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[lamontx]

I decided to give this one a go, despite having very little experience in composing and mixing. Was fun nonetheless, here is my entry: http://soundcloud.com/alcyoneus/wasteland-wanderer-1

Very nice. It feels like you're exploring what's left of a Scandinavian ish (Sweden maybe?) metropolis. For someone who makes four bars of music, this is very good. I actually won't be surprised if this one wins. Keep going and you'll get much better!

[Eigen]

Very nice pieces so far, especially yours, MoritzPGKatz, I'm really loving it!

Here is mine humble entry. It's about travelling this deserted civilization forsaken wasteland. It's just the wind and some occasional signals of life. Halfway you start to hear this broken instrument playing in the distance. It could be sort of like half of a harmonica that has survived the disastrous event and now somebody is playing it, helping hold on to the percipient mind for just a little longer ... but it is so frail ...

http://soundcloud.com/eigen/midst-anywhere

[MoritzPGKatz]

Thanks, Eigen!

The sound design in your track is pretty cool! The synth-ish sound at ~1.06 reminded me of Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack.

What sound sources did you use for the different instruments in there?

Cheers,
Moritz

[Calum Bowen]

I haven't been able to participate for a long time but I just had a chance to do something a little different in the vein of bands like Sigur Ros and... uh, sigur ros. This is kinda different from my usual stuff. In all honesty, I didn't begin with this challenge in mind but it certainly became a very apt piece and so it developed into this lonely wasteland track. I hope you enjoy it!

If you can't guess from the title, the vague story which I will make up now is... a drifting astronought, lost in space. Upon returning to his ship after gathering space dust he finds it has floated away. He's stranded in the stars but he isn't panicking for his lack of oxygen is causing his perception of time to bend and slow down to nothing, then he dies or... something.

http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen/lost-in-the-stars-tigsource

here it is ^^

[MoritzPGKatz]

Stellar (ouch) track, Calum!

Kinda like the star map theme in the Mass Effect series - particularly the melody setting in at 1.26!

Same question to you, what synths or other sound sources did you use? If you don't mind me asking... just curious.

Cheers,
Moritz

[Calum Bowen]

these were all line-in electric guitar sounds heavily drenched in different kinds of very extreme reverbs and delays. I would go into detail if I could remember much of it! It was a very short session so i think I tweaked a few presets from logic's space designer. And there were actually a few pretty lovely sounding presets in logic's "warped" electric guitar settings. Sorry it's not a particularly helpful response :  )

One thing I found very nice was this sort of watery effect (heard especially at the end) when you strum the muted strings of the guitar with some quite heavy delay on it. Sort of like herman li's stupid "pac man sound" on that youtube video!

[MoritzPGKatz]

Awesome, thanks for the info.

I find that sometimes it's indeed much easier and faster to plug in an actual instrument and make those effect sounds with a hands-on recording than to twiddle with endless synth parameters... also, the effects shipped with Logic are underestimated - Space Designer is a great reverberation tool that can sound pretty crazy with a few tweaks.

And yea, Dragonforce - haha. I ought to watch those videos again. Funny stuff.

Cheers,
Moritz

[dlt.fm]

Nice entries everyone!

Here's my humble entry into the challenge:
http://soundcloud.com/davidlopeztichy/david-lopez-tichy-wasteland

Tear it to pieces!   

[Eigen]

The sound design in your track is pretty cool! The synth-ish sound at ~1.06 reminded me of Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack.

What sound sources did you use for the different instruments in there?

Thanks! Basically I used whatever I could find in Fruity Loops, the creepier the better. There's just one instrument really, the 'broken accordian', the others are FXs. Then I exported the wave and played around with that - slowed it down, varied the pitch here and there and added a bunch of reverb.

Calum, that's awesome! Once the guitar comes in it's like a post-rock track, which is my favourite genre, so I'm hooked.

[lamontx]

Hmm, I don't have much to say for the entries after Halcyon's song. I wouldn't say Lost in the Stars was Stellar, but it was a neat collection of abstract sounds in my opinion. So  or  for you John Wlliams 

[EveEllis]

Hello friends!

Man, did my entry come out far better than I expected.

So, I committed to the following rules:
- Limited Layers, each instrument discernible
- Of a short length
- NO PERCUSSION (need more cowbell)

http://soundcloud.com/eveellis/just-to-find-you

This began with the bass groove (thank Thumbjam for it's rather impressive bass-samples), and initially was intended to be much darker, not exactly creepy.. But, dark in texture. The Piano was originally intended to play shocking, dissonant, out-of-tune chords (if you could call em' chords), and was to be placed in the background with a heap of distortion and of a lo-fidelity. 

However, the song took a dramatic turn when, I decided, not only did I want to challenge myself a little more.. But, also, implant a narrative to it (which is why it's of a short length)

Yes, I could have just looped the same few bars over and over (which is as I would expect during a state of exploration-limbo), however.. I decided, as if skipping through the exploration, to focus on the climax.

The plot? It's very simple; After days of wandering the (insert biome here), our character finally reaches his destination.. I need not elaborate just what it is he finds, what matters is that he finds it. Whether it's someone he feels fondly for, someone he's been searching for, something he had lost long ago, et-cetera.

The music peaks in accordance with his sighting, but quickly dismisses it in amnesia, the music builds again, as his acceptance builds. And reaches it's climax as he identifies what it is he had found.

I'm sure you can imagine the first few bars looping over-and-over, right? Maybe my entry is not valid as it's not exactly a loop.  I sure had fun making it and am extremely satisfied with it's outcome!

