The Forest of Grievance

[mattmatrice]

This is a little ambitious project I've been working on lately for Halloween. The song is supposed to portray a man waking up in a mysterious forest after a night of binge drinking out of depression.  As the man wanders through this forest looking for a way out, he has inner battles with himself about who he his as a person. At night this causes him to hallucinate his fears. It actually gets pretty crazy and ends with him running into a small alien scout group. The man eventually escapes them at the end. From this moment the main realizes what he needed in life: Inspiration.  

Enjoy and don't be afraid to leave feedback. Happy October! 

[CGrail]

This is cool, I absolutely love your synth lead, and the way it slides around while soloing is something else. The multiple sections of the song you have going on is pretty cool too. Not sure I would have picked up on any of the story behind it from just listening, but I always like a concept behind some music. Something I'd suggest is fixing up some of the MIDI for your drums, the parts sound good but very robotic at times. 5:36 is the one fill that really stood out for that, I think if you change up some velocities and timing it would help. But still, it's a pretty well put together project, lots of cool prog metal influences going on. 

[megatone]

Great music! Congratulations to the artist!

[mattmatrice]

@CGrail Hey man! Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it. I can definitely agree on improving the drums, it currently isn't my forte. I "think" I have improved on them over the last year, but I can definitely keep pushing it forward (or take the easy way out and have someone humanize them for me ;P). it makes me happy that you enjoyed the project! It was definitely something new that I wanted to pursue. My good friend @classic_gamer_76 did the modifications for the synth leads and I think he did an awesome job. Thanks for the listen! 

[classic_gamer_76]

2 minutes ago, mattmatrice said:

My good friend @classic_gamer_76 did the modifications for the synth leads and I think he did an awesome job. Thanks for the listen! 

Aww, you... I really didn't do that much :3

[The Nikanoru]

VERY interesting stuff going on here. I can hear the story being told behind the music and the various movements capture the flow from scene to scene quite well, IMO. Big fan of the bit at 5:15, very cool sound and progression you captured here.

A couple of general points:

• The whole piece is in need of mixing - compression would be a good place to start. It seems a bit top-heavy and there are a lot of peaks in this track.
• The lead synth tones seem 'blunt' instead of 'crisp' and tend to drown out a lot of the other sound where the play is heavy. Check EQ and volumes of each synth tone in comparison to each other.
• I agree with CGrail that the drums sound sequenced. It's not in the timing or intricacy of what's played (I would definitely say you are good at drum sequencing), it's the fact that you can hear the copy/paste duplication, the slight cut-offs when you use the same effect twice in a row, and some of the drum samples don't sound 'real.' The best way to fix overall is to get a drummer to record the track for you, but there are 'humanization' functions within most DAWs that can help with the copy/paste feel.
  • Also, the drums don't have much depth to them - that kick has lots of punch, but very little boominess to it.
• I only hear the bass sometimes. Mixing and/or proper EQ will probably help this.
• I'm hearing a bit of clipping in the heavy parts (example @ about 6:23-6:25). Maybe too much kick, maybe too much cymbal, maybe too much guitar distortion, maybe it's my headphones. Either way, I'd check to see if there's a way you can compress the peaks a bit.

Effective piece, though. I rather like this. I'll be keeping an ear out for the next version, if there will be one.

On ‎10‎/‎9‎/‎2016 at 3:46 PM, mattmatrice said:

From this moment the main realizes what he needed in life: Inspiration.  

I think this is a great concept for the ending, but I don't hear it on the track, just some aliens departing. Need something in the ending to capture this thought.

On ‎10‎/‎19‎/‎2016 at 9:18 AM, classic_gamer_76 said:

Aww, you... I really didn't do that much

I can vouch that 'Mr. Modesty' here is everything that @mattmatrice makes him out to be - a great musician AND collaborator.

Great work to you both!

[mattmatrice]

@The Nikanoru Thanks for the listen! I can agree with the fact that this needs proper mastering. I'm still fairly new to the game and trying to understand as much as I can on my own. Since I've released this, I've noticed that the sound peaks on some audio devices. It was a lot worse the first time around. It sounds fine on all of my speakers/headphones. I've noticed that the hi-hats and sounded very distorted when I tweaked with the reverb on the drum kit. I haven't gone back and fixed any of it (and tried to fix as much as I could in Isotope), but if I can get enough support for this track I may just do that (or find someone to master it for me) .

As for now this is the final product and I am only going to move forward from here (and apply everything I've learned to my next project). As for the drum kit programming, I'm going to be selling some of my guitar equipment to invest in an electronic drum kit. I just happened to luck out and have a best friend who is an amazing drummer in all aspects! 

As for the ending theme: Inspiration. I was really trying to portray that at 6:34 when I brought back that little motif. This is the scene where the main character is running from the aliens and as he runs through the forest and spark of inspiration surges through him and he is now motivated to continue living. I know that I the description I wrote was vague. I actually have a text file with the entire story on it. 

Yes! @classic_gamer_76 is an amazing person to work with . He has great patience!