Classical MIDI Soundtrack (WiP)

[DoorKnobHandle]

After quite some time, I decided to go back to composing classical scores in MIDI format. I got the idea for the main theme of the following piece while doing tapping exercises on my electrical guitar somehow.

So, anyways, I am looking for critics on this work-in-progress classical soundtrack. It's really only a few ideas but I don't want to spent days and days on it and head into the wrong direction understandably. It's only 50 seconds long and thus a really, really small MIDI file to download.

Thanks for your time and don't forget to leave any kind of feedback here after listening.

[Peder 🚀]

I think it sounds nice the way it is..

[DoorKnobHandle]

Thanks!

I am still awaiting further (constructive) criticism, though. I know, Nikolas promised via PM to give his opinion.

I feared people would call me crazy because I named this "classical", when it really isn't, but compared to my other stuff, this is.

[Paper Carnival]

Very nice! There's not anything to critisise as far as the melody, I do have some mixing-wise critisism though.

The left and right stereo channels are unbalanced. There's more stuff going on in the left channel and less on the right. This is too noticable if you wear headphones, but luckily it's quite easy to fix.

There's a tons of things you can do, obviously you could add something on the right channel, but if you don't want to do that you might try fixing your percussion. It all sounds panned left, you could remove the left-panned cymbals and replace them with right-panned cymbals (or have both left and right). You might need to listen with headphones to help you fix it.

[DoorKnobHandle]

Thanks, Guybrush. I often have problems with mixing, because my speakers aren't really sensitive enough. I'll listen to the MIDI with headphones and correct the panning!

[Gregjazz]

It's coming along!

Read up some more on orchestral instrumentation and arranging, though. There is an excellent article written by Nikolas here: http://www.gregjazz.com/index.php?page=Articles

[DoorKnobHandle]

Thanks, that article by Nikolas is great! I didn't yet have the time to read it through all the way though.

[Stefan Z]

You've got talent!

* love the bridge with the triplets! very haunting. (Kind of reminded me of the musical intro from Legend of Zelda - starting off happy and easy and suddenly turning dark when night falls)
* brilliant wandering melodie by the piccolo on measure 4

I don't know what kind of mood you were going for, a picture of a small town instantly pops to my mind, but there's something wrong in town. There's something sad about the melody.

Although uninvited, I did a quick 'paintover'. I'm not claiming to be an expert on orchestral stuff, these are just suggestions which of course come totally from my own taste in music.

Changes in my paintover:
* connected the notes from the French horn in measure 1
* doubled the length of the last piccolo notes in measure 20
* while I was at it, I played around a bit with the panning. Put the string & drums in the middle and the woodwork and horns to the sides.

Well, those were my two cents.

There is an excellent article written by Nikolas here: http://www.gregjazz.com/index.php?page=Articles

Wow! That intro for A Tale of Two Kingdoms: I'm drooling on both sides of my mouth! (wrong threat maybe, but I had to say it)

Grtz, Stefan