Nice trip hop feeling! I really like your beat. I think it´s pretty well mixed, although the piano sounds a bit too dry. But maybe that´s because I just mixed a track with way too much reverb. Around 1:29 the drums suddenly are very quiet. I would increase the volume a bit (except for the louder cymbal crash, which is already loud enough).
The piano melody is nice at the beginning but I have the feeling it doesn´t really go anywhere. I think you should decide in this case: Do you want to make a completely ambient like track? In this case your melody is way too much in the focus and gets way too much attention. If you want a more melodic piece, you should develop the melody. Vary it a bit. Use some different chords once and a while. As I said, if you are going for a more ambient piece it´s fine if you don´t vary that much.
You did I nice work here with the stereo placement. Sounds very roomy. One last thing for the piano: It could need a bit more humanizing. Some velocity editing can help to give your piano sound a lot more feeling.
All in all this is definitely a nice relaxing track to hear.
I´m glad you like the beat! I was going for a more ambient than melodic feel, but I will try to develop the melodies more in the future, as well as playing with the piano velocities some more. I´m glad you enjoyed this, and thanks for the review!
Was waiting for something from you for helloween. It´s awesome as expected ;) At some point you have to explain me your secrets how you do your awesome insane sounds. Textures are changing constantly... Grotesque, insane and some awesome harmonies! Maybe the ending is a bit to sudden Hope I will be able to do something for halloween, too. I just spent way to much time writing some melancholic kitsch but I was in the mood. Hopefully it will be finished soon and it will just turn out as a phase ;)
Hmmm... I´m maybe not the best person to give feedback on this track since I´m coming from so far away music wise, but I´ll give it a shot because your melody and especially the solo are damn catchy :) First your production skills are not questionable at all since it all sounds perfectly clear isn´t mastered too loud every instrument has room and everything is really spacey but I guess you know this already... As I said before your melodies here are supercatchy and I like the positive mood in the track (mine have this very rarely). Your synths also sound awesome, although Í´m starting to miss the analog character in all these future sounds but that´s just a matter of taste I guess. Your solo is quite awesome, too. Love the glides/glisses. What I didn´t like that much is the completely unhumanized robotic beat. I mean I get that this should be a Hip Hop beat but your playing in the melodys sounds so natural and "human" that I find it a bit irritating to have this robotic beat under it (especially in the rolls). Also I think it´s a bit too repitative in some points (which is also intended and genre specific I guess). I mean your lead melody would come out much better if there is some contrasting part which makes you wait for it to come again. Don´t know if I find the right words here... Anyway, these points are just a matter of taste I guess.
This is a really cool atmospheric track! Did you play all the instruments by yourself? In this case you have a lot of respect from me producing more than 7 mins of music in this jam. I love the voices and the atmospheric cricket sounds and stuff.
The doomy part around 4 mins is definitely really cool! The quality of your recordings is also very good. The mixing is not overloadet with highs to achieve a superclear mix which actually is perfect for the track, and it´s dark atmosphere. Although you went for a bit darker mixing every instrument has it´s own space and sitting perfectly imo. Everything is also played really tight (especially the drums). Usually I try to figure out what I maybe could be done better but I really don´t find anything here. At least not in the style of track you were going for. As a bassist by myself I maybe would have played a different bassline sometimes, but that´s really just a matter of taste/style I guess ;)
Congrats to this awesome track and good luck!
Thanks man! Yeah, there's actually no synth/MIDI in this track, since my dabbling last time wasn't too hot. I'll try to hone those skills maybe during a time when I'm not in a judging situation, lol. I did play everything; I've had to one-man-band it for a number of years, so I'm trying to expand my instrument palette. Which is good (for experience) and bad, for the reason you just touched on: my bass playing is clearly the weakest link in the track (or any track of mine, honestly). I'm still learning, got a long way to go. Good luck to you as well!
