Xenogears: Aveh Mountain Breakdown (remix of Aveh, the Ancient Dance)

[docnano]

This is a bluegrassy remix based on a common theme from one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. This is my first near-final remix, and also my first foray into bluegrass. I don't routinely listen to the genre, but for some reason the idea popped into my head and I ran with it!

A few details:

Voices are all from my S90ES, except for the nylon guitar, which I snagged off of HammerSound.

Sequencing, recording and mixing were done in Ableton Live Intro.

I applied frequency filters to the fiddle and mandolin to make them sound right (to my ears).

Although they're all digital instruments, I've worked very hard to get an organic sound using expressive dynamics and articulation. I've taken this about as far as I can go right now, and am eager for some feedback.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abTeHCBz2_Q

[Chris ~ Amaterasu]

Hey I really enjoyed listening to this WIP, good work =)

Sounded really catchy and interesting

I'm not really experienced at picking up things that are wrong, but the only thing that detracted was the mandolin, some bits in the middle of the guitar. The mandolin still sounds synthy, but then again from what I know it's so hard to emulate those instruments that I would be too scared to try myself haha so good work =)

[docnano]

Yeah, for the mandolin I had to take a picked steel guitar sound and play with the frequencies a bit. There are free soundfonts but I haven't heard any good ones yet. I'm looking for a "Chris Thile" sound. I'll keep looking... or does someone know how to play a mean mandolin??

Thanks for the feedback!

UPDATE: I modified the filter on the mandolin to make it sound sharper and hopefully more realistic.

[docnano]

...aww, no other feedback? Don't y'all let the bluegrass qualifier scur ya 'way... you might like it more than you think!

[Chris ~ Amaterasu]

It's a shame more people aren't giving you feedback, cause I thought your piece was really interesting >.>

Gave it a listen again, and there are just minor things I'd try to change in the updated version that answer call session between the piano and guitar at just before 1:00, maybe try to make the piano imitate the style of guitar a bit more, but don't know if you want that contrast.

I think that the section at 1:03 where things slow down, personally if I were playing, I'd slow down a fraction there to sort of sink into that more relaxed section before ramping it up again tempo wise

That mandolin at 1:20 with that high passage and spike, it sounds a bit piercing and synthy to me but not sure how you can fix that

At 2:00, interplay between instruments is nice but I feel as though you could add something to make it more dramatic if that's what you are going for, cause I hear the bass on the upbeat and beat 1 but that's it, but then again not sure what exactly you want

I really like that bit at 2:20, sounds awesome apart from the tamborine I think at 2:20, it felt borderline painful to my ears with headphones on

Only other thing is the violin synth, but we'll see about that hehe

But as I said before I really like it and it's a lot better than anything I could do by a massive shot so keep it up/well done =)

Btw feel free to disregard anything/everything I say since I have 1% knowledge about the instruments and even less about the style

Hope you get some good proper feedback from ppl around here ^^

[Skyline Drop]

Bluegrass, hm? Not really a commonly attempted genre here at OCR, for what I know, so that's already a plus

This is really good, by the way. I like the guitar and violin work - surprisingly expressive, so that's definitely good. And the arrangement is pretty solid, too.

If there were anything I'd fix, it would probably just be balance. Every thing sounds a little top heavy - the string bass could stand to be brought up a bit, as could the drums (except those crash cymbals; those definitely need to be brought down). The piano should probably be turned down a bit.

I think it sounds really good, overall, though. This is definitely a brilliant start.

[DjMystix]

Wow! great acoustic work here man! no complains, just plain awesome!

[Sbeast]

Yeehaw cowboy! Lol couldn't resist. This is a pretty good example of taking some average sounding soundfonts, and making them seem more real using humanization techniques. For some bonus points you could throw a harmonica solo in there .

[docnano]

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, guys!

I had turned up the treble on the percussion and mandolin to get a more "crisp" sound, but it sounds like it was overkill. My apologies for any incidental hearing loss... It doesn't sound too top heavy on my crummy earbuds, so I guess it's time I looked into some decent monitoring gear!

Chris: I hadn't thought of slowing down that section at 1:03 (my general vision for the track has been "keep on truckin'"), but if subtly done, it could be brilliant. I'll see what I can do. I also agree that the section at 2:00 could be more interesting, so perhaps I'll introduce some more rhythmic variation on the bass steel string guitar, and percussion.

[docnano]

The new WIP is here.

Lots of changes:

- Chris recorded a live violin to replace the synth I had in earlier versions. There is still a synth in a few places, but we're working on it

- I modified the filters on the mandolin to hopefully sound more realistic

- The string bass is louder and the whole sound hopefully a lot rounder

- More rhythmic and harmonic interest around 2:07-2:15

- Lots of minor cleanups on the various parts, and some icing here and there

Still some work to do, but any comments or suggestions are appreciated!