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Set Me Free (In a Far Away Land)
#1
Another great composition and arrangement by Mr. Talbot.

I tried not to fall into my 1980's fall back EQ curve but I'm not sure I succeeded. Nonetheless, I think I came up with something enjoyable. As with many of Patrick's songs they sound good pretty much no matter what you do to them.

So the first trick was taking the stereo keyboards and flipping the phase of one of the sides. This spread the track out nicely. When the keyboard solo came in I flipped it back to center it and automated some gain. This was a bit tricky as the keyboard solo also required different EQ than the ensemble keys. Tell me what you think. The horns I lushed into a big preset for horns which I stayed stock with out of my Presonus catalogue. A bit of grove delay and compression on the guitar solo and that came into focus for me. I know some of you folks hate this, but I did put reverb on the bass and in-line reverb on the drums. Don't be hatin!

I've got an extended version of this piece coming at some point. I need to figure out some transitions in it before posting it up.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think.


.mp3    Patrick Talbot - Set Me Free.mp3 --  (Download: 11.02 MB)


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#2
Hey Mixinthecloud, that's a pretty cool one! Some really nice ideas overall, and good tones. I like it.
I really like what you did with the chorus and the bgvs and the kind of call and response you've managed to build there.
I enjoyed the keys, although I would be worried about mono compatibility in a commercial mix.
The horns are big, perhaps too big? Your preset sounds good but it has removed some of the transients from this track so they sound more mellow than punchy. An artistic choice, no doubt.
I don't hate the drums, but I'm less convinced by them, the reverb sounds a bit too much for my ears, there again, it's a taste thing.
So I think overall you did a great job. I would love to hear an extended version! Smile
"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa

Some air moved here
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#3
(11-03-2016, 02:14 AM)ptalbot Wrote: Hey Mixinthecloud, that's a pretty cool one! Some really nice ideas overall, and good tones. I like it.
I really like what you did with the chorus and the bgvs and the kind of call and response you've managed to build there.
I enjoyed the keys, although I would be worried about mono compatibility in a commercial mix.
The horns are big, perhaps too big? Your preset sounds good but it has removed some of the transients from this track so they sound more mellow than punchy. An artistic choice, no doubt.
I don't hate the drums, but I'm less convinced by them, the reverb sounds a bit too much for my ears, there again, it's a taste thing.
So I think overall you did a great job. I would love to hear an extended version! Smile

The call and response was actually a cop of your vocal treatment, although yours were panned. As for the horns, I think I was channeling my inner CTA on that! And, by all means possible, please apologize to those poor monoralists as yes, they will suffer the slight loss of keyboards due to my phase reversals. I would not want to be known as an anti-monoralist in this day and age. Gosh, someone might even accuse me of being an anti-vinylist too. Heaven forbid! Tongue
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#4
I don't care too much about mono compatibility in general, even in my own mixes.
That being said, I was just pointing out that inverting the polarity of one channel of a stereo track is possibly the worst thing that you could do in that regard. I pointed this especially in the context of a commercial mix, because I believe these things still matter today, whether you like it or not.
Not everyone is listening to music in the best possible conditions, one could even argue that more and more people listen on small PC speakers, even laptop or phone speakers (!)... But even with good speakers, not many people stay in the sweet spot, so what they are hearing is mostly mono...
You could say it's their loss, but if you're working in a real world situation where you need to deliver for the vast majority of environments, that's the kind of things to keep an ear on...
"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa

Some air moved here
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#5
(12-03-2016, 02:56 AM)ptalbot Wrote: I don't care too much about mono compatibility in general, even in my own mixes.
That being said, I was just pointing out that inverting the polarity of one channel of a stereo track is possibly the worst thing that you could do in that regard. I pointed this especially in the context of a commercial mix, because I believe these things still matter today, whether you like it or not.
Not everyone is listening to music in the best possible conditions, one could even argue that more and more people listen on small PC speakers, even laptop or phone speakers (!)... But even with good speakers, not many people stay in the sweet spot, so what they are hearing is mostly mono...
You could say it's their loss, but if you're working in a real world situation where you need to deliver for the vast majority of environments, that's the kind of things to keep an ear on...

I understand your concern and the effect flipping the phase of a single side of a stereo track will do to it when summed in mono. I thank you for your input and will keep it in mind in the future.
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