evory Posted October 19, 2010 Share Posted October 19, 2010 <--- Remix! Also --> If you for some reason want youtube's stellar sound Source --> This remix is entitled Shadow Puppetry for the Blind, which was ripped off from an old short story I wrote involving light, darkness, a magical grand piano, and as many biblical allusions that Google could find me. Nevertheless, I insist this remix is like shadow puppetry for the blind, because (1) it sorely lacks any sense of direction and clarity, and (2) it's utterly pointless. The source should be pretty clear throughout, it starts with a slightly mutated version if the bassline, moves into a slightly more mutated version of the source, and finally into a disfigured, degenerate and defenestrated hack of an excuse for the source. Oh and Those Who Fight is thrown in somewhere because it fit the rhythm almost perfectly, and saved me the trouble of thinking of my own buildup. Oh and I feel pleased to no end with myself for sneaking in a quote from a chinese orchestral piece (飞天, translated as Flying Asparas, and if you read that as asparagus you're not alone, and if you have no idea what an asparas is, you're not alone either). Which is pretty much the only part of the remix which made me feel clever. But that doesn't really matter very much, as does anything else I've said. Assuming anyone's even bothered to read past the words 'crunchy potato feather' up there. You scrolled up didn't you But yeah, ramble's done, comments please! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Modus Posted October 19, 2010 Share Posted October 19, 2010 What an interesting description to a really interesting source. I can't wait to take a listen after classes today.. will edit this with my reaction. Hopefully I'll come up with at least one piece of useful advice... I'll try really hard EDIT: Alright, I'm going to only comment on things I feel pretty confident about, considering my newb-like status. Whee! Man, we need to get you some improved humanization skills quick because you know how to make things epic! I loved the arrangement. Wow. If your strings and the clarinet(?) didn't seem quite so robotic.. well, I probably would've cried. Things seemed drowned in reverb most of the time, causing some muddiness. Something to consider. Well, that's all I got! i love it. Rozo, your turn? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evory Posted October 20, 2010 Author Share Posted October 20, 2010 Thanks for the comments! Is the robotic problem only in one part of the piece or is it the strings/clarinet in general. I'm trying desperately to avoid tweaking the velocities tediously slowly painfully and tediously D: The samples are actually from EWQL Gold but I'm probably not using them right because I still know next to nothing about mixing/mastering (whoops). I'll go toggle the settings to lighten the reverb or something haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Modus Posted October 20, 2010 Share Posted October 20, 2010 The beginning stands out to me. I think what bothers me is that your releases are all hard, so to speak. For example, on those emotional solos my ears wanted the clarinet to fade out. Also with the strings a little more than halfway in, the attacks are all noticeable when I'm pretty sure you were going for legato. I would definitely wait for another commenter to verify my criticisms before changing anything. I'm far from an expert on any genre... but I still have ears! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Vagrance Posted October 20, 2010 Share Posted October 20, 2010 I quite like this, but as Modus said this needs a bit more humanizing, which unfortunate for you means tweaking velocities and whatnot because the whole thing sounds kinda robotic. Overall though I really enjoyed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evory Posted October 20, 2010 Author Share Posted October 20, 2010 I definitely agree with your comments about the hard releases and attack, except that my computer isn't powerful enough to load all the different articulations, and I even had to leave out the trombone otherwise my Sonar would crash =X </excuses> I'll try to find a way around that soon hopefully, thanks for mentioning it! Any comments about the ending though, as well as how this compares to OCR standards? If it's promising enough I just may get myself to toil through toggling the velocities haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evory Posted October 22, 2010 Author Share Posted October 22, 2010 Sorry for double posting, just changed the heading to mod review because I'm curious as to whether this mix has any chance of getting posted as it is right now D: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
halc Posted October 24, 2010 Share Posted October 24, 2010 good arrangement. somewhat conservative during the first half, with more expansion going on in the second - pretty solid work in this arena. cool ff7 cameo near the end there. sample quality brings this down imo. since the original tune is also orchestral (albiet with some electric guitars and such), there's a noticable downgrade in quality. perhaps Nutritious can chime in with some advice in that department, because I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to orchestral stuff solid work, just needs a bit more production polish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutritious Posted November 3, 2010 Share Posted November 3, 2010 Can't listen to the original here, so I'll just hit production: In general, not a bad job producing here. Solid sounding samples and fairly good balance. I'm gonna get a bit nit-picky because of this. Right off, the song in general feels a bit distant and on the soft side. It does get louder though. Are you using compression on the master? Just curious. I think the biggest issue here is volume/velocity humanization. There are some parts that feel rigid: starting section staccato strings & bassoon lead (esp. the lead), french horn lead at :44, string lead at 1:26, etc. I can tell you have been doing some work on it, but i think you could exaggerate more crescendos/decrescendoes within phrases. It sounds like you're using EWQLSO[edit: duh, guess I should've read the entire thread], so you should have access to patches with DXF (dynamic crossfade), which allow you to use midi control CC11 to control both velocity and timbre. It can breathe some life into static phrases. Be sure not to overuse cymbal rolls for transitions (2/3rd in and near the end on the stronger portion). Again, overall this is sounding really good on the production side - it just has some room for improvement. Good luck to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evory Posted November 5, 2010 Author Share Posted November 5, 2010 Hey thanks for the replies, but I've actually already sent the remix in (whoops) =/ Ohwell, the most it'll probably get is a resub, so I'll work on those changes and fix them after that, thanks! I honestly had no idea about the dynamic crossfade stuff so thanks for that, I'm definitely going to try them out as soon as I can! As for the mix, it's not compressed at all actually, and I've no idea why it starts out so soft at the start even when i throw instruments into that mini-crescendo. But I left it because I thought it gave the later bits a little more impact in terms of climax? (Well I doubt that worked very well haha) Mm definitely agree about the cymbals, I liked the cymbal roll sound and just went a little overexuberant on it haha whoops Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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