Punishing: Gray Raven - Serene Embers // Reaction & Analysis

[00:00:00]Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to another PGR reaction. Today we have Serene Embers as requested by Hazard X in the comments of the last video and I did not use the upload that Hazard X provided purely because it was a personal mix that's like 6 and 1/2 minutes long versus the official upload that's only like two. And honestly, I'd rather use that one. I'm sure the personal mix by that other uploader is perfectly fine, probably superior in some ways, but I'm just going to save myself the time today and just listen to the shorter version. So, no hate there.

[00:00:31]I'm just picking the easier path for myself. So, without further ado, let's go.

[00:00:37]Oh.

[00:00:39]We get like a >> [music] >> PV with this one.

[00:00:45]I never know.

[00:00:47]I never know if I'm going to get just like a static image or what.

[00:00:51]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Gorgeous.

[00:01:04]Breathtaking piano work in the beginning here.

[00:01:14]>> [music] >> Ooh.

[00:01:20]It's kind of giving Zelda Twilight Princess and if you know anything about me, you know how awesome that is.

[00:01:30]>> [music] >> Ooh.

[00:01:37]Ah.

[00:01:38]The clicks.

[00:01:39]They left them in.

[00:01:42]They didn't clean up in post.

[00:01:44]I love it when they leave that texture in there.

[00:01:58]>> [music] [music] >> Oh, this is so pretty.

[00:02:15]>> [music] >> The dynamics in this [ __ ] >> [music] >> Oh, and it's done.

[00:02:37]>> [music] >> Short, beautiful, absolutely to the point, but it does make me realize that since they said it was a boss theme, Hazard Axe, when they requested this, I don't think that was a boss theme. The other version, the other link that they gave is probably a different collection with this maybe mixed in there. That's on me, but I'm just going to keep it all together and just let you know that I'm very much aware that that's probably not the same song, but I'm so glad in this mistake. This was [ __ ] beautiful. Hal St Taxi killed it with this one. Uh absolutely gorgeous piece all around.

[00:03:16]Every single thing this song is doing is something that's a personal favorite.

[00:03:19]One of them being using a uh a chord structure and a general key that is very appropriate for something like a medieval track. I love that feel. It's just something that's always sat well with me, and I've always enjoyed hearing music in that energy and in that section, in that genre, I guess the medieval genre, if you want to call it that. I don't think there really is a medieval genre, but it's close enough, right? So, what we have in this one is a C sharp minor and largely the F sharp that are kind of playing off each other in this one. There's plenty of other chords in here. We've got E, we've got D. A lot of them are sevens, so you even get stuff like this in there. And you have a lot of that. It's kind of the core essence of what this song is based around, using a lot of those sevens in order to expand beyond and make this beautiful progression and a beautiful like melody, an absolutely gorgeous medieval style melody. I love this. Like it's if you're sitting here on like a low uh C sharp minor, which doesn't really work out. It's very low and very heavy on the resonance, a little bit too dark for what this song is trying to do. You just sit with the drone here on the uh first and the fifth, and you just let that go. And from here, you can just keep doing that drone that we were talking about.

[00:04:40]>> [music] [music] >> And you just kind of build on that, right? Like it's not exactly what the melody was doing in there, that one part in the beginning that >> [music] >> is, that's exactly what was going on there. But the rest I'm just kind of goofing around with because there are chords that are nestled in there.

[00:05:05]There's a lot of harmonics being played in. And again, a lot of it based around the C sharp minor and the F sharp. So you have all of that room to play, and I absolutely adore this moment where it like moved from all that and it had our first break out of B, which was a great chord to break out of. And then you introduce like A, and you have like the G sharp and G sharp minors that get introduced there. And it uses all of those, which is the more impressive part to me is that pretty much [music] right after one another, they use a G sharp and a G sharp minor. That is so cool.

[00:05:41]Just the flexibility that they're allowing themselves by utilizing these like harmonics in here instead of just sticking strictly to the melodic structure. They're like, "Hey, let's get a little bit more fun. Let's make it something very condensed, you know?"

[00:05:55]That's a factor of medieval music that I've always enjoyed. Having this quality of everything's really close together, lots of fifths, exactly why I was droning on those two because that works so well everywhere. And again, you can do the exact same thing on the low end for just the F sharp and not include that middle bit. Fifths are so important in medieval style music and it's just something that sounds so cool. It just scratches that itch in my ear and I love it. So, this song has a lot of that and like I said, a lot of sevenths, a lot of major sevenths as well. Really just depends on what the chord needs, whatever the key wants. This song is so pretty. It's beautifully composed. I love that in the mix they didn't get rid of any of the like finger feeling of the actual players of the woodwinds in here cuz that always happens, right? Every single time there's a [ __ ] clarinet or an oboe in every single overproduced track I've ever heard, they remove those like immediate frequencies of the person hitting the note or having their finger clasp over a hole on their flute, whatever it may be, right? And it always feels too standardized and too fake.

[00:07:03]Like I love the sound of the organic feeling of the player in here. And I don't know if they were actually using a real player or if they had those in their sample packs cuz some sample packs do have that. Some VSTs include the finger sounds because it is a great quality to include. So many people overlook it and it is insanely important for that feel. Like if you want people to feel like they're actually listening to a real orchestra, leave those things in there. Don't get rid of them. Don't try to like cut them out or whatever, filter them out. It's not nearly as good as if you just leave that tone in there.

[00:07:40]I'm not saying you got to leave it completely untouched. Obviously, like tighten things up if it's a little bit messy, but I love hearing those sorts of effects in there because it adds to the presence of the song and in some cases the emotional importance of the song.

[00:07:53]And that's why I think this song hits so hard because it feels so real. It feels so authentic and organic. It just truly feels like a piece that is trying to reflect this character's story and you feel every bit of that. Regardless if I was watching the video or not, I'd be able to feel that. And I love it when that happens. So, here we are with the song that I now think might be one of the more most beautiful songs in This one is just hands down gorgeous beauty incarnate.

[00:08:24]An absolute [ __ ] delight to listen to. I think that this is one of my favorite tracks of this game so far at this point. It is just such a beautiful track. But I also think that's about all I really truly have to say on this one as far as the techniques and stuff. Like a lot of it is just in the key of C sharp minor. Play around in there. Get a little bit funky with it. Do some like uh nines and some flat fives in there. I think there were a few flat five sevens in this song. So, there's another little bit of dissonance that this song allows for and it allows to transition between things like that G sharp and G sharp minor, which is very important. You have to have those notes play around in order to include them. If they don't show up and then they suddenly show up with absolutely no music theory grounding, it'll feel very strange and too jarring a lot of the time. So, be careful with those. But this is a pure song to listen to if you're trying to figure out how this genre works. This feeling works.

[00:09:20]Getting feeling in general. This song, the dynamics of it, it's gorgeous. I like that's about all I got to say. As a taxi [ __ ] bringing every single kindling they have to this fire in order to make the most beautiful tracks every single time. It's been a while since I've heard something from them and I'm so glad I continue to hear something.

[00:09:39]That's all I'm going to yap about for today. So thank you all so very much for watching. If you enjoyed this video and you want me to get to something else from PGR by all means drop in the comments below and I'll do my best as always get to those. Or if you don't want to do any of that, maybe you just want to follow me and support me for more stuff coming in the future. You know how to do all that and I'll see all of you in the next video.

[00:09:54]Goodbye.

[00:09:57]>> [music] [music]