Just another epic trailer track

Hi Gharun,

It’s labelled as a trailer track so that is the perspective I’ll be commenting from.

The very first problem to be noted is the opening strings sound incredibly synthy. I don’t know whether the library you have has round robin or not but it has the well known machine gun effect to the staccato strings so it doesn’t sound like it. The opening sustained strings sound nice and work as an intro but when the choir enters it just sounds like random notes being played with no thought given to what notes would sound best over the chords or what would be a powerful theme/motif that could be repeated/revisited. That being said, the overall harmony at this point onward until 1:46ish just doesn’t seem to stack up properly vertically. The notes seem to sound too ‘random’ across the orchestra if you get what I mean.

Though the main problem is the lack of an identifiable theme/motif. Trailer tracks are all about branding the trailer with a theme/motif and overall it just sounds weak for a trailer track to lack a theme. The notes just seem to sound a little too random throughout the piece, there isn’t anything I can hum in my head.

Also, some of the brass doesn’t have the timbre that it should have for the intended dynamics at times. The horn line at 2:30 begins fine dynamically, but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere in terms of dynamics overall. There isn’t that sizzle to the notes at 110-127 dynamic in hollywood brass that should be heard as it should reach it’s dynamic and orchestration climax toward the end when everything is playing.

The ending should also be much, much bigger dynamically. The drum hits and orchestra at the very end stab sound very thin compared to other parts of the track and it should be the other way round, go out with a big bang. So I’d suggest just layering up the drum hits and writing the orchestra as divisi for that end stab. It’s a trailer track too so it’s permissible to write divisi and still use the patches that use the full section rather than splitting the 1st violins into 9/7 players etc etc just to get that extra, larger than life kind of sound that is demanded of trailer tracks in general.

I do like the ideas here, don’t get me wrong about that, and I like the overall atmosphere too but in the specific context of a trailer track the above criticisms should be taken into consideration.