Another Summer, Another Epic (The Mellotron Goes On And On)

S

Suntower

Established Member
This is something I started working on last month and I think it's now feature complete. Not that there aren't 20-30 tweaks I want to make, but the basic composition is there.

Warning, it's 11 minutes long so if you want to check this out, you should probably clear your schedule for the morning.

I'd like to get some comments on the overall mix. It's dense and I want there to be some clarity despite all the Sturm Und Drang.

As always, how are the bass and drums doing? Too muddy? Clear? Power?

All constructive comments ALWAYS welcome.

Stream: http://www.suntowermusic.com/409_hi.m3u

Download: http://www.suntowermusic.com/409_hi.mp3

Thanks,

---JC
 
M

Mark Edmonds

Active Member
Excellent! Fvcking excellent! This is the song I commented on when we where at Paul's, right?

I just love the mood and scale of this song - big, dramatic, moody, slighlty dissonant and that wonderful bass riff.

To be honest, I am enjoying the music too much to be critical of the mix but a few comments:

In general, it needs thinning out. Rougly speaking, it sounds like there are too many competing layers, either overlapping in frequency or timbre. The individual parts need more distinction.

Roughly speaking again, the song is in an A-B-A structure. I think the B section needs a bigger sonic shift of character so when the A section comes back, it crunches in.

I would prefer the crash cymbals to be cut down in places too.

At the end (10:50 onwards), there is a \"wailing\" guitar/synth part that isn't anywhere near loud enough. This needs to bite.

The low bass is difficult to assess because in places, it goes below the linear response of my room into the zone where I just don't know what is happening.

Anyway, generally I would just try to thin the mix and make it slightly more focussed/attacked.

General message to anyone reading this: If you haven't downloaded this song or made any attempt to listen to it, you are missing out. This really is a stonking-great song. Do yourselves and JC a favour - listen to it! :)

Mark
 
S

Suntower

Established Member
Mark Edmonds said:
Roughly speaking again, the song is in an A-B-A structure.
Click to expand...
Actually, it's in a sort of pre-CPE Bach/post-Lemmy Deconstructionist Sonata form. :mrgreen:

Thanks for the comments.

I agree with the thinning out and the cymbals and getting the bass more focused. This is not as easy as it may seem. There's a LOT of stuff going on and it's hard to keep THE POWER and fix these relationships. Hence my emphasis on getting my studio acoustics better. This is exactly the kind of stuff that is hard to hear in a poor room.

Back to the cave...

---JC
 
E

Empty Planet

Member
Way to go Suntower. Dig the piece.

This is probably preaching to the choir, and it probably doesn't apply to your tune, but since you mentioned the word \"power\" I thought I'd share a simple revelation on the subject I had not too long ago.

I was listening to a snippet of something I was working on a year ago and thought to myself, surprised, \"Whoa! That's not lame!\" It sounded better than I remembered it, more powerful. Sometime later I realized I'd brought that stereo snippet into a mono channel, and I was hearing all my drums and my bass focused dead center. I put it on a stereo track, it blossomed out into its stereo self, and I went, \"Yep. That's the lame mix I remember.\" Again, this may not apply at all to your tune, this \"technique\" didn't magically make all my old mixes more powerful, but it was in fact a powerful lesson, because I tend to like those chorusy basses, and spreading them out makes them easier to hear. But at least in my case I was sacrificing the power of the bass in order to make sure the melody of it was being heard. Mixing is such a long strange trip!

Anyway, whatever you do, keep on keepin' on. I really dig the vibe of your tune.

Best to you,
Seth
 
E

Empty Planet

Member
Whoa! Tons of spam in the above message! :eek: I've never seen that before. Do they have bots that do this now, or is it a hack, or are morons actually seeking out obscure threads on obscure bulletin boards, hoping to drum up business for miracle \"medicines\"? :roll:

Clearly they don't know their audience. Any extra money we make would go instantly to a preamp or a plugin. Medical supplies? Yeah, right.

:lol:

[Edited: \"Above message\" removed. Back to our regularly scheduled program.]
 
A

Akis

Sadly, left this world before his time.
Moderator
It looks like some moron posts SPAM all the time in the forum (which I then have to delete).

For some strange reason I could only see the 'Huh?' in that post, though, and only see the links if I pointed at blindly at them - it seems they had the same colour as the background.
 
E

Ericcc

Active Member
Great piece man ! I really envy the creativity you obviously have... So I prefer to leave it at that...sometimes the performance and constrution are the most important...fvck the technical tidbits ! Hats off !
 
S

Suntower

Established Member
Why, thank you sir! But really, it's just a little something I came up with in the shower the other day.

---JC
 
NEWRIGEL

NEWRIGEL

Active Member
Interesting... the doppler type of ritard on the vox counter.... I understand the wild hairs! Nice one man....
 
D

daverich

Active Member
awesome stuff.

I personally would rather a different choice of snare though - something more meaty will some verb.

Kind regards

Dave Rich
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
UAD Bundle Month
Top