First thing you'll notice is that all the instruments sound a bit...flat. This is for two reasons:
1. My software isn't exactly FL Studio. (Rather, it's Cakewalk Music Creator 3, which came with three DXi synths including EDIROL VSC, which I used in this song in Roland GS mode.) You could possibly say it's just a heavily-FXed MIDI song, but without the charm of the General MIDI instruments.
2. I never record a single note of anything. Granted, I do come up with ideas occasionally on the piano or keyboard, but mostly it's all hand-drawn to a virtual staff, and looped or copy-pasted when necessary (I can't hand-draw more than 50000 notes one by one).

As a result, it WILL sound mechanic and low-quality, compared to, say, metalcan or Xenogenocide's work (I'm a big fan of the two of them). But what can I say? It's the composing skill that counts, anyway. However, if you liked this piece and want to make it sound better using the copy of FL Studio that is so rightfully mine, be my guest and PM me.

The idea germinated when I checked out NG user Tatsu-Takahashi's blog and found out he came up with this TT vs. Audio Portal user thing, where he'd collaborate with users on songs. My idea was an epic symphonic metal piece, named "Dragon Commander" after our two aliases (Tatsu, if I'm not mistaken, is Chinese for "dragon").

Problems arised, however. My accursed music software Cakewalk Music Creator 3 was completely borked. This was because:
1. On the upstairs computer, it wouldn't play back any MIDI events whatsoever--something to do with driver or whatnot. The install process for the Cakewalk USB-MIDI connector that would fix this had disastrous results, rendering plain MIDI forever out of the question.
2. It wouldn't recognize my DXi synth EDIROL VSC (vital to avoid the MIDI constraint above, as well as to audio exportation), no matter how many times I ran the VST Adapter 4 program. Therefore, my only two methods of audio playback were useless.
3. I uninstalled it from the downstairs computer. Who knows why? It was such a long time ago, as far as my memory goes.

I got it back on the aforementioned downstairs computer since then, but by the time I did, somehow, TT's vanished. I dunno how or why, but none of his pieces showed up when I searched for them, neither did his username when I searched for it under Authors. A damn shame, as I was ready to send DC1 to him so he could make it...er, not-flat. Not to mention, "TT - In Your Face" is no longer an existing file in NG. I should know; I typed its URL in.

So now he's gone, and I'm stuck with flat-sounding software. Whoop-de-doo?
But back to the song. I actually made this a bit of a story song--not that there's any lyrics or anything, but I designed it to be a bit like a fantasy battle (involving dragons, needless to say).
To do this, I stuck markers at various parts of the song, outlining which section it was and what event in this "battle" it conveyed.
Intro 1: Declaration of War - 0:00
Intro 2: Battle Stations - 0:24
Verse 1: Mounting the Dragon - 0:34
Refrain 1: Taking Off - 0:58
Surveying the Battlefield - 1:22
Verse 2: Enemy Convoy Spotted - 1:33
Refrain 2: Going for the Kill - 1:57
Bridge 1: What the heck is that? - 2:18
Bridge 2: IT'S A TRAP! - 2:27
Strings Solo: Calling in Reinforcements - 2:37
En Route - 2:55
Solo 1: They've Come - 3:03
Solo 2: The Battle Begins - 3:31
Dual Solo: We're Losing?! - 4:08
Explosive Breakdown: Turning the Tables - 4:36
Verse 3: Signal Intercepted: "Let's get out of here!" - 5:07
Verse 4: Enemies Retreating - 5:26
Refrain 4: Okay, Let's Go Home - 5:50
End: Celebrations - 6:32

Cool, huh?
-----------------
Some quick stats, pinched from the file info:

Created Thu Apr 03 2:20:08 PM 2008
(Finished around May.)
Editing time: 29:49:19
Events: 19331

And the description, also pinched from the file info:
"I spent a little bit more than a month (a bit less than a day, consecutively) creating this kick-butt symphonic metal song, with some revisitations later on to fix any mistakes. Clocked at 200 BPM and lasting almost seven minutes, this is my most complicated piece to date.

Some quick stats:
Solos: 5 (4 sequenced, 1 recorded (or about to be))
Favorite part: The synth coming in at 4:57 to accompany the solo

Enjoy."

TC315