America is an older effort that I have revamped and added a fanfare to.
I did the final mix for optimal listening using Apple in-the-ear buds. The new music listening standard along with bass pumping Beats headphones and small home speakers such as the Amazon Echo.
https://soundcloud.com/fastlanephil/america-rev3
https://app.box.com/s/53a59hpyhy822aee0b5avja71wyt2n1u
Phil
Great and mighty music. It evokes R Strauss' Zarathustra to me but different of course. In particular I like the rhythmic section with drums and tuba (?), as in Strauss' piece, supporting the very nice melody. Maybe the rhythmic section could even have a larger impact, it feels that towards the end its impact increases, true?
Very nice.
Kjell
Hi Kjell,Originally Posted by kjelleman
The fanfare is a new addition which probably evokes R. Strauss. I’ve thought about the main body and there might be a trace of America The Beautiful in it.
This was pretty thick as far as sampled instrument sounds so I spent a lot of time trying to get a balanced mix with some clearity. I kept the percussion maybe a little subdued because those EWSO perc. samples were not easy to blend in with the other instruments. I don’t believe I increased the percussion too much towards the end but probably more on the brass and the cymbal. That was a bass trombone-tuba patch for the punchy parts.
There was also a tango of sorts going on between the bassoon and castanets in two of the sections for a reference to Latin America.
Phil
Hi Phil,
Great mighty march depicting your country. A proud American citizen. I heard a good orchestration for that purpose and a decent mix. The overall sound however seems to be very poor... I constantly hear all sorts of disturbing noises, and mainly in the higher brass parts. Have you done the mix with your ear buds? If so, that was not such a good idea. Working with headphones for the final mix or mastering is never advisable. I have the impression that the output signal is constantly overpowered (too much compression?). It's really a pity to hear such nice music in these circumstances. Could you rework the sound output to a normal level and maybe at the end a little correction by a limiter ? It will certainly be worth the while!
Jos
This time with my romantic brain had no trouble with this music of yours. In general, I agree with Jos. It would really deserve some more work to shine more. However, your feelings are the law, I liked it.
Hi Jos,
I'm glad you liked my march!
I shouldn't have mentioned the earbuds. I didn't actually mix with them, just referenced the music with them on my iPad. The actual mixing was done with my Event TR-8 monitors as usual. There was nothing done differently with this project. The brass samples are from CineBrass, one of the best although they are cinematic in nature. Myself, I don't here the issue you mentioned. I've isolated the brass tracks and I hear nothing unusual. The master track's amplitude is normalized and well within distortion limits.
I did up the snare, bass drum and castanet a little on the Rev 1.
Phil
Ted,
Yes, it's probably right up your alley for music. Happy you liked it!
Thanks for commenting.
Phil
Hey, guy - nice brass writing. Sounds very playable.
Tom
Hi Phil,
I didn't want to alarm you, the piece is great music and I'm fond of it. A good performance would let it shine even more.
I really have no idea where these scratching noises come from. I've checked with at least 7 other pieces on NS and neither of them has it. Maybe it's SoundCloud which tend to compress all the music to its own standards. If the normalising is already high (you mentioned normalising to distortion limits), the additional compression could trigger that distortion. It's a mystery to me that you don't hear it. Maybe you should try leaving out the normalisation as a test. If it sounds better without, than there's the cause... The music itself is brilliant and well orchestrated and it doesn't seem that one instrument(group) is exceedingly loud. That's why I think it must have something to do with the loudness in the mastering.
Jos
Hi Jos,
I tried bouncing the project from Logic not using Normalize and saving that file. I then loaded a normalized bounced project and the non-normalized project in to my DAW for a A-B comparison. Other than one had more amplitude than the other I didn't hear any difference in fidelity.
I always upload an uncompressed AIF(CD quality) music file to SoundCloud because I've heard they really compress your music files.
I've also posted this music that is on Box, here on my original post. Neither one sounds as good as my own AIF or MP3 file that resides on my Mac. I'm also hearing a click(s) in the fanfare. Maybe it's time to look at other options for streaming.
Phil
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