http://soundcloud.com/cha...ungarian-rhapsody-no-2 This is my take on Frans Liszt's classic Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2. I'm fully aware that I need to rerecord the guitars, but if you have other critiques, I'd love to hear them. Is the guitar tone ok? Should I rework the tempo? So forth. Completely open to critique.

I like the overall feel and the pacing is very nice.

The mix is way too loud and low end EQ is pretty thick.

The music is good so I'd recommend a quick remix with the levels lowered and some low end cloudiness pulled out with EQ.




I downloaded your .wav file and did a quick analysis:

Left Right
Min Sample Value: -32768 -32768
Max Sample Value: 32767 32767
Peak Amplitude: 1.06 dB 1.15 dB
Possibly Clipped: 514594 630995
DC Offset: -12.951 -14.188 
Minimum RMS Power: -28.35 dB -32.23 dB
Maximum RMS Power: -2.79 dB -2.82 dB
Average RMS Power: -7.4 dB -7.06 dB
Total RMS Power: -7.12 dB -6.8 dB
Actual Bit Depth: 16 Bits 16 Bits

Using RMS Window of 50 ms





If you turn things down in your mix until you have zero rather than 500,000 to 600,000 possible clipped samples it will sound a whole lot better and your concept about how you treated the music will be much easier to appreciate.

Also, your DC offset is huge.


It's very common to see a DC Offset of 0.01 thru 0.10 but something like 12 or 14 is off the charts and a real head turner.


It may just be symptomatic of the file being crushed with the 500,000 overs... I'd check and correct the DC offset after a remix and see what is going on with that... if it's still there you'll want to go further back and search out the cause of it and fix it.





very best regards,
mike

Your performance was very well done.  The mix, however, nearly masked the good you did.  As Mike said, it's very loud, and there's no sense of dynamics at all.  The reverb was too much, as well.  The tone of the guitar really didn't come into play because of the other problems.  This can all be easily remedied with a remix.  Don't compress or limit so much, so we can hear the DYNAMICS of the piece.  Back off on the reverb, or leave it off altogether.  This is just waiting to be a real gem.  Welcome to the forum.

 The parts are played pretty decent here and the song is done well but as others have said the mix is overpowering and clipping. It wouldn't take much to reduce those levels to a place where they fit better and come in at under 0db.

 The guitar tone could stand some improvement IMO. Probably just some EQ to bring it out more and roll off the lows, maybe add a little you could spice it up some with  faint tube coloring.Very subjective and JMO.

They Dynamics of the song are something I've wanted to work on, but have difficulty because all of the instruments (other than the two guitars) are synths. It's not impossible, but certainly difficult. I can adjust the volume of the "Master", but I rarely can tell the difference in volumes when played next to another song that I didn't record. If you have ways of helping me get a handle on these things before exporting, I'd love to know. I'm using Music Creator 6. I've adjusted the DC offset now using the corrector built in, but I hear no difference. I realize I need a better interface. I'm currently using a "line in" on my computer coming from my mixer, something I can correct, but not cheaply, that I can tell. I'm also getting rid of the compression, which will hopefully help. I can't hear a difference, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. My speakers aren't grand either, but they're what I can currently afford. Cheap solutions to that, would also be appreciated.

http://soundcloud.com/cha...garian-rhapsody-no-2-1 Here's a new version. Same recording but remixed and using the DC offset. Let me know if it's any better of if I need a new brain and understanding of recording.

That seems like a great improvement.

Nicely done!


best regards,
mike

being late to the party I could not hear the old version. But the new version sounded pretty good. I Think the performance is great.

Much better!  I can enjoy the performance and appreciate the difficulty in the making of this recording.

Lots of fast licks to keep up with in the second half, your performance is very good.  From a listener perspective - I enjoyed it.  As far as the critique perspective you have asked for goes - at times, the timbre of the drums is a tad intrusive to the vibe the guitars are weaving, I have no alternative to suggest, just an observation.  The only other suggestion is to slightly increase the tempo in the first half. 
 
Great job!
 
Jerry