"Romance of the Two Worlds" - Ni no Kuni World Map

[Neifion]

Hey everyone! Neifion here. Long-time OCR listener, first-time hopeful OCR remixer!

Old Remix: https://soundcloud.com/matandteresa/romance-of-the-two-worlds-ni

New Remix (06/22/13): https://soundcloud.com/matandteresa/romance-of-the-two-worlds-ni-1

Source:

For this remix, I wanted to describe a lonely sound. Not lonely in a personal sense, but rather in a spatial sense: like the feeling of being dwarfed by a towering mountain range or endless desert. I also wanted to dip into the mixing of eastern and western music and culture over the centuries, hence the embellishment of the erhu interweaving with the violin. That idea is what led to the name "Romance of the Two Worlds", a name which also lightheartedly combines the Chinese historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Ni no Kuni" (Two Worlds).

Hope you enjoy! Feedback is very much welcome and appreciated.

Edited June 22, 2013 by Neifion

[Brandon Strader]

I almost fell off my chair when that violin pitch bend happened. It made me hyper-extend my neck and nearly fall. This seems pretty interesting, the choir has a lot of low end in it, and should be pushed more to the back. The violins should be more natural and less mechanical, as well as finding a way to not pitch bend it in a way that sounds totally digital and makes people hyper-extend their necks and almost fall out of their chairs. The low strings also seem to be taking up a lot of space. So at 1:57 when both are present, it's complete mud and overpowering. It's weird to go in a somewhat orchestrated direction for something that's already an orchestration, but there's some promise here, a lot of tweaking to go but you can do it.

[Neifion]

I almost fell off my chair when that violin pitch bend happened. It made me hyper-extend my neck and nearly fall. This seems pretty interesting, the choir has a lot of low end in it, and should be pushed more to the back. The violins should be more natural and less mechanical, as well as finding a way to not pitch bend it in a way that sounds totally digital and makes people hyper-extend their necks and almost fall out of their chairs. The low strings also seem to be taking up a lot of space. So at 1:57 when both are present, it's complete mud and overpowering. It's weird to go in a somewhat orchestrated direction for something that's already an orchestration, but there's some promise here, a lot of tweaking to go but you can do it.

Hey Brandon, thanks for the critique! Sorry about the neck; some ice should do the trick. I'll try to fiddle with the bend to see if I can make it work, such as using a different articulation and adjusting the speed. If it doesn't work, I might just have to split the notes. No biggie, as it's just that one time where it bends.

As for the violins sounding more natural, could you be more specific please? I thought I did quite a bit in terms of mixing the dynamics between soft and strong, legato, a bit of off-timing, and swelling during the more emotional parts like a real violinist, but that's just me. Are there specific parts you could point out where it sounds particularly mechanical?

I had a feeling some people might wade into a bit of mud later on. Should I put some more low-end EQ on both strings and choir, or just one? If so, which one?

Edited May 5, 2013 by Neifion

[anclunn]

Very nice very nice, but the strings sound so amazing that the synthetic nature of the vocals is that much more noticeable. You need real vocals for the chanting and humming. Also I'd recomend a sharper cut off at the end. Everything else though, amazing!

[Neifion]

Very nice very nice, but the strings sound so amazing that the synthetic nature of the vocals is that much more noticeable. You need real vocals for the chanting and humming. Also I'd recomend a sharper cut off at the end. Everything else though, amazing!

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it! Sadly I don't have access to a decent choir, but I'll work on the vocals to get them sounding more natural. Pushing them farther back like Brandon suggested should also hopefully help.

Edited May 5, 2013 by Neifion

[Rukunetsu]

What can be said was already said from a technical/critical stand point.

That being said, great sounding orchestration you've got going thus far.

[Neifion]

What can be said was already said from a technical/critical stand point.

That being said, great sounding orchestration you've got going thus far.

Thanks! I think I got a pretty good idea of what I need to do, except I'm still not hearing the mechanical-ness of the violins that Brandon mentioned. Is anyone else noticing it and can maybe suggest what I should do?

Edited May 5, 2013 by Neifion

[Neifion]

All right, I posted an updated version. Touched up the violins, got rid of the pitch bend in the beginning, and low end on the strings and choir shouldn't be as muddy anymore.

I have to say, I do like it better without the pitch bend. It allows for a nice little sustain there.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Neifion

[Neifion]

I did some additional tinkering to the violin playing, got rid of the remaining pitch bends, and EQed the string ensemble and choir further to make things less muddy. Since I don't reckon there'll be any more user critiques, and I completed the fixes that people requested, I'm switching this to Mod Review!

