Michael_Lochlann

First things first Cool idea throwing Schala in with Undersea palace, but there are problems. The musical lines are discordant in a couple of places. Like at 0:08. I'm guessing this is because the Undersea palace chords resolve to major while the Schala part is still in minor. You need to work out those 2 melody lines and get them to harmonize together first. Then add your bass and piano back in and fix any notes. At that same part it sounds a little off in the bass, although it may be remedied if you fixed the harmonies in the upper part. production wise it's ok but that doesn't matter if the music doesn't sound good. so fix that, then we'll talk.

THanks for listening to the track. I definitely have a lot of work to do on guitar playing and tone. I'll check out the arm vibrato technique, you're right, i am using fingers. the panning wise i was copying "Free bird", but i suppose i can get it a little thicker with a copy closer to the middle or turning the verb up. will play around with that. Thanks again!

i think the bass lacks punch still and what you need is maybe a good compressor dialed in to the right settings instead of a transient designer. i don't like how it just stops. maybe a fade out or something as i don't see a held out note working nor a stab ending the guitar playing and tone sounds great to me. i am very envious having been practicing guitar for like EVER trying to get that good. haha. maybe the guitar could be a tad bit brighter. 3k maybe. but it sounds awesome. the drums could be compressed a little tighter I think to make them punchier and the tom I think gets in the way too much, sounds too middly and covering up everything, maybe the reverb on it or the ring on it is too much, but i also suggest notching at 300 which is the nasty mud frequency. i don't hear a kick, just the tom, i suggest adding either an electronic, orchestral or metal type kick. if you already have one i can't hear it under the tom so add some 60 cycles to it and some top end in the 4k-8k range so we can hear it. your song sounds better than mine though so don't listen to me. haha.

i always liked this song. the sound quality on the instruments is very good, pristine and fits the song. you managed to retain the feel of the original while adding a little something to it. the mixing is excellent, everything is balanced perfectly and very clear. surprised no one has commented on it here yet. switch to mako was well done. it's almost 3 am so i will have to listen to the rest later. but the first couple of minutes is a ok in my book.

i use a yamaha digital drumset and run it through steven slate samples. 2 years and the neighbors have yet to complain just wanted to congrat you on the drum sound as both the program and sound were very realistic. that's not easy to do. even when you are actually playing them. mixing takes years and years to get good at, i have been doing it for a WHILE now and still not anywhere close to good, so just keep making stuff and you will learn a lot.

pretty sweet intro. very convincing flute the metal part: the drums feel too flat to me, the kick drum and toms feels like it is thumping a pillow and recording that. there's no high end to it and no definition. i would eq some attack into the upper ranges and consider dropping some of the middle out of it and boosting the lower end more. same thing with the snare. feels like there is nothing above 500 hz on it. when you finally bring in the main melody it sounds really sweet, good tone with the dual guitars. the hi hats are maybe a bit too crunchy sounding, too much 1k or there abouts, gets on the ear's nerves pretty quicky. if you want to brighten them up eq more in the like 8k+ range where it won't sound so grating arrangement wise i feel like it was a little over the place, it sounds more like a jam out session than say, an album song. which may be what you were going for. i think with some work this would sound pretty good.

i love this song in the game and it always amused me that it begins exactly like CT's forest theme and is also a forest theme. your clean guitar sounds good but a little dull. I would add some middle or high end to it EQ wise to make it pop out more. You can't hear the attack of so a bit of 3K would help maybe. nice reverb. at the beginning I think the lead guitar has perhaps too much high end, or one frequency sticking out between the 1K and 8K range that is really grating to the ear. slap a band EQ on it, turn the EQ up to 12 dbs boost, and move the frequency up and down until you find it. then narrow your Q and notch it. other than that it sounds good though, like the tone and playing. can't tell if it's the same track or a separate track, but during the middle when the lead guitar goes lower, it's not as bad sounding. The drums sound good...are those real drums? The playing and the sound of it them suggest they are. I would like some EQ on them too to make them "pop" more. HI hats/overheads need more sparkle, do a high shelf boost starting at maybe 8K for 2 dbs or so... the kick and snare sound pretty good but I would like to have some more snap on the snare at around 8-9K and some more attack on the kick around 4-8k so you hear more than just the low end. a boost on 60 cycles on the kick wouldn't hurt probably. bass sounds good. also comparing to my latest track which is about -10 dbs rms, yours could stand be louder...if you're just starting out, don't worry about mastering and overall volume too much, but do some research into what mastering is and how to get your stuff louder without making it sound like crap. my process on the master bus (based on a lot of reading and tutorials and experience is) 1) roll off the extreme lows (20 cycles) and extreme highs (20K+) using low pass and hi pass filter EQ 2) a bit of stereo widening and/or "Centering the bass in middle and throwing the highs on the sides" via T-racks quad image or waves center, etc. 3) linear EQ to notch nasty frequencies and sweeten good ones up to +2 or -2 DB (i like to cut 300 as that is the "muddy' frequency usually.) 4) saturation to add harmonics and smooth transients (sometimes) 5) 1 compressor that is just barely hitting to compress transients 6) 1 compressor compressing up to 2 dbs to, actually compress and glue the track together/make levels more stable 7) soft clipper to snap transients / do it so it barely saturates at all so it's not eating my song brickwall limiter that is barely working, set on -.01 output so it never clips. this brings the final track up to the max volume. i'm not a professional but try some of that and see where you end up. don't overdo it at first or you will screw things up. hehe.

edit - took The Legend Begins down to work on it if you came here and want to listen to it, you can jam to my Barret remix instead. https://soundcloud.com/christophercollins-3/nobuo-uematsu-barret-laguna