there’s no such thing as bad practice…if it makes it sound better …it’s good !! you do whatever it takes to make something work !! the end justifies the means…Kevin
well…every time you put it up it’s better and better, well worth the extra work IMHO…M8 improvement works well…I hate to say this but I reckon you’ve overdone the bass drum in the beginning section…but that’s just my opinion, if you think that’s ok then it should stay…cheers and well done, Kevin
I reckon “smooth room” in roomworks se would be a good verb for your piano…
Glad you’re liking it. Of course, I’ll have that arpeggio section in the M8 bleeded in a bit better pretty soon. I’ll also give the different piano a try but if it sounds unnatural will take it off.
Concerning the bass drum, Larry recommended a velocity of 120 on the quarter beats and 105 on the remaining. I want to know his opinion of the sound now, but I can certainly have it turned down-piece of cake. I believe he does his drum tracks with Battery and Jamstix, which are very different from EZDrummer.
We’re getting closer guys, I could never do this well without you.
I always use 120 for the kick except when it’s part of a bounce kick, i.e. two hits 1/8 or less apart at 100+ BPM. In that case, the first hit is 100.
If you want me to render the piano part using Alicia’s Keys let me know and we’ll coordinate the transfer of the MIDI file to me and the 44.1 / 24 stereo WAV back to you.
I’d be interested to hear the piano rendered with Alicia’s keys, I’ve got Ivory myself but have never been that impressed with it…Kevin
I have all of the NI pianos (save for The Giant) and I’d put Alicia’s Keys up against any piano VST, even Pianoteq. Alicia herself even used it exclusively when recording her album The Element of Freedom. In spite of the fact that her piano (which was sampled for the VST) is a Yamaha C3 (not a C7) the color of the instrument is absolutely amazing.
Think I’m gonna have to get Alicia’s keys…
Thanks for the offer mate, but I think I’ll pass. I normally don’t make a habit of handing around my MIDI files, I’m sure you understand that. 
Personally, I don’t think Pianoteq is any competition for Alicia Keys Piano. The tone I know is mesmerizing, it’s a Yamaha C3 Neo, great rich piano with only 3 of them still in existence I believe. The Yamaha C7 is the more brilliant piano, and more suited for rock songs, but I’ll certainly agree, the C3 does have nuance.
I’ll be sending the song to iMix and Master today or tomorrow hopefully. I’ll show you the final results.
A special thank you to Bassbase, Shadowfax, and Foolomon for your advice. I owe each of you a favor.
I agree that you’d benefit from a better piano VSTi, so I’d take Larry up on his offer.
I just got here and the earlier links must’ve been overwritten, but on this 4th upload, the drums could still
use a punchier and clearer sound. It may be that you’ve got all the other instruments louder than they should
be and there’s no headroom left for the drums. If your master level is peaking now, that could be an issue - you’d need
to lower all your instruments and start the mix over. If that’s not the case, you could insert a compressor (the best one you’ve got) on the master stereo channel of EZDrummer, and add subtle compression to the kit.
Also - have you looked at EZDrummer’s mixer - are your kick and snare faders up there?
Another option - It’s time consuming, but if you really want the optimal drum sound, you can route all 9 of your EZDrummer outputs to individual channels in Cubase, where you can then boost the low end on the kick drum, add more compression to the snare, etc etc… (To do this, go to your VSTi rack, and just to the right of EZDrummer’s edit button, click on the little arrow and you’ll have the option to ‘activate all channels’, or select the one’s you want to
add to the Cubase mixer.)
I also think you should spend more time on the drum programming. The groove when the drums first come in
is too busy on the kick drum for this type of song IMO, and the fill that comes in at 1:07 repeats exactly the same several times in a row - thereby making it sound programmed. You should invest the time to add lots of subtle variation throughout the song to make it sound more natural.
Lenny
Thanks for listening Lenny. I knew I’d need special help (
) on everything concerning the drums, since I’ve been composing solo piano for years, with this being my first serious song with rock style drums. I’ll keep working on it in the future, and trying out different fill techniques. If it weren’t for those blasted fills this song would have been done a month ago.
I’m looking at the EZD internal mixer right now. Here’s what I see:
Kick: 0
Snare Top: 0
Snare Bottom: -.9
HiHat: -10.5
Tom1: -1.4
Tom2: -1.4
Tom3: -1.4
Overhead: -.9
Room: -1.9
I’ll be honest with you, I’m a musician at heart and know nearly nothing about sound mixing techniques despite researching it for some time. Maybe it’s a good idea to load EZD into the rack as you say and export each of the kit pieces individually for the masterer?
Concerning the piano VST, I’m quite happy with my C7 at the moment, and I believe a touch of reverb and some EQ will work wonders on the solo section. But I definitely appreciate Larry’s offer. 
I use EZ drummer all the time and I always have it on one stereo track ( except the snare) and do the mixing in the EZ, the snare goes on a separate track and can be eq’d later and rev added…I do this by adding another instance of EZ drummer on another instrument track ( cause it’s easier ) you can then mix in with the snare a bit of the overhead to taste…I know purists will say this is wrong but like you, I’m a muso and this way gets it done the easiest and is just as effective…Kevin
I’ve worked with a mastering company and am proud to finally make public the final version. We were able to get Superior Drummer rendered to the drums and a better strings and bass. I know the drums are a bit low, but I think it’s fine.
