Well… this is not exactly a samba… it started like it, though… sometimes I have some inspirational flaws, then I try to play a bit with some canonic schemas.
The inspiration comes in and the schema is abandoned abruptly
So this song is for me, for my crisis, for me highs, for my lows… ehy… I said "for me, ok?!
Drums and Piano made with Native Instruments Kontakt.
Acoustic bass made with Spectrasonics Trilogy
Percussions made with Yellow Tools Culture Tryout
Alto Saxophone made with Sampletank 2
Electric Guitar made with reFX Slayer 2
Song is nice. I keep on thinking that pianos are the instruments you “play” better (even if I noticed you’re improving your brasses’ control technique). I don’t want to think about the time you spend to compose the drums line…
One weak point: guitars aren’t real, their sound is a bit mechanical and volume is too loud. Personally I guess that Virtual Guitarist is much better than ReFX-Slayer, but tastes are tastes…
“Thinking of nothing” and “The song I prefer” remain on another world in my opinion, but I liked this track anyway…
I really would like to see how you control VSTi’s parameters on the fly… Could you post the rns file?? Fell free to deny my request…
the brass and percussions are pretty darned good. but i would agree the metal parts need a bit more life - the idea is good, but not carried out well enough. the drum track is a little too promininent imho - some variations in the volume would be nice… but that’s a minor point.
pretty interesting instrumental thing, but i got a couple mastering notes (imho of course): the track needs a small compression because it’s clipping at second part, such clipping of instrumental tracks ruins it’s quality a bit. and the second one: i’d equalize the track, the middle frequencies (1000-2000, and 4000-6000) goes too low to me, it should be a bit louder. but i like track in general.
If you have Slayer 2, you will be able to listen to the actual guitar sound.
all the others:
I’ll listen more to the song to improve sound balancing. Probably I will lower drums and raise piano and bass. I will maybe variate a bit the bass line here and there, but I don’t know…
Its sound first of all… It’s not realistic, it seems a synth rather than a guitar… Volume is too loud, I would have liked to hear it more in the background in some parts…
A suggestion: use more EQs and cut low (and some high, but don’t cut harmonics!!) frequencies of all instruments (guitars under 120Hz, kick under 80Hz, bass guitar under 60Hz and so on…), and the master track under 35Hz (and sometimes 40Hz)… Then compress al little bit (sometimes you could use a stereo imager and a valvolar pre-amplifier simulator between EQ and compressor), go to a sound editor (soundforge is very good) and check the wave of your mixdown. Then use a maximizer to increase global volume and ontrol unwanted peaks… Your song will sound warmer…
thanks for the suggestions about mastering, I will try them.
I actually do not use external wave editors, now that I use ReNoise. It is sort of a challenge I make with myself, to try to improve my mastering skills. I think I already do a lot of work to be a one-man-studio, but I would like to improve into this too.
ok, I’ve uploaded a new version of the song, which tries to follow all of your suggestions.
The only one I’ve not followed is the one about compression: the song is already a bit compressed and I didn’t want to lose too much dynamic.
I have changed some of the compression parameters, though, so you will probably find the whole mix a little quieter (Zed should not find any clipping in it)
The equalization was remade putting more center frequencies.
then i guess you need to use some dynamics shapers and expanders. there are few freeware even. for example this site where are some nice plugins (with such shaper). for expander (making a sound louder without amplification range of the wave) impoving you could use some “VST Puncher”.
actually i didn’t any “search”, i just loaded the ogg into Sound Forge and noticed the clipping, and btw, it still got clipping a bit.
it still sounds wrong a bit to me. the saxophone sounds too loud. but it’s imho…
well… it’s hard to get lively sounds from a synth… try to find to hardware guitar if you really want to make it lively.
i’ll tell you a secret: the most ppl loves drums, compress them, expand them, filter them, do whatever, but don’t do them quieter
Sound editors are very important, but if you want to master with Renoise load a vu meter (inspector is free and works fine) and a spectrum analyzer at least. Put them in the last place of effect chain and check peaks, RMS, and frequencies balance. Using autodecrease only isn’t a safe way to avoid clipping signals…
I know… I didn’t use the right words. I meant, it doesn’t sound like a guitar, it seems something you take from one of last istances of Trilogy or Atmosphere… If you want a warmer guitar sound, get ampltube (pre-amp and amp simulator)…
clipping does good job for my kind of music. autodecrease made for playing, but not for rendering i guess, so, i think it should be auto-turned off for rendering.
i’ve noticed that although the mix might register as clipping but i don’t really hear it distort… is this good practice? or should i get my mix below 0dB all the time?
Try this technique:
keep your mix between -6db and -3db (in the yellow zone of vu meters). Then go to the mastering and bring the global volume to -0,2/-0,1 db. But remember: mastering is not useful if you have a bad mix. If mix is very good, sometimes matering is a few steps operation (just a little compression, maximization, stereo imaging, no equalization, no global reverb, no harmonics exciters and so on…)
