Shaion - H.E.L.I.N.A. (Her Eyes Lit In Neverending Auroras)

[Shaion]

Soundcloud

Deadline. It could always be better, but this is not half bad either. Free 320 if anybody's interested. Peace!

[Shaion]

Bump, apparently.

[wirez]

Really enjoying the piano playing, nice work with that. The sound seems very hhhmmm... FL Keys. Could do with a more authentic patch, something with some more weight and character. Don't think the reverb on it is helping too much, sounds quite cheap and thin. If you have a convolution reverb, try some of those instead.

I think the bass is too distorted personally, the notes it's playing and the movement of it is nice, but it needs to allow more room for everything else playing. It's muddying the mix up far too much as well. Pull back on the distortion and focus more on the modulation and waveform of the actual sound itself, work on the ways that the glide of the melody it's playing work to compliment the other lead running through it. Then just use a little distortion to bring more harmonic content to the texture of the sound. - If you really favour that highly distorted sound, maybe automate it in just for a short section of the track just to tease people rather than using it as a key element.

The other lead playing can come down a little in the mix to allow more room.

Not sure so much of the piano needs to be playing during the 'chorus' section as there's a lot going on to focus on and the brain can only really focus on one particular element at a time. Might be worth pulling out a few sections of the piano here so that the track flows more smoothly and it's less of a battle to listen to everything.

Think the kick could be far punchier and pull through the mix more. Maybe turn it up in relation to the rest of the track. (So pull everything else except it down a tad if you're out of headroom).

The overall mix could do with a few technical edits to make it fit together better such as being less harsh with compression and working the EQ to make your sounds clash less with each other and seem muddy, but start with getting the sounds right and the technical mixing stuff should come together a lot easier.

Hope this doesn't seem like a dig, I'm really feeling the track to be honest so I hope this helps get it to the point it deserves to be

[Shaion]

The piano VST is actually Tascam's old CVPiano, just to point that out. But yeah, it's also what's been bugging me the most so far. Sounds a bit metallic/artificial, which is nothing the plugin actually should sound like.

But thank you very much for the criticism, I'll be sure to try those tips out tomorrow.

Everyone else is more than welcome to comment/criticise as well.
As for a little backstory on this track, it's intended to be a birthday present, so I'm on a rather pressing deadline by now.

Big ups to you, wirez!

[Shaion]

Soundcloud

A slight update.
Beefed up the kick, fixed the piano to an extent, revised the levels and lowered the layer which probably caused the overdistorted sound in the bass.

[Glyphex]

Very nice composition. Try Nexus if you can. The Nexus Grandpiano is quite nice, especially reverbed. Overall, very well mixed, and nice glide synth Did you play the notes and record them or did you program them? Just out of curiousity.

[Shaion]

Composed the base on a keyboard, but from there on, composed everything in piano roll manually.

Also is the high layer of the bassline ok or is there something disturbing?
Been at it for way too long to give an objective evaluation myself. xD

Big ups for commenting though! Much appreciated!

[B-DEMRecords]

Almost there mate, still less distortion in my opinion though. Needs more of a smooth sound to me... I'm thinking -



... with your tone instead of the high pitch. So the same texture in terms of roughness as the high pitch sound, just not the same sound if you catch my drift.

Everything else sounding wicked!

- Whyrez.

[Shaion]

Hmm... Was just thinking of that tune earlier today for some reason... xD

Seems to be a high square wave there, which... Would sound incredibly metallic in the current layering.

What I basically have now, is the lower bass, which consists of two saws at -24 semitones and the higher layer, which is the same at -12 and -5 semitones.
Both have a slight amount of unison detune. So basically there's no distortion per se, rather a slightly detuned chord.
Maybe it's just me, but a slight gritty/grainy sound seems to fit in the song more than a clean tone. Though it does seem a bit weird at the moment.

But I will experiment. Any advice welcome as always!

And naturally thank you for taking the time to comment. Much appreciated!

[elyhess]

chillstep

[sub-life]

my feedback to your track would be to make that snare hit better bringing up the mids on it, i dont know exactly what hz and stuff just see whats best for the sample but other than that i like the melodys and all that good stuff ! . the piano does kinda sound a lil fl keys status, kinda thin something u might wana try is making a duplicate of that piano track and pan one left and the right itl widen the sound, chorus would widen it to but i think when this is done itl be a cool tune for sure check out my tracks if u got some free time ! haha peace

[Shaion]

@Whyrez: Alright, I understand what you had in mind with the sound, but be it the synth I use or my lack of skill/experience as a producer, I cannot create the result which would compliment the other layers seamlessly.

The following is the best I can come up with and whether it actually is better, I can't really decide:
Soundcloud

@elyhess:

@sub-life: Beefed up the snare a bit and did minor rework on the piano. Will check your tracks as soon as I'm done with all this madness here.
Peace out, rock on!

[Shaion]

Soundcloud

Deadline. It could always be better, but this is not half bad either. Free 320 if anybody's interested. Peace!

[agus69]

solid tune. following :[

[Jas0n]

I really liked it, particularly the octave work on the bass. The explosion fade thing at the end seems like a cop-out, but of course I can't tell you how to compose.

[Shaion]

@agus69: Thanks, man, very much appreciated!

@Jas0n: Glad to hear you liked it. ^ ^ Also the thunder/rain fade seemed like a good idea to use, since that's how the track began. Though... Yeah, not sure myself anymore, I suppose. xD

Big ups to both of you for listening and taking the time for feedback!

[DJ Sampletank]

Hey, can't really add to whats been said in the way of constructive critique, but I can add that a feckin' love that track.

[Shaion]

Haha, thanks mate! Means a lot.