[Brandon Strader]

Sorry I haven't followed up on this yet, I will do it ASAP with your latest version. Been super busy and on the road and I kinda forgot. It's good that you axed the pitch bends. Violins don't actually pitch bend at all. They have portamento and glissando which you will find in higher-end libraries but a pitch bend just won't ever work. Again my apologies, I will try to critique this later today!

[Neifion]

Sorry I haven't followed up on this yet, I will do it ASAP with your latest version. Been super busy and on the road and I kinda forgot. It's good that you axed the pitch bends. Violins don't actually pitch bend at all. They have portamento and glissando which you will find in higher-end libraries but a pitch bend just won't ever work. Again my apologies, I will try to critique this later today!

Thanks for providing multiple feedbacks for me, I really appreciate it. I look forward to hearing what you think.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Neifion

[Brandon Strader]

Dang, that's EWQL Silk? I really like that. Always wanted it, wallet always was like "nope."

Anyway, this is sounding a lot better. I think you need to pan the low strings (cello? double bass?) away from the low choir, just so they don't clash together. If this is already done, maybe do it a bit more, just to separate them. EQ areas of each differently so they aren't both hitting in the same frequency range. (edit: and be gentle with reverb on bass instruments. This quickly turns to mud.) The 2 leads, the left violin, and the right ewql silk instrument, At 2:55 the levels seem pretty great, but earlier on perhaps around 0:39 the violin sounds really sharp and exposed. Try EQing the high end down on the violin to make it a lot less sharp, maybe around 2khz or so but listen with your ears when you're doing it to make sure you're pulling back on the problem frequency, don't just take my word for it, I guessed. Then at 1:30 with the right silk instrument, it sounds a bit exposed. I think it'd be nicer panned right a bit more, maybe a touch more reverb, and maybe lower it by like 1.5db or so.

I'm still feeling that the violin early on is mechanical. Starting from 0:03. I can tell that you are putting some variance into the notes but the timing that the notes are played seems unnatural. It's good at 0:35, but before that, maybe try changing up the phrasing a bit so it sounds less fake. It's going to sound fake because it's EWQL strings, but there are things you can do to make it play more naturally. Mainly changing up the start and end times for each note, don't make it sound sloppy but make it sound much more natural. Maybe put a short break between some of the phrases where it's like the violinist playing it lifts his arm or something. Little things like that to make it seem more human. In the end, if you feel there's not too much you can do there, it couldn't hurt to just lower the volume slightly -- 1 or 2db.

Not sure how helpful this will be, but let's see what a mod thinks with their mod review.

[Neifion]

Silk is pretty awesome, I have to admit. But yeah, it's pretty expensive and is definitely more about quality than quantity. For the erhu alone (that's the one you're hearing in the song) there's dozens of articulation patches. For more variety, RA has a lot of the same instruments as Silk plus many others including percussion.

Back on topic, I completely agree. I'm a lot more natural with the erhu and violin once the song gets going and they start to explore and weave. I think in the beginning, I got too locked into the mentality of "this is the intro melody, gotta be spot-on". I already have fixes in mind, but I'll wait for a mod review first of course.

Mixing wise, I think it might be good to try panning the string ensemble a bit to the right (since that's where the cellos and contrabasses hang out in a real orchestra). I think EQ a bit more of the bass frequencies out of the choir could be in order to give them more of their own space. I liked the piercing of the swelling violin at 0:39 but I understand it might be a bit much, lol.

Thanks again for your feedback!

Edited May 13, 2013 by Neifion

[Brandon Strader]

Mixing wise, I think it might be good to try panning the string ensemble a bit to the right (since that's where the cellos and contrabasses hang out in a real orchestra). I think EQ a bit more of the bass frequencies out of the choir could be in order to give them more of their own space.

Very good idea! It can be good to keep somewhat natural panning for stuff, just in general... it makes it seem a lot more normal to the person listening rather than if you had a solo panned middle left or something. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with doing that, it's just one of those things where it "feels" odd when it is done. On that note, it wouldn't be bad if your low choir was somewhat to the left and your cello to the right. I'm sure there's a way they could have both stayed in the same general panning area, and been EQd so that they sit together, but I think panning them like this would be a good idea.

[Neifion]

Yeah, I think some natural panning should be my Plan A before any further EQ. I'm hesitant to EQ any more of the low strings because I think I'd start losing that nice rumbly contrabass/cello power, but if I need to I can probably reduce the mids a bit to provide more room for the choir.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Neifion

[anclunn]

Instead of having them on a single track, you should have them on two tracks, with every other note being on each one, and then having the previous note last a bit and fade out a quart of a second after the next note has started. The artificial sound is the result of the note cut offs being too clean.

