Fan soundtrack for Dark Force Rising

Hi, everyone. Years ago, I shared my soundtrack for Heir to the Empire here and mentioned that I was working on music for the other two books in the Thrawn trilogy too. Well, after working on it on and off for a long, long time, I've finally finished my score for Dark Force Rising. If anyone's interested in checking it out, here's the YouTube playlist:



It's all done digitally of course, and can't compare to the sound of a real orchestra, but if I do say so myself, I'm fairly happy with some of the sounds I was able to get.

If anyone does give it a listen, I'd love to hear what you think!

 

Cool stuff. Reminds me of playing Dark Forces.

 

Glad you liked it!

 

Can't wait to listen to this.

 

I'd love to hear what you think, if you do listen!

 

Funny, I'm actually working on a soundtrack to Dark Forces II. When I saw the title I almost thought that someone had beat me to it.

What was your Midi library used? I actually think you could upgrade this a little if you download Sonatina, or use Bellatrix, Squidfont, or St. James--free midi libraries with some decent sounds unless you're going for that classic TIE FIGHTER/Dark Forces type sound.

Though I'm one to talk, I'm composing music in an FM Synthesizer. I figure get all the ideas out first and then later if I want to try to upscale it I can redistribute some better MIDI sounds on each track.

BTW, listening to your work and it is fantastic.

 

I use Reason 3.0 (which is pretty old at this point) and its built-in samplers - in fact, for stuff like this, I write the music directly in Reason's sequencer. I'd love to get more realistic sounds, but I'm a bit in over my head when it comes to how to use VST plug-ins like the ones you mentioned. Like, if I could get the raw samples from a VST, I could build a patch with them in Reason, but I'm not sure if Reason (especially an older version like the one I'm using) supports direct VST plug-ins in any way. (Of course, I could upgrade to a newer version of Reason - I've stuck with 3 for so long because after that they made some changes that make the interface really un-intuitive and not very user-friendly to the kind of writing I do, but perhaps I should get over myself). I've been wanting to upgrade to some better, modern DAW for a while, but I'm not sure what to get or how much money I can afford to spend on one.

Anyway, glad you like the music! I have an Heir to the Empire soundtrack on YouTube also, if you'd want to check that one out. And I'd love to hear your Dark Forces stuff some day!

Edit: By the way, if there are any tracks you particularly liked or didn't like, I'd love to hear about it. Always looking for constructive feedback.

 

Yeah, I actually went back and was listening to some of your Heir to the Empire stuff. I like that you're proud of your original themes enough to do a John Williams and display them as a concert track apart from their in-soundtrack use. Everything is sounding great.

Anyway, I'm not at all a professional musician--more of a hobbyist and not a very good one--but I have spent a teensy bit of cash to get myself a nice DAW to work with (Studio One Artist 4) and it's done wonders for me. I mainly compose chiptune music in Famitracker because I understand best how to manipulate that program to get sounds I want and then later I can take those ideas and melodies and transcribe them into something that sounds, well, better. Orchestration is a different and muddied beast altogether for me, though. I would recommend a DAW upgrade at least in your future. in the future. You've got an ear for composing great melodies.

 

Yeah, I do definitely want to upgrade my DAW at some point - just a matter of figuring out which one has the best sounds for the kinds of music I do, and which one will disrupt my workflow least when I switch to it. Maybe I'll go back and try to make improved-sounding versions of these soundtracks then. Got to write The Last Command first, though.

 

Great stuff, as others have said it reminds me of the soundtracks for the first two Dark Forces. Which is very much a compliment as I loved the music in those games. Looking forward to your The Last Command soundtrack.

 

Really glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for listening!

 

Question because I've been listening to this as I'm working--do you have any background in music composition? Schooling or the like? Your pieces have excellent instrument/part layering. I'm going through your Heir to the Empire soundtrack right now before I move onto the Dark Force Rising stuff. You've inspired me a great deal today with these. Now I just want to go home and work on my stuff in earnest to match the excellent work you've done here.

 

I haven't had any formal education in music composition per se - I did take two semesters of music theory, but most of my knowledge of composition comes from reading, listening to music and studying scores, and practice. I've found some books on orchestration really helpful (I like the ones by Cecil Forsyth and Walter Piston). And I find that listening to music while following along in the score is good for understanding how to get certain sounds.

I'm glad my music has inspired you to work on your own stuff!