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~SW~ Astral Nation

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Author Comments

Okay, first of all... the full title of this is "Birth of an Astral Nation". It is a story told through music. I'll just name each section so you can know what they're called... the rest of the story I'll leave to your mind.

0:00 ==> Tribes Gather
0:40 ==> The Building Begins
1:40 ==> Kings and Queens
2:38 ==> Dawn of Technology
3:18 ==> Inventing New Realities
4:00 ==> Ages Past
4:34 ==> Preparing for Launch/LHC
4:52 ==> Into the Deep Void

If you don't feel like writing a technical review or want to get cookies, please please please write some kind of text story for the song! :D (also, you might want to be careful reading the reviews in case anyone DOES do that - don't ruin your own mental story :<)

Of course, if you want to leave a more technical review... I would absolutely adore that. I worked harder on mastering this time as well as having a more 'theatrical' feel (there might be mixing issues, but unless you have auto-EQing speakers, there should be absolutely no clipping whatsoever. I went into Audacity and edited every single bit of clipping out). There are plenty of weird and odd instruments, such as a tabla, tamboura, anvil, "clicky", tuvan throat singers, and bagpipes (thank you very much for the bagpipes, camoshark - he's awesome and you should listen to his stuff too). Also, thanks goes to Buoy for the awesome watery drumkit that starts to come in at about 3:14. I'm going to have so much fun with it in the future. If you don't know Buoy, DEFINITELY check him out.

As always, hope you enjoy!

Fun facts:
-This song has 38 different instruments (grouping percussion channels together).
-This song has 19 automations, most of which span the majority of the song.
-This song only has 2 audio clips for effects.
-This song uses 38 mixer channels (probably because that's how many instruments there are).
-Instrument VST used: Omnisphere, Edirol, Reason (yeah I know it's actually a DAW), PoiZone, Direct Wave, Midi Out, the default Fruity Sampler, Fruity Soundfont Player.
-Mixer VST used: Maximus, Fruity Parametric EQ2, Fruity Compressor, Fruity Fast LP, Fruity Delay 2, Fruity Filter, Fruity Reeverb 2, Fruity Reeverb, Guitar Rig 5.
-Both instances of Omnisphere use 8 different instruments.
-Time spent... 85 hours and 46 minutes... just in the program. More outside planning and showing it to people for feedback.

Thanks to the following for feedback: Chrausner, Buoy, camoshark, MaestroRage, Step, DivoFST, a mixing teacher from Boston, my piano teacher, and my jazz teacher! They've all been helpful in making this, particularly toward the end when I started looking at nitpicky stuff.

SUCCESS! This song achieved 2nd place in Bosa's Dreams of Splendor competition! Buoy won 1st place with his awesome 10-minute piece Salvation and you should totally go check it out too.

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damn i wish i had the motivation to spend 85 hours and 46 minutes on a track

SkyeWint responds:

I wish I still did too :(

Well, more like I wish I was still obsessed enough with music to hyperfixate on writing a single track for a full month. And had the time to do that.

This track has been one of my favorites for a long time; even now I find myself coming back and enjoying it quite a lot. It's an epic piece, the intro and the shift to the fifth section and its following sections being my favorite parts. I really enjoy the element of storytelling on show here (and in your work in general). Your, Waterflame's, and Johnfn's music were my "gateway drugs" to listening to ngadm way back in the day and led to my discovering so much other music in the years since. Thanks and hope you are doing well Skyewint!

SkyeWint responds:

Hey man,

Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate everything you've said here! I'm still actually fiddling with music, by the way. It's just taken a bit of a backburner lately with university. But I do hope to post new things soon!

johnfn and Waterflame are really awesome, honestly better musicians than I am. Haha! Glad that you've been discovering new music and enjoying.

Wow intense

Wow this one was pretty intense I really like the vibe and flavour that this one has it's pretty solid sounds and it has a unique style of sounds and instraments that come alive and make this the flavor it is so with that said nice work

~~THINGS TO IMPROVE ON~~
Would love to see some very intense build up towards end

~X~

Part One - The Tribes
Well holy fuck. The drums and the percussion really makes this song great. Those were the first instruments ever used, you did some great work here. The little "flute" also works too, the volume is at the "most right point" lol.

Part Two - Building Begins
More instruments coming. More than a part, I'd count this as a big buildup for the next part, the most awesome one, coming in at 1.30 circa and on

Part Three - Kings and Queens
Medieval feeling, this is the greatest part. After the guitar instrument (liute?), the choirs are very gorgeous. The "piano" also fits in this entire part at the end, and it adds that little touch that makes the song "sweet".

Part Four - Dawn of Technology
Can't really say anything here. Not my sounds.

Part Five - Inventing New Realities
Same as above.

Part Six - Ages Past
A return to the past, and very well done. I didn't read the first time, but I was excepting that the introduction drums were going to come up again. Felt very satisfied :=)

Part Seven - Preparing for LHC
Intense and build up! Very well done, too bad that ->

Part Eight - Into the Deep Void
The ending lasts too long, and it obscured the big badass buildup you made in the part before. Don't know if you get what i mean.

OVERALL
Great song, would pirate it lol
Like that it is more as an adventure rather than a song, gratz.

Man, the insight in how much work was involved in the making in this really raises the bar for how much feedback I should include in a review. My first impression, with regard only to the sound, is that's ambient and fresh. I like the first chunk of music best, even though it's simple. It feels that part conveys the astral voyage much more than the others, but it's an interesting mixture of different instruments and melodies all the way through. Something like this should get it's own animation. I'm all for imagining things myself, but it would be interesting to see this with a forced pictorial track synced to the music. Keep up the good work!

-cd-

SkyeWint responds:

Oh man, I'd LOVE to see an animation to this. I'd be curious about what people would think about it.

Glad you like the ambiance and freshness of the track, I was hoping to make something... different. All the different sections were originally intended to depict sections of the nation's development, the end is when they finally get to space.

Thanks a lot, I hope to put out a new piece in a few days which I've been working on for awhile!

Credits & Info

Artist

Listens
5,570
Faves:
31
Downloads
175
Votes
19
Score
4.61 / 5.00

Uploaded
Feb 1, 2013
6:53 PM EST
Genre
Cinematic
File Info
Song
13.4 MB
5 min 51 sec

Licensing Terms

Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.