Xae's OST Contributions (BM Soundtrack)

[Xae]

Xae's OST Contributions

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xxx[/HR]
Regions:

• Blackwood
  
• Parchlands
  
• Jungle (High)
  
• Jungle (Low)
  
• Darkmoor
  
• Darkmoor (Mangrove)
  
• Talu Swamp
  
• Everglades
  

Cell Types:

• Dungeons
  
• Fort Ruins
  
• Ayelid Ruins
  
• Castles
  

Special Cells:

• Hist Dimension
  
• Mage's Dimension
  
• Scorpion Pass
  

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Black Marsh Original Soundtrack

http://soundclick.com/xaeaix
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Score total length: ~70 minutes (updated 08/09/'10)

Parchlands:

Explore 1 (2:40) - We Live And Breathe
Explore 2 (3:06) - Neighbourland Sun (YouTube)
Explore 3 (2:20) - Night In Armadillo Kingdom

Blackwood:

Explore 1 (3:01) - Shine Through
Explore 2 (2:47) - Uneven Emanence
Explore 3 (2:07) - My True Face
Explore 4 (2:40) - Summer's Rising
Explore 5 (2:43) - The Commonlands (YouTube)
Explore 6 (2:25) - Rayan Lament

Moorlands/Dungeon (?):

Explore 1 (1:43) - The Rocks Have Eyes
Explore 2 (1:42) - Black Stone
Explore 3 (1:32) - Manhunt

Wildwoods:

Explore 1 (4:30) - Swaleheart's Moon (YouTube)
Explore 2 (2:48) - Strangleweed

Cities:

Soulrest 1 (3:02) - Suncarrier Realm
Soulrest 2 (2:20) - Scarlet Cavalier

Stormhold 1 (2:58) - Saint of Storms
Stormhold 2 (2:21) - Rock, Moss and Homes

Gideon 1 (3:51) - Our Visitant Threnody
Gideon 2 (2:42) - The Saturnine Commons

Dungeon (?):

Dungeon 1 (2:53) - Hesitant
Dungeon 2 (2:46) - Hollow
Dungeon 3 (1:41) - Hearken

Standard Battle:

Battle 1 (1:22) - Feeding Grounds
Battle 2 (1:09) - Scare Tactics
Battle 3 (1:25) - Marshland Warrior (YouTube)
Battle 4 (1:28) - Acting On Instinct (YouTube)

Interiors:

Gideon 1 (1:22) - Ballad of the Mask
Tribal 1 (0:43) - A Wary Visit
Soulrest 1 (1:16) - Cloak of Sunlight
Stormhold 1 (0:58) - Shelter

Imperial Church/Cathedral (2:08) - Miserere Mei
Castles (1:43) - Royalty

Special:

Success (0:24) - Sovereign
Death (0:24) - Victim

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Excellent little thread. This makes it much easier to go direct to the source. :check:

Thanks!

[Senten]

Amazing progress you have done Xaeaix, you are a very talented artist!

Congratulations and respect!

`SN

[mirrored]

If I may give some critique:
1. This place - the beginning is something wonderful and I had hoped to listen to really wee crafted music, until the pizzicato strings got there. I had a feeling it went to quite different game there, a game for kids actually. In my opinion, the rest of the tune is resembling anything from TESIV (what leads me to my assumption that it won't work with BM either). The beginning is top notch though, I'd stick to that atmosphere and try to evolve in this mood.
2. Neighbourland Sun - much better here. I especially liked the moments with the harp.
3. The battle pieces - you surely are getting at the Jeremy Soule's feel for the game what is nice, especially in the low strings and low brass, I liked that. In the Turnaround when the Oblivion theme comes in, it could use the all orchestra arrangement that comes after the theme exposure.
4. Those dungeon pieces are quite nice and atmospheric.

And you use too much (or bad executed) compression on the tunes, sometimes they sound "squeezed" too much.

Good progress though! Looking forward to hear more of your works.

Cheers,
Michal

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I'll just add a little to that by saying that the goal is not quite to hit all of the Jeremy Soule styles but to establish that unique marshy feel along with musical hints towards Argonian culture. Having said that, I'd certainly like to hear a little more drums.....and would flute music be apt, I wonder? The South American cultures certainly used flute-like instruments...things like this, for instance: http://www.eggplantwmayo.com/imagesfull/pipes008.jpg . That might work well for the slightly more mellow cityscape creations.

