Mod Archive Forums
Community => Look what I made! => Topic started by: Saga Musix on March 13, 2006, 20:57:06
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Here is it, the song which took me 5 months to finish:
Unreal Scene
It is the sequel to Safari Trip which can also be found on my site (see below).
Both songs have this jungle feeling... but Unreal Scene is even more amazing!
I hope you like this song and i look forward to seeing some small reviews :)
And here's the link:
Get it! (http://sagamusix.de/download/unreal/)
-Jojo :)
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Captain Review to your rescue!
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Song Name: Unreal Scene (Unreal.it)
Artist: Jojo
Quick Rating: 8.5
Excellent
Semi-Pro
Classification: Ambient/Dream
Musical Rating: Excellent/Professional
Wow! Six minutes of excellent jungle ambient! The song twists and turns around all the time, drawing you into the music more and more for every second. The depth by all the echoing makes you go in a sort of dreamy stage and you feel one with the music. This is exactly how ambient should be treated like!
The song starts out gently with a rain samples and some soft bass drums. Some tambourines decides to follow up and the claves starts. Then they follow up with several interesting sections. Umm... well, listen to it and you will understand.
Technical Rating: Very Good/Semi-Pro
8-bit samples, as it seems, fetched from a Yamaha. Not a bad choise; Yamaha tends to have really good samples. Some unused samples are included, ack! And the author thinks people will go through the trouble to find the "hidden" patterns with those samples. Most will not even give it a thought. It is better to remove unused parts of a song, even if they are good. Keep the uncleaned version on your own harddrive instead if you really want to keep the unused patterns/samples.
Lots of envelopes are in use combined with many volume slides. Nice. If some samples were not too loud at a few (very few) moments, the technical side could have been perfect.
The patterns are pretty much cramed with effects. Note delays, volume slides, sample off sets, channel volume, et cetera. Very good. Clean and organized patterns. Almost the work of a professional.
To summarize an excellent module for all ambient lovers. The best ambient music I have heard!
//Eagle
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I'll just put it shortly: Most of the leads are mixed rather badly (too long NNA note-fades, or just silly sounding samples), and again, I'm waiting for more variation, especially to the drums/backgrounds.
This wasn't my cup of tea. Yet, the atmosphere was good, but 6 minutes is way too long. Simple soloing over the same backgrounds just cannot keep up the mood.
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It seems that you're the only one who talks so bad 'bout all the module the "others" make... :P :?
In fact, it isn't ready yet, just what you say: i WANT to improve the beat! This will maybe come at weekend...
@Eagle: Okay, i'll remove those hidden patterns in the "full release"...
and i'll include more of the 16bit samples, because in the beginning, i thought that the songs will grow too large if i ONLY use 16 bit samples... the Powerharp is allready in 16 bit quality in my new version...
-> Get the new version! (see link above!)
I have a question: Do you like the new mandoline-like instrument in the last part of this piece (just before 6 minutes....) beacuse if not, i'll remove it!
and: if my song is released at the modarchive and you want to insert this review: my artist name is "sagamusix" ;)
and just one more thing: in the beginning and in the end, it wasn't meant to be RAIN but to be a WATERFALL! :)
-Jojo[/url]
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It seems that you're the only one who talks so bad 'bout all the module the "others" make... :P :?
That seems to catch people's attention alot better than praising. ;)
I don't know, if I expect something atmospheric from a song, I expect it to be superb quality too. And keep in mind, quality does NOT equal 16-bit samples, nor using a load of channels. :)
This song would be very enjoyable (even to me), if those leads were made with style and quality. Currently they lack the catchiness that all the great gametunes have.
Sorry for me being this bitchy, but remember; all the parts I don't criticize are fine in my opinion. :)
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Ok, but i think too much criticismn isn't good for us artists as well.... if i read your posts, i think i'm a little ugly guy which actually can't track any piece of music :shock:
And please note that there isn't any release date yet, so i can change a lot things in the next days.... maybe YOU would like to improve the song? :D
Anyways, here's a new version with improved volume handling at some critical points and some new features... also, i removed the useless samples!
Link is the same, and I'm too lazy to copy it again 8)
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Ok, but i think too much criticismn isn't good for us artists as well.... if i read your posts, i think i'm a little ugly guy which actually can't track any piece of music :shock:
That's why I don't write real reviews anymore. ;)
I'll wait for a few more versions before listening the tune well, I don't wanna flood you with criticism. :)
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Ok, i'll maybe change the beat at some parts, change a few insts here and there....... just wait a bit ^^
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And keep in mind, quality does NOT equal 16-bit samples, nor using a load of channels.
Indeed, some of the best songs I ever heard only had 8 or even just 4 channels and no 16-bit samples. Just check out Purple Motion and his older songs (The ones in uppercase.).
And Jojo, do not worry about the size increase of using 16-bit. Using a high sampling rate 8-bit sample may get the same quality as a 16-bit in low sampling rate but for a larger file size.
If you have a weak sample, try using it together with other samples or try different octaves or put some echo. There are lots of techniques you can use.
And I forgot, people usually have quite large harddrives these days. But it's always good to optimise.
