[Soundtrack] Truth and Lies (.mp3) Made for a movie

[KrazyKatz]

I made these songs ages ago for a short movie "Truth & Lies" which never quite came into fruition. I finally mixed & mastered two of the pieces.

Apollo -
Scene introducing the theme for the veteran prophet

http://www.sonicbrilliance.com/music/Apollo.mp3

Home -
Scene in which the youngest prophetess enters a disconcerting place but with a feeling of youthful familiarity.

http://www.sonicbrilliance.com/music/Home.mp3

Short pieces for a short film. Maybe one day it will all come together.

As usual it's also available to stream on my site:

http://www.sonicbrilliance.com/

Enjoy.

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Good work as always, KrazyKatz.

Apollo
This one sticks in your mind. The way it stops and starts with different instrumentation each time is really effective and well-executed. It feels as though it's growing, but it doesn't grow as much as you expect - which I like. It messes with your expectations in a good way.


Home
Hmm, this one just doesn't seem as good as Apollo to me. It feels as though it isn't really long enough to accomplish all that you set out to achieve in it - it seems a tad "bitty". It's lacking the development of Apollo.


Good work overall.

[KrazyKatz]

I actually love "Home" .

One of the difficulties when composing for a short film is having a tiny amount of time to inject the emotion required. I believe Mark twain said, " Sorry that this letter is so long, but I didn't have the time to write a short one".

Strange not to see the Wizards 2 cents... That being Mr. Zen.

[Sam_Zen]

Well, apart from my choice just to keep my big mouth shut sometimes, I was quite handicapped for a week now.
My main system broke down.
I had to establish net-connection again with a simple W98 laptop with a low DL-speed, so I decided to pass things for the moment. Now it's a bit better, so I will pick up the flow again.

Apollo
It's indeed quite short. It has the potential of making a non-movie, longer version.
As BvO states, it suggests expectations, without coming with the result. A basic property of a prophecy I think.

Home
A short duration is not that much of a problem, but I agree that this is a bit more 'flat' than the 1st one.
It seems like the xylophone and the choir 'do their duty' and that's it.

[CrazyAznGamer]

Apollo: you seem to lead the listener to expect certain cadences that you don't give. has this really nice full sound to it... I like it.

Home: I dunno, I'm actually of the opinion that this would work better in context than Apollo. I mean, it is much shorter than Apollo, so there's a heckofalot more difficulty in developing it as much as Apollo... but for what it's worth, I think it works.

[mrvegas]

Very beautiful pieces.  It reminds me a little bit of Webern's music (except tonal) -- no repeated material, and short, but not incomplete.  I enjoyed them a lot.

Production value was good, too.  What did use for mastering?

[KrazyKatz]

@ Mr. Zen - Welcome back & thanks for the words.

@ CrzayAznGamer - Also Big thanks. I'm glad I've got someone to back me .

@ MrVegas - As always I value your say by virtue of your already proven expertise.
I composed & mixed the pieces in Modplug. For mastering I moved them over to Cubase. I've had so much happen between the time I did them till now that I've plain forgotten what I did. I'll look into the originals and give you a full explanation of the process once I'm up and operational again.

Sorry about late replies, I've also had massive P.C heart failure.

[KrazyKatz]

In answer to Mr. Vegas question on the mastering process:

Firstly, in the mixing process, I EQ'd out some troublesome spots and enhanced the bass on a few instruments. I also had 3 reverb groups, (subtle, med , plenty ) and assigned each instrument to where they suited best. Then I mixed each piece down to a single 24bit channel.

The mastering approach I took was a separate warm sounding EQ, on each song to further enhance and clean the pieces.

Then over all the songs I applied a reverb with a very strong character but mixed subtly, in order that they all sound related. Next step in the chain was final EQ with quite a big boost in Bass, very minor reduction in the muddy upper bass/lower mid region and overall slight boost in treble.

Then finally limiting, without any compression- just dithering to 16bit.

I usually reference a commercial C.D as a foundation for the sound I'm aiming for, and the one I used for these pieces was the 'Edward Scissorhands' soundtrack by Danny Elfman.

Thanks for your interest.