[Brandon Strader]

Instead of having them on a single track, you should have them on two tracks, with every other note being on each one, and then having the previous note last a bit and fade out a quart of a second after the next note has started. The artificial sound is the result of the note cut offs being too clean.

Do you mean for the violin? That's a really weird suggestion. If the library doesn't have legato samples, it's better to not try to fake them and instead try to get it to sound natural without legato.

[Neifion]

I EQed the highs in the violins to reduce the harshness and panned the erhu a bit more to the right. Also, bumping this for Mod Review.

[Neifion]

Taking this off of mod review temporarily to address the rest of the changes that Brandon suggested (mainly, making the violin more natural).

[Brandon Strader]

Yeah I dunno what's up with lack of mod review, sorry. But I'll give it another good listen when you have the next version, and hopefully we'll be getting closer to when you could sub it.

[Neifion]

All right, I did quite a bit of fixing up on the violins in the beginning. I think the results are much better! There are now much more natural note transitions, more appropriate swelling (including a nice emotional swell at 0:23), and I also lowered the volume of the violin about 1.2 db, which really gives a nice space for the creeping in of the erhu. You'll also notice that I slowed the intro down a tad; a lot of the problems were caused by a feeling of being somewhat rushed. This caused the articulations to sound a bit unnatural. Now, the violin and erhu have the time they need without being forced along. This also allowed me to extend certain sustains a tad for more dynamism.

All this goes along with the aforementioned tweaks such as more EQ on the choir to give the low strings more room, high EQ on the violin to make it easier on the ears (and a slight lowering at 0:39), and panning the erhu so it sits more on the right.

Edited May 23, 2013 by Neifion

[Brandon Strader]

I really like this a lot. I think if you have some echo on the low choir, maybe pull back on that a bit, as it just seems to smear together, but this is really solid. I think it's really down to personal preference at this point, you did a great job making the samples sound more natural, as natural as you could eh? I was hoping I would be the one to come out with a Ni No Kuni mix on OCR, but I still tried my best to help you out so you could submit this.. I really hope it passes, and I wish you the best of luck. You could wait for a mod review, or go ahead and give it a try.

[Neifion]

Thanks Brandon. You've been my virtual sifu throughout this whole process, and I can't be more appreciative. I also really owe a lot to my wife; she's an awesome music editor and second ear.

Watching some great violin performances on YouTube just now got me inspired to improve the violin even further, so I'm once again switching off of mod review while I finish these latest tweaks.

[Brandon Strader]

It was a pleasure to help, thanks for the kind words

I think the violin might be in personal taste territory. I know the OCR Judges say you don't have to have thousands of dollars worth of libraries, it's more about mixing and producing it the best you can. I've even heard live violins that didn't sound as good as what you have, and there's pretty much no library that truly captures the sound of a live violin. If you have a really good violinist, you just can't replicate that with samples. But I do honestly think you have taken this about as far as it can go, but as you've chosen to tweak it some more, it can only get better. The fact that you still want to improve it proves that you are really an artist. There's nothing wrong with stopping when someone says it's good, but to go above and beyond is pretty admirable, so nice work.

[Neifion]

All right, my new version is up!

Updates include:

A reworked intro, featuring an improved violin (both in sample quality as well as playing technique). Also with true legato. I got rid of the erhu in the beginning to allow the violin more time to express itself. I think it better establishes the stark, lonely feeling, and plus I like the dramatic effect of the low strings creeping in behind it. With the erhu coming in later, it provides for a more dramatic progression.

All-around tweaking, polishing, and adjusting of note position, lengths, and velocities of practically all instruments in order to better simulate the tendencies of real performers.

Additional EQ and improved panning for a clearer, more pleasant listen.

Light compression and mastering for a fuller sound.

Added a subtle crescendo at the end for a more satisfying send-off.

* * *

And now switching back to Mod Review!

* * *

EDIT: Some issues I'm aware of in this latest revision after listening on more speaker types...

Violin toward the end of the intro gets a little too quiet.

Bass on the low strings is too weak and sounds a bit hollow. Must EQ.

Mid-high detache strings leading into the finale are a bit quiet.

A little too much compression is pulling things down in places in the finale.

I'm a bit busy with summer classes starting up, so I've taken down the updated version until I'm happy with it.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Neifion