Nobuo Uematsu - The Legend Begins

[Michael_Lochlann]

edit - took The Legend Begins down to work on it

if you came here and want to listen to it, you can jam to my Barret remix instead. https://soundcloud.com/christophercollins-3/nobuo-uematsu-barret-laguna

Edited April 13, 2014 by Rozovian
learn to edit thread prefixes, ppl

[ngc2440nucleus]

It's only right that I give you as much of an in-depth analysis of your track as you did mine. Since I'm not really qualified to say much about anything other than guitar, I'll try to keep my commentary centered on that.

I think you need to drop the gain or overdrive a bit to tame the picking sound. I'm not sure if you're going for a scrape-y lead-in to your notes, though. If you're going for that Slash-style dirtiness, then disregard what I said about the distortion and rock on, as that's just a matter of personal preference.

Remember that where you play a series of notes on the neck has a huge impact on what type of tone you're going to get. If you want richness and depth, shift it to a lower string and play it higher up on the neck; conversely, if you want brightness and a better harmonic range, play it on the higher strings. Also, where you pick has a huge impact on tone as well. You want those pinch harmonics to scream, I imagine.

Speaking of pinch harmonics, the left-channel guitar harmony sounds like the mids have been scooped, old-school death-metal style. I think it needs some mid so it can punch through. The left channel feels a little empty in general, so maybe you could re-transcribe it so that the left guitar is playing the right guitar's part most of the time, with the addition of the harmony being worked into the transcription. That, or find a way to get some more of the right-channel guitar into the left channel without it drowning out the left guitar when it comes in. It sounds like you have either reverb or delay being panned to the left (or both ways), so maybe you could boost that up a bit.

I don't know if it's your intonation, your tuning or your bending/vibrato, but something's making the main lead sound off-pitch. Check your intonation on the guitar by hitting an open note, and then the 12th-fret harmonic. If you'd rather not do it by ear, then plug into a tuner, hit an open note (make sure it's in tune) and then hit the 12th-fret and see if it's sharp or flat.

As for vibrato, it sounds like you're using your hand/fingers, when you should be using your arm (well, at least, that is the accepted school of thought). It allows you to do what is called "circular vibrato" (Steve Vai style), giving you more range in pitch whilst still having control over the rapidity of your vibration. If you know any cellists or violinists, ask them about their approach to vibrato---it's one of those things that we, as guitar players, have a tendency to just write off as being something that we just naturally get good at. A lot of dedication goes into developing a good vibrato. Look up some videos of arm vibrato techniques.

I think the drums need more presence, but I don't want to say one thing or the other, because I could totally be wrong. They just need more "oomph", I guess. The guitar is loud enough volume-wise, so there's no need to drop that down, in my opinion.

Hope this helps you on your journey to the perfect mix.

Edited March 15, 2014 by ngc2440nucleus
Typo

[Frederic Petitpas]

Brings those guitars closer instead of hardpanning Try 50% on both sides. I'd also say to use a longer reverb tail and put it on a bus with the 2 tracks but it's subjective.

[ngc2440nucleus]

Brings those guitars closer instead of hardpanning Try 50% on both sides. I'd also say to use a longer reverb tail and put it on a bus with the 2 tracks but it's subjective.

I agree with Metal Man that the panning is too hard---and to reiterate my earlier post, it just leaves one of the channels feeling empty when there's no direct output. I wouldn't suggest exclusively going with the built-in knobs of your DAW, though---I think you would have a lot of fun toying with a stereo-shaper VST of some sort. If you combine stereo-shaping with reverb-panning and delay-panning, you can create a lot of pseudo-warmth which makes stereo-oriented stuff a little less jarring.

[Michael_Lochlann]

THanks for listening to the track. I definitely have a lot of work to do on guitar playing and tone. I'll check out the arm vibrato technique, you're right, i am using fingers.

the panning wise i was copying "Free bird", but i suppose i can get it a little thicker with a copy closer to the middle or turning the verb up. will play around with that.

Thanks again!

[Rozovian]

Dude, don't bait&switch like that. Take down the remix if you feel like it, or start a new thread for the other track, but don't switch them out like this.

And do not leave the track on mod review when you don't even have your track here.