Starise

Hi Freddy, This song is sad because it covers more people today than I would like to think. The music is great and fits the message well. It is taking me awhile to get used to the doubled vocals. As others have said it could potentially use some work in that area. Maybe pull back on the backup line some? Just a small nit and sugg. Thanks for sharing!

Agreed with David ^^^ Great combination guys! Nice recording! I think given the similarity to Gilmore maybe in the future you guys could try a slower prog rock thing? Just sayin'

Great tune! I could hear maybe just a little more 3-5k in the rhythm guitar that almost sounds like it carries bass at times. Not much. Maybe a few db.

Hello " Hatstand" So these kinds of mixes often aren't as complex as they seen since you often are mixing sections of instruments rather than individual instruments. Not always but often.. Often these sections come with some canned reverb in the samples. In addition reverb is added in the plugin. This is probably one of the largest hurdles with these kinds of mixes for me. Too many tracks with some reverb can get muddy and there's often too much low end and low mid information to deal with that can easily accumulate. Some tracks need to "bite" while others are more in the background. It can be difficult to measure the amount of bite or hi mid to hi energy to add. Then there's the need to make tracks from different libraries sound as if they are all coming from the same source. I think you did pretty well with this. I tend to divide genre with orchestral music between real life symphonic orchestra and cinematic music. Cinematic music usually has the powerful drums and horns designed to add urgency and punch to the track while the orchestral music written by composers for real orchestras might be written per instrument and generally has a feel more similar to the classics. I would see this track as cinematic music. Would make a great soundtrack for a film.

I have that exact same Keystation in my studio. Haven't had the heart to sell it. Very useful for what it is.

No worries man! I think if we look at it in a more realistic way we will see it has absolutely nothing to do with us and everything to do with sheer accessibility of the masses. That's really where I think we are all at. Just to give you an example I use SC mainly because it makes a great place to store some of my music both good, bad and all in between. I managed to get over 16 thousand plays on one of my tracks which as I look back had some minor timing issues in it. It was nothing back then to get several thousand plays on a track if it was decent. I had a lot of tracks with thousands of plays 5 years ago. Since then I haven't done a whole lot different in anything I've done other than add the odd song or maybe a song with a spiritual theme that might not have appealed to everyone. Still the difference between now and 5 years ago is staggering. I am now lucky to get 200 plays in 6 months for the same or similar material. And this is all FREE. I'm not charging anything. Just about every time I post a track within 5 minutes or less I'll get a response on my SC that someone wants to market my track. I have the tier of SC that would let me market my own tracks if I wanted to start doing that. Not only that but people come around trying to sell me plays??? Seriously you can "buy" plays on SC. So some people with absolutely no talent can look as if they are getting lots of hits on SC. One listen to the track lets any decent musician/mixer know that there shouldn't be THAT much popularity for some of these tracks. It's all a farce. I'll go so far as to say most of music marketing never took talent into consideration. I regularly see good musicians with great mixes getting much less exposure than others who really aren't as capable. Even if you lock your tracks on any music site there are ways they can rip them. Reminds me of a few video/photography sites where photographers are giving away great high resolution pictures and requesting paypal donations in return. I don't see there being any money in it. I started adding up the cost of plugins and instruments in making some of the music I make. In one song I couold easily count at least $1000 worth of plugins excluding the computer, DAW and recording hardware. If you look at it that way most have probably been in the red for a long time. I guess I could cry all day about the way it is and never get anywhere. Just know it mostly is never the musician so I would never take it personally. It has everything to do with the ease that anyone out there can make a track in Garageband or similar and post it up. Essentially burying good acts and musicians under thousands and thousands of other songs. Some not so good. Some excellent and some in between. The musician's life is not an easy one financially, even on a good day for most. I wish I could say there's a way out but I really don't see it right now. I mean, If making a few dollars here and there makes someone feel successful and buys a McDonalds meal, then maybe that's enough for them. Much like online busking we are literally begging for someone to throw some change in our cup. I have had employment elsewhere or I would be in a bad way.

I'm in full agreement abacab. It's a great program I would consider better than merely a sketch library. I have it and use it.👍

The better libraries give you more articulations with more mic positions. Sometimes better samples. That doesn't in any way mean you can't make excellent mixes using Amadeus. You can map it in Cakewalk using the new articulations feature just like any other instrument. UNIFY has been mentioned here before. Just the patches John made for the Discovery and CORE versions of his UNIFY creation are incredible. You can drag Amadeus into it too, or any other instrument it scans. It has a LOT of features Kontakt has and more only that program lets you mix things up. You don't need Kontakt anything to use it. You could probably drag Kontakt into IT.

Thanks Larry. I'll check these out. I want to make short videos for my music. The ability to use vst plug ins is something I like in Vegas, even if it was clunky and only worked part of the time.. Also Vegas seems to have one of the largest media acceptance lists. Some of these programs won't take certain video formats . I already have Vegas movie maker and they are always out to get me to upgrade. I might get a better deal on version 18 pro that way. Not sure. The biggest issue for me is in finding video. Most videos for sale online are short clips. I think I want my videos to be more story like if possible. I'm looking for 4K. This is difficult to do using short clips not related to one another. I can't afford to hire a videographer to make videos for me either. I realize that isn't a program specific problem. Just thinking out loud.

Aside for these things which I know nothing about, I remember Wusik being around for a LONG time. Have seen ads for it here off and on over the years. Have always been tempted to try it but it seemed I always had enough synths to cover me. I clicked the link and went to the makers personal website. Listened to some of his music. Well made but mostly in the techno genre. Is Wusik primarily a techno synth line? What would you compare it to?

Does anyone know of better program for video without a subscription?

