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EDIT: Changed some stuff. I added two more instruments - a kalimba from Ra and a Chinese noisemaker from Stormdrum 2. I also fixed lots of things that the reviewers pointed out, such as the unrealistic strings at around 1:20, the lack of humanisation in one of the pan flute runs, the lack of new stuff in the second climax and the lack of extra percussion around 1:20 - 1:22. In addition to that you'll be hearing a lot more subtle details, including nature FX if you listen to it as hard as you can without hurting yourself. Thanks to everyone who posted criticism on this, it really helped! Oh and clear your cache if you've heard the older version of this so that you'll be able to hear the new one. These additions have increased the total time spent to 35 hours 35 minutes, and the total patterns to 372!

Phew. This is another really big piece of work! Made for a school project that required me to make a piece of music. Since it's not a personal project I worked very very hard on it to make sure it's the best quality I can possibly make it to be. Let me point out before I get to the details that this is not the final version! I'm stressing the importance of peer review in this project and therefore I'll take any criticism and improve the song based on suggestions.

So, basically with this track I wanted to reflect an ecosystem. The key feature of an ecosystem is harmony; a functioning habitat where different organisms and objects compliment each other and allow for progression and survival. That's pretty much what I tried to showcase. Everything is very harmonious and I tried to make all the instruments compliment each other. Furthermore, you'll hear lots of little melodic motifs integrated with each other and combined together, to really highlight the unity of an ecosystem. However, an ecosystem is also diverse, so you're going to hear plenty of different musical styles playing here.

I tried to go for an organic sound with probably the most woodwind usage you'll ever hear in any of my songs. It's very percussion-oriented with congas and bongos and all sorts of tribal percussion. I even added some mallets, but there's a heavy orchestral influence too, because orchestral is pretty much the only thing I'm good at haha.

Here's a list of all the VSTs I used and which instruments I used them for:

East/West Symphonic Orchestra Silver:
Violins/violas (legato, staccato and pizzicato), cellos (legato and staccato), double bass, trumpets, French horns (legato and clusters), trombones, flute (legato and staccato), oboe, clarinet (legato and staccato), bassoon, xylophone, glockenspiel, harp, men's choir, triangle, snare, timpani and orchestral cymbals.

East/West Ra:
Ney flute, pan flute, didgeridoo, guitar.

East/West Stormdrum 2:
Shaker, congas, djembe, earthquake ensemble, Godzilla hits, cymbal roll and gong.

Then I used random free drum samples for the wind chimes.

I used FL Studio 10 to make this. It took 318 patterns, 51 automation clips and a whopping 32 hours and 45 minutes to make. The only track of mine that took longer than that (roughly 36 hours) is Trinity and that's over twice as long as this track. So yeah you can imagine how much work I put into this.

I'd like to thank a few people for giving me tonnes of feedback. SkyeWintrest, camoshark, Buoy, Back-From-Purgatory, Blackhole12 and Echo all deserve my thanks for giving me so much valuable feedback. Zero-Flare, Darrenkerwin and snuitergup also deserve mentions for giving me feedback despite not being musicians themselves. Without their feedback, I can guarantee this track wouldn't be what it is today.

That's all I've got to say! Thanks a lot for listening, and like I said, reviews are very much appreciated!