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Qiz

3 Audio Reviews

3 w/ Responses

Enjoyable polyphony in this piece, but I feel there is too much reverb. I especially like the last third.

Lovely work.

Auralisis responds:

Thanks Qiz! Which was the part you apprecieated more?

This main chord progression sounds incredibly familiar, all the way down to the inversions and chord voicings. Maybe something from Joe Hisaishi? No. I can't remember for the life of me.

Anyway, this is quite amazing. I love the gentle pizzicato strings and the beginning and the rhythmic string jabs that come later. Little elements like the timpani hits and rolls contribute a great deal to the color. I think that the piano could use a bit of pedal in some spots, but I also tend to drown everything in too much sustain.

What VSTs are you using? The solo violin in particular is spectacular.

I hear pieces like this and realize just how far I have to go in composing. xD What is your musical training?

Wonderful piece.

SoundChris responds:

Thanks a lot for your kind review. Glad you liked the piece! I always wanted to use some pedal, but unfortunately my keyboard has none :/ I have ordered a CME UF 80 now and hope it will be useful. For this i also wanna purchase some pedal extensions.

The vsts i have used here were:
* Piano: NI Alicias Keyes (Meanwhile i prefer the QL Pianos Platinum, but i have loaded Alicias here because i always was used to and noticed it to late)

* Solo Violin: 8Dio Studio Violin and QL Gypsy. To be honest: I wouldnt recommend the 8dio string. It sounds nice because that are all recordings. But its horrible to use them - sometimes ju just cant exactly compose what you originally wanted to ... i would prefer the vienna synphonic library´s Solo Strings. There are some very amazing videos on youtube (if you wanna check them out). Even they are quite expensive i think they are worth it.

So thanks for leaving your thoughts here. Glad that you as a pianist liked it.

All the best to you and merry christmas!

Beautiful piece. Like a previous reviewer, I immediately thought of Pachelbel's Cannon, but that isn't a bad thing. Countless people have used similar progressions, myself included. And you put some nice variations on it.

What I really like about this piece is the clear sense of direction. The piece begins with whole notes and gradually introduces harmonic and rhythmic layers. You have a catchy melody play shortly after a minute in. You create contrast around 1:50 by thinning out the texture, and that helps transition to the next section.

Speaking of which, my favorite aspect of this piece is the descending chromatic harmony starting around 2:03. Lots of nice borrowed chords there. I think a gentle cymbal roll would have helped the transition into 2:15. I didn't like the leading tone in the bass at 2:27 because it clashed with the underlying harmony. The ending felt abrupt. Did you consider holding out those last notes longer?

What I see is that you've got a great instinct and sense of musical flow. Sure, there are a few little things that could be tightened up, but you've done very well with a limited tool set. I would love to hear you make music with the something like the samples in Native Instruments Komplete 9.

Beautiful piece. I imagine that your wife is proud.

FateModified responds:

Thanks for your detailed review. My favorite part is also the descending chromatic harmony.

My wife got me a book on guitars five years ago for my birthday. It was a very tender moment for me because she had been fighting metastatic melanoma for several months at that time, and I was very grateful for the little moments we could share at that time when it could almost feel like she was not having to fight cancer, like brief moments where life seemed normal again. After nearly two years of fighting, she died. It's been four years. I opened that book the morning I made this song about a month ago or so. I found a chord progression in the book, and I put it in GarageBand. I didn't stop on the song until about 1:00 in the morning. I wanted to dedicate it to her memory, because it was her being in my life that led to me making this song. I don't pretend to believe she is able to see me or hear the song, but it feels good to know that I was finally able to make a song for her. She always wanted me to make her a song on my guitar, but I never was too good composing on the guitar. Now I'm finding that it is really easy for me to compose using a DAW, and I'm really enjoying the process.

Anyway, I'm sorry for going on about my personal life, but I do really appreciate your thorough review. It's good to know what other people hear in my songs. My music development (and game dev) is still in the very early stage and needs as much direction as it can get!

Oh, and I will look into more information on Native Instruments Komplete 9. Thanks for suggesting it. I hadn't heard of it yet.

I'm a traveler, sharing my stories in song.

Age 31, Male

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