Night Sky - When Night Comes

[RevCosmosis]

When Night Comes is an arrangement of When Morning Comes from NightSky. It's fairly ambient source material, and I decided to stay ambient. However, the song has an entirely different (and more cheerful) feel to it.

It's a WIP right now, but the overall phrasing and such is pretty much done. I only plan on making it sound better, rather than adding more parts.

Source:

(or

if you're feeling adventurous)

Remix: http://puu.sh/2XJFh.mp3

If you'd like to see how the song has progressed, here's old versions of the song:

first

Edited May 21, 2013 by RevCosmosis

[timaeus222]

It's really quiet. In fact, it peaks at -10~-7dB.

The pacing is okay, but it's not going to be a meaningful listen. As much as you want to make it ambient, ambient doesn't necessarily mean background music, but this does sound like background music. See if you can find a way to put some more interesting textures into the arrangement, rather than letting your sub bass and nature effects carry the whole song on their own.

When I read ambient, I was expecting lush pads, which did not show up. Maybe it would be a good idea to audition some pad samples.

As far as I'm concerned, the first real lead is at 1:31. Right now, it's bleeding into the background because it's too quiet. Try bumping it up about 4~5dB and boosting at the 1500, 3000, and 6000Hz ranges a little bit with peaking bands to bring out the presence of the lead. Also, try lightly high passing the sub bass, just so it isn't so 'boomy'.

A good example of an ambient section in a song would be this one at 2:03 - 2:56. It does not mean drums are necessary, but they would liven things up a bit.

In other words, this particular version wouldn't make it on OCR because of these reasons:

ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION

[X] Too liberal --- Possibly, due to the long sustained pad-like 'drones'

PRODUCTION

[X] Too quiet --- Needs a volume bump of about 5 dB

[X] Low-quality samples --- The tones are not quite nailed, IMO

[X] Mixing is muddy --- Possibly too much low end reverb, and sub bass is a bit loud compared to other instruments

STRUCTURE

[X] Not enough changes in sounds (eg. static texture, not dynamic enough)

[X] Pace too plodding --- Even for ambient.

[X] Too repetitive --- Yes, even for ambient.

Edited May 20, 2013 by timaeus222

[RevCosmosis]

Thanks for taking the time to leave your thoughts, Tim! Here's a newer version of the song:

http://puu.sh/2XJFh.mp3

What's been changed:

-The mixing of just about everything has been tweaked a little bit. Bass is softer, lead/high-range instruments are louder, and the entire song has been boosted ~2 dB (will probably bump this up higher).

-Adjusted a lot of the instruments by a little bit.

-Tempo is now 118 instead of 110, which feels a lot better.

-Added a few tracks - some synthesized choir voices in the intro fill in some gaps, as well as a quiet noise rhythm track.

[timaeus222]

Volume is good now. It's hard to get a good pacing on a source like this, though. Can you think of a faster variation of the melody to put in (i.e. 8th notes instead of quarter notes, etc.), maybe with some bells? 1:42 would be a good time to do that. Just a few filler notes in between sustains would probably be sufficient. Right now the instrumentation is really slow, and with all due respect, it's bound to put people to sleep.