"Dogfight!" Aerial Combat (Mix Update)

5-20-08 Mix Update: Level adjustment to lead guitar and bass
Hello all: I recently finished producing a fairly complicated song I call "Dogfight!". It's based on the HISTORY channel TV show of the same name.

This is a musical odyssey of sorts and places the listener in the cockpit of a jet fighter as it takes off into the great beyond.

There's a lot going on here so if you have any comments for improvement or just want to say you like it please let me know. Thank you!

"Dogfight!"
http://www.matthewjhoffman.com/music-22.html

Cheers, -Matthew

ORIGINAL: Roflcopter

It's very nice, and well made. The idea is great, get a bit of action in. Not sure the music is exactly right for the genre, though. I'm more accustomed to a more simple kind of (techno) drone, which works amazingly well during such games, for which I take it this is written? Or isn't the theme for in-game use?

Here's one of my old Dos favorites that sortof paved the way musically, close cousin of Descent:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GLyrXTL683g

ROFLCOPTER: I never did get a chance to play Terminal Velocity, but I like the music a lot.

This song was inspired by the "Dogfight!" TV show. I saw a WWII dog fight and a Vietnam era jet fight reenactment. It was so well done that it inspired this composition. This song is more of a "musical story/journey". No plans for in-game music, but that would be a great career switch!!! I'd certainly go for that.

I think there can be a mix of melodic and rhythmic, but for a game or to get the listener worked up, there's no denying the body's rhythms. Ballet music sure won't work, I mean.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=unF1QIdwdfs

For a dogfight thing, I'd splice all sorts of shots from those stuntflyers doing sudden rolls, and the music would do the exact same thing, in surround, and equally sudden.

Dogfights is one of my favorite shows. As Shad sai you are up against a stereotype that is hard to overcome. I like what you have, but most of the idiots in this world want what they are used to. Pity them.

Great work.

Ron

drums and bass work well together. thnik the lead guitar should come up a bit. nice idea well realised. i'm just damn frustrated i should be able to see a video whilst listening to this!

FOXWOLFEN: Thanks for the comment, and the Satriani reference. He's been a give influence in my musical career. I must be disconnected enough from dog fight music culture that I haven't been tainted yet .

ROFLCOPTER: I would absolutely love to director and correograph the visuals to this piece. When I write music like this, it is always accompanied by a visual impression (particulary this piece). I try to produce as much visual stimulation as possible with the panning, blending, and sound effects.

DARYL: Thanks for listening. I agree with you, I'll up the bass a bit. My track envelopes look like spaghetti in this project. I'll have to pull a few strands aside so I can find the bass!

RON: Thanks for the complement and encouragement. I must not have heard much dog fight music before. Do you have any examples of what NOT to do?

MAMABEAR: Thank you for listening and the comment!

MGH: Thanks for the comment. I'll work on massaging the lead parts a bit. Thanks for pointing that out. I so wish I could get those visuals for you. I'll give a short description of what I see at the beginning of this song in the next post.

ROCKIN: Thanks for the great feedback. The radio "voice acting" was done by me. I used a Cakewalk amp sim to get it distorted then used a Sonitus EQ set to "telephone" to make it sound mono and analog. I then did a little extra EQ tweaking then added a subtle reverb.

The other radio chatter with the scratches, blops, and pops was a stock sound effect I downloaded from the web. I have about 10 FX tracks with various sounds playing throughout the song. I wanted to add a theatrical story touch with an interweaving musical interpretation of the same events.

So would you like the vid to be made?

I have made a variety of flight related vids. It might be fun to put your music to some real action.

http://www.ascendant-online.net/v/Movies/Alpha-Apache-RC2.flv.html

This was a promo vid I made for Alphasim... I was not allowed to show combat due to the fact that the model was not armed and they did not want me to show anythign that was not part of the product. As the scenery was not theirs, I decided to add my own effects and suggest combat, with out actually showing it.

I am what is today called a Machinamest. I am, basically, making films using real time animation (in this case using Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004). I have not done any modeling in a couple of years, though Jonbouy is one of my friends from FFDS (FreeFlight Design Shop) who is currently actively building models. These days I mostly concentrate on effects and camera programming, and then editing and post production.

I actually started making music to support my film endevours. Everywhere I turned it was either illegal to use music, or it cost an arm and a leg to license. The cheapest I got (for rather mediocre music) was $25.00 a minute... uhh... no.. SO I decided to learn how to play keyboards and create my own music.

Most of the films I have are tests, used to learn how to get interesting shots and camera angles, or how to get more than one plane in the sim to fly together as the sim was not designed for formation and multi-use aircraft maneuvers such as what you saw in the vid (that vid was the first one ever made where there were 14 "live" (hand flown) models on screen at once... i had to build one hell of a monster computer to cope with it as its not easy getting that many aircraft and ground scenery to render realitime.

here is one I am working on still, it uses a lot more post processed effects. Its short, but took about a month a minute to make... Its still a bit rough, the next part will hopefully improve the effects a bit...

http://www.ascendant-online.net/v/Movies/CloseEncounter.flv.html

Anyway, if you have a story in mind, post it up and we can see what we can do with it.

Cheers
Shad

SHAD: That sounds like a fun creative endevour. I'll email you so we can discuss it more.

DUANE: Thanks for listening and the comment. I really like the resolution back to the ol' porch too!!

Matt,
That was a really cool ride. It was very well executed and mixed and had me riding along with the groove. Nice work!

CreatingNoise: Thanks for listening. My entire goal with this piece is to immerse the listener in the story and make the imagination take flight and leave the "real world" for a few minutes. I'm glad you went along for the ride!

Larry: Wow, now that sets a new bar for me. I'm glad you liked the ending. It's almost like a "flavor" thing for me when I create songs with multiple motifs. The song needed to end off with a "taste" of that layed back feeling of success and R&R. I'm glad you liked it. I LOVE the drums too. A friend of mine named Joshua Humlie performed the drum section with a 6 track recorder. His style added a lot to the end result. He knocks the socks off of drum loops. I'm hooked!

One can never have too much guitar 'eh?? It sounds like you boosted them a bit Matt which gives this song a bit more 'oommpphh'. How much more db did you boost them. i've found that in certain cases a .5db boost, as subtle as that might seem, can really make that instrument stand out. I'd say you nailed it here...