Nice tune-
It's simple, but definitely unenjoyable, and it certainly has an emotional affect to it. I'm not too convinced of the flanger effect - makes it feels like it wants to be psychedelic rock or something, and generally just kind of distracting from the more personal feel of the piece. The recording sounds pretty clear too, which is always a plus, but sounds kind of lacking in the bass - maybe EQ'ing may help?
Yeah, I could always re-record it with my much better, high quality mic and mess around a little more, but the solo, while minor, was improv and felt, so I feel that if I redid it, it would have less feel to it since I didn't really know the notes I would play before hand, I was just going along with the music. Thanks for the review ;)
also, it was a phaser. I thought it gave a good dreamy, surrounding feel.
Starts out a bit awkwardly, but builds up nicely
The beginning parts sounded kind of awkward with the sudden pauses - it'd probably sound a bit more natural if you added a bit of echo or reverb so the transition into silence is more gradual (also, those windy synth effects could probably be longer and fade in more gradually to get a more windy feel).
Afterwards when the piece starts going, it starts out a bit on the dull side, but when those nice synths come in around 1:00 and start layering all over one another, it's starts to sound real nice and full. At around, 1:47, I think the drums drop out a bit too suddenly, but it's brief enough to not detract too much. Speaking of the drums, they sounded too loud for my tastes, especially during the lighter sections - I'd turn them down a notch or so, or at least make the bass drum a bit less boomy.
Overall, I think it's pretty interesting piece, but there are parts of it that just feel like they haven't been fleshed out quite enough (ie, most of the parts w/o the ethereal synth thing playing a melody/countermelody). Maybe some more padding here and there might help with that. Anyways, keep at it.
Thanks for the constructive criticism!
I would love to redo this piece, actually, I wasn't done with it, but I had made this with FL7 demo, and lucky for me...my computer froze, so I lost EVERYTHING except for this, which I had saved a bit earlier.
I wasn't even halfway done but oh well.
Glad you enjoyed it!
^.~
Mysterious, a bit creepy
Very moody piece, though not one easily explained away. I'm digging the strings and organ combination, and how they sort of clash harmonically but meld together as texturally; there ends up being pretty much no stable chords with the consonant dissonance - but not the extremely clashy kind - and this difficulty to isolate specifics gives the impression of a continuous mesh of sound, which works really well I think for an "ambient" piece. But at the same time, I'm not entirely convinced by this piece because there isn't anything that stands out about it to me (not in relation to other pieces, but with itself... if that makes any sence) - it doesn't really evoke a clear response from me. I'm not sure I can fall asleep to this, but it certainly has an entrancing feel. Good job.
Not bad for a first (w/ Logic)
Interesting piece you've got here, especially with the alternating instruments and whatnot. The piece wasn't really interesting melodically and harmonically, but the varied instrumentation helped offset that to a degree. I don't think it necessarily needs vocals, but something to carry a more prevalent melodic line throughout.
The mixing feets kind of off, mainly with the bass and harp being a bit too high in the mix. And honestly, while the filtered drums sound pretty cool, they don't really fit that well with the overall feel of the piece. Maybe you tone those down a bit (ie, be subtler w/ the filters, not DJ-scratch-like). Also, the pad that you use to double the piano at for the melodic parts don't really sound good at the upper ranges in my opinion - I'd consider another choice for the patch. But yeah, these are just aesethic differences (main thing to worry about is the balance).
Anyways, this isn't a bad piece at all really, especially if it's your first one done in Logic (though it's one of the easier DAWs to just dive in and use). Good job.
Hey thanks for the review :)
The mixing is defiantly off. I was changing things up to an hour before I had to turn i t in for the assignment.. and I never really balanced it in time. And i work in the music engineering lab which closed for spring break.. so I haven't been able to go back and do anything with it yet.
And thanks for input about the pad... I had selected a piano+pad set when I first started working with this and... just never changed it. In retrospect I definately agree with you.
