----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2000 1:20
PM
Subject: Re: [sblive] New Song
>please tell me what you think.
Please remember this is just my personal opinion... OK.
Like the melody and general feel for the song and I think
it's certainly
good enough to give to a bunch of musicians if you were
trying to sell a
name player the song.
But as it is if you wanted to stick it on a CD under your
own name there are
a couple of things to look at.
Piano is very nice a little too unfront, I think those
block chords are a
little heavy on the velocity I would ideally like them
to sound gentler in
keeping with the feel of the track, are you using a sustain
pedal if not it
might help as some of the notes are a little staccato,
a little trick if
your not happy using a sustain pedal or don't have one
is to increase the release
time on your soundfont, but over all pretty good....
nice soundfont as well.
The background Ooh's don't do much for me, how about using
a gentle Hammond
organ sound.
Bass.... I can hardly hear the bass unless I stick the
DSG (Compressor) on,
you didn't mix this on headphones did you ?, make sure
any loudness bass
boost is off, the again could just be this new hi fi
I'm using... the bass
sounds a little stiff a few slides into the note wouldn't
hurt and inject a little
swing to the feel.
Drums sound OK, although I personally hate that kind of
crisp snare sound,
but that's down to personal taste, a bit of conga's might
work nice as well,
and perhaps a few flam's and light fills on the snare
as the drummer sounds
like he is reading dots.
Lead guitar... the modulation value on your soundfont
is set way to high,
the guitarist sound like he/she have just got a whammy
bar (tremolo arm) for
christmas and they have no idea of how to use it....
the modulation/vibrato
is much to fast.
I like the way you bring in others instruments to the
song when a new melody
instrument is introduced, like the muted guitar with
the jazz guitar melody
(although I'm not keen on muted guitars as a whole it
probably works here)
and the synth strings with the sax melody.
The sax is quite nice a little more reverb to soften the
sound wouldn't
hurt, and perhaps played a little more legato, here are
a few general tips
about programming sax/wind parts.... try to think how
a real sax player
would perform the melody, your not giving him/her time
to breathe which
makes things sound a little artificial, use lots of expression
to avoid that
sax strapped to a vacuum cleaner feel. wind instruments
are mono phonic so
use pitchbend often and insert it by hand with the mouse
if need
be,especially if your synth does not support mono mode
as the SBlive doesn't. also try
adding a separate breath sample to strong notes for realism.
So all in all a nice melody with a good arrangement, the
points I have made
are pretty cosmetic but would help to convince the listener
this is a real
band, when I'm working on a track like this I try
to imagine the band what they
look like the interplay between them etc.... try not
to think about the female
vocalist has just ended a two year romance with the drummer
and slept with the bass
player last night.... believe me it doesn't help ;-).
I hope you find some
of this of use and not think I've just trashed your song.
cheers.
DK.
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