Falling Up

Sounds all around good to me. I like it. I hope you take this the wrong way, I could see this in a film soundtrack.
 
Hi MB, good to see you back. This would benefit by upgrading the quality of your lead synth sounds. That flute synth thing especially is very piercing.
 
Robus said:
Hi MB, good to see you back. This would benefit by upgrading the quality of your lead synth sounds. That flute synth thing especially is very piercing.
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Thank you for the tips Robus. I have problems with finding good synth sounds but I will try to change those.
 
My two cents. I think you have the talent, but you are playing it too safe. I here no artistry here. You are not giving us your soul. Good playing, nice tune but lets face it. Snooze fest. You really need to stretch it out there. Synth quality is not the problem, risk taking is your issue. Don't be afraid, play us something from your inner self.

My apologies but I hate to see good talent go to waste. Take a risk and let us listen to something that is you.
 
DM60 said:
My two cents. I think you have the talent, but you are playing it too safe. I here no artistry here. You are not giving us your soul. Good playing, nice tune but lets face it. Snooze fest. You really need to stretch it out there. Synth quality is not the problem, risk taking is your issue. Don't be afraid, play us something from your inner self.

My apologies but I hate to see good talent go to waste. Take a risk and let us listen to something that is you.
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Thank you for your honest opinion. The thing is i probably am not so talented as you think. I don't know how to better express myself musically.
 
To me this is a game of two halves. Mix-wise, you can hear everything but the whole thing is a bit turgid and overblown. The synth sounds are very uninspiring in particular. The slower-paced part of the song is a dead ringer for the type of music that we older guys in the UK would call "Test Card Music" or what might be called "Musak". There used to be music albums a few years ago that you could mail order off of the telly with titles like "Pan-Pipe moods". If you had used a breathy pan-pipe patch on your song, it would have been indistinguishable from that stuff.

The uptempo part is much better but there's an oversaturated distortion on everything that is far from pleasant to listen to, particularly on the drums. Did you record this at too high a level? It's clipping massively.

The biggest problem with your music from what I'm hearing on this track is your choice of synth patches and other sounds. Even with the best arrangement and the snappiest, most original tune it is going to sound bad. Dated, but not "retro" in a good way like KCEarl's synth stuff.
 
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Bubba po said:
To me this is a game of two halves. Mix-wise, you can hear everything but the whole thing is a bit turgid and overblown. The synth sounds are very uninspiring in particular. The slower-paced part of the song is a dead ringer for the type of music that we older guys in the UK would call "Test Card Music" or what might be called "Musak". There used to be music albums a few years ago that you could mail order off of the telly with titles like "Pan-Pipe moods". If you had used a breathy pan-pipe patch on your song, it would have been indistinguishable from that stuff.

The uptempo part is much better but there's an oversaturated distortion on everything that is far from pleasant to listen to, particularly on the drums. Did you record this at too high a level? It's clipping massively.

The biggest problem with your music from what I'm hearing on this track is your choice of synth patches and other sounds. Even with the best arrangement and the snappiest, most original tune it is going to sound bad. Dated, but not "retro" in a good way like KCEarl's synth stuff.
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Thank you for your thoughts. I admit that I don't spend too much time on the mixing phase so I will start spending more time doing that especially with the levels. I always listen with quiet volumes so maybe that is why I didn't notice the clipping. Also I have problems finding good sounding synth sounds like I mentioned earlier on this thread.
 
+1 on pretty much everything Bubba said.

It's a coherent mix, but it's a very safe and tame song.

One thing that might be worth considering is running some of your synths through a guitar amp. The noise and ring of an analog amp often does wonders for bland synths.
 
VomitHatSteve said:
+1 on pretty much everything Bubba said.

It's a coherent mix, but it's a very safe and tame song.

One thing that might be worth considering is running some of your synths through a guitar amp. The noise and ring of an analog amp often does wonders for bland synths.
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Thank you for the tip. Maybe I will try that after I get back home.
 
Not too bad. Lacks a guitar solo though :)

Lots of reverb on those drums, not necessarily a bad thing, but I'd tame it down a little.

The synths don't sound too bad, some EQ adjustments would really help. Often when I'm using synth sounds like that, I'll mess with low-pass filters to get the high-end hiss under control, works wonders. Then I'll bring in a high-pass filter to get rid of any low end mud they might have that I don't need. Really helps to make room for the other sounds.

The flutey part didn't seem piercing to me like Robus said, you must've adjusted that already, as I'm a little late to this thread.

I actually like this kind of stuff. Movie soundtrack-like yes, but more Zelda video-gamey to me.
 
The ringing bass frequencies bothered me more than anything else. Some of them just really boomed way out there, and I'm on headphones. I didn't mind the distant, distorted drums. I kinda liked them actually. This sounds more 80's than anything. Fix the bass and maybe a little less reverb and see where you're at. Just my opinion, you've got many to choose from here.
 
JohnnyAmato said:
Not too bad. Lacks a guitar solo though :)

Lots of reverb on those drums, not necessarily a bad thing, but I'd tame it down a little.

The synths don't sound too bad, some EQ adjustments would really help. Often when I'm using synth sounds like that, I'll mess with low-pass filters to get the high-end hiss under control, works wonders. Then I'll bring in a high-pass filter to get rid of any low end mud they might have that I don't need. Really helps to make room for the other sounds.

The flutey part didn't seem piercing to me like Robus said, you must've adjusted that already, as I'm a little late to this thread.

I actually like this kind of stuff. Movie soundtrack-like yes, but more Zelda video-gamey to me.
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Thank you for your thoughts and tips. I have a lot of stuff to learn in mixing also.

---------- Update ----------

andrushkiwt said:
The ringing bass frequencies bothered me more than anything else. Some of them just really boomed way out there, and I'm on headphones. I didn't mind the distant, distorted drums. I kinda liked them actually. This sounds more 80's than anything. Fix the bass and maybe a little less reverb and see where you're at. Just my opinion, you've got many to choose from here.
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Thank you for your tips.
 
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