Liontamer Posted January 24, 2008 Share Posted January 24, 2008 Hi Yall! My name is Mike and i got a little song for you! its called jenova flavored materia and was made with reason 4 with some refills and stuff. none of it is performed live (except i did play it all on my keyboard to sequence it into reason) its only 3.5 minutes. short but sweet. have fun listening to this song while you dream of eating laffy taffy! (prob strawberry flavord goo or sompin) but anyways heres the link. http://1makes2.tripod.com/ Enjoy! Michael O’Shea Soundforu@hotmail.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 214 "J-E-N-O-V-A" The production/sound balance was a bit rough, but I was feeling the intro. When things picked up at :41, there was a huge gap somewhere in the frequency range, because the soundfield felt EMPTY. The percussion work here was definitely not getting the job done in filling out the track, plus the track was sounding pretty lossy despite the 188kbps encoding. Seems like this needed some EQ love. I liked the lead at 1:06 moving from the right to left ear with some good panning, a lot more obvious to catch at 2:08. Still lots of empty space and poor balance here, and some decent percussion work that still felt a bit barebones here with nothing much else going on but that, the melody and one supporting part. The leads could have stood out more and sounded cleaner. The sounds were on the cheap-sounding side, but I'll leave it to other Js to better articulate how that could be improved via post-production if they'd like to. Aside from that, you've gotta add some more flesh on the bones with some additional part writing to fill out the soundfield, while toning down the muddying effects here. Keep working on this though, Mike, and using the resources at the forums to help you continue your improvement; you're definitely heading in the right direction, and I liked a lot of the ideas here. I think you've already done a decent job in giving J-E-N-O-V-A your own flavor, so don't be discouraged, even if you don't hit front page paydirt with this one. EDIT (2/21): Sorry, I only got the revised version now after being behind on the submissions inbox. Re-listening to this, it seemed like I had no idea why I NOed, then it moved over into 1:07, and that's when it all came back to me. The drumwork was really flimsy and background sounded very empty when you changed the drums. Then 2:08, it's back to doing some good stuff; textures seemed stronger again, then 2:23, back to flimsiness when you changed the drumkit. The effects you're using to thicken the piece up don't do a good job of masking when your supporting instrumentation is too thin. This was definitely an improvement, but it's not gonna majorly change my vote; the sound balance was improved, but some of the sections were still pretty empty despite the attempt to use effects to thicken everything. Work on filling out the gaps, but be careful you don't clutter up the piece too much in the attempt. That's why I said before you'll probably need to dial back the thickening effects a bit. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted February 21, 2008 Share Posted February 21, 2008 I liked the general mood of this song - creepy and slick. There's some good usage of effects and production techniques, and the changes in structure and rhythm were interesting. I didn't like how the most trademark parts of the source (the arpeggio, the melody, and the low string stabs) sound pretty similar to the original, while the new additions are mostly effects and background elements. I think more of an effort could have been put into personalization, though what's here is decent. Production sounds really off. Nearly every instrument sounds over-filtered or EQed, some too high and some too low. As I've noted before in decision threads, this sort of thing makes giving specific production advice beyond that a lot harder. I'd recommend undoing all the filtering and EQ, and then very carefully reapplying EQ when you sense a conflict between parts. If any major part is starting to sound too thin on its own, you've probably done too much. Definitely make use of the WIP forum to see if you're going in the right direction. You've clearly got talent from what I hear here, but you have one big problem area holding this back. Work on it and resubmit! EDIT (2/21): Uh yeah, me too. Definitely sounds better. I still think some of your parts sound thin, but I'm starting to think the cause is sample quality and balancing. The drums at 1:07 are weak compared to what came before it. Bring 'em up, amd maybe layer the snare with something more prominent. I'd still recommend my EQ suggestion above, if it applies. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 Yeah I gotta agree with Larry's latest comments; when you switch gears the song really loses something; I think it's that percussion you're using. It's a really weak snare sound, and I think that after listening to it more, the conservative of the arrangement gets exposed there. I kind of like the overcompressed sound the percussion has starting out. Anyway it's not bad, but I think you could do more in terms of interpretation; some more original lines and countermelodies would help. NO, resub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts