Man, these sting....feedback anyone??

[BradleyHagen]

My feedback without reading the screeners or anyone ele's

Overall...Love the drums & guitars,bass..Writing is great in general....the brass kinda lets it down for me, sounds less authentic than the rest of it. Some of it sounds realistic but other parts have a much more midi vibe.

I would say judging on the info about the brass being important it's the worst part of the tracks for me so I would not have forwarded on that basis

Mark

Much appreciated Mark....going to go back to the drawing board on the horns..... Horns and Strings are my biggest challenge at the moment!! I have the tools, and the libraries, and I do know how to edit articulations, etc. What I don't have is the patience to do it! But I guess I will have to just suck it up man, because my little shortcuts, using ensembles, etc aren't fooling anyone...Not You, not Graham, and certainly not the screeners.

[BradleyHagen]

I think you could improve this song by ... tighten up the rhythmic phrasing of the sampled horns at 1:08 and at 2:05 (it caught me at the first listen and it becomes a distraction).

Hey Bradley,
first,let me say that as a child of the 70s I know all these ref tracks like my own name. Those 4 tracks are definitely in the top 10 of the jazz/funk music of that era, so you are up against the best performances and the best production values of anything in that style. High bar...

some of the thread comments have been about timing and articulations, I think you get it. let me add that having been a professional trombone player in my younger days, I can hear what the articulations should be - no, have to be - in order for the horn players to physically play those rhythms. see if your VI has a 'double-tongue' articulation. that would help achieve the snappier effect needed for those rhythms.

all in all, though, killer tracks. great work!

Much appreciated Alan!
While not professionally, I also played trombone as a child way back in the past century, and I do understand articulations...etc... as well....I just need to implement them properly via MIDI, and stop being lazy.... this is now becoming obvious to me!

[BradleyHagen]

So I am in very similar boat.. I was told in quote “This is overall very very solid! Yet the synths aren’t 70’s.” I literally used an analog 70s synth tone from keyscape . Also I had my instructor who has worked in hollywood as a very successful composer/engineer for 40+ years, and several people listen to it prior and they all agreed it was a slam dunk! If like myself, you possibly submitted for disco and funk listings? Hoping my song forwards for the disco and yours as well. If interested here it is:

https://www.taxi.com/members/Er9Iix4ATp ... -70-s-mix-

Hi Mark-
I am a newbie on here as well, so take this with a grain of salt, but i think the main issue with your track is the production. I am hearing alot of VI's on here that just don't sit well in the mix. And as a previous poster has said, everything is in need of some EQ in order to seperate their frequencies from the other tracks that are often causing masking issues, etc
The Screeners are typically not overly picky about "broadcast quality" but they certainly CAN BE, as I have had a couple of tracks returned over Production, and I have been at this for a very long time!
My advice is to remove all of your plugins, etc, and just start over..... Get the drums and bass sitting right, and start making any and all EQ moves before moving forward, and resist putting other plugin on ANYTHING until this is done. IMHO, subtractive EQ is always preferable to adding EQ, but you gotta do what you gotta do! I am not sure what "Keyscape" is, but what I can say is there are a gazillion 70's synth emulations out there, and they are all different synths, varying degrees of quality, etc... As you can see from my own issues with MIDI Instruments in this thread, it is more about how you use them, then what they are... Hope this helps!

[VanderBoegh]

Yep, it's dem horns for me. Like Alan, who mentioned being a professional trombone player, I was also an accomplished trumpet player (even went through college & grad school on a trumpet scholarship). Those days of playing are long behind me now, but my ears are very conditioned to hear the nuances of real horn playing. For pieces like yours, where the horn sections are poppy and intricate, there's just no way to emulate that with MIDI programs, regardless of how many articulations they might include and how "real" they might sound to everyone else. A real brass player will know the difference instantly. MIDI will never be able to emulate the attacks, fortissimos, forte-pianos, breath pauses, rips, falls, vibrato, or aggression of a live player standing behind the mic. And if you're trying to keep up with real horn bands from back in the day, you need live horns.

For something like this, I'd suggest finding some real players and giving them $20 or so (you don't need to go broke doing this!). Tack something up in the music department at the closest college and see if you can get a few college kids to come over and blast those lines for you.

~~Matt

[Casey H]

I think this thread is a great example of why this forum is one of the best or even the very best forums out there as far as producing and pitching tracks.

Casey

[BradleyHagen]

Yep, it's dem horns for me. Like Alan, who mentioned being a professional trombone player, I was also an accomplished trumpet player (even went through college & grad school on a trumpet scholarship). Those days of playing are long behind me now, but my ears are very conditioned to hear the nuances of real horn playing. For pieces like yours, where the horn sections are poppy and intricate, there's just no way to emulate that with MIDI programs, regardless of how many articulations they might include and how "real" they might sound to everyone else. A real brass player will know the difference instantly. MIDI will never be able to emulate the attacks, fortissimos, forte-pianos, breath pauses, rips, falls, vibrato, or aggression of a live player standing behind the mic. And if you're trying to keep up with real horn bands from back in the day, you need live horns.

For something like this, I'd suggest finding some real players and giving them $20 or so (you don't need to go broke doing this!). Tack something up in the music department at the closest college and see if you can get a few college kids to come over and blast those lines for you.

~~Matt

Thanks for your response Matt! Yeah, I hear you (no pun intended) I may just try that actually..PLUS, as an Engineer, it would be alot of fun to record live horns!

[BradleyHagen]

I think this thread is a great example of why this forum is one of the best or even the very best forums out there as far as producing and pitching tracks.

Casey

It is great Casey, I agree 100%! I am not typically a "forum" type of guy, but this one is invaluable to say the least!