Mix and Production comments invited

[John DeBorde]

Hi Gang,

Here\'s a track that I\'ve been working on that I\'m pretty happy with, but would appreciate what some other ears say:

http://www.johndeborde.com/demos/N2_Battle.mp3 (\"http://www.johndeborde.com/demos/N2_Battle.mp3\")

My goal is for a solid sounding track, but not necessarily for complete realism.

TIA

john

[lex]

I will not coment on composing...

As far as mix and production goes, my advice, try to do something with the strings, change timings and velocity for each section. This sounds too keyboardish...even for this type of MGS music..

Oh and you have couple of nasty holes in orchestration in some places..throw woodwinds in, and more percussions...it should sound much better...

images/icons/smile.gif

Alex

[John DeBorde]

Lex,

Thanks for taking the time to listen to my track, but I think your comments would be more helpful if you cited specific times with your comments, such as when do these \"nasty holes in orchestration\" happen?

. . .and what\'s \"MGS music\" please?

jd

[lex]

umm...lets say 1:15...then part at 1:46...
..and try to make strings more dynamic...
put The Rock or Face Off Cd on...since this is what you\'re aiming for, right..

MGS...Metal Gear Solid video game..

Alex

[§eth]

Originally posted by lex:
umm...lets say 1:15...then part at 1:46...
..and try to make strings more dynamic...
put The Rock or Face Off Cd on...since this is what you\'re aiming for, right.. Alex <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Id have to agree that this is a very similar sound to Mettle Gear Solid and the Rock,

I like the sound of your horns, they sound pretty good (I\'m a rookie with giga and I\'m having the same issues with not trying to sound like I\'m on a keyboard when i play) i think this has great potential images/icons/smile.gif

[KingIdiot]

for some reason I cant listen to the file

[John DeBorde]

KI,

you mean the mp3 isn\'t playing correctly? try going to the directory, and selecting N2_battle.mp3 directly. Save it to disk and see if you can play it from there.

HTH

jd

[KingIdiot]

I saved it, its jsut not opening in media player.

I opened it in Wavelab tho.

I say add some synth bass playing 16ths in the root, and maybe some woods playing some thirds over the pedal/drone in the strings. It will fill it up, and dont lose the voices when you got to the short bows, it sounds very empty there. I think synth bass will really help it there too.

lex is right some woodwinds will help fill it up, but I shouldn\'t talk since I\'m terrible with winds. Reminds me of stuff I would have written a couple years ago. I liked to set up a pedal/drone and play melodies over the top.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I think the opening drones are overshadowing your first theme statement. They sound very present, the theme sounds very distant, a bit of mismatch. I would either introduce the synth voices earlier in the drone, or reduce volume or treble content in the existing low string drones so that you get an end result where the static voices don\'t feel like they\'re sitting between the listener and the melodic motion. You are not going for a naturalistic orchestra plot, so no need to respect a particular seating chart. At times now the hero parts are buried and the supporting parts are grinding away in the foreground. I think you could take some liberties with the soundstage to help this out.

I know it\'s tricky to keep the droning voices in the picture without having them step all over everything. You might also experiment with scooping them EQ wise, so that they\'re not clogging up the 300-2k area quite so much. That will let the thematic material come through without being louder.

I think the other thing I would explore is expanding the percussive palette. The dryness of the looped part in the second half has an odd seat in the mix, that might need a look. I would consider reorchestrating it a bit. It seems to me that the timbre of the tom-like drums doesn\'t compliment your overall sound, that you might want a bit more intention and exploration of that hemiola-like groove.

Related to that, I would consider icing some of those parts. Almost everyting is big, deep, wide. You didn\'t mention the final application. If there\'s dialog, you can\'t really push much front and center without clogging up the playing space, but you can \"ice\" things by dramatically cutting the extreme highs and much of the content below 1-2k, and let parts just shimmer over the top that way...thinned out like an almost telephone-like timbre. The dialog can still get through that kind of track, while the music can get pushed up hotter in the mix against it.

Finally, I\'d try pulling back the overall energy 20% across the entire piece, then invest that 20% into the peaks that occur in the last half. I think your headroom may be a little limited by the time those high energy sections come up, and you could probably get some more impact by backing down the entire mix and giving those parts some real gut-punch.

Sounds good--good luck with it. None of my comments above are particularly value judgements, just the things that hit me as areas where you could have fun pushing out the boundaries a bit.

[lex]

Hey,

Is this you

http://www.johndeborde.com/ (\"http://www.johndeborde.com/\")

?

Alex

[John DeBorde]

yes, that\'s me.

funny how all my quotes and apostrophes showed up as question marks in my last post.

john

[lex]

Originally posted by John DeBorde:
yes, that\'s me.

funny how all my quotes and apostrophes showed up as question marks in my last post.

john <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Thanks images/icons/smile.gif

Alex

[KingIdiot]

As I said it reminds me of stuff I would have written a couple of years ago, it should be said, after looking at your site, that a couple of years ago I used to write music for OPM magazine CDs.

images/icons/smile.gif

[John DeBorde]

Bruce-thanks for your comments, this is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.

Perhaps I should comment briefly on the piece\'s original intent, and how that affected some of my compositional decisions.

It was originally composed as the score to a game cinematic, and now I?m revisiting this track to put on my demo. And yes, the client was asking for a ?Hans Zimmer? sound. I agree with you about the theme at the beginning. In the original mix, these guys are about to go into battle, so I was going for a ?distant? feeling of heroism. But I agree w/ that the melody gets lost-I?ll address this. The part from :46-1:14 underscored setup dialogue, so I was laying back for that. And there is some dialogue in the 2nd half, which I was to working around, but it?s much more ?in the heat of battle? chatter. I love your suggestion re: ?iceing? certain elements, and will be pursuing that.

Also, in general I was shying away from woods, for fear that they might ?soften? it too much. There are some in there already doing some padding, but I?ll look at adding more.

So, I can see how certain aspects of the piece might not seem obvious when divorced from the picture, and might not make the best stand alone demo material, but hey, this is what I?ve got, so I?m trying to make the best of it. Which is why I?m interested in getting comments on the mix and my implementation of samples, so that I can continue to improve, as opposed to opinions on this particular style.

Anyway, thanks for listening! All helpful comments and insights are very much appreciated!

john