melody

source: update (11/13): first draft: with this musical offering, masakazu sugimori thematically depicts the dualities that inhabit the courtrooms of phoenix wright. imagine this: the defense and prosecution are locked into a delicate tug-of-war between tenseness and composedness, while the gallery is subject to the silence within the storm. every step is carefully calculated and tread on thin ice; the judge exudes equanimity as his sway precariously sits under an unrelenting barrage of potentially convicting or potentially liberating evidence. lemme know if i had any success conveying those themes, or if i didn't. or whatever! peace.

can't wait till this project gets released jade!

hey sorry for the grossly late reply my man, life has been going full throttle lately. that's a good thing! i'd definitely like to contribute a couple bars of guitar solo, just gimme the where and when edit: here is an example of some of my playing so you can get an idea of where you want to throw me in. the link shows some improvisation over one of tensei's original tracks

i better see you all at otakon edit: i feel like some mystical benign force is compelling me to go to the distant worlds concert

hahaha thank you man

ah man this begs for an e. piano solo

i was responding to this, my mistake

i would not touch your eq at all except for a gentle, very slight mid-ranged boost. the only reason i'd hi-pass a piano is if i had to accommodate a kick or bass with lots of sub-bass frequencies, which you definitely do not. also, i didn't mean to imply that you ought to personally sample idle chatter, just pull a sample from http://freesound.org/ best of luck and hope to see this on the site soon

hey man, your latest update was so sick i was inspired to throw some leads on top haha. hope you can dig it

i actually think the unrealistic sound of your piano sample actually unintentionally helps to shape the experience into a more immersive one. the attack and tone quality are pretty reminiscent of tin piano/honkey-tonk, which for me really emphasizes that old salon jazz solo piano feel that's present here. which, especially at the end, is accented by some of your chord voicings and ragtime-esque rhythms. as big of a fan of alicia's keys as i am, i think that using that as your piano sample would effectively trample the great foundation you've laid out here. the writing and general progression of the piece strikes me with that sort of nostalgic sunday afternoon feel you get from pieces like final fantasy 8's balamb garden, and is something i can really get into. sections like the triumphant fanfare and following somber section naturally flow into each other and make this piece dynamic while never straying entirely from the core feel of the song. purely compositionally i feel like you did a great job, but for me, the execution isn't quite there yet. the velocities on your notes seem to be on full blast for a significant portion of your mix, which downplays the contrast between the more plodding portions of your song against sections like the buildup at the end, and the climactic finish. the timing constantly seems to meander, not in the rubato sense which is such a hallmark of solo piano performances, but in a way that sounds like you automated cubase's metronome to randomly fluctuate from measure to measure. the relative placements of your notes seem off by a small enough margin to seem virtually negligible while being awkward at the same time. if you are inputting all these notes in with a mouse, i would advise quantizing everything to your grid and creatively automating your tempo parameter to sculpt a believable performance. if you are performing this piece in real time i would suggest practicing to a metronome until you get very comfortable with it and then start incorporating rubatos once you have a more total sense of the arrangement and note placement. as for the production, i honestly think you don't need to mess around with too much. this is a solo piece after all, and you aren't making eq cuts to accommodate another samples, so leave the piano alone and really let it shine. if anything you should be boosting it in its mid ranges, where the piano is most distinctive. i would really ease up on your compressor, a -20db threshold is totally unnecessary for a piece where dynamics are especially important. subtlety will be the key in coaxing out the most of your performance here. your reverb has a bit of a realistically-impossible aqueous quality which i'm not totally sure is working for your mix. i think you should embrace the inherently live nature of solo piano performance and run with that. go with a small jazz hall reverb or a light concert hall reverb. a very subdued dining room/idle chatter sample that plays throughout the mix coupled with courtesy applause samples to bookend your mix could potentially make this even more immersive than it already is. just my two cents~

this sounds absolutely amazing man, you definitely have a good grasp on mixing already. the windchimes are a great touch that really set a sort of nostalgic lazing-around-on-a-sunday-afternoon tone for me. the only sore spot is the piano, which sounds kinda thin in places. i'm not so sure it's a lack of sample quality since it does sound pretty great in some places, so i want to blame your eq haha. i also feel like the mechanical sequencing needs a little more humanization with regards to the tight rhythm and repetitious velocities. try undoing all your eq and applying a gentle boost to around the 950 - 1000 hz frequencies. that should be sufficient in letting it sit in the mix with some distinctive quality without flushing out the violins. other than that, the layers of acoustic guitar and violin fill up the soundscape in a pleasant and fulfilling way. the resonating, plucked quality of the guitars compliments the airiness of the bowed violins to create a beautiful and rich harmonic layer without being dense. this piece is totally enjoyable on its own and i'm definitely downloading this when it's done, but if you're trying to get it posted here i'm a little worried that the arrangement might come off as too conservative. if that's your end goal, try to take the arrangement into your hands a little more and structure it in a way that lets it stand on its own as a piece rather than incidental music designed for endless looping. if you ever want mixing help or maybe live piano, feel free to give me a shout edit: on second listen i actually feel like the violin comes in a little too soon. i think you could spend another two bars setting the tone for the piece by repeating the first two chords before going into the a section with the violin. just my two cents

submitted!

hey proph, got another item for ya. saitek gaming keyboard for 35$, http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Saitek+-+Eclipse+II+Illuminated+Keyboard/8022891.p;jsessionid=C9A8CF780B15C0122C0BA18417C862AA.bbolsp-app05-18?id=1156607399961&skuId=8022891&st=saitek&cp=1&lp=1

this is ridiculously top dude, great work!

when is the con

hahaha get outta here sam

solid suggestions. i definitely would find some live players if this song had any hope of being posted here. that's a little too much work for my own personal enjoyment haha

haha thank you guys

almost, can you tell me how many bars you need?

sure just rap over it how you would and i'll fix the arrangement to fit

hey, what kind of style are you looking for so i can link something appropriate?

somethin like http://tindeck.com/listen/ssjt ?

hey you definitely wanna use asio over your primary sound driver to minimize the input latency on your midi controller. asio4all, as far as i know, can only commit to one program at a time, so make sure you have internet browsers and that jazz closed before you open fl. otherwise you'll end up like you said

i second the nujabes notion

hey proph, if it's not too much to ask can you mention that the keyboard/mouse set is wireless? thanks