Healing Sanctuary - Fantasy music by Vicente Sánchez

Contests for Composers Fantasy Music Contest
1

Track Description : Magic spiritual “religious” song.

My Creative Vision : I thought about a fantasy RPG, with an eye on the guidelines:

Soft & Dreamy, Smooth & Beautiful, Enchanting & Magical

Trying always to force my limits, how could I choose a magic inspiring scenario, apart from a pacefull elves village? A magical location where the hero recovers when the battle ends. My idea has been to make a music for a “Healing Sanctuary”. In particular, a Christian Sanctuary, an abbey, monastery, church, cathedral. A beautiful, mistical place, where misterious forces live, safe from war.
A good oportunity to use ancient instruments, choral voices and, why not? a huge tube organ.
I discovered the nyckelharpa and it was “a love at first sight”, I had to use it in both ways, long notes and rythmic passage.

Composition Overview : The song works like some kind of “canon” in the chords background.
Mainly: Em-G-C-Bm-C-Am-Bm-B, that repit all the time with very few variations.
So, the rest of it has many changes, not in tempo but in timbre, intensity and message. In that way, the changing main intrument and the slow pace make the canon not boring.
The instruments assembling is: … well, better, let them surprise.

Main Sounds :
I had in mind a sound similar to Loreena Mackennitt, so I included some synth sounds in the background chords and in echoed pianos.

Strings: Reason sounds and Stringwerk by e-instruments.
Pianos: Parsec (Propellerhead), LABS (spitfire) and Nada (Tarilonte-BS Engine)
Flutes: Tenor, Low flute, Chirimia and Bulgarian piccolo (Tarilonte-BS Engine)
Nyckelharpa: (Tarilonte-BS Engine)
Zithers: (Versilian) and (Tarilonte-BS Engine)
Organ: Town Hall Organ (Samplephonics)
Voices: Samples from, Symphony of Voices (Spectrasonics)

I hope you enjoy it.

The links are:

ONLY MUSIC:

VIDEO:

2 Likes
2

Vicente - this is beautiful music. I love the tone and theme of the organ, strings and voices. Your mix is sonically sounding good! (did you get those new speakers?)

Constructive feedback:
Normally I usually have the approach “go big or go home” for solo instruments, but for some reason, the male solo voice was a bit loud and startling for me, and I had to turn the volume down. Perhaps for the first entrance, you might make mysterious and lower?

The Celtic-like violin and flutes at first sounded out of place to me, sonically and genre wise, after the earlier sustained organ, strings/pads and chanting voices. But as the piece evolved, I liked them more and more. Perhaps placing them in the same sonic space would help to be more cohesive and fit better with earlier sounds.

Just a thought, listening to many of your pieces here over the last few months… I find that you create really amazing, beautiful sonic soundscapes and moods. The organ here, an earlier piece with the guitar playing, etc. With these beautiful zones that you create, I find that you develop the piece and add new rhythms and new instruments. These developments are good and make sense, but I find they take me out of the “zone” I loved so much that you start with. Perhaps this is more of a mix thing in the case for this piece. Wondering if you brought the voices, keyboard chimes, flutes and Celtic-instruments down lower and subtle, if this would keep with the amazing space you start with in the first minute. This lower-key sound would contrast nicely then with the grand organ and voices @ 2:51. Something to consider, at least. :slight_smile:

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I think Brandon Walker pretty much said it all. It is beautiful, extremely well done technically and to my ears a great mix and master. I think if you had time you could fix all the problems Brandon mentioned and have a very competitive entry. Personally I feel this shows a definite improvement over your previous entries and you should be very happy overall with your submission.

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4

Hey Brandon.
I thank your words, indeed. I see your point of view, and surely you are right. Perhaps, the focused instruments contrast heavily with the aery initial mood. :thinking:
Lights and shadows on my mix, I know :man_facepalming:, But I think I am getting better, and i reach more well equilibrated passages, in general.
Thanks again for your review. Factors to think about deeply. I should take profit of these well glued ambients, and not trying to add more elements just to experiment. :man_scientist:

The speakers will come later. Black friday brought me a treadmill. :running_man:

2 Likes
5

I thank you very much Gary. You are really kind. I also belive that, although I find many little problems to learn to solve, I feel a continuous progression in my creations, and I am sure that my journey goes forward to have a “worthy product” earn a living. Step by step.

6

Very atmospheric as always Vicente! A fantasy Joan of Arc regaining HP after a battle!

I agree with much of what Brandon said, I think the Celtic-sounding instruments had well written parts but felt a tad out of place, but not necessarily “wrong” maybe just use them more in the background? I really liked the choir voices; a tad loud but el placed and a perfect fit using the Latin “prayers” --I’ll need to check out that library to see what it all can do :smiley:

Good job again! Too bad I couldn’t finish my piece fo this one😢

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7

Thank you Matt. A pitty you’re not this month. See you next then.

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8

Definitely keep it up ! You write some really unique music.

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9

Vicente, somehow I missed your entry all the time until I saw it in the vote. :sweat_smile:

When I started I wanted to listen to your piece, I was waiting for the Enigma-drums kicking in. I love the dreamy Zither Part. :slight_smile:
You know I’m a big Nyckelharpa fan, so I really like that you incorporated it here, though it sounded more like a Hurdy Gurdy to me but as I’m a big Hurdy Gurdy fan, too, I’m totally fine with that! :smiley:

The only bit which sounded a bit odd to me were the chants at the 3:10 mark and especially at the 3:30 mark. They sounded a bit disharmonic to me and a bit like they were singing against each other. I wouldn’t expect that in a church. :smiley:

But anyway: It was a very relaxing nice and relaxing piece. Me gusta :smiley:

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10

Very kind Chris.
In my defense: my first time using a Nyckelharpa, few references :woozy_face: I reinforced the crunchy sounds and even the keys noises :stuck_out_tongue:
About the voices, I can say that it was a big battle editing preexisting audio clips in time and pitch, word by word. I keep on learning how to manage with this more efficiently. :+1: :+1:

Ich freu mich, dass es dir gefällt

2 Likes
11

Enjoy the treadmill! :grinning:

12

Wow, if that’s what you did with those vocals, that’s a great job. Other than the loudness I thought they sounded pretty natural. :+1:

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13

I hope to resolve my mix fakes in the future. My new jbl speakers are on route!!!:scream_cat:

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