Dark Night

Janet
Is that SD2 youo'r using?
Also, I would not worry how LA does one in 3.5 hrs.....He has had more exp. and time than both of us put together and has his system down cold.......We ......Well....we or at least I just grapple....scrape ....wring and generally try to fake it.....

but on to Dark Night.....I really like it .....However (now mind you I can only listen on crappy PC speakers since my Big system is OFF LINE) I think that I would try to EQ just a little of the top end of the violin down a hair to get rid of the inherent nastyness of the instrument........this is not something that YOU did .......It is something that the violin is good at and if we don't take it back just a little to warm up the upper frequencies then it tends to sound kinda of squeely up on top...........that aside

But I love the balance........I love the mix...Now I only heard 3 instruments....Piano drums and violin.......did I miss a bass? or anything else?..........

but the melody was very enjoyable and the work flowed very well so all in all I think you done god!!!!!

This makes the second work of your's I've heard anow and I really like your music.......very well done.....

Cliff

Another nice song. I know I already said it before, but with each new song you are getting better and better! Keep up the good work.

Max Arwood

Whoah, this was awesome, really!...

I can't tell, is everything MIDI? The piano sounds a bit realistic, but everything else like MIDI.

I can also imagine the drums slowed down and the tempo reduced a bit, then add some crazy vocals, and you've got a hit 80s ballad. But then again, I can turn almost any song into an 80s ballad, lol...

Great job.


(Haha, I thought I clicked "reply", but I accidentally clicked "report" so when I pressed ok, it said "Please provide a valid reason"... I was like, "I need to provide a reason for my reply? What's this nonsense?..." lol)

Cliff--thanks for the listen! Yes, that's SD2. Glad I finally figured it out. Took me long enough! EQ the violin--I'll see if I can figure that one out. Thanks for the idea. And you don't hear bass? I thought it was overpowering? Oh, well, go figure... And the thing about LA is that he can compose the song AND produce it in Sonar in 3 1/2 hours. It takes me a week just to compose something sometimes! Oh, well.. Thanks for your comments! (and you can listen to my other ones on my site if you want to!) lol

Herb, Max, Bobby--thanks so much!

Jacob, yep, it's all midi--even the keyboard, although I played it like a real piano. Did some editing in PRV and staff view though. Valid reason? Yeah, I'd have to think about that too. Like, "cause that's what I think??" lol That's funny you should mention slowing it down. I've got another couple of songs that I sped up and voila--a whole new song! I guess I could double my repertoire pretty quickly that way!

Tom--thanks. I'll see if I can bring that piano up. I imagine you're not the only one that will mention that. That's why I need you guys' ears. Thanks! btw, what do other Oklahomans think of the OK quarter? I just saw one for the first time last week and I wasn't too impressed...

Russell--thanks so much! I brought the piano up a bit and fiddled a bit with the violin. Maybe not enough, but we'll see.

that's a great mix everything is nice and clear. This makes me think of a theme song to a western movie. I really thought that was a miked acoustic piano - instead of midi -- sounds great!

Janet, I love the tune. Violin is too thin for my greedy ears.
Listen...just for kicks. clone the violin track. nudge it about 10miliseconds to the right of the original violin track...(maybe less...check it out)..OK..now pan the nudged violin track to the left channed about 50%. don't have it as loud as the original but play with the fader and bring it up eeentsy- weeeensty at a time. It should thicken it up a tad and make it more violin-ish. If you don't like the sound of it you probably wasted about 20 minutes and learned never to listen to my flaky ideas so all was not in vain.

cmon...try it....dare ya.

edit:more ranting.

Janet
This sounds a lot better now......
I like the violin sound much better.......It seems warmer

Cliff

Very nice Janet! Well composed and played. I hear this as a theme song as well. Your fingers are flying on this one!

Cliff--thanks. It's nice to finally be able to get a handle on some of this stuff!

Daryl--thanks. Never heard of her, but I'll check it out.

Larry--appreciate the kind words!

Shad--Really? Not cheesy anymore? Maybe we're finally getting somewhere. That means I have about 7 songs to go back and re-do. Ugh. At least I'm beginning to understand HOW, thanks to all of you guys!!

Hi Janet,

I liked this piece a lot. Nice energy to it and I liked the thematic material you have in there. A couple of suggestions I would offer is to spend a little more time on the bass and the drums. I think the piano sounds very good and I can tell you played it meaning it has variation and dynamics and life. The bass and drums aren't bad but I think you could improve them. The bass part seem a little busy to me and at times ended phrases on what seemed a passing tone rather than a chord tone. I think in general you could simplify the bass a little and use the moving parts a little more sparingly like when the piano is less busy. I think you should vary the drum part a little more and find some alternate patterns to use to change things up a bit. One thing that stuck out a little to me was at the end when the piece was slowing down, the drum part didn't change but just slowed along with everything else. I do really like the style and feel of the piece and I really like your playing. It is pretty good now but I think you can make it even better.

Clark