do a little more work on this and post a new version - hopefully Saturday. 

Henrik, I think I'm going to make another shot at doing an attention-grabbing introduction. Or at least change the existing one so that it's less relaxed. Likewise, Guy, I'm also going to see what I can do for a big ending. I thought this was a good idea but I pretty much ran out of steam.

Thomas: Thanks! There is actually no score to this since I did the whole thing straight into Sonar. About the phrasing, do you mean the way it's articulated sounds phony or that the musical phrase itself doesn't sound right? 

Colin: Thanks! I think I know what you mean about the circular musical logic thing. I think it really does help create momentum but it also makes pieces feel like they are spending a lot of time in transitional passages without reaching many arrival points.


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## IvanP (Mar 17, 2011)

Gorgeous, Alex...can't wait to listen to your live piece


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## johan25 (Mar 18, 2011)

This is really good Alex


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## rayinstirling (Mar 19, 2011)

Alex,

I like the others commenting here very much enjoy your music.
My one negative thought is that of forgetting it as soon as I move on.
Maybe you steer clear of a strong hook, theme ,or whatever, thinking it will automatically "sound like" something else. IMHO you won't move upwards and onwards unless you start putting stronger lead lines in. In this, it sounds to me like your picking notes in phrases avoiding "the obvious" so losing any chance of the listener remembering something (a tune) that can be hummed later. Some might say this isn't necessary. I disagree, it sounds like an overture without themes to me.
Maybe you're saving them for the big jobs :wink: 

Best Regards

Ray


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## jlb (Mar 19, 2011)

I agree with Ray, it is absolutely superbly put together, brilliant, but it is dancing about all over the place without one strong melody. But the production, really superb

jlb


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## choc0thrax (Mar 19, 2011)

Really good work Alex. I agree that I'd like to hear a more prominent melodic theme you could restate throughout. After the quieter part 3 quarters of the way through it would be wicked if the music would teasingly rise and then boom!- you restate that theme in it's grandest form(on brass!). Anyways, dunno if that makes any sense. Really good stuff.


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## Alex Temple (Mar 21, 2011)

Thanks for listening everyone. To everyone who enjoyed it I'm happy that you did, and I'll keep your ideas handy for my revisions.

Ray, jlp, choco, thanks for your candid feedback about the lack of a strong theme. I think this is a result of too much instant-feedback via DAW and not enough attention to the notes themselves. I've composed some new themes for the piece that I think are far better than the existing ones and I'm in the process of reassembling the piece around them. So rather than a few edits here and there I'll be posting a substantially revised piece that won't lean on as much flashy orchestrations of mediocre themes. There is something satisfying about selecting chunks of music that I'm a little bit attached to and hitting "delete," knowing that it's actually making the final composition a stronger whole.


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## Ryan Scully (Mar 21, 2011)

Fantastic work Alex!


I personally think that the thematic material that you've written in this version hold the constant tension and movement of the piece very well. I think your statement is nicely received as is but I would be interested to hear what other ideas you've come up with...Do you intend to stick with the same form or are you only looking to change the thematic material and orchestration?


Either way it's rad =o 


Ryan


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## Pietro (Mar 22, 2011)

Personally, I'm a fan of relentless music. I mean, the form where you constantly have to chase the stuff to catch it and it's still going to be a damn second ahead of you.

Great stuff and great, interesting orchestrationò ð   ÜÏ| ð   ÜÓ- ð   ÜÓN ð   Üê& ð   Üê\ ð   Üú ð   Üú ð   Ýf ð   Ýû ð   Ýi ð   Ý‚ ð   Ý#^ ð   Ý#‰ ð   Ý#– ð   Ý#Û ð   Ý=Ÿ ð   Ý> ð   Ý>V ð   Ý>¢ ð   ÝBâ ð   ÝCÔ ð   Ý]ê ð   Ý^ ð   Ýj/ ð   ÝkF ð   Ýw\ ð   Ýwz ð   Ý«/ ð   Ý« ð   ÝËC ð   ÝË


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## synergy543 (Mar 22, 2011)

Really great work Alex. It amazes me that you can compose and orchestrate so effectively without at written score - that's quite a talent. I do like it the way it is so I'm surprised your revising.


