Well, after many, many months of too much work, too little time and no inspiration, one of my piano students played the opening riff to this, said she couldn't finish it and said I could (and she only wants a 10% cut!) :)  It took me several weeks to come up with this and a few more weeks to get it done (no 80 minute masterpieces for me!)  :)  Rik agreed to play along (and had it back to me in a couple hours!), so that sweetened the deal and helped the piano solo not be as boring as it could have been.  

Comments and crits welcome, as always. Thanks, guys!  

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=789731&songID=11878488


New mix with better panning, way less panning on the synth, better eq'ing and more reverb, taking several pieces of advice and hopefully not making it worse.  Thank you, guys!   


9/9:  different eq and reverb

Very nice Janet. On my buds, the piano may could be a bit brighter? Or maybe "excited?" I know you have Ozone, have you ever tried to use it "on a track?? or a bus? Like your piano? And then for example, just use the exciter? Of course it has a great limiter/mband compressor, etc...  

This is a lovely piece, but I would spank the brightness, perhaps via an exciter. 

Of course, what I say may be Bravo Sierra... Always a possibility. Love the movement on the PAD ;-)

You know, I turned the volume up a little and it was better. I would still consider either EQ or an exciter on that grand. Probably the later, but maybe with a touch of the former? Check out an Alloy demo... 

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/alloy/download.asp

But you can do pretty much the same thing w/your Ozone. Alloy has some nice presets.

this is refreshing and sweet. very day-dreamish, like when you look up from your work out a window in a pleasant reverie, or in context with song title, looking out at a moon emerging up from the horizon on a warm summer night.

the melody is delicate yet enforcing. i enjoyed the guitar layering solo as it complements the piano.

i think this may be a bit too 'centered' in terms of the guitar and piano competing for aural space. you could stereo image the piano leaning towards one side or the other, then put the guitar on the other side w/ a bit of pan delay traveling though.

a very enjoyable listen & charming composition.  nice :)

Thanks Robby.  I'll try that.  Or at least one of those thats. :)

Thank you, ABV.  I'm really glad you like it.  That's a good idea about the panning too.

I'm going to try to do more mixing of this in X1 and see if it helps at all.  So far it's driving me batty, but I'll give it a few more minutes.  :)

(do you really have to go to the Console view to get to the FX bin?  Please tell me I can do it the old, uncomplicated way!)  

sound like a shadow of the moon. Nicely done!

Sweet stuff, Janet!I love that riff too.

Thanks, Space.  :)

Thank you, Scott! 

Beautiful tune Janet.  I love the melody and the emotional quality of your playing.  Your part and Rikkie's fit together so well.  Daren (ABV) has some good advice on the panning, and in X1 it should be a snap.  The f/x bin in X1 can be accessed from either the track view or console view.  If you decide to EQ or add f/x to the piano, just clone the original track, mute it, and experiment with the copy to your heart's content.  That way you can A/B the two tracks quickly.  The dark piano sound that you use is a good sound to begin with, so don't let it drive you to distraction.  You already have the performance done.  Bravo.

Very pleasant I enjoyed the piano and the guitar. 

The auto panned strings I found distracting, this could be me of course.  On my JV1080 most of the string voices have auto pan by note, meaning that every other note plays out of a different channel.  Fine when played with chords as it gives a dramatic spread but individually it irritates me.

Other than that it was nicely done thanks to you both for sharing.

Very nice Janet.  I like the composition and melodies - very emotional.  The guitar blends beautifully with the piano.  The piano has a nice dark rich quality to it, and you performed it with a lot of passion. 

A couple things came to mine - I was listening on my headphones, and the strings which are panning back and forth had a slightly dizzying effect - on speakers it would probably be just fine.   You know what you could do to get a sweeping effect on those strings without having to pan is the Sonitus Modulator - they've got a "sweeping" preset that's pretty cool.

The other thing I thought of was a big cavernouse reverb tail!  Not loud reverb, but long reverb would sound cool and fit the song.  It sounds great with any reverb though - that is judgement call.