It's good to have you with us, Xae! :goodjob:

[Xae]

Criticism! What a pleasant surprise!

Originally posted by mirrored
... a game for kids actually. In my opinion, the rest of the tune is resembling anything from TESIV (what leads me to my assumption that it won't work with BM either). The beginning is top notch though, I'd stick to that atmosphere and try to evolve in this mood.

Originally the piece was just something with 'more melody and less choir' as requested by IG. I kept it because Senten loved it.

3. The battle pieces - you surely are getting at the Jeremy Soule's feel for the game what is nice, especially in the low strings and low brass, I liked that. In the Turnaround when the Oblivion theme comes in, it could use the all orchestra arrangement that comes after the theme exposure.

I've waited to go back and touch up the battle pieces (as well as compose more) until I was sure that was the direction I wanted for the battle music in general. I like the viola repetitions but I've been wanting to go darker.

4. Those dungeon pieces are quite nice and atmospheric.

Yes, though they're too metallic. First I though that was quite interesting but lately I've half-worked on a different style to see which one I prefer.

And you use too much (or bad executed) compression on the tunes, sometimes they sound "squeezed" too much.

Hmm, I'll check it out. I confess to having done some volume work in the middle of the night before uploading these. Their levels are still inconsistent and the RMS is off. That stuff is easier to fix once all the pieces are being polished.

I've listened to most of your work, Michal. The large ensemble symphobia shines through strongly (they did a great job on those) and judging by your style it's not a surprise that you're a percussionist. My favourite track is the Esenthel Woods 1 theme, though the beginning does not do it justice.

I've been wanting to share some thoughts with you and I ended up doing it further down in this very long post.

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
I'll just add a little to that by saying that the goal is not quite to hit all of the Jeremy Soule styles but to establish that unique marshy feel along with musical hints towards Argonian culture. Having said that, I'd certainly like to hear a little more drums.....and would flute music be apt, I wonder?

It's a bit of a challenge to piece together the different pieces of criticism from various people and put it together. I started small to get a feel for the ground and I've been moving carefully, more or less reacting to the opinions I've been given. That being said, I have been cautious with straying from Soule territory trying to avoid the sensation that the track doesn't fit.

As I see it, the Soule tracks are very soft with very little in the higher frequencies, much melody with plenty of choruses, some repetitions and little to no percussion. The reverb is very ambient with long Hall reverb tails. Knowing Soule, he's got a heavy EQ on it (which is particularly noticeable in the beginning of atmosphere_06).

Now, listening to the Gates of Aesgaard music or Atolonen's stuff, it gets really hard to see it blend well in-game. It sounds like it's from a different game, which is true with the latter. I remember a mod for Morrowind that added a large tavern in Balmora with new music for the sewers and it was the same thing there. Very foreign.

Michal's Akavir battle music is all percussion, very little melody and harmony. It has the classic 20-20k backslash frequency shape throughout with little to distinguish parts or movements. The reverb is quite dry and not ambient. Listening to the Oblivion battle music it sounds almost like it's distant, like the sound of war from afar. The frequency range makes it a lot less present and the style sells a lot on both harmony and melody. The differences are to me too pronounced, particularly in an AB comparison.

The Akavir explore 1 song sounds like a church choral piece transposed to string ensemble. The large ensemble from explore 3 does better (even if the first flute phrase of the rewritten ES theme is awkward) and style is much more fitting, particularly with the woodwind flutter in the background. Listening to it is like "Welcome to Akavir".

I don't know, maybe I'm making too big a deal about this. If I was to focus less on making the style fit, the result would probably be a dark and hollow track that's a lot more subtle with quieter parts, scattered percussion and longer sustained soft harmony with fewer melodic parts. I guess it'd be more like Morrowind's tracks.

