Paul that is a very imaginative symphonic poem and well done!   I agree the ambience should be bigger - partly because more reverb in general can be more creepy.  I felt the high violins should be darker - some of the shrill sampled violins was audible - though I am always harping on that.  Anyway it is an excellent piece and a huge  project to do - congratuations.

btw Grimm's fairy tales were not originally charming innocent children's stories - that is a conventional misconception based on sanitized versions of the stories published for commercial exploitation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  They were orginally collected by the Grimm brothers as pure folktales, which include many stories that children normally would not even be allowed to listen to and were shown out of the room, while the adults stayed to listen.  Including Fitcher's Bird with a sorceror chopping virgins to pieces in a large basin of blood and an ending - featured in several tales - of a murderous witch being rolled alive into a creek inside a barrel studded with nails. 

Sorry this is not exact: The common Idea of a fairy tale was definitlly not "a conventional misconception based on sanitized versions of the stories published for commercial exploitation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "

The Idea to collect them was an original romantic Idea of the Brothers Grimm, directly inspired aswell from Clemens Brentanos Collection "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" as by Herder's Theory of sentimental education by those deep rooted stories which hitherto survived for long time only in aural tradition not at least characterized by the stories the old womans (grand mother) of the traditional family told when they took care for the children while the Parent worked.

The Grimm Brothers expressivly intended this collection to be for Children and called them from the beginning "Kinder und Hausmärchen". Yes there are some passages of atrocity in some tales but the overall character is dominated even in those tales by the always very conciliatory end of each tale. It might even be that some tales have been mitigated by the Grimm Brothers. But of course not "in the late 19th and early 20th century". This is simply not true. It was Grimms Collection that shaped the common Idea of a fairy tale and it was from the beginning in Grimms very romantic understandng of the fairy tales inteded to do so exactly in the way it does.

Sorry for bothering you with german literary studies but since the Grimm- Brothers startet their work nearly 200 Years ago exactly in the town where I write in this moment this posting, this might clear some misconception about the Idea of the Fairy Tale and who have had which conception of it. So believe me it is no misconception to make a significant difference between atrocity stories and the fairy tales in Grimms Collection.

To get an impression of the musical understanding of "Märchen" in the early and middle 19th century just listen to Schumanns Märchenbilder, for Viola and Piano which is very warm music full of very romantic emotions. I do not think this might be in any way a "a conventional misconception based on sanitized versions of the stories published for commercial exploitation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "

@William said:

Paul that is a very imaginative symphonic poem and well done!   I agree the ambience should be bigger - partly because more reverb in general can be more creepy.  I felt the high violins should be darker - some of the shrill sampled violins was audible - though I am always harping on that.  Anyway it is an excellent piece and a huge  project to do - congratuations.

btw Grimm's fairy tales were not originally charming innocent children's stories - that is a conventional misconception based on sanitized versions of the stories published for commercial exploitation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  They were orginally collected by the Grimm brothers as pure folktales, which include many stories that children normally would not even be allowed to listen to and were shown out of the room, while the adults stayed to listen.  Including Fitcher's Bird with a sorceror chopping virgins to pieces in a large basin of blood and an ending - featured in several tales - of a murderous witch being rolled alive into a creek inside a barrel studded with nails. 

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Thanks for the positive comments William. I am still very much a novice concerning mixing and engineering. The problem I experience with ambience is that when I add more reverb, the mix becomes cloudy, the clarity is lost. Can you please give me any advice on how to achieve a bigger ambience without losing clarity? Your mixes always have a good sound. Your latest post "Tomorrow" being no exception. 

Regarding the violins, I agree. I did a cut of -3db at 2750hz. I tried additional cuts but ended up with a very dull sound, so not sure what to do. Do you have any advice on the strings?

Anyway, this thread should really be about Paul's fine work, not a history lesson on Grimm's fairy tales. 

You're absolutely right Guy.

However I do have to correct something stated falsely by fahl5 - the fact is the Grimms collected both children's and "household" tales, and those were NOT for children originally and were later sanitized in order to present them more widely.  But this had led to folktales in general being thought of as children's stories, which is totally false.  They were originally just stores of any kind including adult.  

The leading scholar Jack Zipes on the Grimms has just published the original edition of the tales.  He gave an interview about the changes made to the real stories:

Zipes describes the changes made as “immense”, with around 40 or 50 tales in the first edition deleted or drastically changed by the time the seventh edition was published. “The original edition was not published for children or general readers. Nor were these tales told primarily for children. It was only after the Grimms published two editions primarily for adults that they changed their attitude and decided to produce a shorter edition for middle-class families. This led to Wilhelm’s editing and censoring many of the tales,” he told the Guardian.

Sorry Paul!  I don't mean to hijack the thread.  I just had to respond to that.  

Paul, you've done a terrific job and I've enjoyed listening to you piece.  And thank you for including the score.  I will have a listen and study more in-depth.

As for the sematic arguments, I agree with Guy Bacos that the real focus should be on Paul's work and not semantic and historical detail relating to the title (as interesting as they may be).  It is enough for us today to try and simply enjoy a creation sucy as this and to help each other out with suggestions and ideas that might improve our craft.  Symphonic poems have also been done by many other composers such as Dvorak and impressionisitic as they are, they can also simply be enjoyed for the wonderful and creatively inspired music.  And this is how I look upon Paul's work.

