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Great synths and some melodies here that sound like they could have been written by Mr. Papathanassiou himself. I think you could probably have made the percussion a little heavier for extra epicness :wink:

Good work :)

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Thanks for the feedback - appreciated.

"Mr. Papathanassiou" - I'm a huge Vangelis fan + I actually studied his music over many years as well - particularly the melodic content, so I'm flattered by your comparison to the great man.

SYNTHS:

http://hideawaystudio.wordpress.com

Highly recommended for big, warm, useable old school sounds.

Agreed on the percussion, but the issue here was one of balance in the mix; those big sounds can so easily dominate everything else...something I'm still learning to do well, even after so many years!

Cheers,
Mark

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This is a big change of pace after the stark piano pieces. Very accessible. I agree the melody is up there with the best of Vangelis' anthems.

Personally I think the arrangement is a little overloaded with loops and percussion. Not bad but not really necessary in my opinion.

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good stuff, unfortunately, the extreme compression and harmonic distortion starting at 2:19 ruined the listening experience for me :shrug:
HW SYNTHS [KORG T2EX - AKAI AX80 - YAMAHA SY77 - ENSONIQ VFX]
HW MODULES [OBi M1000 - ROLAND MKS-50 - ROLAND JV880 - KURZ 1000PX]
SW [CHARLATAN - OBXD - OXE - ELEKTRO - MICROTERA - M1 - SURGE - RMiV]
DAW [ENERGY XT2/1U RACK WINXP / MAUDIO 1010LT PCI]

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@ Frantz:

Can't argue with anything you say... As you've probably realized from listening to other pieces of mine, heavy percussion is not really my style at all..it was done deliberately this time as an experiment - sort of a challenge from my eldest son actually...could I create that epic trailer sound? I actually spent more time creating those bloomin' percussion loops that anything else in the piece! :0) I may remix the whole thing at some point, though of course this sort of thing does sell!

"I agree the melody is up there with the best of Vangelis' anthems".

Thank you - that's going up on my studio wall!:0)

@layzer:

Thanks for the feedback - always appreciated, but...

There is no extreme compression from 2:19 onward; in fact, surprisingly, there is very little compression at all in this piece:

Individual tracks and stems - nothing whatsoever, just a very transparent BLUE TUBES brick wall limiter.
Main Stereo Output - very subtle compression across all tracks - threshold and ratio settings light to say the least.

You clearly hear something - any more details about what you mean?


Harmonic distortion - again, I'm a bit confused by what you mean.

Harmonic distortion is the introduction of extra harmonics that are musically related to those already present, usually resulting in a change in timbre.

Comes in two main varieties:

1) Even‑order harmonic distortion tends to sound musically sympathetic, smooth, and bright in a constructive way.
2) Odd‑order harmonic distortion (the predominant type produced by analogue tape, for example) tends to sound rough or harsh, gritty or edgy, and is often associated with added 'richness' and 'depth'.

Usually any issues with it are in the high frequencies - you just roll them off to sort any small issues.

Are you saying that you can here harshness in this frequency area from 2:19? Have to admit I don't, but I'm 51 and my ears ain't what they used to be!

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ok. over limited then... from 2:19 - 2:57 it just sounds like a blaring mess of frequencies. even turning down the volume to near silence makes no difference. rather than trying to describe it in words, i'll just show you... i did a 10 second wav recording of the audio between 2:19 - 2:57 of your song. then i did a 10 second recording of the loudest part of Mr. Me's Clint eastwood song. (posted in the forum also) i put them side by side in the wav editor with yours on top. see the difference? horrendus clipping going on in your mix. i'm only trying to help sorry if i come across as a jerk. btw, Mr. Me. has a reputation for putting up some pretty darn clean mixes.
Image
visual comparison.
Last edited by layzer on Sat Nov 22, 2014 9:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
HW SYNTHS [KORG T2EX - AKAI AX80 - YAMAHA SY77 - ENSONIQ VFX]
HW MODULES [OBi M1000 - ROLAND MKS-50 - ROLAND JV880 - KURZ 1000PX]
SW [CHARLATAN - OBXD - OXE - ELEKTRO - MICROTERA - M1 - SURGE - RMiV]
DAW [ENERGY XT2/1U RACK WINXP / MAUDIO 1010LT PCI]

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The intro and outro with the Vangelis-like piano melody sounds great but the part at 2:19 is really a bit hard on the clipper's edge, I had to turn the volume down...

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ChamMusic wrote:it was done deliberately this time as an experiment - sort of a challenge from my eldest son actually...could I create that epic trailer sound? I actually spent more time creating those bloomin' percussion loops that anything else in the piece! :0) I may remix the whole thing at some point, though of course this sort of thing does sell!
Yes, it makes sense to develop that type of sound since it is required for a lot of commercial scoring. Still I would like to hear a stripped down version of this.

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Me too! It would be more my 'natural' style as well!

When I do it, I'll post as well!

As always - Thanks very much for the feedback - very useful.
Mark

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@layzer:

"sorry if i come across as a jerk" - No, not at all. Well-meaning and carefully worded feedback is ALWAYS appreciated - that's always been my position during 30+ years in this business - I know a lot, but I'm also still learning...everyone makes mistakes now and then.

With your input, I think I've sorted out the issue here though:

Couldn't understand what you were hearing, but then realized that I was listening to the original WAV file here on my PC and it just does NOT sound the same as what you're describing. Just checked it in my wave editor and it doesn't LOOK the same either - that loud, full on section from 2:19 does peak a little high, (-1dB below clipping), but it doesn't clip at all and there are plenty of little troughs as well! It's possibly been pushed harder by the limiter than I realized, but doesn't sound at all harsh.

THEN I listened to the Sound Cloud streamed version a little more analytically - aaaargh!

NOW I HEAR IT! It's NOT actually clipping as such, but it sounds seriously over compressed, harsh and slightly pumping...nothing like my WAV!

I've always been aware of the 'interesting' algorithms that SC uses for streaming audio - one of the reasons I always upload WAVs ans not MP3s, but I've never heard a difference like this before. What I think has happened is that I pushed the audio a little harder than I realized - no problem on my master, but the added compression that SC adds has tipped it all over the edge in that really full on section and added an edge of harshness.

LESSON: Always check uploads a little more carefully - I was clearly hearing it as I thought I should: like it was in the studio WAV file!

I'll create a fresh mix ASAP.

Many thanks for the time you spent on this,
Mark

Thanks to TRICKY LOOPS for your feedback a well.

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New version - done!

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