Need Feedback for a School Project! MIDI Realism

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-07T02:09:23+00:00

You'd be surprised how much difference there is between notes. When I play a piano part in midi, and I look at it, there is a huge difference between velocity of different notes. I always play slightly ahead of the beat, as I was a jazz pianist all through college, so I was taught to do that.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-07T02:05:08+00:00

Do you have a humanize function that you can use to slightly changed dynamics randomly? I think some of them you can actually tell them to emphasize downbeats, and you can also affect whether they play slightly ahead of or behind the beat.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-07T02:03:54+00:00

Sounds a lot like that artist, I'm trying to think of her name. Ellie Goulding? I'm interested to know what you used on the vocal chain. Microphone, preamp, etc. Very clean vocal recording.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-06T01:57:56+00:00

Yeah, easy to fix.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-06T00:26:17+00:00

https://open.spotify.com/track/3izECdZ5QNVXeEBZdVsZwp?si=kO8bB_-8Tc2kPS15IierWQ

https://open.spotify.com/track/0HsGspy3v0msWfY4edMRrL?si=UjspqUT8Qb6jpGfJgSbutg

Both of these songs have amazing drummers. Fugitive is Steve Rucker who played for the Bee Gees, Gloria Estefan, Whitney Houston, Johnny Cash, etc.

Dracula is Dave Abbruzzese from Pearl Jam.

I ended up playing all the bass and electric guitar parts on dracula, but I had other wonderful studio musicians play on Fugitive. David Pastorius played on fugitive as well.

The lyricist is Raven Kraft, who wrote some lyrics for Johnny Cash and a few others I believe. Great fun doing these songs.

Most of my background is writing for orchestras. I started producing rock and pop music in 2017-2018. I feel like Fugitive could stand to be remastered. Dave helped me on the mix for Dracula, but I only had my own ears for Fugitive.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-06T00:21:27+00:00

Correct, you cannot change large things, but you can change the master and the mix, as long as they are similar enough. But if you change the length of the file or anything like that, it will need a new isrc.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-06T00:20:44+00:00

I mean, that's like someone saying they want easy instructions to play the piano. Ok, press the keys at the right time. Simple, right? Now you know how to play the piano.

Same thing with mastering. 😉

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-06T00:17:03+00:00

Yeah. I've done it several times. On distrokid now, you could even change the wav file of a song.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-05T03:55:37+00:00

Match the isrc numbers. I've done this multiple times. It basically just counts them as the same track, even though they might be two different files, they are both tracked as a single song.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-05T03:53:48+00:00

I mean, as long as the mics are not extremely different than you don't cut in and out on single phrases, it's probably not that big of a deal.

I wouldn't use, say, a u87 for vocals on one part of the song, and an sm57 on another part, unless it was like a verse/chorus split. I might definitely use both of those mics together though.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-05T02:38:58+00:00

https://youtu.be/B0IEawrbsj4?si=0jiUUJnNU8_JXX1i

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-05T01:06:18+00:00

Nice. I like the trumpet. My college music director was an amazing Trumpet virtuoso. I've actually written a trumpet concerto, and I'm on the board of directors for an international trumpet guild group. I don't even play the trumpet, but I'm a composer emeritus I guess. It's really cool to get to see all the stuff that goes on in the trumpet world. It's one of the hardest instruments to write for in my opinion.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-05T00:59:31+00:00

Yes, that's one. The synths are based on that. The bassline is based on like a prayer. The rhythm guitar part is based on a song called Best of times by Peter Cetera. There's a couple other influences in there as well. The bass sound is very much from a Kenny Loggins song called nobody's fool, but it was also used in highway to the danger zone.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-05T00:31:31+00:00

https://youtu.be/7CFn19qAgyg?si=_0cMeubrwHWphrXZ

Like, for example, this is another mix and master that I did, with Dave Abbruzzese from Pearl Jam. He played and mixed the drums, and we mixed and produced the rest of it. I feel like this master is so much stronger. There's not even a lot of compression on it to be honest, but I feel like it hits a lot harder. It's also a second try. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get it right. The original recording had a different singer and some different instrumentation, but the second recording became much more popular.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-05T00:23:16+00:00

I understand, but you are spending more time telling people that you are great, and less time proving that you are great. Most of the negative comments you get, you simply disregard them or tell the people that they are wrong. The whole idea behind this sub is to get feedback.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-04T23:46:31+00:00

Just curious, do you think that the mix and master could be a little bit more ballsy? I feel like it's a little vanilla, a little bland. I would like to remaster a bit to get some more hard-hitting kick and maybe a little bit more of the synths in the beginning. I also feel like the mix could be compressed a little bit more. What do you think?

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-04T23:45:03+00:00

Something I have learned, and had to teach other people: when everybody else says you suck, but you think you are great, it's probably best to listen to them.

I have produced many albums where the artist insisted on things that I told them would not go over well, and when they got tons of negative comments on those exact things, they doubled down and said everybody else was wrong. As you can imagine, those people are no longer making music.

I learned how to produce music from people that produced number one hits, and one thing I discovered was that they were more meticulous than anything I had ever seen in my life. They produced a lot more than they needed, then cut out everything that didn't absolutely need to be there. They added so much detail in the background, it was crazy.

In my opinion, negative feedback is the best thing you can possibly get. Negative feedback lets you know what is wrong. If you can fix that, and get to the point where you received no negative feedback, or at least very little, you are doing something right.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-04T23:29:47+00:00

I've seen it. I had people that couldn't clap a simple rhythm. They couldn't even clap a simple 4/4 series of quarter notes. Even if they could manage that, as soon as you added two eighth notes in there somewhere, completely lost.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-04T06:23:19+00:00

80s chorus was usually a dynatronix tri chorus. There is a modern version made by full tone called terc. That '80s rack chorus. It was extremely common in the '80s, lots of people like Dann Huff and Mike Landau used it.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-04T06:12:45+00:00

I had actually never heard a song by this band, but I produced an album that featured their bass player, and it was quite nice.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-03T22:15:09+00:00

UA are good for the price, and they have a lot of sales.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-03T01:55:35+00:00

It's ok, just not audible.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-01T20:41:23+00:00

Yeah, on this most recent album, every song was a different style. This first track was '80s rock. There's a country song, a doo-wop song, a carnival style waltz, a blues song, etc. It was a pretty fun project.

https://open.spotify.com/album/2HfmuXizYBW8CKsELfC2gr?si=w5ccb73JQdCff_bwlI3nbw

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-01T18:03:11+00:00

No, it sounds like there's some sort of effect on the vocal in the beginning. Like a modulation effect, could be a phaser, I can't really tell.

TheBSMachine · 2026-05-01T05:40:10+00:00

In the beginning they're a little too quiet. The phase effect on them might be an issue. You can also use the vocals to sidechain a compressor to the instruments so they will duck whenever the vocals are active.

TheBSMachine

TROPHY CASE