Jordain Wallace - Composition Feedback March 2020

As you might know, I made it possible to join a tier on my Patreon where I give you a monthly feedback on a composition you send me.

Jordain Wallace is one of these patrons and has agreed to make the exchange I had with him this month available to my entire Patreon, so thank you very much Jordain!

You will find a MIDI file and two audio files attached at the bottom of this post.

The Midi File and Master V1 are what he originally sent. Master V2 is a version that incorporates the feedback.

Here's what Jordain wrote about his piece:

"The name of the cue is "I-280 Pursuit", after a highway in the San  Francisco Bay Area i'm near. It's a hybrid-orchestral cue  heavily inspired by the style of action cues Brian Tyler writes for  action movies (Fast and Furious in particular)."

And here's my response:

"I had a more thorough look at your piece. I cannot focus on all details but will try to give you feedback on the most important things. I will use the bar numbers from your midi where the start if the piece is bar 9.

Generally very nice piece, I think you've fulfilled the task of stylistically following Brain Tyler's path. I like the general cohesion in your choice of musical devices and harmonic language.

Composition:

I think for me personally the biggest issue is that it lacks true musical connection. It feels like it moves from idea to idea. There doesn't seem to be much of a connecting musical element that holds it all together other than the general musical language and "attitude". I guess you aimed for a piece that is supposed to portray a chase sequence which transitions between different stages of intensity and possibly scenery but I was really waiting for a "Ah, I've heard that before, he's kinda restating and developing an initial idea that gives some sense to that constant shifting". Maybe you even used recurring elements but even after listening 3 times to it I couldn't consciously notice anything that connected it for me.

A few specific things:

- bar 11/12: the disagreement between the synth and low strings on the notes creates quite a bit of mud there (particularly in 12). I would propose either following with the synth the pitches of the low strings, use a less tonal synth, move that string line into a higher register or low cut the low frequencys of the strings so they don't interfer with the synth. In this section I also think it would work better if you stayed in one rhythmic pulse in the higher strings rather than alternating between 16ths and 8ths

- bar 27: I think a key change would have been nice here to give it some more push

 The following parts all make sense on their own. I personally would have wished for a bit more harmonic and textural diversity in the orchestra but I know that the Brian Tyler Style is also pretty static on these things

- 67-72: I can't follow that part, the percussion feel like they are just somewhere in nowhere, I cannot sense any pulse in this section that makes any sense for me

- 72: feels like a drop in energy here and I'm not really a great fan of this harsh contrast

- 74: nice idea to stop the groove for a beat but the re-entrance is rhythmically too messy with everybody starting again and slightly different rhythmical times, I think the effect would be better if they all came back in again at the same moment. Currently it feels like a midi dropout.

Production:

I think this side still needs the most work. First: I LOVE that you kept a natural sense of dynamic in the orchestra in regards of phrasing and what would be physically possible by real players but contrary to most productions in that style that I hear I feel you went too conservative with it. I think that piece needs quite a bit more edge in the production. Your master is at least 6db softer than any production I know of in this style but also I think your samples are not really creating that "epic" sound that is needed for a piece like that. It sounds like a 50% energy version of what I'd normally expect from such a piece. All orchestral samples seem to be lacking the sizzling high end harmonics that would give it that epic push. Due to that the piece remains extremely transparent also at peak moments which in this case is actually not really desirable at all times with the limited amount of instrumental colours that you use. It would need a few peak moments where it really pushes to the limits in order to make this piece more exciting. I would need to have a look at your signal chain to get a sense about what is actually going on but looking at the midi it seems like you're pushing your samples already to the upper limit but they simply don't provide more "fortissimo". You could try emphasizing the higher frequencies (>6kHz) by pushing them with an EQ but this is probably not gonna help too much."

Jordain reworked some of the passages and replied:

"I tried to incorporate all of your composition feedback (save for the bar 27 key change). I also realized I must've excluded the chain for the mastering - should be closer to typical levels for these kinds of cues. 

[...]

I did want to get your advice on what I could do to enunciate my musical ideas. This piece really has one "motif" that is played by the french horn @ :13. Based on your feedback, I added the motif again @ :25 with the trump and trombone to add some repetition. The rest of the piece is the same but hopefully the spots where I tried to fit them into the sections will come across more clearly."

Thanks again Jordain for allowing to share this exchange! Looking forward to your composition for April!