Eino Keskitalo
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Posts posted by Eino Keskitalo
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This is a good topic, as I'm interested in David Bowie's (and Reeves Gabrels') work in Omikron: the Nomad Soul. They were first recorded for the game, but "hours.." (the Bowie album from that time) did come out earlier. The Omikron tracks are different takes, and sound a bit more raw, almost like demos. I kind of doubt they (at least most) were *really* written with the game in mind, but that's just my speculation, and I think I got the chronology down in the above. (In my mind they should be eligible even if they were re-recorded for the "hours.." album (which came out first) and in one case released as a b-side).
Oh, and if The Pixies submitted
, would it pass the panel?Cool about the Late Goodbye btw, I'll have to consider doing that one.. my fiancé likes the Poets of the Fall debut album. =)
--Eino
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I've read this thing. Very useful, and easy to read. 74 pages printed! Will post more detailed feedback later.
--Eino
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I'm still enjoying this and am happy to see an update!
It almost feels like a kernel of three different pieces: the piano part, the outro, and the rest of it. The outro is super cool, but feels like it shifts into almost completely new territory. I really like it itself though.
I feel like the piano part could well be extended, with some lead playing added in. It's very brief as it is, and the flow to intro to the loud piano part back to the serene beginning of the middle part is kind of jagged. You could also try to include a little bit of the outro material into the earlier piano part to foreshadow it. (Working with the levels might also help to fit the part in better.)
The piano part seems to lack bass presence. Again, working on the levels will probably help.
I really enjoy the lead that develops during the middle section build up. Looking forward to the next update!
--Eino
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Many, many thanks to both for your critical comments! I envision that this piece should be quite in-your-face, but I'll be giving the dynamics and the sounds (including dryness) some thought. I have a tendency to first make a sparse mix/arrangement that needs to be filled up. I probably need to give it a rest to hear it afresh myself.
--Eino
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This is pretty cool. I get a space shooter kind of a vibe. It's also making our 19 months old daughter dance. (: I like the unusual percussion, nice touch. Cool that you're arranging a classic PC game soundtrack too!
--Eino
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Thanks sggod89! I put the low pass on the square lead, and it didn't seem to hurt, at least. What to do you mean by horns btw, the saw lead? Should I low pass them as well?
New WIP: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o534cpxz6f...2020120726.mp3
In addition to square lead, I also adjusted the background hums, and put a little reverb on the bass line. All in all pretty small tweaks in the update. I should mix/master this properly and mark it Finished. So I should start learning about proper mixing mastering. (: I do notice that the waveform gets a lot louder in the end where there's tons of leads going all over the place, so that'd probably need some special (levels, eq?) attention.
--Eino
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I'll vouch for this one.
--Eino
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https://www.dropbox.com/s/wkc8uppxe9do6s1/keskitalo-clockwork_groove-20120725.mp3
Textures added. Just started trying out stuff with the idea of adding little synth loop sort of thing to the background (kind of drawing inspiration from Brian Eno on David Bowie's "Heroes") and it turned out to be lots of fun. To me it seems it changed the piece quite a bit, but it was good to take that leap.
The intro, while better, probably needs something to be done with the volume levels/fadeins, maybe. Also the main lead probably needs mixing tweaks, it's kind of overpowering/uneven. Turned down the bass a bit and I think that was good.
Comments reaaaally appreciated.
--Eino
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Great thread! Lots of interesting insights.
I'm not afraid of writing my crappy music. It's fun. Maybe I'm in denial though, and mistake fear for boredom.
I've also finally noticed that when I'm making something and it seems crap at the time, it surprisingly often sounds a lot better the next day. So these days I just keep going instead of giving up. I'm also learning to not be afraid of editing anything I already wrote (I just keep a backup copy/a muted track of the previous version in case I want to go back).--Eino
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https://www.dropbox.com/s/15lm1nfpuvddror/keskitalo-clockwork_groove-20120724.mp3
More tweaks to the sound & mixing. I really should do that texture-adding that has been suggested so many times.
--Eino
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Pretty cool chill-out vibe. The MP3 compression seems to be hurting the sound unless I'm hearing things. The beat is pretty heavy in the intro, I thought its introduction to the piece could be more gradual. I do like the stop-start-stop feel you have with the beat throughout the song.
--Eino
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Cool track. Very good progressions and build-ups, wind-dows throughout. The judges seemed to make note of the mechanical sequencing, but I thought it added to the enjoyment, especially in the beginning.
