SlickWiggler

Thanks for the feedback! That's very helpful. I found a frequency analyzer VST and saw exactly what you were talking about, so I tried to futz with the EQ on several tracks and did end up taking one part down an octave, which I think turned out well. Here's the newest iteration (I'll edit it into the original post as well for clarity's sake): Revivify_Revised.wav

I like the idea of doing a Bossa Nova version of this song! It does sound like it takes a little too long to get to the melody. As far as I know Bossa Nova usually follows the same head structure used in Jazz, where you play the melody (head), each member of the group takes a solo over the chord progression, the head repeats, and the song ends. Maybe trying to explore that structure and adhere to it more will help with the pacing. It also just feels very... mechanical? It needs more groove to it, I feel. Try changing the velocities of the notes to emphasize different beats and give it a little more momentum. Right now everything feels very square. Giving it a slight swing and shaping the note velocities a little better will help with that I think.

Thank you! Yeah I was a bit worried I had overcorrected with the low end, haha. Listening to it again this morning it definitely does feel like it's lost some oomph, I'll see what I can do about that. I'll check on the snare and crash as well, might have to throw in a little volume automation or something. Honestly this go-round there wasn't much of a process, it was just tweaking the EQ and compressors that I already had on the project. The judges mentioned around 40hz being way too loud, so I raised up the high-pass on the sub bass and master EQs, and added some light sidechaining to the sub bass as well to help the kick cut through the low frequencies. I'm gonna take another pass at volumizing and see what I can do. My process for that is to just turn every track down to zero, then starting with the lowest pitched voices, build it back up one channel at a time, trying to keep everything balanced. I'll typically loop through the busiest part of the song for this. Here's the updated version: Revivify_Revised.wav I fear it may have swung back into "too much bass" territory but maybe it's just my speakers, it sounds better on my headphones. I'll have to try it in a few different contexts to be sure.

Hi all, I've never posted here before but wanted to ask for some help/advice. I submitted this a couple years ago and then forgot about it until recently, went back to check the thread and it got denied. They had really good feedback, mainly praising the arrangement and pointing out some mastering issues. So I figured I'd post what I've got here and see if I could get some feedback/guidance on polishing it up so I don't have to waste time with a bunch of submission/resubmission processes lol. Here's the most recent version, after feedback from some helpful forum users: Revivify_Revised.wav Let me know what you think especially about the production side of things. Mastering is hard lol.