I'm very new, not to composing, but to software, aswell as publicly showing my tracks, taking part. So for that reason I wanted to challenge myself by placing a narrative to my entry, rather than creating a loop of something dark and textural (not really that difficult, for me at least).

I hope you enjoy!

[EveEllis]

By the way, I have never played Fallout, which seems to be having an influence on these entries (according from what I've read).

Phew!

[EveEllis]

Here: http://soundcloud.com/lamontx/snow-wasteland


Brief explanation? Okay: Imagine you're playing an RPG and you got stranded in an anarctic-ish island somehow, without any party members, and literally no signs of life around you. You can barely see in front of you due to the heavy snow, and sometimes you notice an undead soldier and/or sorcerer roaming around then attacking you. Doesn't shift to battle music, it's more of a real time thing such as Final Fantasy XII or Allods Online. 

Really grim and powerful! Very melancholic. Listening to these sounds are having me recalling so many moments of playing.. *reflective sigh* If I had no party members, I would be pretty tense.

[lamontx]

@Eve: It sounds like a very cool idea, but it would suit a more oriental place better for some reason. Still though, nice try  keep composing and keep getting better!

P.S I found your 3/4 piano pretty interesting. Sounds like an evil waltz or something 

[EveEllis]

@Eve: It sounds like a very cool idea, but it would suit a more oriental place better for some reason. Still though, nice try   keep composing and keep getting better!

P.S I found your 3/4 piano pretty interesting. Sounds like an evil waltz or something  

Well I didn't want to apply a location to it because, I think it could be applied to different locations anyway, and I'd rather see how people were to perceive it, rather than implying the location myself. I don't think I would've made this piece any "Better" cus' as I said I wanted to keep it very simple considering I personally would expect to hear something not so discreet for such a theme, I mean, unless I was playing a horror game, or something   I just decided to keep adding layers until it felt complete, with my own rules in mind - so, the final thing I added was the lead-synth. I think it fits the theme well, as it repeats it's rhythm, but as I said, it's melody builds (not too dramatically) toward the end, but still repeats that same rhythm. The rhythm also also adds a lot of pace to the track. Had I made the track longer (with the same few bars repeating), the piano probably wouldn't arrive till' the climax, and the lead-synth would possibly be an octave lower or the melody lowered. (EDIT: Forgot to mention, initially the only added melody was the piano. And as you may have noticed it ended in a solo-type melody, which I do like, but I think the lead-synth, whilst accentuating it a little, also re-instated that tempo)

Well I guess also I'd like to say I can make complex melodies and such, but just decided not for this theme But, always improving, the more I compose for things.

Aha, 3/4 pretty much always has that affect. I didn't even reliase I was writing in 3/4 until I had finished it   When you say "Evil waltz's", I think of Super Mario Bros. - Underground , with a lowered tempo and played on a piano aha. Cus' that's in 3/4 and all.

[MoritzPGKatz]

@Eve: It sounds like a very cool idea, but it would suit a more oriental place better for some reason. Still though, nice try  keep composing and keep getting better!

P.S I found your 3/4 piano pretty interesting. Sounds like an evil waltz or something 

See lamontx, that's what I mean. You tell people "nice try" and "keep getting better" but can't tell a 3/4 from a simple 4/4 like the one in EveEllis's track.
Maybe it's just me - and I'm sure you don't mean to sound condescending, you're probably just very keen and motivated. But please give your posts some more reflection.

Sorry again for the off-topic, that just bothered me.

[Calum Bowen]

^^^ agreed. Edit: i think lamontx was talking about some track on EveEllis' soundcloud called 3 / 4 piano or something. Not meaning to undermine but to prevent a flamey response. I agree that the throw away negative comments without any particular reasoning comes off as just bashing people's music.

@EveEllis your piece was short and sweet. There were some nice chip-sounding speedy arps and twists and turns in the main synth which i enjoyed!

And whatever you do, keep showing people your tracks - too many good composers sit in the dark and don't get heard or improve.

[EveEllis]

@EveEllis your piece was short and sweet. There were some nice chip-sounding speedy arps and twists and turns in the main synth which i enjoyed!

And whatever you do, keep showing people your tracks - too many good composers sit in the dark and don't get heard or improve.

Thank-you very much! Even though I've only been at composing for things, in a certain direction, for just a few days, it's improved my music very much. May even have a composition-role set up with a game called "Inside Busters", well, if the developer likes my offerings, aha.

[lamontx]

Calum's edit said all I needed to say.

@Eve: You seem very motivated and eager to learn your stuff though! It'd help if you kept notes in a diary as you compose since you're just starting out, it's what I did and what I still do so keep going friend! 

[EveEllis]

Calum's edit said all I needed to say.

@Eve: You seem very motivated and eager to learn your stuff though! It'd help if you kept notes in a diary as you compose since you're just starting out, it's what I did and what I still do so keep going friend!  

Aha, this is why my iPod Touch improved me as a musician x5.
Not only do I use many of it's apps (not just for recording sketches), but, I also use it to store ideas for melodies - Simply by using the bog-standard "Voice-Memos" app, even just whistling into it.. Does the trick. Had hundreds of em' stored in there for a while. ThumbJam also acts as a much more musical alternative to that, one of my favourite pieces of software in general, not just my favourite App. For percussion I've been using Rhythm Studio a hell of a lot recently. It has a few on board synths but, the highlight for me is the included 909.. And it's on-board Bitcrushing effects. Though for melody it does contain what is essentially a sample-type thing, which provides quite a few cute/cheesy sounds that I can't help but fall in love with.

P.S, I'm not new to composing, just new to composing for other forms of media