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My third Trailer Music piece... "Black Friday"

Puzzlefactory

Senior Member
This is my my third attempt at some Trailer music (my second attempt "Vikings Lament",i'm keeping to myself for now). The main criticism of my first piece was the percussion wasn't prominent enough, so i've tried to make it a bit more thunderous.

I've also tried to use only the libraries i bought on Black Friday (hence the name). CSS, Gravity, Spitfire Hybrid collection (but ended up also using Action Strikes, Damage and Una Corda as well).

Let me know what you think. ;)

 
Your third act should be your new second act :P

I think the perc programming in the third act is pretty decent, and the string part is cool. That's your strongest aspect in this track. If you then went on and topped it with something even bigger you'd be in good shape.

That would the core of a salable track, I think.

What I'm not hearing yet is, a catchy progression or melody that I can remember when I step away from the track. Hazarding a guess that you intend the solo female vox to have that role, but it didn't really make a strong impression me the first few times I listened. That's what is making act 1 feel too ambient & "not saying anything". Act 3 is great for the reasons I mentioned but at present it's also anticlimactic/overdramatic because there's all this dramatic accompaniment in a supportive role but it's not supporting something suitably epic (horns in unison blasting!).

The progression made me think of a motif from Man Of Steel (E C B G over Emin, E C B G over Cmaj, etc etc.). See if you can come up with something that sounds similarly "Monolithic" and iconic. If you have a melody that repeats the same way, or nearly the same way, over the two chords, it will feel like it's 'saying something.' Especially try playing around B, D# and F# as these notes have radically different implications over the two chords. You can really build up a "fateful" or "foreboding" feeling, which seems to support what you're doing in the strings. The D# especially can feel really ominous since it creates so much tension in C maj.

Really famous track by John Murphy is a good example of this -

 
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Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated.

The chord progression is very simple, it's in the key of Em and just swings between the I and VI chords (Em and C). Something I picked up from a book I'm reading, "Harmony for Computer Musicians".

I'll certainly have a go at adding a big brass melody line.

I just hope my computer can handle a couple of extra Kontakts added to the piece (I already had difficulty bouncing the thing down) ;).
 
I like both your tracks, but in this one I think you went the other way, and the percussion is too much - particularly would like to hear the string ostinato from the 2nd half more (is that CSS?), its getting drowned out.
The mix sounds very clean. In using Action Strikes and Damage together, sounds like you are keeping the low end nicely balanced - are you using a lot of EQ there, or are you just keeping one of them dominating the low end?
Musically it could develop more but this kind of track is more about the sound. Curious: which DAW you use?
 
Thanks for the feedback. I think maybe the percussion sounds too prominent because of the lack of a big brass hook (like mentioned before). So I'll try adding that before tweaking the drums (also a tip I read said that when you think the impacts and hits are too loud, that means they're just right ;)).

The ostinatos I quite like being in the background. I've noticed that quite a few composers use staccato strings that way. But I may tweak the mix a bring them a bit more to the front (I'm going to go back and tweak the mix of both this and the first track again anyway).

In terms of libraries, the ostinatos are CSS and the sustain strings are Albion.

I've done very little Eq'ing other than rolling off the low end and taking out a bit of mids on the Taikos. It's more about just finding the right sounds to layer together and to balance the levels (and note velocities).

For this track I used Logic (I also use Live and occasionally Maschine, although it's a pain to arrange stuff in Maschine).
 
Ok, so i've updated the track and added a lead brass line. I've also spaced out the edit points a bit. Let me know what you think...?
 
I like the brass line, fits well - is it Albion One? - I don't like the extended edit points though, sounds like it stops. I'm talking as a stand-alone piece though - as an actual film trailer with video, then it could work, I suppose that can only be judged in context.
 
Yeah I don't like the way the breaks make the track sound. But apparently it's something that's needed for video editors, should be included in your demos.
 
Hi,
I have not so much Ahnung von Trailermusic, but I find that is a cool track and good sound. I am not a big of that risers and downer soundeffects, but it is very idiomatic for those trailermusic. So well done.
 
Sounds really good. I like the use of Una Corda in the track. I was tempted to to purchase that library during the BF sales. How have you found Gravity? Worthwhile investment?
 
Hello ! It sound good :)
The only thing I'm missing is a theme that you could be the same in the four parts of your song. One theme in 3 versions calm/epic/calm is a very common structure for trailer music. There is a lot of tuto about trailer structure on youtube.
Congrats !
 
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Una Corda is my favourite piano library, well worth it. It has so much character.

Gravity I really like for big hits and woosh bangs.

The Una Corda patch is just the init cotton patch and I turned the "reverse" effect on and added some delay and reverb.
 
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