Light Classical Minuet ala Haydn

[utremifa]

Hi,

Here's my second offering for the light classical listing. It's a full length symphonic minuet and I'm wondering if I should drop a repeat here and there. The mix is still a little rough, but almost there. I've got to give a sense of distance to the oboe solo in the Trio still and there are a couple of crescendos in the strings that need to be tidied up.

I'd love to hear from you particularly about production: how's the mix overall, does the track sound full enough, harsh, synthy anywhere etc. Love to know your thoughts about the length too and what might be cut if necessary.

The track can be found here: http://www.taxi.com/vincentrusso

under Minuet in C Major ala Haydn.

Thanks as always.

Vince

[utremifa]

Well, I reworked the above, fixed those things that I felt needed to addressed and reposted the file. I've got it about as ready as I can for submission tomorrow, but would still like to hear any of your observations and suggestions.

Thanks

Vince

[MatthewMoss]

Dr. Russo,

What a great piece. You obviously know what you are doing, the orchestra sounds as if it was performed live in a room. (all the right seats)

The only thing I was really concerned with is the First Violin section, although on the left side, it felt so far panned that I was shifting my head
to my left monitor to really enjoy what was going on, but of course that is just about were it belongs. IMO

Thanks for posting,

Matt

[Len911]

Well Vince, I listened twice, 10 1/2 minutes,lol, I thought it sounded great! To show you what I know about minuets, I thought it meant
it only lasted a minute, I guess minuet isn't French for minute as I had supposed,lol! Everything sounded very realistic, the only thing I would add is maybe a hall reverb, but very minute(little). Bravo!!!

[utremifa]

Thanks Matt and Len. I'm going to touch it up one more time before submitting it, so I appreciate your suggestions. Len, no it's definitely NOT one minute. I'm a bit paranoid about the length, but the listing did say that this was for some sort of CD for malls etc. and most pieces by Haydn are way longer than two minutes. Anyway, I asked the guys at Taxi about it and they said go for it, so...

Glad you guys had the patience to get through it.

Vince

[DavRom]

great programming dude! i'm totally impressed.

i'm not sure it's strictly 18th century minuet form, but who cares, it's very enjoyable

[utremifa]

Hey DavRom,

Thanks for listening. I'm glad you liked it.

Vince

[Burt Crow]

Vincent

This is outstanding and I really hope you work to commission because I would love you to lay down the string sections for some tracks.
At first it felt right heavy on the pan till the woodwind came in then I reminded myself that I’m listening to orchestra positioning not contemporary music panning.

Time wise cut your cloth to suit your budget. For library stuff I think people usually want neat 15/30/60 sec and full composition or just throw it at them and let the sound editor decide.

On the production front I can not fault it but all I would say is that all instruments sound very present and equal. From my reading there are 2 schools of thought with classical – set up mics from the listeners position and let the natural dynamic ride or tight mic sections and mix to taste.

Samples obviously lead us to always work in the later. I think the piece lends it self to this tight ‘equitability of sound’ of mic distance. However you might want to play around with a big room reverb on an aux then feed different level from it based on distance from listen/conductor from instrument section to really set up some 3D space.

For even greater detail split below a frequency and add EQ filters some low frequency reverb can compete with high as it would in a real listening situation.

All this is about sweetening what is a greatt composition superbly execution.

HTH
Burt

[utremifa]

Hi Burt,

Thanks for the input. I always find your comments interesting, insightful and useful.

And sure, I'd be happy to work up some string tracks for you.

Vince

[aldicicco]

Outstanding work Vince!

I thoroughly enjoyed this, especially the build up to the crescendo. Sort of a "Surprise Minuet"!

My only nit is that I felt the tempo was a tad too brisk. After all, you can't have the minuet dancers losing their powdered wigs, or tripping over their gowns....

Best of luck with this. This is very high quality.

Best wishes,

Al