Wow, I really can not keep myself short. Haha! :blah:
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Okay, some of the samples are now 16bit instead of 8 bit, and the module isn't THAT larger... just over 2 mb :) ok, i'll play around with you tip 'bout the "weak samples"... :D
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Love to listen to this one but the link is out. I enjoyed Safari Trip quite a bit.
- J
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May I add that using envelopes is a good idea if you use weak samples. You can create really cool effects with them. If you'd like, I could post some good examples on how you can make really cool instruments out of samples that without the envelopes sound bad, bad, bad.
Perhaps I could make an article about it, too. :)
EDIT: I did make that article, check out this topic for it:
http://www.modarchive.com/db/boards2/viewtopic.php?t=139
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yeah, that's a cool idea man ;)
@ jay: yes the link is down since i've "formatted" my server when the new saga-games design went online. I'll upload a new version soon...maybe the final version :hrrhrr:
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Ok, the song is released!
it's only in the newdir in TMA (sm-unreal.it), but you can also download it at my website... hope ya like it!
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Got it (a couple days ago actually) and love it. I'll post more detailed comments in a few days when I get some spare time.
- J
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ok, do that :) and have good time with the tune ^^
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Ok, I listened, and I really wasn't all that impressed. The way the song progressed really didn't do much for me, and like CK said, some of the samples just sound silly. I do, however, really like how pattern 17 ends.
I'm probably not the right person to review this song, since the whole ambient genre doesn't really interest me.
Jojo, you shouldn't take things the wrong way. If you made absolute crap (not saying you do, by any means) and everyone told you that it was wonderful, you wouldn't improve at all. If anything, just disregard what everyone says and keep setting higher standards for yourself.
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yeah, but i actually don't say that is crap ^^ i really like that and i think that it's a wonderful ambient song.... there may be other opinions and i can unterstand that.
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No no, I didn't say the song was crap. I was speaking hypothetically.
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okay :)
and now, just wait half an year until the third jungle trip is ready :x :D but at the moment, i don't have any idea how it could sound like.... :grinno:
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Okay, again I didn't read most of this thread, so I'm just going to add a few comments, since I happen to have listenned to this now.
Fantastic! :D
I can definitely hear the hours of work that went into this, and the careful planning out of the whole thing. Superb atmosphere and great leads. Excellent variation. Transitions are perfect. Very good work. I'm definitely impressed.
Sorry for this being kind of brief, but I literally have a couple hundred more songs that I have to listen to right now.
Keep up this awesome work!
~~Rikimbo
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thanks for your comment, and yes, it actually was months of tracking ;)
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6 or 7 if I have calculated correctly. Quite an amazing lot of time. I have never taken more than 5-6 hours to make my modules. Perhaps that is why none of my songs are compare-able with the best, like, e.g. Unreal ][.
Excellent work, I love Unreal Scene!
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yes, it was approx. half an year, but with maybe one month of break... :) and the most things were tracked in the second and the last month (if i remeber correclty...)
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After a loong break I thought I'd give this one a new chance..
But, again I am disappointed. The start of the song is so atmospheric and bring the original Unreal's musics to my mind that the following leads just don't make it.
The melodies, and overall mix of the leads need alot more work. Currently all the leads are way too loud and all the notes don't "fit" together, breaking the great atmosphere of the backgrounds and drums.
It's still a :thumbneutral:
Wanna know why?
Because this sounds like you had tried to imitate Alexander Brandon and/or Michiel Van Den Bos, but can't just make to their skill level.
I know it's unfair to compare this song (or any other song whatsoever) to Alexander Brandon's Unreal stuff, but I can't help it. It's just way too similar.
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well.... if you'd want to do it better.... just do it :D
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Hm, I felt like optimizing the song is a good idea. so i did. be sure to listen to the new version with some new drums, better NNAs and so on. see link above.
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I for one am impressed with Unreal Scene. It's paced well and stays interesting without being intrusive, just like atmospheric music should.
:thumbup:
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Okay, thanks for the feedback ;)
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I'll just put it shortly: Most of the leads are mixed rather badly (too long NNA note-fades, or just silly sounding samples), and again, I'm waiting for more variation, especially to the drums/backgrounds.
This wasn't my cup of tea. Yet, the atmosphere was good, but 6 minutes is way too long. Simple soloing over the same backgrounds just cannot keep up the mood.
This song isn't Necros quality but it's light years ahead of the ones I've downloaded over the last 3 days and it's up there with your Elusive Dreams one; in comparison, though, it has a bit more exciting twists and turns.
Now I'm not a music pro but IMO the flutes in "Unreal scene" could stand to have better samples and be lowered in volume.
Other than that, this song is much like your Elusive Dreams - it doesn't sound like the usual suspect trax with the usual Nintendo-like samples, it sounds more like something a semi pro did on pro equipment.
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heya, thanks raveolution for the comment, it's nice that people still comment on it :) i apologize, the flute-like samples are midi instruments (from my synth, not from a crappy midi bank ^^), and well, for me, their level sounds ok, but that differs from man to man and from equipment to equipment :) nevertheless, thanks for the hint :)