Here is a couple of tracks from my latest album that I just finished and submitted last week.
Shared with Dropbox
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Shared with Dropbox
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Listening to your music, I think you are about 85-90% of the way there in terms of execution to match up with what TSFH and RSM are doing in their music. I know that these tracks are not specifically what you are talking about in terms of wanting to write music like them, but I am hearing some areas in your music that I think just need a touch more refinement and then you will be right in the ballpark of achieving their sound. You are pretty close and there is a lot of good things going on in your music, just need some more refinement to get from good to great!
General note across both tracks is that musically I think your ideas are good. I think one critique I could give is that I think you need to establish a bit clearer main musical idea, and reinforce it more. Establish a melody, tease it throughout, give it to the listener in full at the climax with doubled even tripled octaves on the melody, layer it with strings brass voice synths, really send home what the main musical idea is. TSFH very strongly reinforces their motifs throughout their music.
One thing I notice when I listen to the other artists, their mixes sound super wide, while your tracks sound a bit more mono in comparison. They are achieving this through hard left and right panned instruments such as guitars, synths, hi percussion, and other generally high frequency instruments that help expand your mix. I think adding some elements like this can help expand your mix more and balance it out. Regardless of what style of music you are doing, it is always a good idea to try and add dimension where possible to utilize the stereo field to make an immersive listening experience.
I think if you cleaned up some of your instruments more with EQ, like pulling low end out of reverbs or instruments that don't need it, removing harsh and unwanted frequencies, would really help your tracks sing a bit more. Not too aggressively, but I generally find a gentle pull down between 1-3k helps clear up orchestral samples, this frequency range I find is what builds up the most and taming it helps with the clarity of your mix.
Arranging wise, I think you have some voicing issues that are causing your harmony to be a bit unclear at moments. Around 2:30 in A Fight of Light and Darkness, I think I can make out a string ostinato, but it is really hard to make it out because the part is blurred as it clashes a bit with the rest of the harmony in the brass and choirs. I think to my ears what is causing this comes down to a voicing issue - I think you have a lot going on in your mid and low mid voicings, and it sounds like you may have some doubled thirds going on in your full arrangement. Clear and balanced arranging I think is especially important when trying to write like Thomas Bergersen - his arrangements are very dense, but perfectly balanced with all elements working together nicely.
Also will note that I think some of your programming could be better. Your piano feels a bit stiff and robotic. Some small velocity changes, rolling a bit more into chords, can make a huge difference in the realism of your mockup. Will also say the same for the strings - could use a bit more shaping with expression, and I hear a bit of a suckback effect when you change chords in your strings. Not sure what libraries you are working with, but I would use legato patches if you have them and have some overlap so you dont get that "sucking" effect when you change chords. If you only have a sus patch, mess around with overlap and release times to mask the sample start. Also will say that if your DAW has sample delay compensation (I know Cubase and Logic both do), always find the appropriate sample delay so that your instruments are truly playing in time and listen with a click when setting this.
I do think trying to do a soundalike of a Bergersen piece is a worthwhile exercise, as others have mentioned. I did a lot of soundalikes when I was in college and it is a great way to learn arranging mixing and production tricks by reverse engineering and trying to make an identical mockup. I once did a soundalike of High C's, and that exercise in particular really helped me a lot to better understand how he is utilizing all the different voices of the orchestra to make something as dense and interesting as that piece.
I hope the block of text doesn't come across as if I am trying to rip your music apart as I am not - I really want to reinforce that you are actually really close to achieving what you want to achieve, it is just those final little details that I think will take your music from good to great, and these were the main areas I felt stood out to me as needing refinement to get to the level you are trying to get to
