Towering Granite

[Michael Willis]

I'm trying to get more comfortable arranging brass and percussion. Here's a fanfare inspired by granite cliffs that are common in the mountains around where I live.

https://soundcloud.com/user-201997735/to...ough-draft

As with other pieces I've worked on, please let me know your feedback on anything from the composition to the audio production.

[Chris Spyratos]

Hello Michael, nice ideas in the track. I like the contrast between the tremolo bass strings and the brass section but you should even out the volumes between them. Also give those brasses some mountainish reverb and play around with some automation in the volume or even better if you have brass patches with crossfaded dynamics. That should provide some realism.

[Viktor]

+1 what Chris said.

On top of that you handle the orchestra very organ, hymn like, which is really cool. But I think the effect of the heaviness of this moving chord blocks would be even increased if you have a little counter line moving against the rhythm of the main melody. On top of that I think it's cool that the last chords are the most grand and lyric, however I think you could use some bass instruments (tuba and upright bass) to increase that effect on the last two chords. That way you have a little sub climax in that climax. I hope that is helpful, but I really like the melody, the orchestration and the atmosphere.

[Nayrb]

Can't add much more at the moment other than what was said, other than I do enjoy this and I look forward to hearing how you flesh it out into a larger piece. The brass is a little overpoweringly loud, I'd say, but I can still hear the quality of the orchestration and the atmosphere is definitely mountain-y. I'm envious that you live near granite peaks

[Michael Willis]

Thanks Chris, Viktor, and Nayrb. I really appreciate the feedback; I have enjoyed listening to tracks from all of you, so that makes it even more meaningful.

I think I'm making the mistake of "I want the brass to be powerful, so it has to be really loud!" I need to learn better how to convey the strong feeling I want; clearly just being loud isn't what I need from the brass here.

As for "mountainish reverb", I know that I tend to use way too much reverb, so maybe I dialed it down too low this time. I'll experiment with the reverb on my next draft.

I'm using Virtual Playing Orchestra, which does have optional cross-faded brass. Unfortunately it didn't work for me when I tried it, which probably means that it uses some SFZ opcodes that aren't supported by LinuxSampler. I probably should have reported this to Paul ages ago, but I didn't want to make him do even more work to support some shifty fly-by-night SFZ player.

Viktor, I have some ideas about adding a countermelody, but I'm saving that for later. I imagine this growing to be several minutes of music, with plenty of opportunity to revisit this specific theme and explore variations.

[Paul Battersby]

(01-08-2019, 10:10 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: I'm using Virtual Playing Orchestra, which does have optional cross-faded brass. Unfortunately it didn't work for me when I tried it, which probably means that it uses some SFZ opcodes that aren't supported by LinuxSampler.

That is a known problem with LinuxSampler. Specifically that LinuzSampler does not permit a single controller (like the MOD wheel) to simultaneously control 2 sfz paramters. In the thread on Linux Musicians where this problem was being discussed, I asked if someone could try using CC7 (for volume) and the MOD wheel (for crossfade) together to see if that would work but no one responded.

[Michael Willis]

(01-09-2019, 11:56 AM)Paul Battersby Wrote: That is a known problem with LinuxSampler. Specifically that LinuzSampler does not permit a single controller (like the MOD wheel) to simultaneously control 2 sfz paramters. In the thread on Linux Musicians where this problem was being discussed, I asked if someone could try using CC7 (for volume) and the MOD wheel (for crossfade) together to see if that would work but no one responded.

My apologies, I think I saw that discussion and then forgot about it. I'll try your suggestion of using both MOD and CC7. Would this require any change to the SFZ files, or might it work as they are in your latest release?

[Paul Battersby]

(01-09-2019, 03:59 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: My apologies, I think I saw that discussion and then forgot about it.

Oh, it's no problem. I didn't expect you to know about that, just letting you know that someone else told me about it before you could.

(01-09-2019, 03:59 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: I'll try your suggestion of using both MOD and CC7. Would this require any change to the SFZ files, or might it work as they are in your latest release?

Whether CC7 works automatically or not depends on the sample player. The sfz files are not programmed for CC7 but with Sforzando for example, CC7 automatically works anyway.

[Michael Willis]

(01-09-2019, 07:25 PM)Paul Battersby Wrote: Whether CC7 works automatically or not depends on the sample player. The sfz files are not programmed for CC7 but with Sforzando for example, CC7 automatically works anyway.

Understood, thanks for the explanation. I'll try to carve out time to test it tonight; if LinuxSampler doesn't have that default behavior for CC7, I'm not opposed to modifying the SFZ files.

[Nayrb]

(01-08-2019, 10:10 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: Thanks Chris, Viktor, and Nayrb. I really appreciate the feedback; I have enjoyed listening to tracks from all of you, so that makes it even more meaningful.

I think I'm making the mistake of "I want the brass to be powerful, so it has to be really loud!" I need to learn better how to convey the strong feeling I want; clearly just being loud isn't what I need from the brass here.

Thank you for the kind words, as well!

If you aren't successful with getting the modwheel dynamics to work then I would still suggest modulating the volume of the patches to taste. The dynamics will certainly add something.

As for volume, I think it's just a simple matter of levels. The brass can come down a bit without losing that ever important power you're going for. I've been dealing with a lot of volume issues as I've been working on my master template. Up til now I sort of winged it and relied on my ear, and it seems to have worked reasonably well. But ultimately my "templates" became a mess over time and stopped up my workflow. In trying to standardize things in some way, I've been all over the place with my brass. So I know where you're coming from. I've started pulling the brass down and listening for how well it cuts through everything else at high dynamics. Particularly with a trumpet section, I've noticed that I have to pull it down a bit more than I thought I would because of the nature of the frequency range; it can really cut through in certain registers.

Also, curiously, tambourines. Having such a cutting quality I often find I have to drop them down considerably.