This is beautiful! I also really loved your track from the first round but I didn´t find time too leave a detailed review :(
Your production here is stunning. Everything is mixed and mastered perfectly. You´re right joshgawaldomusic is indeed an amazing guitarist. You have these awesome melodies and you give this track so much power with the additional orchestral instrumentation and it feels so natural in the way it´s played. There is also so much going on in this track. I mean I listened it now for a few times and always I think when I press play: "If it started like this how did it end up there?" And I listen it again and it all makes sense, despite all the time signature changes ;) Okay, like LunacyEcho said, some transitions work better than others but I know that sometimes you can work on a single transition longer than on a whole passage, especially if the two parts are very contrasting. I really love the power of the toms at the ending! Something I didn´t like that much was the abrupt ending with the string arpeggio. I guess I would have ended with the guitar or a longer decrescendo afterwards. But these are really just minor complains here. You got yourself some really catchy track here but you didn´t just stuck to simple catchy stuff you mixed that with cool prog riffs and made a really unique mixure!
Thanks man! It's tough to find time to leave any kind of reviews, so I'm grateful you stopped by.
Josh did all the mixing/mastering, he is indeed a guru. We really wanted to keep this track fresh and constantly changing, but remaining so with a sense of continuity and wholeness in the piece. Like I said to LunacyEcho, definitely agree about your criticisms (transitions take forever!). Thank you for the feedback, it helps us become better at what we do!
Could just join neBSounds oppinion. The intro is awesome! It pulls you directly into the track and you´re right that this would definitely fit into a JRPG game. I have to say that the sounds actually remind a bit of retro PS1 games, which actually wasn´t that bad for this track. Actually I was surprised to read that this is EWQLSO because I always thought they sound a bit more... modern? But I never worked with EWQL so I don´t know. Composition wise there is not too much to say. You got a catchy theme and continue and vary it nicely without it getting boring. I love the fast marimba lines. Sometimes the transitions are a bit abrupt like around 43 sec. Actually this is the only part in the track where the melodies appear a bit random while they are very conclusive all along the rest of the track. It also sounds like you switched from minor to major without introducing it which feels strange but maybe my ears are tricking me here and I´m wrong... I have not the best ears sometimes :) The loop in general works fine. It loops more or less seamlessly. The only point is that you maybe realize the looping point because of climax in the intro but I guess that´s fine because there so much more musical content in this piece. Maybe some countervoices would help in some points to make the melodies a bit fuller. Sometimes you do this but sometimes the melodies feel a bit naked. I think already an unisono with different instruments in diferent octaves could help.
I think 40 hours of work is not too much time for 3:30 minutes of music with so many voices and much content. Of course there are people who might do this faster but they are mostly professionals, doing this there whole life every day (and probably repeating themselves a lot). Production wise I think it could definitely be mixed and mastered a bit clearer but I think as I read your text and I know from your other works you know this yourself already ;) I also wouldn´t give lower score because of mixing issues because I think a good composition is much more important. So... all this said. This is an awesome track again from you. Congrats!
Cool!
Great to hear that people like the intro, even if it's a bit much.
This track was from the very start designed to fit a JRPG game, so I'm glad to hear that it shines through. Eh, the reason the sound quality is like that, is probably just because of my not so existent mixing skills. On one hand, I tried to mimic the sound I've heard in both newer and older games a bit. On the other, I probably crammed too much together, but still wanted to keep some kind of volume. Keep in mind too, that this is just EWQLSO Silver, which is pretty limited, even if you get around. I also used next to none reverb for this track, as I found that most of the sounds are pretty wet on their own. But for slower tracks that use less intruments at once (or if you can manage with it in general), you'd probably want a bit more reverb than there is here. But I am not displeased to hear that this sounds a bit old school in quality XD
I like that you use the word "catchy". That may come in handy for one of the judges, hehhe... I definitely aimed towards making melodies that stick with you, even if specific repetition is a bit lacking in the track.
