Nostalgica(Nostalgic Music Contest)

Description: My favorites of Morricone is the more emotional ones. Like Gabriels oboe, Your love, Once upon a time in the west etc.
I´ve made a song with those as inspiration, using strings, choirs, horns, guitar among others. My vision was that floating, angellike feeling of Morricone.
Not satisfied with the sound this time. Didn´t get that typical Ennio feeling but this is what came out. All criticism welcome.
F major then over to G# major

Libraries:
Cinematic studio strings
Oceania choir
Dominus choir
Eastwest opera
Ilya Efimov guitar
Sampletekk white grand
Labs mandolin
Cinematic studio brass
Virharmonic emotive violin
Albion one

6 Likes

Fredrik - another beautiful track from you.

The good:

  • You paint a nice gentle soundscape with your instruments, mix and panning.
  • Love the horn(s) colour
  • Nice acoustic guitar sound and programming (for samples).
  • The composition is lovely. You achieved that flowing angelic emotion for sure!

Feedback:

  • Chorus on piano can sound a bit dated to me, but I think subtle enough here and works. Something to be aware of though. I’ve noticed it on a few tracks here and so I mention it.
  • The concept of the voices is just right. Unfortunately the patches are a little artificial, especially for the featured solo voice. With a real singer, this would be heavenly.
  • The mandolin sounds too dry. Some panning and verb I think would help it fit in the mix better and steer away from the solo voice.
  • The piano and build up to the break and final section around 3:38. I would have liked if you had gone bigger and more emotional to bring us to the final section. The descending short piano notes sound un-idiomatic - pedalling would seem more natural.

A great piece and I enjoyed listening.
Brandon

1 Like

Thank you. This kind of feedback is gold. I will listen to every word for future adventures.

1 Like

I really like your composition Fredrik, and although you say you’re not very satisfied with the “Ennio feeling”, I think that in various parts of the track you nailed the Morricone vibe very well, also avoiding the western stereotype - that of course represents only a small fraction of his huge repertoire.

Here some sparse considerations:

  • The first theme is actually not very Morriconian in the first beats, but anyway I like that F Bbdim7 passage (if I’m not mistaken), that reminds me some of the romantic John Williams themes (i.e. “Luke and Leia theme”). When the singer enters, especially from 1:09 to 1:26 with those tight-to-wide vocal intervals, that’s pure Ennio to me.

  • The second theme (1:27) to me is surely the closer to Ennio’s style, both for the harmonies and the orchestration (choir, sustained and powerful bass strings, horns counterpoint,…).

  • I like the false low-profile ending at 3.35, then the “surprise!” modulation a minor third above, leading to the finale. Here anyway I agree with Brandon: to me those short, descending piano notes make that passage too humble and I think it could be greatly improved at least using the sustain pedal.

  • The ending theme in G#… well that’s rather Once Upon a Time in the West :smiley:

In conclusion, a beautiful piece which I think is fitting well the most nostalgic side of Ennio Morricone, so it’s perfect for the contest.

1 Like

All I can say is this was superb. Great job.

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Hey Fredrik,

you did a perfect job on that. This piece has everything, from instrumentation, orchestration, mixing and melodic choices. I love the combination of the high winds/strings and piano/mandolin in the lower section, thats a beauty of contrast in the instruments (and sometimes hard to mix though). The use of the choir is brilliant. Also this is very emotional - you hit the point on that.
Very well done, I am really impressed,
Michael

1 Like

I looooooooooooooooooove it Fredrik. Apart from some little mixing issues mentioned above, the piece is amazing. Well worked. The voices are very moving, and everything is coherent and flows smoothly.
One of my top, for sure :clap: :clap: :clap:

1 Like

Warms my heart. No secret that mixing is something I must work on too. :blush:

Well, as you might expect, this piece is right up my alley, with beautiful piano work, lovely chord progressions, and excellent interaction between the solo instruments. As for the theme, the selection of instruments feels just right, and the “sound design” by layering solo instruments/vocals is one of the details that grabbed my attention in Morricone’s pieces.

It’s difficult to really find any issues with anything here, but if I were to nitpick on a mostly subjective level, the strings playing detaché, like around 2:20, can sound a bit “synthy” as you just hear perfectly clean notes with quick swells. Of course, sampled legato scripting can be difficult to tame, and you need the right mix of finger/slur/slide transitions for it to sound realistic, but one trick is to only use legato patches for the first chairs, just to break that “overly perfect” feel.

Anyway, all in all, another absolutely brilliant piece!

1 Like