jwnicholson78

I loved that main guitar lick that comes in, and then gets mirrored by the bass.  That was really cool.

I nice chill tune.

jeff

Very catchy.

I felt like your lyrics were speaking directly to me...

jeff

I really loved the soundscape with the opening synths and pads.   And then the guitar hit and that took it too another level. But as I listened further, it seemed to me that it had trouble resolving into whether it was in a major or minor key.  The opening synths seemed to be mostly on major chords, when the guitar came in the backing synths were minor, but the guitar was still playing major scales.  So the sound was very cool, but also left me a little confused trying to figure out the tonality.

jeff

Outstanding guitar, and vocals sound really good.  I agree with the comment that you could bring the drums up a little.

jeff

Very professional.  Kudo's to the new singer.  Video was really well done too.

jeff

On 9/8/2022 at 3:44 PM, David Baay said:

Two thumbs up from another piano player/composer. Lovely chord voicings, changes, pacing and ambience. I'd look at lowering/compressing the velocity range to tame the energy in the piano harmonics, especially where you're grabbing a big handful of mid-high notes. The piano tone sounds great in general, though. What is it?

David,

Thanks so much for the kind words and feedback.  I'll check out your suggestions on compressing the velocity range.

The piano is the Grandeur from Native Instruments.

jeff

9 hours ago, markno999 said:

Jeff,

Really fine work.  The mix sounds good to me.    As others have mentioned, Soothe is a great solution for taming peaks.    You could also darken up your reverb but I think this updated track sounds good as is.

 

Regards

Thanks.  I've been reading a lot about Soothe.  My birthday is coming up.  I might have to give a few hints to my wife....

On 9/3/2022 at 12:04 AM, noynekker said:

Great sounding piece Jeff !  I listened on my small iLoud speaker and it comes across as a great and balanced piano sound. Never understood trying to get a "good" sound on teeny iPhone speakers, as you mention in your original post . . . maybe not engineered for high transient material like a piano ?

One thing I've always used to zero in on high transients is to turn on Cakewalk's Peak Marker (in the meter settings) . . . which seeks out and actually flags the rogue peaks . . . then you can go in and destroy them all as needed, and actually saves some time in finding them. Maybe this will help what you're hearing ?

Thanks so much.  I have always been impressed by how good professionally produced music sounds on pretty much everything. Sure, it's not as good on my phone as on my Beyer Dynamics , but it still sounds really good.  So I have this (maybe misguided notion) that if I can get something to sound good on my phone, I will have come a long way in mixing.  I have like 5 different sets pf speakers and headphone I listen to now when I'm working on a new song, and by far the hardest to get translation on are my phone, and super crappy set of $6 Panasonic headphones.

jeff

Beautiful. That was excellent.  The music fits the images really well.  With the new James Webb telescope, there will be many new exciting images to put to music.  Something to look forward too!

jeff

Very nice.  If that chill guitar didn't cool you off, nothing will.

jeff

The thing I love about your tracks is I never know where you are going, but once you get there, it makes complete sense.  Opening drums are awesome. I hope writing this helped fill the hole a little bit.

Welcome to the forum!  I thought it was a great song, and agree with the comments that that vocals good be a little more forward.  I thought they really shined, and  I would love to hear them a little more.  Also, you have a great bass line, I would like to hear a little more low end.  For me, the weakest part was the drums.  I struggle with them too, but in some places I thought they could have used a little more variation.

Overall really well done, especially considering it's your first finished track.

jeff

Thanks everyone for the feedback and suggestions.  The comments on active EQ were especially helpful.  I think a combination of some surgical EQ to tame some of the specific piano resonances, along with additional active EQ really helped.  Because of the suggestions, I ended up finding the really outstanding TDR Nova plugin which, as an added bonus, is free.

In addition, much to my chagrin, after many hours futzing around, I discovered that I had inadvertently enabled the eq on  the audio app that I use on my phone to listen to my tracks and that, too, was contributing to the piano resonances.  Whoops!  Wonder how much time I lost to that....

Hopefully folks think the new version is an improvement.

Jeff

That was really well done.  I enjoyed every bit of it.

Fun song.  Loved the keys.

I'd never heard the original, so I too had to  look it up.

Outstanding cover of a beautiful song.    The vocals really shined.  I was getting a hint of some Phil Collins. Really well done.

Jeff

9 hours ago, Bajan Blue said:

enjoyed this and I also didn't notice the piano too much just occasionally perhaps - but if you worried about it did you try EQ - or there is a new Free Plug in that might help

https://freevstplugins.net/wavegrove-vastaus/

I only downloaded this a while ago and tried it on a few things - on some it did seem to make a difference - its a bit like Oeksound Soothe but considerably cheaper🤪

Nigel

 

Thanks!  I did spend a fair amount of time farting around with EQ but didn't really come up with anything I liked better.  Appreciate the suggestion.  I'll give it a try.

14 hours ago, Hidden Symmetry said:

Enjoyed the composition. The mix sounded good in my cans, didn't seem sharp, sounded warm/ full.

Thanks!  Appreciate the feedback!

Jeff

On 8/20/2022 at 2:17 PM, KSband said:

Sound good to me, very pretty song.

Thanks, so much!

Awesome!  Love the jazz fusion.  Mix sounds great on my cheap headphones.

Sounds great!  Very professional.

Jeff

I missed the original with the vocal, but I thought this was outstanding, and the instrumental stands on it's own.  Cool video, too.

Jeff

Oh no.  I went to listen, but got this: 

A short piece with piano and strings.

Any thoughts on how to tame some of the piano transients?  Some of them are very sharp, and when I listen on my phone I find it overloads the little speaker.  I don't want to squash the dynamic range, but I find I can't add anymore than a dB or so of compression with hating the sound of it. 

Update - it took me a while to get back to this, since  I was traveling last week.  I think a combination of narrow eq's to target some of the piano resonances along with some active eq using the really cool (and free!) TDR Nova has helped a lot.

On 7/21/2022 at 2:46 PM, freddy j said:

The music certainly conveys summer fun.  The pictures made me feel as if I too were on holiday.  Well done indeed!

Hi Freddy,

Thanks so much.

Jeff