--Eino
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Good stuff! Indeed a pretty good arrangement. I enjoyed the instrumentation as well. The mix sounded a little.. constrained. Like the space the music was happening in was a bit too small. I also thought that the ending was a bit abrupt. Like it only built up to a certain level, and then just ended. Regardless, the piece was enjoyable to listen to, and also, importantly, it had unique character to it.
--Eino
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I love the sound. It's a little scratchy, which contributes to a sort of an intimate feel. Kind of a chamber music/acoustic session thing. The low strings and some other stuff do sound larger, but do not detract from the mood. I really liked the shift midway in tempo and mood and enjoyed the free/floating rhythm of the piece in general.
--Eino
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Super nice and super chill. The length definitely adds to the strength of the track. Hearing this made me grab all the other mv tracks from OCR right now.
--Eino
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Really nice work! The arrangement has a great forward drive I think, it's exciting to listen to. The integration of the different themes is indeed well done, very natural. I'm not very familiar with the source, and it seems seamless to me.
The sequencing maybe sounded.. both a little off-rhythm and mechanical at the same time. It's well above the bar for my tastes though. The piano and harp runs at the end were the parts where the mechanical feel hurt the track most, the wind-down at the end was the weakest part of the track overall. I also felt it wasn't as well written as the previous sections (though the mechanical feel might have contributed to this perception). It was still all right though, and I enjoyed the overall structure of the piece, the longish wind-down included.
Good stuff all in all!
--Eino
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I kinda wish people submitted their pieces even if they were dissatisfied with them, I know I certainly do
--Eino
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I liked me some FFXII. Hope I have time to finish it some day.. Great soundtrack too, so if a project would form some day, I'd like to take part.
--Eino
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LETS DERAIL into classic Epic Megagames games. Traffic Department 2192 was indeed great. I played it with a friend, and we were much awed by the Darker and Edgier, gritty storyline of the shareware episode. It had some cool twists and turns, and the cliffhanger in the end of the first episode was rather gripping. Some very good music from the tinny-sounding Adlib too. All that made for some very fond gaming memories.
One Must Fall 2097 us also something we played the hell out of. Many an hour was well spent in the vs mode. trying out the different options from the hidden menus on the way. The campaign mode took a lot of playing as well. I think it was possible to fight two-player fights with the robots tuned and set up in campaign in the practice mode. Not to mention you could fight with the Nova robot in vs mode that way. I'm pretty sure I also played the "normal" single player mode through with all the characters to see all their ending, though it can't have been on a very high difficulty. I've still enjoyed the game a lot on this millennium too, though it must have been a few years since I last played it.
Talk about good music too! Gotta give props to DigiE for their remixes.--Eino
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I'm not a staff member, but I'd say there's enough in the source to be a recognizable piece of music on its own. I mean, there's even a bit of melody halfway through!
You may want to make sure some of the rhythms, such as the rhythm of the bassline, are directly referencing the track. Since it's a pretty generic one-chord riff, I think it should be exactly the same (at least for some part of the tune) to qualify as being from the source. (Again though, I'm not a judge or anything.)
That said, listening to the source and your piece back-to-back, they certainly seem similar. I like how you interpreted the melody from the source into a very different sound.
Ooh, and I like the way the bassline goes 00:42. That's pretty close to the original it seems, but a little bit more funky. Listening up to that point, I was thinking the track sounded pretty generic, but that bassline funkiness is definitely.. it just made me smile.
I agree with Gario's crits though, it sounds a little empty/thin, and I'd like to hear a tiny little bit of something more going on in the track in general. A little more melodic/riff stuff added. Brainstormideasuggestion:: slow down the melody from the source 100% (so it's half as fast) and see if you can work out an additional melody/riff from that to include in the piece.
All in all, this was fun to listen to! Hope you work on it a little more so it's even more fun.
--Eino
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Well, I took a look at some of those concerns, though off the bat here's some I can't address.
The pads at the beginning were part of Impact Soundworks's Resonance library (yes, one of the two prizes I asked for as a result of the FF6 contest). I've looked into the framework of the pad, but in the end it's a bowed metallic pad that relies on loops, and I can't really take out any grating noises that came with it. I did have a go at EQing out some of the frequencies past 2500 though, seeing if that kind of helps things.
I think it helps a bit. It's a wonderful sound so it's worth trying to work on it. I was actually thinking of mixing in more hiss to conceal the fades on the actual instrument. Crazy stuff probably.
