So, first of all - hello to all of the forum members! I've been skulking around here for some time and finally decided to make myself an account. As for my experience with music... Well, around 4 years ago I started playing around with a FL studio I bought on sale and until recently I never even considered composing as a potential career choice. I have never tried to sell my music, though some of my friends are telling me to give it a try.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback on the two tracks linked below. Should I even bother to try and sell my own pieces? Some of the works I saw here were really amazing; hence, my question.

Here are the links:

March of the Damned -

Thanks in advance for any comments! All critique is welcome

Hi there,

Listened to both tracks. They are good but could be made much better with simple edits.

The articulation in the violins in "Wherever the Path Leads" never really changes. The downbow spiccatio looses it's intensity if it is always there. Also if you want it to be a big powerful piece, there has to be some more development in both the material and the dynamics. It all sounds "flat" as in it doesn't move from it's intensity level. To make it more effective you want build and take away the intensity making for a much more interesting piece of music.

Those are some quick thoughts on the first piece but could be taken into consideration for the second. Hope that helps!

Actually, it does help a lot! I knew something was missing in both of the pieces. I'll make sure to take your advice on building intesity. Thanks for taking your time to listen and comment.

On top of what Eric already stated - March of the Damned feels a bit flat to me. I think there's too much reverb. You might be doing this to hide the quality of samples you have to work with (I've certainly been there before) but that much reverb begins to wash over everything and takes away impact. Also the last bit becomes repetitive so what I'd consider doing is stripping out certain parts the first few times that idea is stated and then bring them in. It could even be cool to have some key changes, grow the tempo and the dynamics to a truly epic ending.

You've got some great ideas! Just spend some time tweaking the details a bit more and I think you could raise the bar on this track.

Edit: Check out Time from Inception. This is a GREAT study in how to give the listener the same idea numerous times but by changing textures and instrumentation it stays with you rather than getting boring. Plus the tension build over a long period of time is masterful. It's got a big, epic sound without being washed out by too much reverb as well. The reason this track works is the balance between tension and release. Too often young(er) composers forget this and throw everything at the listener right away then wonder why there's no tension).

Thanks for sharing,

Nate

@nsmadsen - Actually, I tried to make the beginning of the "March of the Damned" sound "spacy", hence so much reverb. I tried to tune down the reverb after the beginning, but it just not sounded right. The difference was either unnoticeable (at least for my ears) or to big making it sound like there were two different fragments stitched together. Damn, I' dont know If I'm making any sense (it's been a while, since I've used english language in every-day life).

Having said that, however, I know what you have in mind. And you're right to some degree about me trying to hide the quality of my samples. Reverb makes for a great camouflage in that matter. I thinks it's too damn visible in my percussion, since I've got really crappy percussion samples and I tend to overdo with reverb on that field.

Repetitiveness... Well, there's a whole story there. You wouldn't believe how repetitive my pieces used to be. I'm still working on it, I guess :)

Anyway, thank you so much for your comments and advice!