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Not bad by any stretch.

You have four different cues here. The solo violin would never be heard - not with the orchestra playing like that.

The orchestration overall is ok, but needs a lot of work, IMHO. Like at 8 seconds. The melody is nice, but you just have strings playing a few notes. Where's the color, where's the movement? That's just one ex.
 
Not bad by any stretch.

You have four different cues here. The solo violin would never be heard - not with the orchestra playing like that.

The orchestration overall is ok, but needs a lot of work, IMHO. Like at 8 seconds. The melody is nice, but you just have strings playing a few notes. Where's the color, where's the movement? That's just one ex.
Ok, thanks for the feedback - in terms of the solo violin, would it make more sense if what an ensemble? In my limited knowledge, I would guess that would set up as 8 violins playing the line and 8 playing the measured trems/staccatos. For midi, no one needs to know that I'll use the ensemble patch ;)

Can I get away with my not so great orchestration with a realistic sound? Or is it not convincing?
 
Your programming & mixing is good for the most part. It's not holding you back. And you can definitely have that solo violin line if you want. It wouldn't be heard live but this isn't trying to be a realistic live piece, it's trying to be cinematic, and succeeding.

Where you can advance as a composer is trying to study structure more and widening your influences. Your sense of structure is not yet enough to support a 3:45 piece. Try and write a piece with just one idea for 1:00 or just two ideas trading back and forth for 2:00, when you are able to easily do that then you have advanced your sense of structure!

Being influenced by Zimmer is not a bad thing but when it's your main or only influence it really shows in the music, things like the string lines at 1:24 and the lowbrass staccatos augmented by percussion at 2:42 are clearly from Zimmer scores. I'm not going to say "develop your own artistic voice" because the truth is all art is a collage of influences, what I'll say instead is widen those influences and really try to get inside the heads of other composers. You clearly understand how Zimmer would communicate a sense of urgency & drama in his scores, now how would Mozart do it? How does Rage Against The Machine do it?
 
Your programming & mixing is good for the most part. It's not holding you back. And you can definitely have that solo violin line if you want. It wouldn't be heard live but this isn't trying to be a realistic live piece, it's trying to be cinematic, and succeeding.

Where you can advance as a composer is trying to study structure more and widening your influences. Your sense of structure is not yet enough to support a 3:45 piece. Try and write a piece with just one idea for 1:00 or just two ideas trading back and forth for 2:00, when you are able to easily do that then you have advanced your sense of structure!

Being influenced by Zimmer is not a bad thing but when it's your main or only influence it really shows in the music, things like the string lines at 1:24 and the lowbrass staccatos augmented by percussion at 2:42 are clearly from Zimmer scores. I'm not going to say "develop your own artistic voice" because the truth is all art is a collage of influences, what I'll say instead is widen those influences and really try to get inside the heads of other composers. You clearly understand how Zimmer would communicate a sense of urgency & drama in his scores, now how would Mozart do it? How does Rage Against The Machine do it?
Thanks much, that's incredibly helpful. I understand what you're saying about structure, but I will confess that I don't really want to change the piece's structure. Do you think that it's structure is good enough, or not so much.
 
Well you can do anything you want in terms of expressing yourself artistically. There are no wrong answers there.

The question is do you want to make a living selling your music. If you do then the structure is not enough.

A lot of young composers get their start in the industry writing library music. This music will be sold to be placed in tv shows, commercials etc. A sellable library track is simple: it expresses one idea or mood. But it also has development so it doesn't feel boring, and it has variation so that a music editor can pick the parts of the track they want to use. In other words a good library track is kind of like a cheese platter. There are different flavors and you can choose what you want to put in your sandwich, but at the end of the day all cheese is cheese and it's interchangeable in that sense. Your track is like a sandwich that's already been made, it has exactly 5 things (bacon lettuce tomato onions and cheese) and you have to have those 5 things in that order, no compromise or customization. So who exactly would buy that? Only a producer who has a scene in a tv show that needs exactly music in these 5 moods in that order. You can see how you are limiting the number of people who will want to buy your music by making it less flexible.

BTW it may seem like library music is mercenary and uncreative but film and tv scoring is really not all that different. For example, the editing of the movie or tv show is constantly changing. Therefore, you need music which can be conformed (such as somehow adding or subtracting 2 bars in the middle of the piece).
 
I don't want to burst your bubble though. The good news is your music would very probably be sellable if you took any one of the major ideas in your track and turned it into a 2:00-2:30 track.
 
I don't want to burst your bubble though. The good news is your music would very probably be sellable if you took any one of the major ideas in your track and turned it into a 2:00-2:30 track.
No, I would rather you be honest then not. I'm in high school, so music is not my living, but I would like to make money through it if possible. I listen to tons of soundtracks, so I think that style comes more into my music then the typical develop-one-idea style. I think I might have my first release be that style, and then in the future, I'll try to use the style that you've talked about more for music that I want to be used commercially. Thanks again, you've been very helpful.
 
There is a lot potential here.. well done.

Just a comment on the overall mix from me: maybe lacking a little in the high lows to low mids (200 to 315 Hz) which is making your upper mids a bit harsh. To my ears could use a bit more air (16+ khz)

Also you low end is a little inconsistent (not really there and then suddenly shaking my subs). Not necessarily bad, but I think a multiband compressor would help there...

Hope that helps :)

Ryan
 
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