And finally a very sincere thank you to all of you who participated in this thread.
Hi Bane,
i would not change the harmonies are form at all. It is what it is, and it works more or less fine (as it is !!).
You have done a very good job, but have you thought about getting in a LIVE bassist and drummer (instead of sequenced ??). i think it would help bring the song more to life.
It sounds like this piece could have been written for guitar or organ, but you chose to feature it on accoustic piano. Thats fine and is just an observation.
Ta,
Paul
Good piece…works really well, I don’t think the drums are too low, It’s not about the drums, It’s about the piano…well done…Kevin
This sounds a lot better than the earlier mixes. Nice and full. The drums do sit fine in the mix and their sound is
about right.
I still wish there would’ve been more work put into the drum programming. It could use a good deal more subtle
variations. The only other thing that, to me, make it seem incomplete is some kind of melody on top - whether
a vocal - or a violin or sax or something.
Nice work, Bane.
Thank you sirs for the feedback and also easing my mind about the drums. Phew!
I like the composition and the overall production, but I’m sorry to have to unease your mind by saying that in relation to standard songs in that genre and to the other instruments the drums are a little bit too quiet throughout (not by much for most of the song.) But when the left hand piano notes are played with more intensity toward the end it just completely drowns out the drums. This makes it stick out a lot as not being real because performers just wouldn’t do that and/or it’d be mixed to compensate.
Although, I still think you should have bought a mastering program instead of paying people to do it, at this stage anyway.
It is intended to have vocals someday, right? If not then it lacks a more concrete melody to be an instrumental as well as a variety of different instruments as Lenny pointed out.
My biggest issue though, is that the piano sounds quantized. If it’s purely your playing then it’s very tight indeed. If that is the case then it may be the velocities causing it to sound too programmed. And if the velocities are varied in a way that a human would strike the keys then perhaps it’s just the piano sample library that you’re using that lacks enough variation between the dynamic layers, in which case not much you can do with that
The string writing is definitely something for you to give more thought to in your next song. I might suggest listening with headphones to both Vanessa Carlton - White Houses (Official Video) - YouTube and Vanessa Carlton - A Thousand Miles - YouTube and really take note and analyze aurally the panning of the strings and what each section of the strings is doing. One of the things I really like about her songs is the way the strings and instruments are arranged, they don’t just sustain all the time or play in unison with the piano/vocal melody. In the first song ‘White Houses’ listen to how the staccato/marcato sections are written in relation to both the piano and vocal melody and then the sustained parts. Neither of them play exactly the notes of the chords. You may not find it interesting and maybe most of her audience wouldn’t notice it directly, but I think it still adds the right kind of variation that seeps into our unconscious as a listener and as a composer songs like these really are very good to study, aurally and/or with sheet music.
The kind of production that goes into songs like that is insane though. For example some snare hits have more reverb on than others right after it in the next bar etc etc and small things like that, that do make the difference And I’m in awe myself at the standard of the composition and the production.
Of course the only thing that matters is that you’re proud of what you’ve done and learned. The effort you put in is very obvious so keep on writing and practicing and good going with this song 
Thank you Jonathan, I was really hoping you’d jump in here. You always have the most challenging advice.
The drums really did get lost at the end IMO, don’t know what the dude was thinking when he mixed it honestly. I could never do a good job, as I stated earlier I don’t have any kind of education in the technicalities of loudness and sound balance stuff.
You are right indeed and kudos for being the first to say, that the piano notes were step input, that is, infinitely quantized. The dynamics were made to mask that as it does retain my very own velocity response, etc. But the notes were quantized indeed. Is there another way to mask that (such as swing settings) that will work with dynamics?
I did listen to both videos. Those strings are perfect to my ear, it gives it that teen pop sound that got Justin Beiber where he is. I’m working on a slower song at the moment, which already has been arranged with lots of sustain strings with the piano, but some other strings techniques have been implemented as well.
Most importantly, I have a question for you. The sound on my work in progress most corresponds to the more epic Evanescence ballads like Lost in Paradise. But I’m not able to build to the power they can. I’ve tried adding a guitar but it sounds like something crunchy that should be in a Meshuggah song rather than an epic build like Evanescence. Is there anything I can do/buy to get that sound? Of course, I understand Evanescence albums were engineered by the brightest minds in that field, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get close, right? So how would you amp/filter/eq a guitar to get that kind of crescendo?
Yes. When in the midi editor, look at the top where you see the Q (quantize). When you select certain notes or groups of notes, it’ll then quantize them perfectly to whatever note value you’ve selected just to the right of the Q,
when you hit the Q key on your keyboard. If you click on the Q at the top of the editor, it changes to iQ.
That stands for iterative quantize, and when you quantize when it’s set to iQ, it only quantizes
a part of the way to the selected note value. You can choose what percentage of quantize you want by going to the edit menu, then selecting ‘quantize panel’, then adjusting the % to the desired value. By using iterative quantize, your timing will be improved, but not perfected.