This is another Moroccan-styled track for my obligatory school project. You can learn more about it in the Author's Comments of my other Moroccan track: http://goo.gl/1GJqm
This one's going to be used in our play in a moment where a spirit being called a Jinn will converse with travellers.
I tried to go for a mystical sound while still adding enough ethnic influences to give this a Moroccan feel to it. This uses a sitar and zourna from East/West Ra, a gong and Vietnamese shakers from East/West Stormdrum, a cello and choir from East/West Symphonic Orchestra and then the bongos and wind-chimes are from EZdrummer's Latin Percussion expansion.
As you can see by the instrumentation, this is a bit more simple than the other Moroccan tracks I made so far (Dance of the Jnun and Morocco). It's just a simple loop, and I think it'll be of great use for Flash animators, so I thought it'd be a good idea to post it here. Hope you enjoy!
EDIT: Removed the first wind chime, played around with some bongo hit velocities and added a very very subtle detail. Of course, cookie for anyone who heard the first version already to notice the new detail I added.
Thanks to SkyeWintrest, Buoy and Birdinator99 for suggesting it to me!
Also, forgot to mention that this loop is heavily inspired by this: http://goo.gl/YkBxK
This is ideal as a background track during a conversation; it's not too busy, but it's not boring and plain either. Swint and Buoy really hit the nail on the head when they mentioned the wind chimes, however. I might suggest removing one of them and lowering the volume of the other. It's the brightest and most noticeable sound in the mix, so toning it down to try and compensate would be the first thing I would attempt.
Love that choir :)
Nice stuff!
P.S. Bonus question: Kind of personal, but are you fluent in Maltese? I was just thinking, "Man, this guy knows perfect English", and sure enough, when I looked it up, English is an official language in Malta (sorry, I'm not very culturally aware). It would be neat if you knew both of the official languages of your country, as not many people here in Canada know English and French.
That's awesome. I haven't made a proper loop from scratch in ages, and I rarely do them (I'm more into making full songs).
"This is ideal as a background track during a conversation; it's not too busy, but it's not boring and plain either."
Good, good :3.
"Swint and Buoy really hit the nail on the head when they mentioned the wind chimes, however. I might suggest removing one of them and lowering the volume of the other. It's the brightest and most noticeable sound in the mix, so toning it down to try and compensate would be the first thing I would attempt."
Well I took away one of the wind chimes so it doesn't play as much in one play-through. Hopefully it's better now!
I also added a very subtle detail to the track. I wonder if you'll be able to notice it!
"Love that choir :)"
Yeah that choir was one of the first things I added to the song. East/West Symphonic Orchestra's choir really nails the mystical sound I was aiming for.
"Nice stuff!"
Thanks a lot, glad you liked it!
"P.S. Bonus question: Kind of personal, but are you fluent in Maltese? I was just thinking, "Man, this guy knows perfect English", and sure enough, when I looked it up, English is an official language in Malta (sorry, I'm not very culturally aware). It would be neat if you knew both of the official languages of your country, as not many people here in Canada know English and French."
Man, I know English, Maltese, French and Italian. Here they hammer languages into us like there's no tomorrow :P.
But I speak English most fluently (probably due to the fact that I was born in England and half my family is English). Maltese is naturally the national language and everyone around me speaks it though, so I can understand Maltese flawlessly, write it considerably well and can speak it fairly well. I hate Maltese though, haha.
As for French and Italian, I can't speak them that well, I can understand them fairly decently and I can write them with a few grammatical mistakes.
The length is excellent imo. Keep the file size down, flash animators are happy, etc. It'll probably use less space than a medium size bitmap image in a flash when it's compressed and that's good. But I agree that the windchimes are gonna get really tiring after a while, so I'd say kick one of them out and subdue the other one.
Oh and make a big ethnic epic out of it of course. ;)
Man, thanks a lot for reviewing! Always great getting feedback from you.
Removed the wind chimes now. I can't subdue the other one though since if I turn it down I'll be turning down all the bongos at the same time (EZdrummer has them all in one patch) and if I turn its velocity down it doesn't play the wind chime sound I want :(.
Oh well. Glad you think it's the right length. This is mainly just for a small conversation so I naturally didn't need it to be more than half a minute in length.
THE GOOD:
-*Insert usual compliments about diversity of sounds, good mixing, and cool tunes here*
-I love the ambient feel of this. It's really good. Maybe you should try doing stuff like this more.
THE BAD:
-Length. But hey, I'm assuming you spent like, a half-hour on this, tops. And it's a really good 20 seconds.
-...2 wind chimes in 20 seconds? Really? You know that just trading off a wind chime for your usual cymbal rolls won't make me not notice it... :P
Not too much I can critique in this, so only a short review.
"-*Insert usual compliments about diversity of sounds, good mixing, and cool tunes here*"
*insert multitude of thanks and showcasing of gratitude*
"-I love the ambient feel of this. It's really good. Maybe you should try doing stuff like this more."
You know I've always wanted to make a progressive ambient track. I've tried a tonne of genres already but if there's one I haven't tried yet, it's ambient. It's got an entirely different approach from a lot of other genres and it's probably quite hard to make too, but hopefully I'll be able to make a full-blown ambient track in the near future!
"-Length. But hey, I'm assuming you spent like, a half-hour on this, tops. And it's a really good 20 seconds."
Well I'd say about an hour or two was spent on it. I didn't want to make this longer since it'll only be playing for a few seconds while the spirit is saying something to travellers :P.
"-...2 wind chimes in 20 seconds? Really? You know that just trading off a wind chime for your usual cymbal rolls won't make me not notice it... :P"
My God, you read me like a book. D:
Although I admit I did want to make the wind chime sort of signify a rise in intensity; perhaps I should have just added it to the second half of the loop only instead of the first and second half.
"Not too much I can critique in this, so only a short review.
Good work!"