Interesting point about 0:43. While I don't think it's random, it is different than many of the other parts in the track. As is the next part, with the trumpets and horns. The different segments were generally inspired by different tracks from different composers/from different games, roughly. While there are parts that follow a kind of a main feel of the track, I tried to include other things in between as well. I don't have a real breakdown in this track (a slower part with strings would be pretty nice), but instead, I try to keep it varied, and killed the percussion (mostly) at a few spots too. 0:43 is kind of a segway in between that leads to the next part at 0:54, I guess. 0:43 uses a bit more Kingdom Hearts:y melodies, I'd say, while most of the rest has a more Final Fantasy vibe (though with more KH-ish feels, as well as some other stuff). Maybe this part sounds better on solo piano though, on which it was originally composed? (Oh, and this track constantly moves between major and minor, so I don't know that it needs any specific introduction every time, as this is more of a fast paced track, than one that progressed gradually, except for a few points). As for other seemingly random parts in the track that are just kinda there, there's 2:33 too :S
Yes. I agree that there is too much climax in the intro. As a standalone track, that's fine. But if this really were to be in a game, I'd change that, and make the intro (and the ending) slower parts, so that the transition would not require as much attention from players. I just wanted to include that intro, as it was the first thing I made for this track, and ended up being the last thing I tweaked too.
I get your point with the countervoices, although there's a reason I didn't do this for the most part (at some points I did though, as you mentioned). If you pay close attention to the track, you'll hear that more often than not, there are two or more melodies, playing at once. A bit like you might hear in a slightly more complex piano solo piece. Mostly, I used the french horn, or the backing track in general, for the second melody. A good example is 0:54, where while the trumpet holds the main melody (in two octaves, if I recall correctly), the french horn is playing a slower, similar melody, more in the left ear, and at a lower octave (or simply the last big segment of the track, with the violas and horns). This goes on in various forms throughout the track, be it at 2:09, where the backing track is playing a completely different melody in a different rhythm than the solo viola, or be it at 2:47, where there are at least 3-4 melodies playing in the same rhythm. At other points, like 1:34, I really wanted that solo violin to bear the entire main melody, though a piano is layered more in the background, playing the same thing. There are several other parts too, like 0:43 that was mentioned earlier, where the marimba is partly playing the same thing as the cello. Also, nudity is okay in my book if the melody looks nice, hehhe... (Forgive me, please).
May be that 40 hours is not all that much, especially if you consider the pace of the track. But it felt like a lot, especially since I just started my studies :s
I also know that indeed, some people could do this in waaay less time. That is what I am aiming for, as I couldn't hope to be putting this much time into every NGADM round ;)
Thanks for the encouragement though!
Yes, mixing especially I feel I still need to grasp. In general, I'm fine with the balance between the intruments. All of the marimba/harp/piano (even a secret timpani) aren't necessarily meant to be super clear, but more aim to help move the rest along. But the sound quality in general, could be so much higher!!!
I do think this needs to be judged partly on mixing too, of course, as it's part of what everyone is being judged by in the competition, even if I definitely agree that composition is more important. I wish that my complex composition will make up for some of the worse mixing, but you can't erase all of it. I don't feel like the mixing is horrible though, just that there's tons to improve. I've, so to say, both heard and done worse :3
Thanks a lot for the pretty long and awesome review, and sorry for the super long answer! XD
I promise I'll get to your track at some point in the relatively close future ;)
So... Finally I find some time to leave a review.
First, this is an awesome track. You got lovely melodies, nice chord progressions and a really nice minimimalistic combination of instruments. The instrumentation sounds very fantasy themed and I really could hear this in a fantasy movie or the cutscene/intro for a lighthearted fantasy game. The harp combined with the flute sounds a bit celtic but on the other hand you stick too classical cadences and combine these two points really nicely. Your transitions work perfect and the flow of the track is nearly perfect. The mood is really immersive and I could really imagine wandering on some green irish meadows surounded by Stone Hengy circles, fairies and trolls...
