Godhood (MIDI Suite)

[Jimmy]

So this is something that I've been working on since October last year. Like many of my projects, I took a lot of breaks from it, so it's hard to determine exactly how long I spent on this, overall. However, it is without question my most intense and ambitious musical venture ever. It's a progressive metal-themed suite written in MIDI, featuring some of my most complex riffs, stupidest guitar/keyboard solos, and most erratic time signature changes yet - taking a lot of cues from Dream's Theater's "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" and Symphony X's "The Odyssey" (Opeth and DGM also helped me out). It's also my longest MIDI track ever, clocking in at just under 44 minutes in length.

It tells the story (mostly through the crappy lyrics I've written for it) of a young demigod of Order, sent from the world of the gods to rid the Mortal Realm of the destruction and disorder caused by his own brother. He sacrifices his godhood and arrives as a mortal, finding the realm in complete chaos. Throughout his journey he meets a number of obstacles, but pulls through with the help of his friends. In the end, having banished his brother from the Mortal Realm, he decides that his purpose as a god has been fulfilled, and renounces his immortality permanently to spend his new life alongside his fellow human friends.

This is the same story me and my brother have been working on for smeg-knows-how-long, and now we finally have something to show for it.

The Suite:
Godhood (43:39)

Movements:
I. The Eternity Fountain (5:38)
II. Descent of Fire (4:37)
III. Terra Incognita (4:19)
IV. Wicked Gods (3:13)
V. The Serpent's Puzzle (4:54)
VI. Bitter Visions (5:37)
VII. Temple of the Unforgiven (4:01)
VIII. The Void (4:18)
IX. Cosmic Clash (3:28)
X. Denouement (2:59)

Hope you enjoy it!

If anyone would like to do anything at all with this, please let me know what exactly you plan on doing before you do it.

[bartekko]

oh shi...

[Raddons]

Lucky for you Six Degrees is one of my favorite songs of all time. I'm listening now. I'll be sure to report back in about 44 minutes

edit: I'm only about 5 minutes in, but wow And I hear an allusion to Constant Motion in here I hear a "The Great Debate" allusion too. I love this. The transition after I believe the 2nd movement is fantastic. It made me think of the transition from Goodnight Kiss and Solitary Shell. I love it. I would kill to hear this on real instruments.

[Dr_Dissonance]

The MIDI hurt my brain, so I made the first movement into a Kazoo version:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/34092993/The%2 ... ure%29.mp3

That being said, this is really good. If you can get it out of MIDI, it would be amazing!

[Jimmy]

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/34092993/The%20Kazoo%20Fountain%20%28Overture%29.mp3

Haha wut. How does this hurt your ears less than the General MIDI sound? Haha, thanks man. I appreciate the feedback.

I'm only about 5 minutes in, but wow And I hear an allusion to Constant Motion in here I hear a "The Great Debate" allusion too. I love this. The transition after I believe the 2nd movement is fantastic. It made me think of the transition from Goodnight Kiss and Solitary Shell. I love it. I would kill to hear this on real instruments.

Sadly my instrument-playing skills extend only to mashing keys pseudo-randomly on my keyboard and then quantizing the shit out of the resulting mess. I might plonk the whole track into Reason and see if I can make something somewhat acceptable-sounding out of it, but yeah, I'd rather have the sound of live instruments.

Anyway, thanks. Those tracks you mentioned are exactly the ones that inspired me for the first few bits of the suite. Hope you like my little tribute to The Dark Eternal Night in Parts 8 and 9, too.

[Makkon]

This is really quite amazing. I'll have to listen to these more when I get the chance.

[ChromaticChaosPony]

I will try to do a guitar cover of this later. It will probably be a pain in the ass...

[Raddons]

Anyway, thanks. Those tracks you mentioned are exactly the ones that inspired me for the first few bits of the suite. Hope you like my little tribute to The Dark Eternal Night in Parts 8 and 9, too.

That was exactly it The little 5/16 bits. I didn't want to edit the post again to point it out

I've been known to use that bit to pay tribute to them too. Fantastic song.

[Jimmy]

I will try to do a guitar cover of this later. It will probably be a pain in the ass...

The whole thing? Dude. Good luck.

[Jimmy]

I am debating writing a sequel to this, an even more ambitious venture than the first.

I'll be writing in MIDI again, of course (it's the medium through which I am most musically able - Reason is my DAW of choice, but its lack of a staff window kind of limits me). However, I want to take it in a slightly different direction. It will again be a huge suite separated into movements, but I want to play around with some more neoclassical elements rather than the slightly less melodic (but still awesome) thrashings of progressive metal. Two of my favorite metal bands are Yngwie Malmsteen and Rhapsody of Fire - some of their tracks are made of pure, undiluted awesome, and the classical elements really shine through and resonate with me because let's face it that stuff is genius.

I'll also experiment around with the movement lengths a little bit more. Instead of an overture, I think I'll have a huge, epic 12-or-so-minute movement in the middle, during which most of the events of the piece will take place. Plot-wise, it will follow the same protagonist as before, but the plot I have in mind is a lot more than a simple journey and probably can't be expressed through lyrics in a way that won't sound pretentious and contrived - but I can reveal that it will be a tale of love, rebellion, justice... and a wee bit of time-travel. Possibly zombie gods, too.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback so far, guys! This was a lot of fun to do, and I think I will continue to do it.

[EnnervateIndustries]

I am replying so I remember to steal your midi. Muahahahahaha!

[digital_brony]

Is it down? It's coming up with one of those spam things.

[Jimmy]

Oh fudge, sorry. My file centre moved URL like a week or three ago. Links corrected.