Hi,

i've been re-scoring (muting the original audio and composing music on top of that) game trailers for a few months now and I seem to like composing music for adventure games.

Here's my playlist (RiME, Adventure Works, Talewind etc.)

Thanks,

Lauri

Thank you! Any critics?

Nice stuff! Here's some of my thoughts about your work: 

- intro sequence - looks really cool and sounds great. I do wish your low end had more impact however. I think that would really raise the level of drama and add a bit more polish. 

Rime - the aggressive cello at the beginning feels very odd to me. This could be because I actually played all the way through Rime and own the OST. But even if I hadn't, visually there's not much going on and the piano that follows the cello is quite subdued. So why the aggressive start? 

- Be careful adding sound design to your music reels. For example at 23 seconds the main character splashes the water with his legs and it's a close up shot. But there's no sound. So my advice would be to either do all the sound design as well or leave it out completely. Otherwise it feels like unfinished work. As the trailer goes on, there's no sound design at all. This feels lopsided. 

- 40 seconds in - VERY nice moment! Really loved the build and the evolution here. 

- around 1:09 - bring out the bass clarinet more. That's a nice line and texture and it's under served in my opinion. But lovely writing! 

- Consider a cymbal scrape at 1:14. 

- The run up to 1:20 feels forced to me. I get what you're going for and wanting to convey but it doesn't feel prepared enough. Actually, it could be more than the final note that string layer/loop/etc just dies off after a big moment. And another string texture takes over. So it feels very isolated to my ears. An actual ensemble would have that build up and then kept those elements in playing long tones instead of taking them out. I hope that makes sense - probably butchered what I was trying to say. 

Overall, I'm noticing no percussion and I think that would really help improve the "performance" of this piece. Some cymbal swells in transitions, timpani hits, aux perc, etc. You have some excellent ideas but they don't feel as connected as they could. And without percussion the piece doesn't have as big of an impact (no pun intended) in key moments. Also in some places your string sections are just too loud. Part of what Rime work so well is the great dynamics used in the original OST. Experiment with letting your string sections have some really quiet, pianissimo sections! 

- the ending guitar string plucks feel odd. Instead I would just let the strings fade out. 

You have a lot of talent and are doing great work! Just need to push it a bit further for that next big milestone. I hope that helps. 

Thank you so much for a thoughtful feedback! It means a lot!

You're totally welcome! 

Amazing compositions! Really nice to listen to. Agree to most points said by nsmadsen about the percussion and cymbal swells with timpanies that would make even more effectful transitions. Really nice work you've done here!

much appreciated!

Thank you for your kind words!