A King's Lament (UPDATED!!! 9/26/05 FINAL)

Cobalt Katze · Uncertainty Gender: Joined: 05 Oct 2002

It's been a while! Havn't posted much new music lately, so here we go.

The best way to start is probably explaining how I came up with the piece in the first place. I'll go back as far as its more distant origins. As some of you may or may not know, I've been following a game in development called Vanguard - Saga of Heroes. It's still quite a ways off, but one thing that particularily caught my eye was the extensive series of Lore short stories. Each were written by members of the lore staff (or in some cases non-related developers showing off their literary flair) and emcompass a part of the world or particular element of the game that can be written about from an in-character standpoint. The characters are often very well developed and I was sucked in reading them, drawn to this new world of Telon.

One story in particular stood out to me called Willem's Stand. The first half of the story takes place solely in letters sent by two alternating people. One of them is Rastus Willem the newly appointed captain of the Red Blade, a highly-skilled group of soldiers under the crown of Targonor the capital of Thestra. The other is a soldier within the Red Blade, writing of his distaste for the new captain, noticing his crude ways and alchoholism. Starting in Part 15, the point of view switches to a local Scribe retelling the final stand of Captain Willem as the undead army razes Targonor while the prince leads the evacuated people to safety.

The part of the story that I connected best with however was the personal relationship between the Scribe and King Targonor himself. This was an honest king, open and imperfect. In private he disclosed his discomfort with calling for volunteers to fight to their death in order to hold off the undead army until the people could reach safety. Yet he emerges from his private chambers as a dignified king, a leader and warrior ready to give everything up for his people. He passes by the Scribe with a nod and emerges to a balcony and welcomed by fanfares and applaud from his people. He gives a speech, strong as ever, and declares his loyalty to an ensemble of stunned faces.

So I essentially framed this piece around the king. It begins, as the title says, with his lament. He starts in private, knowing what he has to do and stating it plainly for himself.. He emerges from his chamber, masked with the brilliance of his regalia but strong-minded as he repeats what he has to do, walking towards the curtain. After a brief peek at a sensetive nod, he emerges into the fanfare of his people. They grow ever enthusiastic and the king urges them to hear him out. The speech begins, grows, paints a somewhat dismal but determined outlook on what must be done and people look on knowingly.

[url=http://www.ravennaventures.com/cd/01-A%20King's%20Lament.mp3]A King's Lament
©2005 Leif Chappelle. All rights reserved.[/url]

Brief notes on what I need to improve on:

- Need to eventually record/master with better quality samples. The celesta is especially weak, barely heard. The french horn sounds exactly like a trumpet, and the trumpet is too quiet and sometimes a tad too grating. Overall the need to be somewhat sharper and cleaner with still retaining the same quantity of reverb. The timpani is also barely heard.

- More rolling cymbal type percussion needs to be added.

- The strings during the quieter transition when the woodwinds come in is actually supposed to be a solo violin. I might record a real violin for this part since I have access to a great player at school, could add immensely to the quality.

- About 3/4ths of the way through a choir comes in.. however due to the restrictions on Kontact Silver, I can only have 8 unique instruments playing at once... which means I had to record them as strings instead of voices. Not that the choir sounds for Kontact are particularily good anyways. It'll sound oodles better later~

As always, feedback however critical is totally appreciated. What doesn't kill me I can always learn from Cobbi

(Note for Lews, since I know you post there occasionally: Once I record this piece with better quality samples, I'll probably be posting it on the official Vanguard forums for critique and whatnot.)

Therin · Gloompf. Iggle! Gender: Joined: 24 Sep 2002

I like it. Good ambience.

What software do you use to make these, and how long does it usually take?

Cobalt Katze · Uncertainty Gender: Joined: 05 Oct 2002

This is just a direct export from Sibelius 2, notation program using the Kontakt Silver samples. I'm going to be recording a much better one soon(tm).

This piece took probably around 8-9 hours total of concentrated work.

Silver Adept · Otaku Lord Age: 42 Gender: Joined: 20 May 2003

I'll wait on the polished vesion before commenting too much, because I suspect anything I think is wrong with it now is probably more a matter of the sound samples than the composer's errors.

Cobalt Katze · Uncertainty Gender: Joined: 05 Oct 2002

And polished version is here! All sounds except choir created from the lovely Garritan Personal Orchestra sample library.

Let me know what you think Smile

Silver Adept · Otaku Lord Age: 42 Gender: Joined: 20 May 2003

Sounds very much like a regal march - seems to have the "Life at Court" sort of vibrance to it. Now that I hear it in samples, I almost want to hear it with live instruments.

If I had to place this sort of piece, I'd probably want to see something like flybys of castle as things go about their lives, finally alighting in the throne room as the emissary comes to inform the king of whatever news he has.

I like it, and now I wanna hear it with real instruments.