Please enjoy my new piece called North Pole Summer Festival. The guitar is me on classical guitar. The bass is my son on his upright bass. All of the other instruments are acoustic VSTi’s, played into Cubase by me.
Would appreciate any feedback and advice.
Thanks.
North Pole Summer Festival
Well played and recorded . So your son is a good player also .
Regarding the mix , on my speakers the low becomes a littlebit ‘boomy’ so maybe tweaking the EQ could solve that, the mid an high freq are crisp and clear, nice upfront in the speakers.
Overall i get a summer feeling with this tune. Great!
Thanks Peter, very helpful comments. I’ll give some consideration to that boominess. Something I think I am not always noticing. Yes, my son makes his living with the instrument, so whenever he’s home, I rope him into playing!
Early21,
The music is really very very good. The playing of the guitar and bass is excellent. The choice of the sounds of the VSTi is very tasteful and they are remarkably well rendered.
I appreciated the talent of this family of musicians. Bravo!
Really well done, Harmonies in 
, cool groove too; I also love the changes that happen, i think it’s well constructed;
From a mix perspective, I think the tune may benefit from kind of Q&A between guitar & bass. this will probably add relief. Perhaps more usage of panning, or few change of levels between the instruments will also add more dynamics.
Lucky you to play with your son!
In a nutshell : excellent.
Excellent track. Maybe the marimba (I suppose it is marimba which starts the tune) could be mixed a bit lower at places and the bass could be more prominent but the tune works well as it is too.
Thank you, Rene, appreciate you feedback!
Stephane, thanks for listening! Useful feedback, I think. I could definitely bring out places where the melodic lead goes to different instruments, especially between bass and guitar.
Hko, thanks! Yes, it is a marimba. I think your comment and Stephco’s are similar, and I’ll see if I can make some adjustments.
I love this! What a nice vibe and performance. Beginning got me thinking of Changes from Yes’s 90125, but it definitely went for less bombast than that did (although I love that track too). I think Changes was in 7/8, and if my Mahavishnu days counting skills are still intact, this is in 11/8. Nice work to keep our toes tapping through that!
I wouldn’t change anything, other than to possibly bring your son’s bass up a little in the mix. It’d be nice to get a little more of that woody backbone which the bass might provide. Totally, a subjective comment from a bass player, of course. No real reason to change anything. Just keep more music like this coming.
Ha, you got it! it’s a 6-5 pattern. I was considering changing it to 6 all the way through, but I liked the way the melody fit on 6 over 5. The intro, the end, and part of the middle are in 5/8, but most is in 11. I was just messing with everyone’s mind in the middle where the hand-clap is in 4/4. Appreciate your observation about the bass, it matches the comments of others, and in the next mix I’m bringing the bass up where it solos, and back where it doesn’t, and eq-ing it a bit.
Although I listened to Yes all day long through their first four albums, I lost track of them after that, so I hadn’t heard Changes, which is a really nice song.
Thanks for listening and commenting!
What a cool tune. Great playing and arranging.
What a lovely way to return o hearing other works. That is sublime track, Leon. Congrats. Love the summer feel - Caribbean on ice. (the cool stuff!)
Jonathan
Hi Joe, thanks a lot for giving it a listen!
Hi Jonathan, Thanks for your positive feedback!
Hi everyone, I’ve tried to incorporate your feedback into an updated version. Mainly, I’ve done a more careful job of balancing the instruments, in particular, bringing out the acoustic bass when it’s soloing. Also added some compression and EQ to the bass track.
Thanks again for all the useful feedback.
North Pole Summer Festival
I think the overall balance is much better now and marimba is not getting in the way of the guitar melody lines.
Hko, thanks for checking back. You were absolutely right about the marimba tracks.
Fantastic. Really much much better. I love the panning you also took care of.
This is crystal clear!
Let’s go to North Pole with both of you!
Thanks, Stephan, for giving it another listen. I definitely was driven to complete this one before I had really balanced things. Appreciate your help.
Definitely liked this to begin with, and I think it’s even better now. I like what you did to bring the bass and the “wood” element of it more to the front. Very nice work and inspiration on this!