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  • Koskov Escapes (J. Barry) - mixing question

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    As of late I've got the feeling I'm running circles on the subject of mixing. In order to get to the next step I tried something that jasensmith pointed out in another thread, which is re-creating an original piece of music and trying to get the mix true to the original. Now I'm stuck because I can't tell what's missing or how to accomplish what's missing. My hope being that somebody here could help me out by listening to the two versions of "Koskov Escapes" that I uploaded to my hobby blog for immediate comparison and suggesting how to proceed with it.

    OST: http://www.creartistic.com/resource/BarryDemo01OST.wav

    VSL: http://www.creartistic.com/resource/BarryDemo01VSL.wav

    I'd be really grateful for any kind of advice. Thanks!


  • My apologies,

    I'm at a place where I can't listen to your demos.  However, I have to commend you for attempting to recreate a John Barry score with samples.  That's very courageous.

    But I guess I should have been a little more clear in the thread you're reffering to.  I think I meant to recreate something that has been recorded several times in several different environments such as an excerpt from one of Bach's Brandenburg concertos or a Mozart Symphony or even a modern Classical piece as a starting point.  That way you have several different references to draw from and you're not beating your head against the wall trying to duplicate one specific recording.  That's like having two different orchestras with two very different conductors with different training backgrounds in two different concert halls performing a popular score and trying to get them to sound exactly the same.

    But again, I can't listen to your demos as of yet so I'm not sure your rendition sounds all that bad.  I'll try to listen later and tell you what I think but there are others on this forum who are more skilled than me in this respect.

     

        


  • I respond because this was my favorite score (living daylights) when I was a kid. Listened to it a hundred times probably.

    Your rendition sounds good. I am not a VSL expert but one comment from a pure listeners perspective is that the release of the brass sounded a bit unnatural, which I am sure you can fix. It sounded too abrupt to me. The attack of the brass was nearly perfect though.  When it entered I was like 'wow' this sounds great....but the release was a bit off to my ears.

    I feel that this is sort of like depicting a person walking in an animation movie. One need not know zip about animation but can easily tell if the cartoon walks like a person or not. I felt similarly with the brass release....even though I am not a brass player but have just listened.

    but this is minor. overall this sounds excellent. Looking forward to the full piece.


  • Thanks so much, agitato, for your response! You're perfectly right about the brass. This is because I didn't worry too much about the articulations used. I should have pointed out that it's not so much the orchestration that matters to me in this comparison than the mix - meaning reverb, EQ and such. After all, I'm trying to build a template for my own compositions which is way more fun :) (I wouldn't have all the samples needed for re-creating an original recording anyway.)

    And thanks in advance to you, jasensmith. You're right of course - there always will and should be differences. It's not so much a matter of "does it sound exactly like the original recording" but "does it sound good even when compared to the original". However, your clarification is appreciated very much. I already keep thinking about it a lot.


  • Yes it sounds GREAT, even compared to the original. Your rendition is just wonderful. Were you working from a score?

    I am still trying to improve my own midi and mixing skills, but I have been an avid listener to orchestral music all of my life, which at 64 is about 56 years of listening. Your mix is so close to perfect that worrying about it further is, in my opinion, counter productive. As with most human endeavors I am confident that some form of diminishing returns is at work. To get that last 1% of missing realism, which I had to strain very hard to hear, would take so many hours of effort that it is just not worth it. My advice would be to enjoy creating music with the marvelous skills you have developed, and not worry about the very, very, very small imperfections. 

    Now that I have discovered your blog I will be reading about your journey to develop your skills. I'm looking forward to it.

    QUESTION: Why not use MIR Pro? I read you are using a very complex setup. Did you try MIR Pro?


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    @Another User said:

    QUESTION: Why not use MIR Pro? I read you are using a very complex setup. Did you try MIR Pro?

    No I haven't. Right now I'm catching up in the art of mixing, learning what I can about how to do it all manually. I want to understand what does what, hence my stupid questions in this forum. Maybe in the end, when I'm completely frustrated, I might buy myself some MIR. 😉


  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on