My first instrumental trial using Sonar X1 and EWQLSO. (And my first post here). I challenged myself to write a song where the theme was primarily horn driven. Criticism welcome.

http://soundcloud.com/rob-boagni/the-unseen-warriors/s-WbzJH

your link did not work for me... I tried this..
http://soundcloud.com/rob-boagni/the-unseen-warriors
 
i'd say you met the challenge with a vengence... this is very impressive...
Welcome to the Songs Forum...
 

Thanks for fixing the link and thanks for the comment.

Reboagni
Thanks for fixing the link and thanks for the comment.

no prob... you can edit your first post, and you may get more feedback, although unfortunatly, there are many users here, that will only comment on their own threads...
 
again, I really enjoyed your music... very good...

first off, that mona lisa is very disturbing!

 
this definitely has that movie theme vibe to it..
like opening credits, establishing a mood
 
i don't know what EWQLSO, but it has some nice tones/sounds
 
some of the vibratos on certain notes, seem exactly duplicated, which gives it a bit of a 'cut and paste' feel to it..
 
if it is possible to 'program' performance changes, there are lots of nuances like that, that can be very subtly changed that can make this much more organic

the arrangement, mix and ideas are all solid...
now, it's only a matter of really getting the performances right.

Thanks. That's good advice about the vibratos.

Rob, this sounds like it would be fun to produce.  I like themes that stay in your head, and this has some staying power.  Batsbrew has some good advice, but you're not far from from that place.  This is a very nice piece of writing, and I'll be listening to this again.

I liked the second half quite a lot. But, I was not terribly fond of the first half, mostly because the horns do not sound right at all. I have never been a fan of eastwest's horns, but that might be more due to the way they are used.
 
I grew up playing trumpet, bartone, clarinet. I currently spend more time with keys and flute (I was also teaching myself to play electric guitar, but that got stolen a year or so ago). Because of this, I often wonder of a lot of the reason EW sounds off to me is that the people composing with it do not fully understand the instruments they are trying to replicate.
 
I do not know if that is the case with you, but to my ear, a lot of the problems heard were due to the way it was played, which sounded more like what a piano player would play, than a person on horns with but three keys or a trombone slide.

Anyway, I think this is a very good start and has a lot of potential. I would work a lot more on the beginning section, and then clear up and fatten the mix in the end section. It is missing highs that I would otherwise hear in an orchestra as part of the ambient harmonics. You could also stand to flatten out a bit of the dynamics (IE use some compression). You will give yourself overhead room without killing the dynamics much as the dynamic peaks in this piece would seem to be mostly imperceptible.

Thanks for the feedback. As a trumpet player, you are probably hearing the fact that I do not have a lot of experience in that area. I think the samples are quite good as I have heard some very realistic pieces, so I have to assume its something I'm not programming correctly. I'll have to listen and see if I can pick it out. Like I said, it was really the first song I had ever written with any type of brass instrument at all.