Into Battle (All Hope is Lost) - Scifi Epic Hybrid

This piece is a scifi epic hybrid piece, combining electronic and orchestral sounds in order to paint a picture of humanity’s last stand, before oblivion.It’s in D minor @ 120BPM. The B flat major chord you hear is supposed to represent the hope, which is subsequently dashed by resolving back to D minor.
I used a host of libraries from 8Dio, NI, Ethera EVI, Performance Samples, Lokomotiv and Synthmaster, with an emphasis on horns, strings and Clara Sorace’s vocals. The format is fairly typical, with the main theme introduced, a more subdued but tense mid section, followed by the climactic finale.
There’s a ton of reverb on certain instruments (Valhalla), but I tried to keep the percussion and ostinato strings fairly dry, in order to maintain presence.
This piece was a headache for me to mix, balancing the bass, suppressing the mids and retaining the highs.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy Into Battle (All Hope is Lost)!
Regards, Adrian

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Really overwhelming, I like it very much, thanks for sharing it!

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What a absolutely fantastic work. :+1:
I want to learn how to compose tracks like that!

Best Regards,
Michael

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Thank you for having a listen. It was a fun track to make!
Regards,
Adrian

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Love the intro, very enigmatic and dreamy, those big Vangelis-like synths are amazing. And the violin that comes in at 30 seconds adds so much emotion! :slight_smile:

Great addition of that underscore type pulse and the arpeggio, while still keeping that big main theme on top. The minimal legato vocal lines fit perfectly.

Bravo, great job on this composition! :smiley:

PS. With your creative vision and description of the music and aim I would have perhaps extended the intro and make it a bit more “menacing” …as to contrast what humanity is standing against in this final battle you describe.

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Thanks, Mike!
Point taken about extending the intro. In the past, my compositions used to run for 5 or 6 minutes, and would either be so convoluted that they would be too overwhelming to manage from a track/mix/master point of view, or fizzle out and be abandoned because I got too overcome with the amount of technical work and creativity needed, as well as keeping the listener’s ear engaged. I made a conscious decision to shorten my pieces, to give them more focus and form, almost in the trailer type timeframe. It helped to concentrate my thinking in a better way. I do see what you mean about setting the scene by extending the intro though.
Thanks for your comments. Really appreciated. Have a great day!
Regards, Adrian.

I can see your point in terms of track management and arrangement. I just hope you don’t make your tracks shorter just to please the “get to the chorus in 10 seconds” impatient people of today haha.

Well it might be that I am so old school that I love intros way more than the “current state of the popular opinions”. As intros have been cut way down in the last 2 decades. I blame “the radio edit”, sigh. :stuck_out_tongue:

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As an analogy on this theme, I love that Peter Jackson threw out all convention about setting/intro for LOTR and made it 7-8 minutes I believe. Longest introduction in cinema history to my knowledge. But oh man was it worth it imho. Sometimes rushing things (I don’t say that you did btw) will diminish the final emotional impact.

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Making them shorter is an exercise for me. It’s a temporary approach. I’ll be getting back to more expansive tracks at some point, I’m sure. I also get tracks finished this way, rather than reviewing my list of unwieldy large pieces that have died a death!
Regards, Adrian

Nothing wrong with shorter tracks btw, I just added my “suggestion” on the intro based on what your creative purpose and aim was in your description. :slight_smile:

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Wow. If you would ask me, It’s perfect. It’s absolutely fabulous.
The amount of reverb I love it. I like when epic music contains really lot of reverb. I think it creates a feeling of eternity. I like Valhalla Shimmer myself.

Are you a professional working with this?

Thanks.

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Hi Fredrik. Thanks! No. I’m a hobbyist in my living room. I have Valhalla Room and Vintage. I think Shimmer will be next on my list…
Regards, Adrian

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Very good job. Hope I will be able to get as far as you in a couple of years.

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Thanks, Jimmy.
I learnt by listening to my favourite tracks and trying to emulate the style, even copy it, not for releasing it for others to hear, but so I could gain an understanding of the techniques and layering of instruments to get as close to their creativity and production as I could. Listening to the individual parts and copying them on my keyboard etc. I tried this recently with “Unbreakable” by Two Steps from Hell. Give it a go and see if it helps at all.
Regards, Adrian.

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To anyone that reads this, what Adrian just wrote above is imho one of the best ways of learning music. Not only composition, but instrumentation, arranging, sound design, production, any aspect really. Listen, analyse, then copy as best as you can! :slight_smile:

One of my habits is that whenever I watched a movie with a great soundtrack theme I loved, I go straight to my piano which is also in my living room, and try to “find that theme”. Pick it out note by note, chord by chord.

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Exactly what I do, but in fact, i can’t play piano. :slight_smile:
But fortunately there are lot of music sheets for almost everything and I’m going to import the midi files into my daw, study them, close my daw -> go crying after realizing, they are so genious :smiley:

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