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The Death Knight Arrives [HOST SUBMISSION - Disregard Placement]'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Correlation to Theme | #1 | 4.563 | 4.563 |
| Listenability | #1 | 4.250 | 4.250 |
| Execution | #3 | 4.125 | 4.125 |
| Overall | #3 | 4.100 | 4.100 |
| Composing Quality | #6 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall Uniqeuness | #16 | 3.563 | 3.563 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Link to Streaming Service
https://soundcloud.com/alkan23/the-death-knight-final
Description
I did a lot of new things with this one.
OVERVIEW
I used Valhalla Supermassive in a project for the first time, even though I've had it forever. This was what was used at the beginning. The only sounds in the beginning were my voice and talharpa, put through Valhalla supermassive.
I also decided to really lean into actually using Spitfire's BBC Symphony Orchestra this time. While I usually do live recorded instruments, I figured I could make a convincing sound using what I've learned from that live recording and
In this track, I use my voice, my Talharpa, and cello. Earlier on it's just the voice, later on at 2:07 is where I first introduce the Spitfire VST instruments. The melody is played by me on my actual cello.
I want to take some time to go back over the end, but to be honest, there's a lot of other ways I'm planning to explore this theme idea as it relates to other projects I have.
PART ONE - The Haunted Lands (0:00)
This is a sort of ambience/setting the stage/creating the atmosphere track.
PART TWO - The Transformation (1:33)
I was strongly inspired by this theme by Ravel for this section:
https://youtu.be/dVURtE9kmbA?si=eANQwAxXc_yTBvVG&t=36
To me, it has this dark, transformative effect, and I likewise loosely adapted it for this middle section.
I imagine here that the Death Knight is being risen in some foul way.
PART THREE - The Battle (3:00)
For this part third part (3:00) I used some music I've had sitting around for a while and wanted to develop. I think this was actually a mistake for this project, because I thought "oh, I can take the time to finally develop this idea." No - developing it in the timeframe here was kind of beyond me because it's pretty squarely in a classical/baroque style initially, and I think just in general, composing in that style is very difficult and takes a lot of skills that I have yet to develop more thoroughly. That is, I could have not tried to develop that theme and stuck to a more basic orchestral cinematic style, and it wouldn't have taken up so much of my time reworking it.
This is also loosely inspired by this part of Zelenka's Miserere:
https://youtu.be/bQfxdNVMHNE?si=WDnsRLlgQVXqrWko&t=35
Though, my adaptation and departure from it is the buildup and drop from E to C sharp at 3:15. When I originally composed this, I had Paradise Lost in mind.
Thank you for listening!
Screenshot of DAW
https://i.imgur.com/r1jeTgs.png
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Comments
This sounds super chill, definitely could be paired with more of a theme song or something to flesh it out more!
this is awesome i loved how the three parts have each a vibe that complements with each other. the first part sounds super cinematographic and has and excellent sound design, the second part also sounds perfect for a suspense or dark fantasy film, great cello interpretation by the way!! I feel like the cello could have been a little more "in your face" in the mix to apreciate more of its texture maybe, just a maybe haha. The third part sound absolutely epic and brilliantly composed, I love the voice movements, I feel that this parte could be bigger, maybe some epic percussions could bring more of a big orchestral sound that would seem to fit great to enhance the composition. Great job!!
This was great, a really well rounded listening experience with some really atmospheric and haunting melodies (but beautiful also!) it’s nice having the background of your approach and the inspirations as well. Very cool that distinguishing the live instruments from VSTs isn’t an easy thing to do in this track 👍🏽👍🏽
Really liked the dark intro my goal is figure out what did you use that is not organic and what is since you mostly use real stuff all the time XD. At 2:14 I like the violins build up especially at the minor 2nd but I would've kept the minor 2nd longer and add different instruments going from mid to low frequency because I think the patern you did was too predictable I already knew what was coming up next. 3:00 part - I like the bassoon run, I think adding a cello and double bass together doing the ostinato would have been nice, you kinda did but very much later on and not enough presence imo but the chord progression feeling like the requiem or what you told me it was that I don't remember the name. Overall its really nice, if you could put some of the intro vibe in the end mix with what you actually did think could enhance so much more, anyway well done :)
Yes, I did figure out the cello on top of the double bass at the end when it was too late to go add that to what I already had! Heh. I'm actually not super experienced with orchestral scoring. I wouldn't call it my first attempt, but after doing all this writing with real instruments, it definitely is something that I think I can return to now with a lot more confidence.
At 214 the violin VST I used I just used a slow attack time. What I did was play my live cello with it for the melody and pitched it down and octave to put it in the double bass register. I actually used the cello VST and the double bass VST after 3:00.
The live instruments make it so, so much easier to include some orchestral dynamics, because if you swell with one instrument, it kind of sounds like all of them are swelling.
The middle section is something I would flesh out more if I had more time.
At the end, most of it is orchestral VST stuff, but the lower vocals are me. I get really irritated when instruments sound like MIDI, it's something I'm super sensitive to, so I think perhaps that's why it's naturally harder to tell the difference between VST and real with my stuff.
I'm excited to apply what I learned here in the next jams, of which I'm going to try to get three released. You heard it here first, now that I said it, I have the pressure to do the writeups for all three, one each month to the next official OST in January.
The Transformation felt like it could have been a unused track from Howard Shore's Lord of the rings score, chromatic mediant stuff seems to always give me LOTR feels 😀.
For The Battle i think the more classical/baroque style you used fits the theme a lot better than a generic modern cinematic style. This could fit nicely in a souls style game with it's aesthetic.
I like the last part of the composition most of all. Thank you for sharing!