The Secret Cave

[Francesco Pirrone]

Hello VSL Community,

I have been to a game jam last weekend and did the music for a short videogame, all the orchestral stuff is obviously VSL and although the game is very small, music plays a huge part in it as there's 5 carachters with different endings hence different themes.

You can play the game here if you wish or simply listen to the soundtrack here.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Regards

Francesco

[Jos Wylin]

Hi Francesco,

Quite an interesting project. Most of the game music I know (and that isn't much) have these boom-boom tunes. Your music has a lot of diversity. Glad to hear that the majority of the themes sounds pretty classic. The accountant and the beggar have some pleasant bass rifs (even contrasted with an orchestral part in between).

Well done!

Jos

[Francesco Pirrone]

Hello Jos,

thank you very much for your positive comment, I am glad you enjoyed it! 😃

Francesco

[crusoe]

Hi Franchesco,

Every tune is just a single idea, essentially, which you use to enhance the game's characters. That works sufficiently well, I think. I liked the non-orchestral pieces over the orchetral ones, probably because that bass in "Beggar" and "Accountant" is a recording, is it? If not, how did you implement it? I believe it's played live, and I noticed that because everything else is a bit too perfect. Please correct me if I'm wroing. 

And another question about the kick drum in "Beggar". Somehow it sounds strange to me, even though I can't pinpoint what it is. Maybe it's the multiband compressor. What effects did you use on it? If you don't mind me asking.

Cheers,

Crusoe.

[Francesco Pirrone]

Hello Crusoe,

thanks for your comment! I am glad to hear that the differnt themes work. 😊

I don't mind you asking at all, it's a pleasure, nevertheless I hope that you won't be disappointed about the answers:

- bass guitar, that's NI Scarbee Rickenbacker, highly playable VST instrument

- drums are definitely too perfect, I come from years and years of power-metal, hence drums are never "too timed" or "too tight" for me, 😎 they do sound weird, that's mainly because I don't have a dedicated VST-i for drums at the moment, they are mainly from NI Damage, which is a cinematic percussion VST-i with some studio drumkit samples included as well.......it doesn't feature any separate Room and Overhead channel and it hasn't got any built in mixers, I have to find ways around this issue but I like the samples. I only dislike its featured Ride Cymbal and Kick, therefore I get those from one of my Steinberg Acoustic Agent SE kits......maybe the strange Kick sound comes from that? 

- all I used for the Beggar and the Accountant is a mix bus compressor, there's no compression on the drum bus and little on individual drums, I have used two limiters in the mastering chain, each one doing a few dbs of gain reduction, but no multiband at all.....

Thanks again, regards

Francesco

[crusoe]

Thanks for the detailed reply! I have to check out that bass VST, it really is very convincing. The explanation of the drum sound is also completely clear, as I work with sampled drums myself. And... quite often being wrong is satisfying rather than disappointing. Which is the case here.

Thanks again,

Crusoe.

[Francesco Pirrone]

Thank you for checking that out! 😊 No worries at all. I hope you will enjoy that bass library, it is really cheap as well. I know it's not fair to talk other companies in here but Vienna doesn't do rock bass guitars at the moment then hopefully I can get away with it for once. 😆

All the best

Francesco