Secret Of Mana - The Heavens Fear Me

[Julien Mulard]

Ok, so I left everything (almost) untouch regarding the master track compression, but I did change compression on the choir and the horn (which I almost hard limited, foolish me learning compression 6 month ago), so now the orchestral part should breath a lot more. I may have lost something like 0.2db in the fight, but I am not a fierce loudness warrior, so it's OK for me I think.

@timaeus222 does this sound acceptable to you? 

Edit: Just noticed the file is 7min++ long, but the track stop at around 6:30. I'll fix it in the next version

[timaeus222]

To be honest, I can't hear the difference between 0.6.6 and 0.65. I think it's less overcompressed, but it more or less sounds the same on these temp headhones I'm borrowing. But 0.5 going to 0.6.6 is a huge improvement in clarity and fullness.

[Julien Mulard]

Okay. I think it's time to go through Evaluation, because I want it done, and I am really proud of where I am in term of mix and composition.

Here we go!

 

[Gario]

Damn, nearly eight minutes long. You're merciless - making us mod eval people work hard for you. Ah well, you make up for it by giving us some cool music to listen to - it all balances out in the end.

EVAL

Get started with the good, here - the arrangement is absolutely great. I love the handling of the themes, especially the integration of the various themes throughout (especially utilizing 'Spirit of the Night' as a compositional glue to keep the different sections related - nice touch). When everything is clicking, everything really DOES click. Slick lead work, awesome drums work, and overall a very driven arrangement that seems to tell a story.

With a 6+ minute track there's bound to be a few things to point out, though. The aforementioned drums are mixed pretty far behind the mix, which is a shame since they're actually quite well done (particularly, the snare and toms are mixed way to far behind the mix). Letting some more highs through on the snare would be a good idea, as well, as it sounds pretty dull, at the moment.

The synth choir that you use in various places (like at 1:12) sounds pretty weak, partly due to the attack on that sample. You don't want it swelling that much, or else on the quicker runs it loses prescence. A similar note can be said on the horns, but for a different reason; tweak the attack a bit so there isn't as much swelling on every single note, as it makes the performance sound mechanical when every articulation is the same.

At 4:45 the guitar gets far too wet, there, causing all sorts of clashing in the layering. I dig the delay there - it's a nice effect - but having pretty heavy reverb on top of that is overkill. Tone that reverb down to a minimal amount, it's wet enough with the delay as it is. At the end there is a great deal of silence; be sure to cut that off before submitting.

You'd have a decent shot if you submit the track as it is (I would consider giving it a borderline YES, as it stands), but I do highly recommend giving the drum mixing and balancing one more look prior to submitting this, as that drags the track down more than anything. I would love to see this on the panel sometime soon, though, and hopefully posted on the front page, so hopefully my suggestions help you get there sooner rather than later.

[Rozovian]

While I'm going through everything marked for eval, I might as well drop a line here. First, it rocks. Second, that choir is terrible, and the snare is weak.

[Julien Mulard]

Still alive and working on things! This track will be updated someday, but I have more critical things to do in the near future.

First, thank you Gario, and thank you Rozovian for your feedbacks. I did work on things since Gario's eval, but there is one point that I feel will be more complicated:

On 22/02/2017 at 0:17 AM, Gario said:

The synth choir that you use in various places (like at 1:12) sounds pretty weak, partly due to the attack on that sample. You don't want it swelling that much, or else on the quicker runs it loses prescence. A similar note can be said on the horns, but for a different reason; tweak the attack a bit so there isn't as much swelling on every single note, as it makes the performance sound mechanical when every articulation is the same.

1 hour ago, Rozovian said:

Second, that choir is terrible

I only have the Kontakt factory lib regarding orchestral sounds. So no control over the swelling (attack is at the minimum). I will probably ask if someone care to record some horn tracks for me, as I noticed a few people who play the french horn on the board. For the choir, I did a few modifications on the mixing. There is nothing more I can do right now, as I can't afford a better orchestral lib at the moment. 

I'll post an update ASAP!

EDIT: Change the prefix back to WIP, as it has been already reviewed twice 

[Gario]

Hmm, that is certainly something. I do not have Kontact, unfortunately, but on the Reason NX sampler I use there's an option to start your sample a certain percentage of the way into it, which can be used to manually cut out the swell inherent to the sample. Add a little attack (say, 20-50ms) to take care of the 'pop' that might occur from starting in the middle of the sample and that might give you something workable on the faster runs.

I understand where you're coming from on that aspect, though - if nothing is to be done it isn't quite a track-killer (as the swelling is appropriate at some places), but perhaps this tidbit of advice might help.