Well, I listened to it a couple more times and I'm really liking it. It's definitely got an X factor going on that gets its hooks into you and makes you want to listen again. You've got some really nice ambient synth pads going on back there that sweeten the whole thing and give it some nice swirl. I especially like the one that's prominent around 1:18.
Sorry, I realized I wasn't going to have time to answer this for a bit but now I've got some spare time...you're right about the 'x-factor' thing though - that's kind of been always what I've strived to make a part of my music.
What do you mean by "convolution reverb"? I've never heard those two words together before.
Convolution reverb works on actual full-bandwidth (audio-band) impulse recording of the properties of a real space. They are normally 'captured' by using a sound generator that has a extremely narrow ADSR (like a balloon pop, single firework explosion, loud clap, very short white-noise sample playback, etc.) that will excite the acoustic properties of the real space that is being recorded - then loading that "impulse response" (recording of that sound and the reverberation) into a convolution processor which "involves sending two audio samples through fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms, multiplying their spectra, running the product through an inverse FFT (IFFT), and playing back the results." The two audio samples would be the sample you want to apply the reverb too and the IR (impulse response) itself. The same type of idea can be executed to actually sample classic reverb units perfectly as long as they are non-modulating (involve some type of random start chorus/phasing, which many do). Other-wise you get a static but still very usable idea as a IR of what say a Eventide H3000 sounds like...
It's very cool stuff overall - indispensible if you're a musician/composer and will eat tons of your time when you realize what it can do.
http://emusician.com/tutorials/emusic_acting_impulse/
also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convolution_reverb
How did you create the drum track? Was it something you found and looped or did you build it from scratch?
It was a combination of things...I loaded a loop into a beat slicer and then played with it a bit to get it to taste - and then layered it with another beat I created to fatten the sound a bit.
Is the guitar part a live guitar or a synth part? If it's a synth it's really convincing. The symphonic voices have a nice realistic non-MIDI quality to them. Do you have any special tricks for accomplishing that?
Completely sampled of course. (I don't have a guitar that sounds that nice nor any interface/preamp to record with right now anyways...) TBH, I didn't even use and midi-type humanization techniques here (they are all the same velocity level for every note if I remember correctly, and occur right on the beats/divisions of a beat) It may simply have been in the processing I used in the mix...?
What kind of spatial processing did you do? The chimes seem like they might have some magic dust sprinkled on them they way they inhabit the sounstage. When I move my head around they move in phasey ways (or maybe it's just because they're bright). The guitar seems to have a subtle panned tremolo effect, or am I just imagining that?
There's a couple of amazing fx (vst) that you can find if you look up "bootsie vst". Those are a couple of those well kept secrets...
Some others I love (which seem to get no love) are Crysonic's stuff, especially "Sindo" which has a special "shuffle" and "bass trim" knob which work some serious subtle magic for spatial enhancement without totally skewing a stereo image. There is also an incredible Antress vst comp. plug which is essentially a Manley dual-comp copy that has some odd but pretty amazing effect on the stereo field gained just by placing it on a track (I use it on the master bus each time I mixdown without fail).
Other I love the heck out of are Voxengo's Crunchessor and Warmifier, Refined Audiometrics CLAS, and of course SIR 1 for convolution processing, though I think I just found
another free convolution processor to 1-up it...
Where did you get the sound of the kids towards the end? Long shot but is it a sample from Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays' As Falls Wichita So Falls Wichita Falls? I love ambient real sounds like that -- kind of Pink Floydy.
Nah, not anything sampled like that. It was just a sampled I gleaned from on of my sample packs I've purchased or downloaded from royalty-free sites I think. I've got a big collection of those.
Can you recommend a good inexpensive MIDI controller?
Definitely. Depends on what you want though.
Small controller with midi-assignable knobs/faders: Alesis Photon X25 (has it's own decent audio interface too! nice touch)
Large weighted stage keyboard: Casio Privia PX-100 (get a used one)
Medium non-weighted for uber-cheap: Yamaha PSR-225 or thereabouts (get off of CL and you're good to go, perfect for touch response, dirt cheap and synth action which can often be better than weighted honestly for most tracking purposes)
Your mix is really, really good -- the levels are right on the money. I'm listening on a set of fairly crappy Altec-Lansing computer speakers. Amazing that you were able to get it to translate from the headphones. That's the mark of a good mix (or one of them) -- when you can play it on a variety of systems and it works. I like how you let the drum part be loud and up front.
It's taken a lot of practice to get good at mixing on phones (hundreds and hundreds of songs)...but I think I'm getting to where I want to be with it.
You might like this one too:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/284585
