Hi all,
Please check out my first full project with Artist 7, which has been a long time in the making. Any comments on the musicality/mix are always appreciated. Thanks and enjoy!
Hi Bane, Sounds good. I think the drums could be a little stronger in the song. Piano sounds great!
Is the song written as an instrumental or intended to have vocals/lyrics?
I can say either way though, that at 0:59 the piano is too loud. The strings are way too quiet and I think people (including my earlier self) have instruments they aren’t confident using too quiet. I used to do it with the brass section of the orchestra because I didn’t understand how to orchestrate it properly.
The balance of instruments/some notes (such as the bass note at 3:13-3:14 being too loud) could be refined a lot better if you went through note-by-note perfecting things (or as close as you can.)
There are some good ideas but the different ideas don’t flow into one another and that makes it not that enjoyable to listen to. You’d be better off just getting down a catchy melody or melodic hook/riff and just having A/B (verse/chorus) sections and practice at varying the two sections with alternate chords/melody/harmony/instruments/orchestration.
This is one of my favourite pieces of music out of any genre and any album, I’ve heard it so many times and I still listen to it regularly;- Beauty and the Beast OST - 10 - To the Fair - YouTube I’m still as fascinated by the orchestration as I ever was. But the song is actually just the opening song ‘Belle’ where she’s singing and walking through the town. The melody is really just that but it sounds so fragmented because of the very varied orchestration. My point is that your song just sounds too abrupt with the different sections, despite there being some nice ideas. Well done so far though.
Sounds like maybe your trying too hard…each section of this track could be the basis of a song, this is a sort of collection of bits of songs. the intro is very nice, you should continue with the intro as the first verse and put a melody over it, then use one of the other bits as a M8 then back to the main melody over the intro (with string addition or other) then one of the other bits for a chorus, then you’ve got a listenable song…maybe,
it’s not easy but your more than halfway there with all the ideas you’ve got going on in this one track…worth sorting I reckon…agree with the other critiques from jonathan and cws…Kevin
Alright I took another whack at the mix. Here: Stream I Must Move On by Btrailblazer | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
@CWS: I did bump up the drums and added a little reverb for spatial enhancement. You should know I greatly enjoy your work on Soundcloud, and like to listen closely to your mixes.
@Jonathan: This one was intended to be another piano driven instrumental song. The mix was ineed all messed up so I switched from headphones to my monitors and hopefully it’s better this time. I added a couple things on the drums as well. I agree now that I look at it, the ideas are kinda sporadic and lacking in a unified sort of way. Though I did bring back the 2nd piano part at the very end with the guitar. My original intentions were to make this a more interesting, dynamic song than my previous, A Bright Day, in which I followed standard arrangement techniques more fit for songs with vocals. In the end there was little dynamic contrast save for the M8 advised by Kevin. I believe there isn’t much salvageable for this current one; I’d have to split it up into like 6 or 7 different songs!
Again I’m sure you noticed the piano timing was insanely straight again, and you’re right cause I programmed it exactly the same as before. Although this time I did go to extraordinary lengths to get my absolute velocity touch on every note of every chord, which hopefully masks it some. We discussed offsetting different note’s timing, but I really wouldn’t know where to even start doing that without messing everything up!
@Kevin: Well like I told Jonathan I’m not gonna worry to much on the arrangement of this one. In my next I will go to extra lengths to make it more listenable.
In the end though this one is better than the previous in the drum programming, piano tone, dynamics, and overall sound of each instruments (mostly thanks to having Halion Sonic SE available for strings and bass). But it seems I went backwards in the coherence of the arrangement. 
Thanks for the input guys, and I’m eager to see what you think about this new mix.
Speaking in regards to composition 0:59-1:20 is alien to the rest of the song and so is 1:20-1:35,rhythmically it’s just too alien. You should just completely scrap things like that. Vary the rhythm you have. It doesn’t matter whether it’s rhythm, note duration of melodies, instrumentation. In the context of this kind of music; if it’s alien to what you are doing then don’t do it.
But another criticism I have is that it’s mainly just chords. There isn’t really any melody you could idly hum in there and with the style of music you’re aiming at, that’s really what a listener wants to hear. Have a listen to some of the other standard verse/chorus format songs that some of the talented folk here post. Keep at it though. 
Bane,
Mix sounds much better!!! I do my mixes primarily on a pair of HD 650 Sennheiser’s. After I am done I tweak it a bit more with the monitors. The HD 650’s get it very close! I would put some chorus on the lead at the end. Great instrumental song!
650’s nice, I’m doing all composing, mixing and mastering on HD 280’s. 
Green with envy. 
I wasn’t really focusing on the mix as I think the arrangement/melody/chord progressions are the more pertinent issue.
True, if the song were going to have lyrics. But, I think Bane stated the was an instrumental. I think of someone like Yanni who has written many great instrumentals that I would not be able to put a lyric to.
Thanks CWS, I use HP10’s which do have a biased frequency response, they’re for listening not mixing. They’re cheap so I have no problem throwing them around or whatever. I still want to mix with headphones cause I feel like I’m distanced from the song when I’m using monitors. I may go have a look around at Sennheiser’s site.
Jonathan, I see exactly what you’re saying, it is indeed chopped up. And quite honestly that would probably make it easier to just develop 2 or 3 main melodies you can accompany or come back to and imbelish later in the song, rather than several ideas each song. I do listen to alot of mixes of those around here as well as friends or others on soundcloud. The problem is that most songs like this are guitar driven (which I could never do cause I don’t play guitar), and therefore radically different. If you find any piano led songs in this genre, or anyone does for that matter, don’t hesitate to PM me a link.
Very very nice, I can’t see any obvious mixing issues… it does seem like a vocal would fit very nicely within it 
I agree with comments about piano at :59 sec.
I admire the attempt at something of a suite here –