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## reflekshun (Mar 22, 2011)

Wow this is really amazing, that this is done in a software environment really inspires me! Its very musical and naturally put together. I will continue to listen to this, I'm currently listening on my laptop speakers and it comes through musically and sonically still well, which is a good sign. 

A question - how do you keep the loudness at a healthy level while still allowing so much dynamics? I find that when I mix an orchestra with dynamics, that it is very soft overall, unless I start using limiters on the stereo output buss. I'm very curious how your mixing was done or even roughly how your mastering chain looks! 

Great work


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## JBacal (Mar 23, 2011)

Holy Cow!! :shock: 

Awe-inspiring!!

Best,
Jay


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## Alex Temple (Mar 24, 2011)

Ryan: I'm sticking with a similar form and much of the same programming but adjusting spots where I feel like there's too much "noodling" and where the musical statements are incoherent at best. I'm also extending a spot or two where good ideas were abandoned too quickly. The main theme is that I'm going with a melodic idea that's strong enough that when it's broken down into smaller fragments for developmental sections, they sound like fragments of something already heard instead of sounding like ambiguous pieces of a new melody.

Pietro: There were parts of this that were meant to be relentless (especially about 1/3 of the way in where the piece basically breaks down from 3/4 into an evenly accented 1/4x3. But in my mind there were big arrival points that I think are coming accross as a continuation of the relentless action music. I want this distinction to be clearer. Thanks for listening!

synergy: Thanks! I may eventually reverse-engineer an actual score from this but it's not a high priority.

Reflekshun, when you say "at a healthy level" I think you mean a solid overall level for the whole piece, but I should mention that in the interest of aural health I have a brickwall limiter on the main output set to kick in if anything exceeds 0 dB. This squashes those loud pops that Play and GVI sometimes produce, which according to Sonar have been anywhere from 10 to as loud as 50 (!) dB. 

All of my instrument groups are sent to sectional bus outputs after reverb, panning, etc. is applied. Within each section there is a very light multiband compressor emphasizing the high and low ends. I'll use a combination of a volume envelope and a limiter to make sure the overall volume isn't being set too low by random spikes. Many instruments have subtractive EQ taken out at the top of the chain, before reverb. This is important - otherwise the track might not sound even that loud but a strange interaction between a low resonance and the convolution reverb waveform cause an enormous spike somewhere on the low end. The envelope is important too - there was a combined tam-tam/cymbal swell at the end that obliterated the volume of everything else and I found it didn't hurt the track too much to take the percussion volume down 3 db for the 3 seconds surrounding it - it was far less noticeable than it would have been to let the limiter do this automatically.

Certain instruments have compressors introduced higher in the chain, which are part of the template and are switched on the entire time. For example trombones have separate compression settings for both the SAM and VSL stuff. The entire horn section eventually runs through a multiband compressor before reaching the final brass output bus. I try avoiding compression or EQ on instrument sections that already have adjustments made earlier in the chain.

Jay: Thanks! Looking forward to your next mockup.


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## dcoscina (Mar 26, 2011)

Solid piece Alex. Personally, I like the long development of the piece with all of the twists and turns. It keeps it from sounding redundant and bland. I personally also like your transitions- like Williams and Goldsmith, this betrays a concert like approach rather than an overtly filmic approach where everything (these days at least) fits into nice symmetrical bar lengths (4, 8, 16, 32 although most don't write that long of a melody any more, except maybe Horner).

Terrific. Brass sound real as real can get. I'm scared at how well you will do with EWQL Hollywood Brass when it comes out.


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