Lullaby-- looking for feedback

[Margaret]

Lots of ORIGINAL CHILDREN'S LULLABY INSTRUMENTALS are needed by an International Music Library with lots of great placements in Film and TV.

Please listen to the following references to get yourself in the general wheelhouse of what this Library needs:

"William's Lullaby" by Soothing Lullabies

"Go to Sleep" by TinyGrads

"CoComelon Lullaby" by CoComelon Lullabies

Please submit ORIGINAL and well-crafted Children's Lullaby Instrumentals with a soft and relaxing vibe and lots of child-friendly sounds! Submissions should have sleep-inducing motifs, gentle sounds, peaceful melodies, relaxing rhythms, and dynamic arrangements with plenty of forward motion and interest throughout. Instrumentation that's in the general wheelhouse of the references will work best, such as mallets, acoustic guitars, pianos, strings, etc. Please make sure any virtual instruments or samples you use are high quality and not dated-sounding.

Your submissions should be roughly 2-4 minutes long, give or take. Non-faded endings will work best. Do NOT copy the referenced music in any way, shape, or form. Use it only as a general guide for tempo, texture, tone, and overall vibe. Do not submit any material with unauthorized samples of other artists’ Songs, sounds, or any other form of media. Broadcast Quality is needed.

https://soundcloud.com/margaretkalb/gin ... al_sharing

I would be grateful for any feedback you can offer-- music, MIX (I always get dinged for my mix) etc...

Thank you!

[AlanHall]

Hi, Margaret. Beautiful lullaby, really neat composition. I'd love to hear it played with organic instrumentalists.
The timing issues make this not "broadcast quality". I see from your web presence that you use a DAW, so getting the notes to align with the groove better should be a priority. Get everything in the pocket - like 'organic instrumentalists' would do by instinct - and I think you'll be golden on this cue.

[Margaret]

The timing point is super interesting-- I'm not totally sure what you're hearing?

I am originally a piano player, and a very poor flute player lol. When I play everything in from my midi keyboard, there is noticeable lag-- maybe that's contributing somehow? I know for sure we don't want something that sounds quantized.

Thank you so much for listening,

Margaret

[macomposer]

Hi Margaret,

Yeah, the timing is not the issue for me... Well, is that a harp gliss that's happening at about 41 seconds in? That feels.. not quite right. I'm not sure if it's the articulation or the timing... but that is the only timing issue I hear...

For me, there are two issues... It's played too heavy.. I appreciate that you played it in instead of programming, and that's (in my book) always the better way to go 9 out of 10 times... But it doesn't feel like a lullaby.. It feels like a recital - like someone from 1825 wrote this and I'm playing it!!! because I need an A. It just needs a little love - play it as tenderly and as lovingly as possible. You can possibly just turn down the velocities in the DAW too.. In fact, take the piano part, highlight the entire performance and turn down all of the velocities by 20%. That way, you'll keep the played in feel, but it won't be as heavy. Same thing with the xylophone(?). The flute just needs to be quieter and have a bit more riding of CC 1 (volume) and 11 (expression).

The other thing is.. (you guessed it) the mix. It's not bad at all. In fact, with acoustic based samples like this, you generally want to do less. Here, the piano just needs a slight eq cut in the "mud" region - something between 250Hz - 450Hz... And then a slight eq cut with flute around 2KHz or so.. Small cuts, nothing too drastic - again, we want it to sound as natural as possible.

Those are my thoughts - YMMV. I wish you best with it.
- Mark

PS: Yeah so if there's a significant lag (called latency) when you're playing, then you want to check your audio driver. You can usually adjust the buffer settings to the point where you should not have a noticeable lag between when you play a note and when you hear it - it should be virtually instantaneous. How you adjust the settings depends on which DAW you're using and which OS you run, but you should be able to fix that. And kudos to you if you were able to get all of that sounding that good with noticeable latency!

[funsongs]

Hi Margaret.
You've already received 2 good 'feedback' comments, and I don't want to 'pile on'...
I scribbled down a few notes-to-self while listening to the Soundcloud upload you posted:

- without having read others' comments;
- without having listened to any of the referenced tracks (wondering what the average tempo/bpm was - and did you try to in that ballpark?);
- noted something odd-sounding around the :36 mark - not a smooth compliment/blend of notes around there;
- some parts sounded 'too MIDI';
- maybe even an octave up, or higher more 'childlike' key or range? and/or add/change something when it repeats;
- possibly even a little more 'bouncy lullaby' tempo up a few bpm?

Worth working out those 'little' things - agreeing with others: just needs a little more TLC.

Good luck, hope that's helpful; Cheers.
Peter

[Margaret]

Thank you all of you for taking the time! Your feedback is super helpful. Now I'm off to the mines (Cubase) to slog for a few more hours.

Cheers,

Margaret