I believe it's a real possibility. Their main Total Studio package is pretty huge already. Many if not most of the sounds are very good. IK recently updated their web portal making it easier to get those larger downloads *hopefully*. For me personally, I could easily make the change for what I do. None of my mixes are large or complex. I have several orchestras that use their own players i.e. BBCSO. And if everything failed.....................I still have real instruments.

The big questions to answer here are probably much larger than a thread could support or allow IMHO. I could give you the condensed version. You've put up some pretty good acoustic guitar music. You've made some nice nature recordings. You've maybe been a musician at local places to where you live. What more could a man want? Make music for yourself , make music for others, make music for God ( if you are prone in that direction) and maybe not in that order. I think these are achievements worth noting. If you believe we were made and not evolved as I do, then we were made to make music as a part of what we do or maybe it's all some of us do. Ask yourself why. Just a thought. If you can answer the WHY, you have answered many other questions.

You guys aren't painting a very good picture here. I'm not a corporate expert in any sense of the word. I do know when large meetings happen with anything I've ever been involved in, lots of money is spent to call in experts( I use that word loosely) to draw up prints and make suggestions. After a year of weekly meetings it is determined it would cost too much money to implement the plan they talked about all year. Some of that is because they spent so much money on "idea men". It's sad to see really. I remember reading there was a shake up at NI and one of their top people left. Most often I find I'm using 3rd party libraries for Kontakt if I use it at all. Mainly the reason I'm still on Komplete 10. I just keep updating Kontakt. In looking at all of the other available options out there I have wondered if NI was beginning to loose some of their grip these last few years. I think I see signs of it in this. No other program out there like Kontakt that has so much support for 3rd party libraries. Maybe using a combination of different programs would cover it if it became necessary to move away from NI. Frankly I'm surprised they haven't gone to subscription already. I believe the writing is on the wall there. Hopefully it will be offered as an option. Someone could probably develop a program that would convert Kontakt files to another player. That someone would probably get sued. This is why I think we need for someone ( not me, I'm not capable) to develop an open ended Kontakt type player for the masses that works every bit as good as Kontakt. Something like an .sfz player that can play large sample libraries. Or maybe this is a good time to go to Physically modeled instruments instead. Probably nothing serious enough to warrant a total change yet. Still...........if I had a good alternative I would be looking into it. ST4 is a nice contender possible alternative for sure. You can't buy 3rd party libs for it though.

I honestly thought I was buying a reverb when I bought this haha....It isn't bad for the price and for what it is. Since my headphones are on the supported list I see no need to use Sonarworks. They should be EQ'd in the plugin. I watched the video Eusebio posted. Like that guy I prefer to mix on open monitors but many times I simply can't because it's late and I don't want to wake anyone, so I'll usually make a mix using Sonarworks for headphones and then compare it to my open monitors for the final mix. Not sure how much of an advantage this is compared to Sonarworks. Will being in an artificially simulated studio space help me to mix better? The jury is still out on that one. I have a camera I can use for tracking. Haven't tried to hook it up yet. In thinking about this, I am wondering how they can effectively make a studio using very high end monitors sound the same to me using my headphones? I mean. if they can do that let's all stop buying expensive studio monitors and just use simulations. The NX tracker thingy I have no idea what it costs , where to get it and/or if it is necessary to effectively use this plugin. I imagine I'll see if Waves has it. If it's only 20 bucks maybe I'll give it a try. They should have included that this was something I might need unless I missed it?

I kinda thought it but you were bold enough to say it lol. To me old music sounds like old music because it's old music. Yes it's a smiley face. You have a problem with that? Oh boy I hope Bruno isn't taking this serious.

I could go on about how we are all valuable and we all have something to give to the world but I suspect this isn't a serious thread and no one wants a pep talk. It is what it is I guess. It's a 1st world problem. Having the gear and tech to make music professionally but deciding not to make money at it is a true luxury generations past either knew nothing about or dreamed of doing but couldn't.

Hi jack c. I used the Taylor Davis violin for this track. Thanks for listening.

I believe I picked up on the same things as Treesha. The fast arps don't seem to fit. At least when backdropped onto this backdrop. Keep in mind I'm am old 70's prog rock lover. I would hear more of a played solo instead of the fast arps. But that's me and maybe my old ears. There are no rules, only opinions and what we like

Hi jack c. Thanks for sharing. I liked the retro sounding vocals in this.

I took special note of the fast runs in places that I thought added a lot of interest to it. As an "NPR Bumper track" I see it fitting right in!

I enjoyed the listen. Great combination of elements. This is somewhere in between cinematic and traditional orchestral music to my ears and a departure from many other tracks that are capturing a film scene. While it could be used for that purpose I hear it as more of a stand alone work designed for pure listening.

Many directions you could take here. I would say you could get way more interesting with the drums and a bass. Maybe start the 1st verse intro with no vox and a more legato guitar with a build up from the guitar. Like a slow ramp up. If it's a three verse tune, maybe take it up a notch the second verse, then add a chorus that's a departure in chord progression from the verses, then back to a last verse and then either end it or add the chorus or a variation of it to the end, Could fade out with the same guitar that the song came in on to solidify the song as a whole. As for the words. Mysterious woman-How? What did she do? Maybe add that idea into the rest of the tune. Sometimes giving the subject a name helps. Something like "Oh Marie, how could you do that to me?" or " Marie she's out in the world turning silk for a rich man who wanders away from the sun" ......iow poetic writing as opposed to real situational writing. Just sayin'

Well done!

Reminiscent of Steely Dan to my ears. Gas Lighting Abbie comes to mind among others. Must have been a lot of fun putting it together with the other guys. Great sound on my buds. The busy bass foundation under those jazz chords with that rhythm are a wonderful combination!