My inofficial contribution to the new James Bond Soundtrack

With this song I tried to capture some of the musical signature elements from the famous 007-OSTs without simply plagiarizing them.

Imagine this piece underlying a wild 007-action-sequence with its occasional quite moments - do you think it would fit in a Bond movie?

Besides that how would you improve production/composition and arrangement?

Thanks for your help! Any comments are highly appreciated.

MP3 / 2.2 MB: JamesBond

Bye

Stoertebeker

I remember this a few weeks ago in a slightly different form, I like what you've done with it. The slow guitar solo has a great flow and builds up nicely too. I'm not sure how well it'd fit into an action scene, but it wouldn't sound at all out of place playing through the end credits perhaps.

I'm reminded more of "Pull Me Under" than anything Bondian.

Organ was a neat touch - how was it recorded? Production was nicely done, though the fake drums would need to go obviously. I can't offer many comments on the bass due to my listening environment.

Really, I liked all of the different "parts" - there wasn't a lot of flow between them, I got the impression that this was more of a sampler than a finished work. Was that the intention?

@Tommo: Well, all of my songs exist in several different "incarnations" which may differ drastically from each other while they still incorporate the same musical phrases. The old version you mentioned had more of a metal feel to it, whereas this one features some funky and balladesque elements. It's always hard to find THE definite version. One day I'll release a "variations of a theme" album with one song featured in ten different styles ;-)

@darins:[bond connection]

The connection to the bond theme lies within the first three chords I play. The original theme loops these first three chords in a sort of ascending/descending ostinato. For obvious reasons I'm not allowed to use this signature progression, so I added a fourth ascending chord and looped only the ascending part.

This progression is featured in all parts: Sometimes it's played as strummed chords, other times apreggiated. What I did was, distributing the chord progression to subsequently changing instruments: first b4+strummed clean guitar, then b4+funky guitar, then clean guitar but arpeggiated, and so on.

[(Missing) Flow]

I certainly didn't intend to make it not-flowing, yet I understand your remark. The reason might be that the parts change from a rocking to a more balladesque feel to a rocking feel again. It might be more advisable to go for ONE mood in ONE song (unless you play in Dream Theater and write epic ten minute songs).

[Organ]

Glad you liked the hammond - there isn't really much to it recordingwise: Just my 30key masterkeyboard and Native Instruments B4II.

[Drums]

What makes you think the drums are fake? Is it the sound of the samples themselves or the rythm played? (It's Groove Agent 2 playing, by the way).

I think it just felt a little schizophrenic, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Quiet, driving, quiet, driving, back and forth. I think some very subtle details could be used to tie everything together into a nice cohesive package, if that's what you're after. Right now, it feels more like "Section A stops, Section B starts" than "Section A flows into Section B". I should note that I am splitting hairs here, it's certainly good work as it is.

Interesting. I have always struggled getting any organ sound (hammond or otherwise) that doesn't completely suck. Always curious to hear what others are doing.

I guess it's a combination of everything - it just sounds very sterile. Things that make drums sound more real are less-than-perfect samples, minor timing imperfections, and mic bleed.