I’m sorry i couldn’t finish, i’ll have to blame my new job, tired as hell these days. Also i managed to lose abaout half a minute of work yesterday, when i forgot to save. 
Nice track KURTZ, only i think the distortion was a bit of an overkill.
I think i’ll finish my track some day, i have some small parts that sounds quite good i think, though i wouldn’t stand a chance in the compo with what i have so far. 
Thanx kazakore 
A laptop will probably give you confuse feelings about harmonic choices and probably will f***k up the imperial destroyer listening experience with lots of rumbles. The LOW ORCH hit is a bit difficult to mix correctly with other samples from the pack. And it creates lots of low noises, hard to control and also unclear high noises. I recomment to listeners to play it on a HiFi system but without any EQing or any BASS BOOST thing otherwise the timps and hits will create a feeling of confusion.
EDIT : since the megaupload activities have been stopped by the FBI, you can grab the .xrns song here : [b]on my public dropbox[/b].
In my earlier ideas for this track, there were moments with pure dialogs and fx. I had a very precise idea of the initial scene that had to start with a short exchange between a fighter pilot (n°1), informing the fighter pilot (n°2) that an “imperial destroyer” is coming forth, and that every fighters located in the system must join the “alliance squadron” for the final battle. After that you could hear a pilot say “and we’re on the way”, followed by a kind of fighter reactor noise, very clear and high, what introduced the beginning of the main music theme. To produce this fake dialog with my own voice I should have used a typical EQing that you generally use when you want to fake old telephone lines. Faking to different cockpits isn’t that hard, you just have to create a background rumble with some random interface blips. The main “alliance” theme is then introduced in a progressive way, first with cosmic pads in the “first pass” and then in the " second pass " with full orchestration with lots of bright horns for example. And in this usage of horns, I would introduce the “alliance squadron” music line briefly, line that I would have then to “reveal” in the end of the track, with an arrangement based on cristal strings, with even more dramatic power.
Then the second part had to start again with other voices, the voices of "'bio robots “, with the general that globally says something like"the existence of human being has been declared illegal”, “we come from the zetha reticular system” and that “all your base are belong to us”… a strange voice, very harsh , saturated, that introduce the “imperial destroyer march”, willfully and directly lower, in terms of harmonic progression, and filled with lots of percussions and some figures that you often find in action / war movies. In this part I wanted to play with the sound of robots ionic reactor noises (that have a different signature). I’ve made lots of tests before, especially in the mixer, and the robotic voices were first based on the usage of delays with lots of feedbacks, then with a squarish lfo with a controlled ring modulation. I’ve also built drone noises, that were mixed with the general voices. But the problem is that with these dialogs with no music in the background, it produces a kind of “lack of tension” musically speaking, so in fact, music and dialogs have to evolve together. And that’s were my pain ion the ass really started. Because when you’re watching for example the BSG sci fi show, you can see than there is a kind of side chain compression on the voices, and the music volume is directly lowered when actors say what they say. So I said to myself, "let’s first compose the music, we’ll add the voices after, and then put a “side chain compression emulation”.
That’s what I did, I finished the music first. I composed the “core reactor attack” theme after the “'imperial destroyer march” and let’s say that I clearly started the work with the “space invader theme”. I’ve found it funny. BTW, you can hear at the end of the “core reactor attack” part, the “drones”, initially mixed with the voice of the “villain general”. These drones chase the alliance fighters in corridors. I had to make lots of tests with fighter reactor noises during this part, and you’re right I like to use the mixer for that. But when it’s time to record things I work directly with basic controllers.
And then I wanted to finish the track by a “victory” theme. Initially the tempo was the same as the first “alliance squadron” theme. But I wanted to use cristal strings and violins instead of horns, that was my first idea. The tempo has initially been lowered because I wanted to enter my notes with the MIDI keyboard for the backgroound line and wasn’t sure about what to do. That’s how I’ve discovered that the main alliance squadron theme was totally awesome when played slower, with a kind of majesty. It really gives a dramatic and nearly emotionnal touch that is often used in hollywood-like scores. It was clear that I had to finish the track with that tempo.
But finally, when I tried to add vocal dialogs on it, these dialogs lowered the dramatic tension, made the track longer, and quickly turned the mix into a true grotesque thing, and also because I simply ignore the way to mix orchestras… You can see I’ve put a kind of NYC compression system at the end of the racks but this is clearly a mistake, because nobody mixes a classical orchestra like that, in a professionnal studio. In the end, let’s say that my dialogs weren’t well written. I’ve spent 8 hours to make the score, and 4 hours to “try” to add fx and voices with no success, but had to forget it in the end because the track was 9:30 long and the deadline was approaching. I simply removed everything that didn’t worked and finally kept, the random blips generator, the alliance fighters reactor noises, the ionic motors, the funny drones noises.
Thanx for listening and see you on the other next thread for a totally and completely different crazy round…
‘_’ awesome