I really wanted a more interesting melodic line, so I actually recorded violin to go along with it.. but I was at the time recording with a friend.. and he was getting bored so I only did 2 takes and tried to pick them apart... which ended up sounding... sub par. I am going to get a Mic soon and give recording another go and try to get that together. This piece as it is is especially bland because it was written with a melody or vocals in mind that were just pulled out of it.
I'm new to logic but I really like it. Prior to logic I had only had brief encounters with FL studio.. Cakewalk.. and as of recent I got Protools.
Thanks again for the advice, when I get the chance to revisit and work on this more i'll take it all into consideration :)
Cool beats
Don't see much mellow beats much around here, and this one seems particularly really well done. I don't really like the glitchy beeps though - a bit too crackly for my tastes, and almost sounds like a real "glitch" in the mix. Nice job though with this loop - probably the best one I've heard so far. Keep it up!
What's nice is
From just the beginning, I was entranced by the piano riff against the arctic winds (in fact, I'd almost prefer that emptier section to linger on a bit longer so that I could've savored it a bit more). But the pads were nice too - really like their organic, flowing nature. The drums were subtle to taste, though it sounds like to me they are the main source of the crackling? Overall, this all coalesces into quite an exquisite sounding piece, though certainly I wish were a bit longer (or just drawn out a bit more).
I took a brief look at the waveform, and it looks like the crackles come where there are flat peaks. I'm guess this is probably due to "soft-clipping," so may trying lowering your levels (especially the drums) some more so that nothing clips at internally. Or maybe you applied a limiter or some sort that cut off some peaks? I donno, but yeah, that's my guess about the crackling anyway.
Anyways, great job on this! I'll be looking forward to stuff from you in the future!
Heh, look at that, a longer review! :D Thanks.
Augh, having the emptier section linger is a good idea, I should have done that! D: Glad you liked the pads, and the drums were one of the sources of the crackling - the other is the 8-measure FX that plays at the beginning and end of the song.
Hmm, maybe I should have made it a bit longer, while keeping the addicting shortness/ending?
I never thought of that, I should try it later! Thanks for that! :D
Thanks for the review, glad you liked it! :D I don't usually make ambience but considering this song's success, I just might make more sooner or later. ;)
Cool narrative
Really like the vocoder effects - the chords feel pretty on in supporting the imagery from the words. I think you might be able to do a bit more with it, though. Right the vocoder feels a bit too strong throughout (except that bit at the beginning without any vocoding; was it fluke?) - it might be a neat idea to adjust the wet-dry mix dynamically so you can phase into deeper vocoding for the more dramatic parts, and less so others and thus give a stronger sense of contrast.
And if you really want to paint the words even more, try adding even more effects here and there (ie, ring modulation, convolution, distortion, etc), and fade them in and out dynamically as well. Maybe some soft chordal padding here and there would also help in further shaping the piece, and just filling it out a bit more (especially in the bass ranges which the voice/vocoder doesn't provide).
Still, really neat idea in with this colorful narrative. Nice job!
The begining was a fluke. I posted it raw just to see what others would think. Saying that, thanks for the pointers in the review. I'll keep them in mind
Not bad
You have pretty varied progression throughout, though in this case I might've actually settled for abit more consistency than variation. It also kind of sounded like you were relying on the progression a bit too much - for most of the piece I couldn't really pick out a distinct and connected melody (though there's the fragment here and there). The ending part was interesting twist, one that I wish you'd expanded more upon though - if not, it's probably a better idea just to cut it out completely as it kind of sounds like an anomaly within the piece. Drums were ok, though inconsequential - could've done with or without them. Overall, still a pretty interesting piece, though some parts moreso than others.
Ok. Thanks and I'll remember that.
Not exactly "Heavy Metal" sounding, but it's ok
While the drums kind of had a heavy metal feel, the riff and progression really had more of a blues feel. That said, the "extreme" drums don't fit in well at all - unless you are going to change the feel and instrumentation of the rest of the piece, at least. But overall sounds alright, if kind of generic (needs a more ornamentated melody).
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