FastnBulbous

Ah cheers for letting us know.

Good work!

This is bringing back memories! I think maybe the instruments in the lower-mid frequencies (particularly those drums, (Timpani? (I'm not very educated in classical music))), could do with bringing down a bit as they seem to be overpowering the rest of the mix, making things sound a bit cluttered at times.

It is very easy to get carried away with compression. To avoid this, I try to make a habit of controlling threshold and ratio as diametrically opposed parameters. If the threshold is low, this will increase the amount of compression applied, this is then countered with easing off the ratio. Of course it also depends a lot on the nature of the sound it's being applied to. A vocal track tends to sound more pleasing (in my opinion) with low threshold and low ratio, where the compression rides the sound pretty much all the time, maintaining some the loudness variations of the vocalist, keeping things musically interesting while giving the voice a much more intimate sound and giving relative dynamic continuity throughout the piece. Although a drum track would tend to have a different combined "sweet spot" of ratio and threshold, the technique remains the same. If you adjust one of the two parameters, it pays to routinely think about about making adjustments to the other.

Heavy compression can certainly give interesting musical results. I guess my point is that ideally it's use would be from an artistic decision rather than any kind of necessity.

Some tasty prizes right there. Think I might get mangling.

You might like to check out this handy freeware program for editing individual audio files, useful if you want to make accurate edits to a sound to then bring back into your DAW. http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/ As for a standard program, I'm pretty sure there is none. It really depends on personal taste and budget. It can help a lot to invest in your gear but there's no doubt some really special work can be made on the most basic of tech. Keep doing what you're doing, developing your skills with what you have available but also do your research into the capabilities of other tech because at some point, you may decide to explore other possibilities with more investment and it helps a lot to understand what options are out there. My personal preference these days is Ableton Live for the way it has revolutionised the creative workflow, as well as the pretty advanced community created things going on with Max4Live. There's plenty of other great DAWs out there as well so defo check them out.

As others have pointed out, the mediums and listening environment are important factors in this. I'll just add that mp3 itself, even at highest bit rates have a significant impact on the experience, particularly on more complex sounds (bells, cymbals... etc). Reducing the dynamic range helps a lot to address this but from an artistic point of very is a major limitation. As data storage and transfer technology develops, it is inevitable/(hopeful?) that lossless formats will take over. Saying this, mastering techniques are always going to be important but hopefully in time it will become more viable to use them in more subtle ways.

One thing that might help a lot is adding varying amounts of distortion/overdrive to a sound. Small amounts to bring some warmth and higher amounts to make things more raw and bring out harmonic content. A small amount of distortion added to an overly pure/clean "midi sounding" sound can go a long way.

Ah my bad. Good job, Alex Smith. Very well deserved!

Looks like we all won... Good times!

I have no problem an extension. Would be good to widen the competition.

Looking forward to hearing it!

To my tastes I think the drums work well in contrast with the mellowness. In fact I'd be tempted to add a little distortion to the kick to dirty it up a little. Also I reckon the bass would sound even better in the lower octave.