I wrote "nearly perfect" because the brass at the end pushed me a bit out of the world in which the track pulled me in... It sounds a bit distorted and doesn´t really fit to the other instruments and to the whole atmosphere of the track... Everything else is perfect in this track but that brass :(
If I would be nitpicking I might say that you could have used some bass instrument or that the tubular bells sound a bit too close and present but these are really just some minor complaints because the whole rest of the production is awesome. The sound and the mix sounds great. Every voice has it´s place in the mix as well as composition wise. And I really love the harp. You didn´t just repeat arpeggios with it but varied it subtle all the time and it feels like somebody is jamming over the chord progressions on the harp all the time instead of just soulless programming or something. All in all: Really nice track and great job!
Hey, thanks for leaving me such an incredible review, Azhthar! I'm really glad that you like the overall Fantasy vibe, chord progression, and mix of instruments. Harp and flute just go together so well, don't they? And if it sounds a bit Celtic for it, so much the better...I do have a bit of Scottish blood flowing through my veins, after all. I really like the breathy quality of this particular flute, and I'm sure it serves to enhance the Celtic imagery a bit. Also really happy to hear that the transitions keep the piece flowing so well! I generally wanted to keep them simple yet effective.
Ah, I knew what was coming up when you said nearly perfect. That bit of extra forceful brass at the end has been quite divisive, so I'm quite curious to see what the judges will think. Almost no one seems to get what I was going for here, though it does seem to grow on people, so maybe give it another listen through or two and see if it does. As far as distortion goes, there certainly isn't any added, so I'm not sure what you're hearing. I kept all the instruments quite natural and only used filters to enhance those qualities and clean up the mix.
The cello was my bass instrument here, actually. It was admittedly a bit of a trade-off to use those slow, expressive vibrato notes so often since they're not constantly present in the bass field. Regarding the tubular bells, I did consider having them 'farther away,' but in the end I wanted them nice and up front as though all the instruments were on a stage, so chalk it up to personal preference. As for the overall sound and mix sounding great, that's stupendous to hear! Mixing has not always been my forté, so I guess I've come a long way in that regard. Also really glad to hear that you love the harp so much! I knew that it was going to be one of the driving forces of the piece, so it needed to be doing lots of different things throughout the composition. The fact that you've taken the time to really listen to all the fun and interesting things I did with that harp makes me happy! ^___^
Thanks again for taking the time to review, it is very much appreciated!
This is a nice one! I´m a bit tired, since I just finished mixing mine so that´s probably not the most in depth review.... Your mixing and production is awesome. I wish I could be able to produce such a clear mix. It´s actually nice that you stuck to the hybrid sounds although the track isn´t overloaded with action. Your choice of intruments is perfect. I like the flute and the folky strings the calm feeling it gives to the track. I think it could have been a bit more dynamic in the track but on the other hand my tracks are often way too dynamic... It actually makes the track more coherent IMO and it actually would fit perfectly as a loop into some cyberpunk like game (Shadowrun). Awesome track! Good luck here :)
Thanks a lot for your review! My response will be short, as my english is always an obstacle - good luck to you too, I'll listen to your song as soon als I will have some time :) And you're the second person who mentioned Shadowrun :D
Yay! First one for round two... Awesome like always. Maybe the lead guitar at the beginning could be a bit louder. The part around 3 mins nearly reminds on Joe Satriani. He has a similar sound on a track of album "Strange beautiful music", but your drums sound better ;)
The beginning is beautiful. I like the piano progression and the build-up with the orchestral instruments works quite well. Mix sounds good in my oppinion, although maybe later it could need some more reverb and it gets a little bit muddy in the metall part. For the metal part the drum work is really good and the double bass drum sounds awesome. I think the violins instead of distorted rythm guitars sound a little bit thin. Maybe mix it with distorted guitars? Or just use more strings and build some string chords to make it sound a bit more full. Just play around a bit with the instrumentation here. The solo part on the end is really cool again. What you could do to give the track a tiny bit more realistic touch is a bit velocity editing. Just use a slightly different velocity for every tone played and use a bit higher velocity on the "strong" beats (like 1 and 3 in a 4/4 or 2 and 4 if you want to have a more backbeat like feeling). It is some work but it really works wonder. Furthermore a tiny bit less harsh quantization would give the piece a bit more human feel. Anyway, you really did a great trock here and one really can hear how much work you put into this one!
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