Dark Night, remixed again on 1/04

It's definitely a nice tune, my suggestion (and it may be just me) would be to do something different with the drums/percussion. Maybe some more deep sounding drums or something, I don't know, maybe a drummer will have an idea. The instruments sound good.

Nice tune, and nice arrangement....... I heard the LIB thing too.... I also agree there needs to be some top end sizzle. That would open this song up...

I really like the driving power of the keyboard part and everything blends together very well.
The one suggestion I can make is, if it's possible with your setup, to vary the vibrato on the violin and maybe the flute too.
I'm a bit spoiled because my daughter is a violinist (she's the real musician, I'm just a hack rock guitarist).
I'd have to say deciding how much vibrato to use is by feel.
Anyway, again, I really liked Dark Night.

Oh this mix is so much better :-) Good job!

Ya, I gotta love the upbeat minor. Uplifting and tragic at the same time. Mix seems a bit left heavy for me but nice driving pedal on the piano. I normally don't like flutes but well played and fit well with the tune.

al

“I think your a tremendously talented pianist”

My urologist told me the EXACT same thing when I returned the sample jar. Wait! Are we talking about the same thing?

Janet, the difference between this version and the earlier is amazing. The song went from simply "nice", to "soulful, souring and wonderful". Its remarkable what the improvement in the mix quality has done for the songs.

When I listened to the mix via the monitors, it sounded great. Really nice.

When I put on my headphones, it was then that some problems revealed themselves. Again the issue is one of panning. You have the two main instruments both focused at about 10 o'clock (on the horizontal). This leaves the right side of the mix empty of any leads or comps that are of equal value to the flute and piano. The entire space is filled only with percussion and bass (both of which, btw, sounded pretty good overall).

Here is what I might try first:

Center the piano as it already has a stereo spread associated with it. While you kept most of the quality of the sound, you are losing the tone that would normally be present in the right side when you pan in this manner - do any pans and effects within the synth itself, not Sonar.

Duplicate the flute, pan the dupe an equal amount to the right, and transpose it an octave (or have it play harmony to the lead flute), OR, filter the two dupes so that part of the tone comes left and part right (band pass), in a sense providing an autopan like effect based on frequency, OR, do both. .

There are many ways you can fix it to be better balanced, these are only a couple of them to try.

The centered piano will also give me a better idea of its full tonal quality to answer the other question you posed to me. But even outside of that, it is the one instrument that if the lead, I would always keep centered due to the inherently stereo nature of most HQ piano patches already.

Cheers
Shad

(edit - changed 2 oclock to 10 oclock - duh)

a hack rock guitarist is a real musician too.

You better believe it! Nothing wrong with being a "hacker" of guitars!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Better job on the mix..with the addition of the boost in the higher freqs.

Shad--THANK YOU!!! I appreciate that immensely. I only had a little time to work on the mix tonight, but I'll try to get a new mix up soon. I think the violin was so low that it could hardly be heard, making everything sound lop-sided. But we'll see.

Tony--thank you too! Yes, I did the bass. Glad you like it. I think I eq'd the kick wrong, so hopefully that will sound better. Not sure about the reverb, but I'm working on it!

Herb--thanks again!

Reece--thanks! I checked the flute range and it's within range. The chart I have shows that it can go up to D7 and down to C4. That's almost what the sample allows me to do (it goes one note higher.) Does it sound way too high? I gravitate toward those high octaves, but others have complained about that. I purposely played the violin lower this time and I like it there. Anyway, I appreciate your helpful and kind comments!

Janet,
This is by far my favorite of yours. Really like the part at about 1:50, and it just gets better as it goes along. Lots of heart in this one. Yes, a better drum synth would do wonders for this recording, but you've done a good job programming them. I have to disagree with some others about the EQ. There seems to be too much of the 3khz - 5khz in this mix for what is in the 250hz - 350hz range. That could be a simple matter of preferance though, so go with your gut (or majority) on that. Really like this. Fine playing as usual, but a cut above on this one. Nice!!

Janet -Ok - if you checked and made sure the flute's in range that's fine. I wouldn't worry too much about it, but for future references, you might want to think about the fact that just because an instrument HAS a particular range, that it's not always played that way. look at some scores where flutes (or violas or cellos or whatever) and study the actual range that they're using the instrument and that doesn't always correlate to what the range of the instrument is actually capable of. Hope that makes sense.

ORIGINAL: Beagle

Janet -Ok - if you checked and made sure the flute's in range that's fine. I wouldn't worry too much about it, but for future references, you might want to think about the fact that just because an instrument HAS a particular range, that it's not always played that way. look at some scores where flutes (or violas or cellos or whatever) and study the actual range that they're using the instrument and that doesn't always correlate to what the range of the instrument is actually capable of. Hope that makes sense.

Ahhh, but could one not say that a good composer will explore the full potential of an instruments range? And I have heard from many musicians that they quite enjoy and appreciate music that makes full use of their chosen instrument. MMan (the Norwegian fellow) made a good observation about my double reed piece and that was about the "playability" of an part, such as appropriate breathing spots and so on. I will admit I have not listened to that aspect yet, but the range certainly caused me no issues (being a fan of rock flute which often uses extremes).

I coast well with this. Easy-listening, soft drums, aggressive piano!

FWIW: I personally would have preferred the dominant piano in stereo and widened ... rather than mono-tucked at 10:00 (40-50% RT).

Excellent melancholy piece. Melodically this is my favorite of yours.

John--thank you so much. I guess I've gotta admit I kinda like it too.

Darin--thank you very much! There will be another mix (or more!) on this one, as I've gotten such good feedback.

Reece--I see what you're saying. For instance, not much piano music is written in the lowest and highest octaves, although they're there to play. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks! (I AM happy to know that my samples actually stop me from going all up and down the keyboard though--that would be bad!) lol

Shad--As always, it's great to hear different, and even opposite opinions. Keeps this place interesting. :-) Thanks!

Phillip--the piano's going back in the middle. Stay tuned. (I get a little confused about things now and then. I'm sure no one's noticed though! LOL

Bob--I'm sure it is! My grandson's a delight to have nearby and he even stayed with me last week without crying for his mommy the whole time. Enjoy him. He'll grow up in about, um, 5 minutes. But I'm sure you're already aware of that. :-)

Mark--thanks. The violins may be getting better because of better samples and Ron's explanation of cc11, etc., etc. It's a good idea to fade it at the end. Thanks for mentioning that!

Darin--I forgot to mention--I ordered EZDrummer yesterday, so maybe my drums will finally get better. Thanks!

Jon--yeah, guilty as accused. Sorry! I can't help myself! lol. Yeah, the name doesn't really seem to fit anymore, does it? Well, got any ideas? It's not exactly so well-known that it would lose any fans if the name was changed!