Its quite a job to get beyond all of the technical details involved in composing and creating for samples in a hyper-critical world and for this I greatly applaude Paul's work, plus I whole-heartedly enjoyed it.  We need more of these types of creative compositional efforts as well as focus on constructive criticism and inspiring rather than creating critical divisions.

As for constructive suggestions, I've shared some mixing thoughts privately with Paul that are somewhat of a reflection on some of the comments in this thread so I won't repeat them and he has numerous ideas to try out.  However, despite the suggestions, I also really enjoyed it just the way it is.  Its not always necessary to achive technical mixing perfection for a musical piece to simply be fun and enjoyable.

Thanks for sharing Paul!

to return to the thread - concerning the mixing I simply felt it should be in a very reverberant space.  To stop muddiness often one would make lower instruments less wet.  Though that is a normal procedure for mixing.  

However on high violins I am doing more EQ partly based on going to a concert of a live orchestra while thinking about the problem of sampled violins sounding shrill and tinny.  I listened throughout the whole concert for this effect.  The real violins - in a good concert hall - sounded much darker in the high range than sampled.  I tried to reflect this with a large amount of high shelf EQ.  The music is not trying to reproduce every frequency the instruments create like a good recording engineer  but rather represent what one hears in a concert hall, which is very different.  It is something to think about and then listen to the effect.  

Ok I better edit this. I disagree but will not argue about it any more.  Sorry Paul - though these arguments do keep your music at the top!  👍

@synergy543 said:

Paul, you've done a terrific job and I've enjoyed listening to you piece.  And thank you for including the score.  I will have a listen and study more in-depth.

As for the sematic arguments, I agree with Guy Bacos that the real focus should be on Paul's work and not semantic and historical detail relating to the title (as interesting as they may be).  It is enough for us today to try and simply enjoy a creation sucy as this and to help each other out with suggestions and ideas that might improve our craft.  Symphonic poems have also been done by many other composers such as Dvorak and impressionisitic as they are, they can also simply be enjoyed for the wonderful and creatively inspired music.  And this is how I look upon Paul's work.

Its quite a job to get beyond all of the technical details involved in composing and creating for samples in a hyper-critical world and for this I greatly applaude Paul's work, plus I whole-heartedly enjoyed it.  We need more of these types of creative compositional efforts as well as focus on constructive criticism and inspiring rather than creating critical divisions.

As for constructive suggestions, I've shared some mixing thoughts privately with Paul that are somewhat of a reflection on some of the comments in this thread so I won't repeat them and he has numerous ideas to try out.  However, despite the suggestions, I also really enjoyed it just the way it is.  Its not always necessary to achive technical mixing perfection for a musical piece to simply be fun and enjoyable.

Thanks for sharing Paul!

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Thank you, I really appreciate all of the kind words. Yes, it is a lot of work to put together a piece of this complexity, but also deeply satisfying. And I welcome hearing what people dislike and what they like. Getting feedback will help me with the next composition!

Hi Paul:

That is the right spirit what makes this forum a great support for all working with the great possibilities of VSL-Sample-libraries: 👍

"And I welcome hearing what people dislike and what they like. Getting feedback will help me with the next composition!"

I hope you never have had any doubt that I had no intention to bother you or anyone, but just tried to honestly express what irritated me from my point of view, without reducing any musical work you spent in your render.

I still think that to refer music to literature is a mighty move for a cmposer which deserves to be thought about with care and good knowledge of what one refers to. The better it fits your intention the more the relation might unfold 'its porential aswell for the composer himself while composing aswell for the listener trying to connect to the thought on which the music is based on.

I want to thank all those who gave me suggestions for help with my mix, including William Kersten, Jay Bacal, synergy543 (Gregory) and Guy Bacos. I incorporated all of the advice on the mix. I am sure I still didn't do as well with the mix as others would have achieved, but I do think it is better. If it sounds awful it is my fault, not theirs.

Here is a link to the piece on Orfium.

Once Upon A Midnight Grimm

I also updated the Soundcloud file. Thanks, gentlemen. You are all fine examples of artist helping artist.

There were also some gentlemen on another forum who offered helpful advice including Doug Gibson, Matthias Callis and Michael Anstrom, and I thank them as well. Special thanks to Mike Verta for advice on several small things but mainly the structure. I don't think Mike visits this forum, but I thank him anyway. Now that I have finished the thank you thing, where is my grammy?

Hi Paul,

congratulations on a beautifully composed and rendered piece. The orchestration is so well done. I do like the newer version more. Thank you for sharing the full music and score.

Will you upload this in YT? please do. It should get you a lot of views from a more general audience particularly considering the timeliness of the piece for Halloween.

Its so much better to be commenting on your music rather the other thread which seems to have hijacked this forum!

Best

Anand

Hi Armand,

Thank you for the kind words. And yes, I agree with you, it is a good idea to put our music on YouTube. It seems to be the dominant place for music as well as videos these days. 

I also agree concerning the other thread. I wish I had not posted there as I get too passionate. It annoys everyone else and sends my blood pressure skyrocketing.

Cheers,

Paul