I know there are some musicians here, so I need primarily mixing critique. I don't have proper monitor speakers so who knows what tweaking it might need. Boosts/Cuts? myspace music page

Moving you to the music forum. You'll probably get more responses from musicians there.

Also is this piece supposed to be longer than 13 seconds? If so, check your file. I'm only hearing 13 seconds worth on my end.

Nate

hmm, on my computer it plays the whole song. That's strange it won't play on yours.

but thanks for moving it, i should have had the sense to do it myself.

Plays the whole tune here. I'm not a musician though, so I can't comment much. Although it sounds a little too porn-musicy for my tastes [smile]

Now it's playing the whole tune. Before it stopped at 13 seconds in each time.

Very cool and mellow vibe you've created here. Not so sure about the mixing, and percussion sounds just a touch too loud to my ears.

The "sound" at 2:25 is very odd and I can't quite place what it is. Sounds almost like someone humming/screaming with their mouth shut.... and your intentions behind having that sound in the song are not clear at all. (At least to me- especially since it only happens twice.)

I like the break in the middle, but feel overall this piece offers me one flavor. While I like the sound, getting some different tonalities and ideas in there would really flesh out this tune and give it more balance.

Thanks for sharing,

Nate

Plays fine on my Macbook Pro in Safari. It's not my cup of tea -- I'm a hook'n'melody whore -- but the recording sounds generally decent.

It all seems to be panned a little too far to the left, but I'm not sure if that's a problem at my end. Can anyone else confirm this?

My main criticism is that the ambience seems a little enclosed, as if some of the higher frequencies had been turned down. (I.e. it sounds exactly like it was recorded in a small room.) Perhaps some EQ work, maybe an exciter plugin or a hint of reverb might help lift it a little.

If you're recording live, you might also want to look at your recording area as there may be some problems with dead spots or unwanted reflections as it's always better to ensure the raw recording is as good as it can possibly be before throwing plugins and EQ at it. (Sound On Sound magazine has some great articles on this subject. Check out the Articles -> Sound Advice section.)

Quote: Original post by nsmadsen

The "sound" at 2:25 is very odd and I can't quite place what it is. Sounds almost like someone humming/screaming with their mouth shut.... and your intentions behind having that sound in the song are not clear at all. (At least to me- especially since it only happens twice.)

I'm sure it's a coyote howling. that would mean that we are in the wilderness at dusk.

thanks for the critiques you guys

i hadn't noticed before, but it definitely is panned to much to the left.

it is all recorded in a small room in my apartment, but the acoustics aren't terrible. main problem i'm having is when i export out of fruity loops, the song loses a ton of dynamics even though it is exporting on the highest quality possible.

this was meant to be an atmospheric piece.. inspired by a camping trip in the mountains.

the weird noise is actually a sample of a wolf howling.. probably best to take that out :0

thanks again

Quote: Original post by Chris Reynolds
thanks for the critiques you guys

i hadn't noticed before, but it definitely is panned to much to the left.

it is all recorded in a small room in my apartment, but the acoustics aren't terrible. main problem i'm having is when i export out of fruity loops, the song loses a ton of dynamics even though it is exporting on the highest quality possible.

I remember having some similar issues with Acid Pro, way back in the days when I had a Windows box. For some inexplicable reason, it insisted on panning stuff to the left when exporting, so I was wondering if you were using that app. You mention "Fruity Loops" though, which suggests some version of FL Studio. I've not noticed a similar issue with that, but I do have v8 on my Mac at the moment. (Running in the Windows partition, obviously.)

Losing the dynamics seems unusual; I'm not aware of anything inherent in lossy audio compression algorithms that would cause this. Is this only happening when you export as an MP3 (or similar), or is it also apparent during normal playback, regardless of the output format? If so, you might have a normalisation effect running somewhere.

Quote:
the weird noise is actually a sample of a wolf howling.. probably best to take that out :0

It definitely seems out of place. I can see that you're trying to foreshadow the effect by playing the chirping cricket sounds at the beginning, but this disappears when the music starts and there's no suggestion for most of the piece that it's anything other than a studio recording. Perhaps if you open up the sound, making it sound like it's really being played outdoors, a howl of some sort might fit better.

(Incidentally, there's a reason Hollywood sound effects people tend to stick to the cliché howling wolf audio effect: everyone, regardless of where the live, will be familiar with it. It's the same reason we always hear the same 'ribbit' sound effects for frogs, even though only the species specific to that part of California actually makes that sound.)

I like it, reminds me of some of Lemon Jelly's stuff.

Excellent recording, I love the deep drum and the sound of the guitar fret between chords.

Are you writing for games, or just for your album?