alternative electronic track with traditional instruments

Alphaflux

Alphaflux

New member


Would like to get some opinions on this track. It's a traditional instrumentation and electronic hybrid but the electronic elements are subtle, it's mostly piano, guitar and drums. It is kind of pop-y as it is fairly standard in structure but it's also not The Cheeky Girls so I don't really know how to accurately describe it :P

Any feedback on mix, composition and overall listenability would be great.

Take it easy guys
 
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What kind of piano is that? It sounds very electronic. Certainly not a Steinway...:)
I like the tone of the drums in general, but the open hat sound is a bit dull (needs a treble boost) in comparison to the rest. Again, they sound electronic, not traditional.
The fade out has a big drop in volume at one point.
I like the song. It builds well and holds interest. Lots of nice dynamics. I like the mix. Everything is clear with no muck. I think you've done well. I just don't see the "traditional instruments" bit. If that's the worst nits you hear, you've got a winner! :D
 
BroKen_H said:
What kind of piano is that? It sounds very electronic. Certainly not a Steinway...:)
I like the tone of the drums in general, but the open hat sound is a bit dull (needs a treble boost) in comparison to the rest. Again, they sound electronic, not traditional.
The fade out has a big drop in volume at one point.
I like the song. It builds well and holds interest. Lots of nice dynamics. I like the mix. Everything is clear with no muck. I think you've done well. I just don't see the "traditional instruments" bit. If that's the worst nits you hear, you've got a winner! :D
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Thanks BroKen_H, well... unfortunately I am still tied to VSTs for my piano parts. I am still looking for a great library, I have quite a few okay ones but none that really make it hard to distinguish between vst and recorded audio. I played the parts live and didn't quantize or mess with them in the hopes of getting a cleaner and more natural feel, but i'm not sure how well that translates now. It could be that they are mirrored with a harp sound which may cause some of the confusion, but again they are VST's so wont sound fantastic and rich. The traditional instruments mention was more to do with the focus being on Piano, a realistic(ish) kit and other strings to build the layers instead of wub wub bass and samples :D

Thanks for the feedback! Do you happen to know of any decent kontakt libraries for piano? I use piano in a lot of my music so it's worth the investment if I can find something mind blowingly accurate.
 
I downloaded the .SF2 sound font from THIS THREAD not too long ago. It seems quite excellent, but I'm not sure it would work in Kontakt as I'm a Reason user. Works fine in Reason. Hope that's helpful.
Again, don't get me wrong, I liked what you did there, I just didn't quite understand the nomenclature...:D
 
BroKen_H said:
I downloaded the .SF2 sound font from THIS THREAD not too long ago. It seems quite excellent, but I'm not sure it would work in Kontakt as I'm a Reason user. Works fine in Reason. Hope that's helpful.
Again, don't get me wrong, I liked what you did there, I just didn't quite understand the nomenclature...:D
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Ah-ha! Thank you, and it's free so that is definitely a plus. According to google Kontakt can handle the format so will try it out in a bit. Hoping this solves my piano woes!
 
I think the snare is a little too small for this...I like the playing, all great...I like the idea too


The synths sound like soft synths, not sure if you are layering thrm, it can thicken them up. But all in all a good job
 
I like the piano parts. I thought the composition was good. The piano sound was so-so. You could tell it was a VST.

The tonal balance across the whole mix was pretty nice.

The cymbals were a bit cheap and coarse sounding. It would help to have some nicer samples to give the mix more of a high end shimmer.
 
TripleM said:
I like the piano parts. I thought the composition was good. The piano sound was so-so. You could tell it was a VST.

The tonal balance across the whole mix was pretty nice.

The cymbals were a bit cheap and coarse sounding. It would help to have some nicer samples to give the mix more of a high end shimmer.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I am seriously lacking decent cymbals, to be honest I could do with finding an entire new kit as my samples are from a million different sources and it's hard to equalise one with the other.
Since posting though I have found a great Steinway piano library by 8dio, it's lacking a few velocity samples at the lower end but what it does have is like night and day from what I was using before.

I think I will try and find better percussion then will try and redo this track. It sounds good with the new piano just dropped in, but it's missing some lows and mids to bulk it out, so there's work to be done (dust off the bass gweetar perhaps!).

Thanks for the comments and feedback guys, will hopefully get a better version out at the weekend
 
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