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I had a number of unused snippets of music lying around after I did the Talisman: The Horus Heresy soundtrack in 2016. One of them turned into Aftermath a couple of years ago, and over the past weeks I've been working on extending the other ones into complete pieces as well. I have decided to release them all as a mini album (or EP I guess) called Imperium once they're done. There will be no mention of the Warhammer 40k brand name of course, or Games Workshop will surely have my hide, but I guess you could call it a spiritual sequel. Below are the three four five six most complete tracks so far. There's still a lot of stuff missing but you should get an idea.

Oblivion's Edge
Through the Void
Derelict
Woe to the Vanquished
Colony Landing
Beyond the Stars

Plot twist: Everything was done with free samples. Or, well, almost everything. I've decided to consider the $2 Majestic Horn from Orchestral Tools "so cheap that it's basically free". The synths used are also not technically free either, but both Hybrid and SynthMaster Player are offered at huge discounts once or twice a year, and Dune CM is magware. And I'm sure you could do something very similar with freeware synths only, I ended up using these because I needed a few presets from the HH music.

All thoughts and comments on the mix are welcome. Since there's so much stuff from so many sources, it's kind of difficult making everything sound like a whole. The woodwinds in particular are hard to get right, and I'm not happy with them right now.

Also, I should mention that orchestral realism was not a priority here, so if that's what you're looking for you will probably be disappointed.
These sound really nice! I like hybrid orchestral stuff personally, so these were quite enjoyable for me. I quite like the percussion sounds in these tracks. I'm guessing they were individual samples and not from the SSO, VSCO or VPO libraries and such?

Will you have a story-line for these? I really enjoyed your write-up for Waters.
The five star rated soundtrack btw...

Sounds good to me. It is interesting how you wove the textures together. Woe to the Vanquished is surprisingly peppy for an ode to the dead and dying! Colony Landing was a bit loud on the drumming for me, but I'm not a thumping kind of guy.
(07-11-2019, 07:19 PM)Kaustav Acharya Wrote: [ -> ]These sound really nice! I like hybrid orchestral stuff personally, so these were quite enjoyable for me. I quite like the percussion sounds in these tracks. I'm guessing they were individual samples and not from the SSO, VSCO or VPO libraries and such?

Thanks! No the percussion sounds are all from different sources, basically freebies from over the years. I'm putting together a list of the samples I've used, I'll post it in this thread later tonight. But there's no SSO at all, and only a sprinkle of VSCO2 CE here and there (I ended up using only select parts of it as it's not a good fit for this type of sound).

(07-11-2019, 07:19 PM)Kaustav Acharya Wrote: [ -> ]Will you have a story-line for these? I really enjoyed your write-up for Waters.

Nope, sorry. I'm not familiar enough with the WH4k universe to write a storyline set in it, in fact I didn't develop an interest in the franchise until I was doing my homework for the HH music. Besides, this will only be five or six tracks. It irks me when I have orphaned musical ideas lying around so I felt I should just finish them and release them.
(07-11-2019, 07:29 PM)bigcat1969 Wrote: [ -> ]Woe to the Vanquished is surprisingly peppy for an ode to the dead and dying!

Haha, that's very true. Though I should mention that the titles are just from the top of my head, and subject to change. Oblivion's Edge came from rewatching Oblivion the other night, and I was reminded of another Tom Cruise movie, i.e. Edge of Tomorrow. So first I called it Edge of Oblivion, then I changed it to Oblivion's Edge. And who knows what the final titles will be.

(07-11-2019, 07:29 PM)bigcat1969 Wrote: [ -> ]Colony Landing was a bit loud on the drumming for me, but I'm not a thumping kind of guy.

Good observation, and I agree with you. The BIG DRUMS ™ parts are maybe a bit too strident and I'm trying to find a good balance.
OK, these are the samples I've used so far. I make no guarantee that they are all available anymore, but with a bit of googling I think many of the older ones can still be tracked down.

STRINGS
Palette Primary Colors
VSCO 2 Community Edition
Performance Samples Con Moto Violins
Strezov Tutti Staccatos
Cinematic Strings Monster Staccatos
Hades Strings (sf2)
VSL Cellos (Kontakt Player 4?)
flcellogirl Cello (Freesound)
Sonuscore Sustained String Chords
Mick Gordon String EFX

BRASS
Palette Primary Colors
Strezov Four Horns Rip
EWQLSO Free Edition Trumpets
ProjectSAM Heroic Horns
ProjectSAM Brass FX
Jasper Blunk Fortissimo Horns
Orchestral Tools Majestic Horn

WOODWINDS
VSCO 2 Community Edition
Simple Flute
Ixox Flute
MSLP Flute
Maestro Clarinet
Ethan Winer Bassoon
Carlos Vaquero Bassoon (Freesound)
Philharmonia Oboe
Tmon's Piccolo Runs
ProjectSAM Wild Winds

PERCUSSION
Rastsound Low Drums
The Beat Aesthetic Taiko
Action Drums Cinematic Edition
Felt Force One Selections
LCR Timpani
G-Town Samples
Cinesamples Triangle
kostasvomvolos Waterphone (Freesound)
Staub Factory Hits (Freesound)

MISC
Sonuscore Orchestra Chords
Camel Audio Alchemy Female Choir
Embertone Ancient Voices
Angelharp
This is awesome! I personally like the drums on Colony Landing. Perhaps some adjustments in the balance are necessary, I can't say until I'm not listening to them on crummy laptop speakers; but what they're doing is still cool.

About those Palette Primary Colors samples: Do you need a full version of Kontakt 5 or later, or can you get at the raw samples without it, the way you can with the Project SAM Free Orchestra?
(07-12-2019, 02:30 AM)Nayrb Wrote: [ -> ]This is awesome! I personally like the drums on Colony Landing. Perhaps some adjustments in the balance are necessary, I can't say until I'm not listening to them on crummy laptop speakers; but what they're doing is still cool.

Thanks! Well, listening to the track today I think the levels are fine, but maybe some additional corrective eq on the low drums might be necessary as they tend to clash with each other. And when there's a big low synth pad playing throughout the track like in Colony Landing, it might create the illusion of the drums being overpowering (or maybe it's the pad -- I need to check that).

(07-12-2019, 02:30 AM)Nayrb Wrote: [ -> ]About those Palette Primary Colors samples: Do you need a full version of Kontakt 5 or later, or can you get at the raw samples without it, the way you can with the Project SAM Free Orchestra?

You can export the samples from Kontakt Player and map them yourself. That's what I did. Weirdly, there seems to be more articulations than what is available through the Kontakt UI, e.g. I see no way to switch to tremolo strings, but the samples do exist. Admittdely I haven't studied the Kontakt instrument very closely.
From another thread ...

(07-08-2019, 09:12 PM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: [ -> ]You don't want your hybrid track to sound like an orchestra with token synth sounds ...

Listening to the links you posted in this thread, I'd say mission accomplished. I hear a smooth blending of synth and orchestra naturally belonging together. Well done.
(07-12-2019, 05:15 PM)Paul Battersby Wrote: [ -> ]Listening to the links you posted in this thread, I'd say mission accomplished. I hear a smooth blending of synth and orchestra naturally belonging together. Well done.

Thank you Paul! Yes, well this is all subjective of course (I'm sure there are people who like combining detuned trance leads with orchestra), but overall I think it's important to pick synth sounds that have a certain texture to them that meshes with the orchestral sound. Which is often easier said than done, but when I'm browsing through presets for a certain part something will sooner or later jump out and make me go "yes, that's it!".
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