Broadcast Quality

[AndrewFite]

I'm getting weird artifacts when using the portamento function in East West. I wrote this piece for this listing:

LIGHT CLASSICAL-STYLE INSTRUMENTALS needed by global Music Publisher creating playlists for public environmental spaces (including malls, restaurants, etc) as well as placing music in Film and TV. Compositions should be original and/or public domain covers in styles ranging from the Baroque and/or Chamber traditions (a la Vivaldi, Haydn) to more Romantic and 20th Century styles (Faure, Saint-Saens). Orchestra samples MUST sound authentic, production warm and resonant. Compositions should be accessible to a large audience, with well-developed melodic motifs and arrangements that are appropriate within the genre. No solo piano or guitar, please. Broadcast Quality is needed (great sounding home recordings are fine).

My question is, are these artifacts enough to get a return on the piece? Also, any comments and critques are welcome too. The piece is called "Notte Stellata." www.reverbnation.com/andrewfite

[mazz]

Andrew,

Very good composition, it certainly sounds like it's in the style they are looking for, it has a nice baroque feel to it, well done.

I can certainly hear the artifacts in headphones. I'm not sure why you are getting those, I don't use EW as much these days so I'm not as familiar with that articulation as I used to be.

Other things that may hurt your chances are the mix sounds, at least in my headphones, a bit harsh and biting, not warm and resonant as the listing is asking for. I think you can do some EQ or if you're still in MIDI, try reducing the velocities on the attacks. The crescendos sound nice and well done, but the overall sound of the strings is a bit too harsh.

Also the mix feels a bit too mono, too squeezed towards the middle and the reverb is maybe a bit too wet overall, or maybe the reverb is what's too bright and is making the sound harsh. Did you mess with the panning in EW? I would suggest leaving the instruments panned as they are "out of the box". If you are using extra reverb on the EW sounds, then I would consider taking it off because they already have enough reverb "baked" in to the sound already. If you're mixing a live violin in (your bio says you mix live instruments in), then it may need to be blended in a bit more to make it feel more cohesive. It sounds like you may be adding reverb to everything to try to blend in the live violin.

Anyway, I think it's well done, but the mix and production (along with those strange artifacts) need some polishing to bring it up to par.

Good work!!

Mazz

[AndrewFite]

Wow Mazz, thank you for the very thorough post, as well as the compliments.

I think I still have a couple of cards up my sleeve to counteract those artifacts, so I guess we'll see what happens.

I'm still in MIDI, so I'll definitely look into reducing the velocities. I'll also play around with some articulations, and see if I can select some better ones.

As my mixing skills are still lacking somewhat, I left the pans at their default setting. I'm a little weary of spreading the instruments out too far, but I don't want it to sound mono either. I didn't add any reverb (nor any live strings on this pass), but it does sound pretty wet. Do you think that adding some of the "close mic" options would help level it out, or should I just pull down the default reverb?

Thank you so much for all of your help,
Andrew

[mazz]

Sounds like you're using the Platinum orchestra. Did you have the Play reverb on? If so, I'd turn it off and just let the wetness of the samples come through.

I think you've done a good job of the articulations, it doesn't sound like stuff I hear from other EW users where it sounds like they used the same articulation all the way through, it's definitely a step up from there and shows you understand how to use the library well. I honestly didn't think it sounded that much like EW, which is a compliment!

I don't know what to say about the slightly mono issue. Are you using the middle mic positions? If not, you should be as your main sound, the "surround" mics are really just to fade in low under the main ones and the close mics are more to provide some definition for a closer or even smaller ensemble sound if they are featured. I'd say get the velocities right on the middle mics and then see if you need to bring in the close mics. Right now I think they'd just exacerbate the harshness you have, which could be attributed to the velocities being a bit too high.

Anyway, keep up the good work and post the updated version.

Cheers!

Mazz

[AndrewFite]

Thanks Mazz! That is quite a compliment! As far as using the library well... well, I'll explain in a minute.

I figured out where the artifacts were coming from: apparently in the Play engine, whenever portamento is used, it automatically triggers the convolution reverb. Unfortunately, whenever the convultion reverb is pressed, it makes some kind of crazy noise. My guess is that it's continuing a reverberation that would have been there if it were active the entire time (meaning the trails of previous notes). There is no shutting this off, from what I can see, but you can turn the reverb down. The only problem is, is that (at least in Pro Tools) you have to pause it while the portamento's active, otherwise it turns right back up.

I also lowered the velocity, and already it has made quite a difference. They're not quite as biting, and while maybe not fantastic yet, they are getting better.

For the embarrassing part:

It turns out, that even though the plug-in GUI appears to be in stereo mode, it doesn't mean this is the case. The pan knob acting as a volume knob should have been the first indicator. After hours of tweaking, yelling at my machine, trying work-arounds, and cursing the makers of East West, I saw that my "instrument" track controlling East West was a mono track.

I posted an updated version (Notte Stellata) http://www.reverbnation.com/andrewfite

Again, thank you so much for all of your help Mazz. I learned a lot from this.