[mirrored]

Regarding battle tracks - I really wanted something more primal and percussive for battle tracks for Akavir, something really different from those battle tracks from JS. Something that would be different, yet still will appropriate to what a player can see at the screen. I am really satisfied with the Battle 3. The Battle 2 is loved by Akavir leader, as it is more cinematic, but I agree it could be better, longer and more fitting (I tried to put JS a little there). Akavir Battle 1 is... well... not as good as the other two. The best audio vs video battle track is surprisingly Akavir Battle 3.


Explore 3 - you meant explore 2 actually when you mentioned ES theme (and why it is awkward?) I suppose.

It is very good for you that you want to make style fit as much as possible, it is the hardest thing. Soule did OUTSTANDING job matching exploration tracks in Morrowind and Oblivion. In Morrowind, tracks really resemble the gray, brown colors and the overall atmosphere of the surroundings. In Oblivion, the music resembles greatly the green and other colors that can be seen in the game. All the difference is in the orchestration. Matching the music with visuals properly in a game takes years of experience in both music production and orchestration.
My humble person here, still learns alot with various projects. The best solution for me is to actually fraps a game as much as possible and then try to make music to it.
Akavir Explore 1 was produced in this manner, I thought it is doing nice as a background music for green surroundings (although there is one moment which is kinda off the place - the one with gamelan). Something positive, as opposite to both Akavir Explore 2 and 3.

Good discussion!
Hope to hear more from you!

Cheers,
Michal

[Xae]

Ah, yes I meant explore 2. I neglected to check virb to make sure. Either way, the opening has a broken rhythm. The very first two eighths establish a pattern that is immiediately broken by a third eighth before the next measure which resembles the second half a 6/8 time pattern but the extra quarter from the actual 4/4 time preventively cancels it. The two eights come again to change the pattern, then another extra eighth changes it again. In other words, you use a 6/8 rhythmical pattern on and off in 4/4 time without a rhythmical counterpart.

I like that you added the extra quarter to the theme instead of using the original 3/4 but the ES theme relies heavily on the time signature for those inter-measure movements that make up the entire melody.

In the first measure I'd delay the three eighths so that they begin on the fourth beat. The B flat would land on the first beat of the second measure and then gently up the C. From then on I'd use the standard rhythmical pattern (just the two eighths) until the theme repeats in the parallel minor. Alternatively, with an Amserdam drum pattern (like from the ES theme) you can enter the three eighths pattern in the E flat measure and get a nice melodic semitone (diatonic rise from G to C). I think the 6/8 pattern is an insufficient opening for the full measure D flat-E flat-F minor rise towards the end but that's another topic.

Indeed, the Morrowind track is very gray and brown; a perfect fit. I don't agree with the town music for Oblivion since it's so cheery at times but then again that's Bethesda's fault for making the game very lighthearted.

Quality is one thing but finding that fit is most important (Soule himself said that the hardest part is finding the direction to go in). The VG industry is filled with perfect examples of bad fits. Tomb Raider: Underworld has the classic movie music in a video game mistake, just like Need for Speed: Undercover. I'm also very disappointed with Kai Rosenkranz over the Gothic III soundtrack, especially since Gothic II was very good.


All the best,
Xae

[mirrored]

I'm sorry, but I'm really lost when/where do you hear/sense 6/8 time signature. All is 4/4. I didn't want to use 3/4 from the original ES theme, what's the point? It is entirely new track based on the 3/4 ES theme, build upon 4/4 and applied to the major pentatonic scale to get an Asian feel to it (that's why, opposite to the original theme, it does not start with F - G - Ab as it would start in original if transported to this key, it starts with F - Eb - Ab, according to the pentatonic scale Ab - Bb - C - Eb - F).

Maybe you could provide some quick low quality audio on what you have in mind?


I was refering to music for Exploration, which suits the game perfectly IMHO. I like the Town music also, especially the fourth one.


Cheers,
Michal

[Xae]

I think the change I suggested may be what you've already done but I didn't catch it until now. Before it sounded like a waltz (6/8, 3/4 etc) pattern (nevermind that for now) but now it sounds like a sequencing error. I can't seem to tap along to the time signature. The flute either isn't enough to establish the pace or it doesn't follow it. I had someone else listen and they reacted the same way. I'm not sure, it's hard to put my finger on it. When I play the song on my keyboard it sounds fine, I think it may be the flute line that throws me off.