Coming in at 1:01, that's not an acoustic guitar - that's a koto. I was originally intending to go for a shamisen there but there was just too much high end and not enough body. I went for that because when trying to integrate the guitar power chord breakdown with the Emerald Hill chord structure, I realised it had a pentatonic progression, hence the need for something Eastern.
Ah, I should have realized that it's not a guitar. That's actually really well thought out. As is usual for your works. Did you change the sound in any way between the 2. and 3. update? Because it sounds so much better on
these headphones than the ones that I was listening with earlier.
As for the chords at 3:35 and 3:42, the chords go into diminished, which was present in the original source tune. I have indeed rectified it by making a slight modification on the synth lead over the top of the first one.
I think that works better now. Might have gotten used to it, but it didn't stick out, just sounded good.
Finally in regards to the pace, having realised that I need to do a lot to make sure this thing passes, what I am understanding is that there needs to be some added tension going through the acoustic drum section. So taking it into account, I've ended up cranking the drums and bass into double speed prior to the arpeggiated synth area, and indeed it calms down before the end. I'm actually not sure if it's even going to be likeable myself, but hey, if the Goo Goo Dolls can make it work... x_X
I thought that worked brilliantly! Superbly energizing for the section, it sounded really exciting and made the surrounding parts more strong too.
I'm really enjoying the whole tune now.
Either way, uploading with newest version now. Will update the first post accordingly.Cool to see you working hard on this, good luck!
--Eino
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Hello Rexy (:
The piano in the intro sounds great. The background.. string/thing sounds great too, it's unusual and I love it. Only thing is, that it seems to have a lot of noise to it. That is fine in itself I think, it adds to the sound that I like. The problem is that the noise fades in and out, which sounds awkward. If you can make the noise continue throughout even when the instrument isn't playing, it'll make it sound better. I think the noise fadein/out it's also audible in the little drumless bit around 03:05.
I'm not very fond of the audio clips, but you want to keep them so that's fine. I'd maybe add a bit more of them, as a some sort of foreshadowing, so they don't come on suddenly.
01:01-01:24, a real acoustic guitar would sound so gorgeous there. What's there is passable, though.
Gotta agree about the synth at 01:55, it sounds very dry and up front compared to the rest of the soundscape. Also, the synth line around 02:01-02:07 could vary the velocity a bit from note to note, it sounds a little stiff which kind of pulls it away, exposes it from the track. I like the sound, it itself fits very well to the track. It sounds great at 01:46-01:54.
The background piano seems to have a slightly awkward chord at 03:35 and 03:42. It sticks out.. I guess it resolves, and it's an interesting chord/progression, but it kind of sounds unlike anything else in the track, and I felt it maybe conflicted with what the lead was doing.
I don't have trouble with the structure or length in general. I thought the mood was consistent, and it felt like the same piece throughout. I *did* however feel that the piece went into "lengthy band jam" mode towards the end a bit. I felt like I enjoyed the soloing between 03:46-04:39, but the backing from drums and bass didn't carry the tune forwards. Not sure what to suggest. I did a second full listen-through, and I felt I got the structure better. Everything seems to continuously develop forwards, drums and bass included. I kind of do dislike the "slow jam" feel, and wish the drums and bass were a little more active during that section (without taking the focus from the lead too much, of course). The pace they're taking seems really appropriate from 04:49 onwards, especially when the more complex chord structure comes on. If the drums and bass were a little busier in the previous section, the "easing up" that would happen would probably be a noticeable, interesting transition. I hope that made sense.
I really like the wobbly synth sound starting at 04:39. The outro mirrors the intro very well.
--Eino
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This is a damn kick-ass track. With all the fun of the musical style, this actually has kind of a dark ting to it. Really good instrumentation. The guitar is very juicy, I love the use of the slide here. There's one spot in the guitar track that doesn't sound quite as confidently played as it should - 0:55-1:02 - but that's a really minor nitpick in a great guitar track with just the right sound for the piece - I guess I somewhat disagree with Taucer there. The slide does sound really great though. The violin sounds pretty good too.
--Eino
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Thanks! I'm glad to hear this.
Do check out my other wips too, the links are in my signature, if you feel so inclined.--Eino
Happy birthday, Rexy! (MINE! MINE! I claim this birthday thread in the name of FRIENDSHIP!)
in General Discussion
Posted
Happy birthday Rexy! (:
--Eino