I resurrected this song yesterday after having it sit on the shelf collecting dust forever. This was the first thing I came up with after my then fiance (now wife) “gave” me (really loaned it) her late father’s '79 Strat.
Notes
I’m trying to coerce Wim to provide a soprano sax melody for this. He hasn’t responded, but I am looking for an excuse to go to Holland even if it is to twist his arm so I dare him to say no.
The MP3 (which is what I link to below for you to preview) encoding sucks. There’s a lot of competition in the frequency bands that doesn’t exist in the WAV file. I don’t know how good BandCamp’s codec is, but I doubt it can be much worse.
Other than that, I’m quite happy with this considering that I put this new version together from scratch in 24 hours.
Very pretty… but is this a work in progress? As in, should we expect vocals or anything? because so far it’s just chord changes and no melody.
Usually if I hear “thunder” at the start of a song it means the song is going to blow, but you avoided that pitfall.
The encoding isn’t bad at all – sounds nice on my system. Regarding Bandcamp, for me it’s a mixed bag. It’s true you can download almost any format you want, including full wav, but the streaming – which most people on this board will use – is the HORRIBLE 128kps. I’ve had a couple songs that had the classic “underwater” sound using that bitrate on Bandcamp… so I switched back to a Premium account at soundclick, which is $9.95 a month and allows 320kps streams. I don’t post a ton of music, but when I do I want it to sound as good as possible – oterwise, what is the point?
Well, I’m hoping that Wim will agree to help out and provide a sax melody line for the song. (See first post.) If not then I need to go to plan B, which is “I don’t yet know what I’m going to do.”
The “blow” part is a comment on when the song gets sonically busy. There’s a noticeable dropout in some of the tracks in the MP3 that doesn’t happen in the WAV.
Well as I’m sure you know, lossy compression is based on the Haas Theory or Haas Effect, all about how certain sounds in a piece of music mask similar sounds, and therefore can be removed without effecting the sound too badly. I am no mathematician/acoustician but I ASSume the lower the bitrate the more is actually removed. So yeah, I definitely believe you when you say the wav sounds better. However, to my ears 320kps or iTunes ACC 256kps does an acceptable job. Still, not having heard the full CD quality version of this tune I can tell you the mp3 you’ve posted doesn’t sound bad at all. Of course, that won’t satisfy you and it shouldn’t
My channel to group routing wasn’t the way I intended. The channels in error were pushed harder than they should have been as a result to avoid getting crowded out. This must have caused a bit of overload in the codec because when I corrected the routing and releveled the group channels the result sounded 10x better.
It is really pretty and relaxing. Sounds very good I think. My only comment is the double cymbal crashes at about 1:05, 2:00, and 2:10 seem loud and distorted to me. I really like the song though.
Sincerely,
J.L.
Damn fine song Larry but the kit’s gotta go (well some of it has). What is it you’re using? Those China cymbal sounds are so out of place with this piece, they’re a distraction the piece doesn’t need. Snare needs to be pointy instead of chubby and the verb needs backing off considerably, we’re after subtlety here so we can enjoy the great landscape you and Wim have painted. Kick and toms sound fine to me.
Hope that helps
Cheers
Phil
I’m a drum noob. I agree - and have commented to myself - that the cymbal crashes are distracting and probably need to be dropped by 1-2 dBs, but I don’t understand the big deal I have read in here on several occasions about the choice of snare.
I can’t comment on whether I agree that the reverb is excessive. I haven’t noticed it to be honest, but I’ll have a listen again to see what I can hear.
Still, thanks for the comments. I know that they are given in good faith and that’s all that matters to me regardless of whether I ultimately agree with you or not.
I rolled back the China crashes since they were far too loud.
I rolled back the synth riffs during the verses when the song drops to an F chord. The octave above riff especially was far too loud and was punching through the sax.
I rolled off the top of the sax (EQ) so that it doesn’t sound too brittle. It doesn’t drastically affect the character of the sound, but instead makes it sound a tad more meaty.
I cut the wet-dry mix of the reverb in half. It was already set at 10 only, but I could see why it sounded like it was a lot due to the echo applied to the rhythm guitar.
I just listened to it, so assume it’s the latest version. I think the drums are too “rock” for what would otherwise be “new age”. I think they should be softer, less regular and less mechanical sounding. Maybe some other percussion instruments brought in. Overall more shimmery would be my suggestion. I’d go work on that. It has the potential to be very beautiful.
Sorry that I overlooked it last time. When I’m uploading to Bandcamp I literally open up a previous song; see what fields I filled in there and the way I filled them in; then fill in the same fields in the same manner on the new song.
As I said in my last post, I intended to replace the kit. This decision was based on the epiphany that I had after listening to the song a number of times after Phil’s post. I was looking at the inserts I was using and scratching my head instead of realizing that a lot of the trouble was with the kit.
I know, I know, that’s exactly what he said. But when he said “chubby [snare]” and “verb needs backing off” I thought it was an issue with the EQ, etc.
So I replaced the kit and finished the needed changes to accommodate the new kit’s personality. I’ve re-uploaded it to Bandcamp and invite people to have another listen to see if it makes a difference. I think it does, in spite of the fact that I did actually like the previous kit’s sound. (It’s not as if I don’t like the new kit…I like them both.)
Wim to provide a soprano sax melody for this. He hasn’t responded, but I am looking for an excuse to go to Holland even if it is to twist his arm so I dare him to say no. 
