Hi alltogether,
at the end of the year I thought I could improvise a short piano ballad called “Lake of Tears” (done with Cubase 7.5) 
I hope this one sounds a bit better than my last project.
It has a fewer number of instruments and is way shorter 
Used Libraries:
Opinions are always desired
Best regards
Christian
You’ve made a simple chord progression very interesting, like the melancholy sound of the piano and the introduction of the orchestra comes at just the right time and it is just the right length…a lovely short piece…well done…Kevin
Well done the only real criticism I have is the mushy reverb or room sound you are using. Maybe just to much of it or the EQ on it is wrong. Makes the Piano sound fake or far away and as the Piano is lead instrument it should be center of focus to me.
Just something to think about.
Kenny
Well that’s a good point, Kenny.
Listened to it on different systems and think you’re right with the reverb of the piano.
I will have a closer look - thanks for your criticism.
Regards
Christian
My major criticism would be that there is a severe lack of a distinct melody. There is nothing there to pull me in and make me want to continue listening on (from the perspective of a listener, though I did listen to it all.) The piano notes to the left at 1:30 may be fairly prominent, but the actual notes they are playing are more something I’d personally assign to a harp simply for colour of orchestration and to fill the sound. It just isn’t a melody to me, it’s just chord tones. I think at the end section for example you could really have a harp or woodwind doing a part, because just all piano both left and right lacks variation a lot.
The staccato cellos add a little variation, but overall the strings don’t sound very cohesive. It’d be better to vary the orchestration, try a french horn line perhaps for the 1:30 part. The strings sound like they are stretched too thinly trying to do too many different things. Such as the high violins sustaining chord tones and then the counter-melody from solo viola to the right with the staccato cellos below it. On Windforce for the main sections I have the bass/cello playing staccato and the violins playing the melody (which will double the vocal to strengthen it) whilst the entire brass section are sustaining the chord tones (with a little french horn variation at parts.) Perhaps you don’t want brass, but the strings sound like they’re trying to do too many different things so perhaps just rewriting them with more cohesion would work better.
But overall as a piece yes, I think it is an improvement in composition from your previous. So good going and keep it up.
Hi Jonathan,
of course you might be right…
But this time I explicit wanted to use a low number of instruments because I was overstrained with the large amount of instruments in the piece before.
I was also thinking of extending this song in a second version with more instruments - but this has to be done carefully by me to get a development in composition and not to ruin it more and more.
Also I was thinking of using the solo viola to get a distinct melody… but then threw my thoughts away because in my opinion it was too much of that instrument then…
It is still a bit difficult for me to handle all these types of instruments… but I keep trying to improve it more and more
Thanks for your criticism and suggestions.
Regards
Christian
Yeah, it’s all practice and I think this has more consistency. But with your next piece I’d definitely focus on writing a melodic line as the first thing and then taking it from there. Often when I write melodic lines or repetitive motifs I’ll just play the bass notes as little finger and thumb octave notes without any rhythm, just whole notes due to not being a very accomplished pianist yet.
Huh, “accomplished pianist” - my Problem are black keys on the piano
I have made many trance pieces in my youth and used C-Maj in common.
Now I try to develop my skills and wanna use black keys, too (never had piano lessons) 
So in Lake of Tears I startet to use a different scale - and yes… first played the chords with the keyboard (shame on me ^^).
At the moment I am expanding Lake of Tears with more orchestral instruments using solo violins and flutes for a kind of melody line. Also some horns will be involved to fill up things and double basses will support cello staccato.
Chords will stay the same.
I hope I can improve some of my skills in that way - we will see (will post it here).
Best regards
Christian