I have been busy with other projects, but have got one of my “in progress” tunes to a point where you can guess what it’s supposed to sound like.
Will need to re-record the bass, and possibly the guitar and sax also…
Also have to sort out the EQ stuff in a serious, all-day session.
But if you need to wiggle your bottom after the XMAS food… wiggle away…
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A bit heavy handed on the late reverb on the saxophone. That’s my main gripe with it, not listening as loud as I want to, but I’d cut back on that, without making it sound dry.
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This sounds good. I’m assuming you haven’t gone into in depth mixing yet but these sounds really have great potential in a final mix. The drums sound great especially the snare and those stick hits really got me.
My 2 cents:
the hi hats stick out at time.
I think more compression on the master buss will help as the instruments are still sounding separate from each other. but don’t get me wrong they all sound great. How did you record the drums? is it a vst or real drums? if its a vst, I’m definitely sold. Thanks for letting us listen. cheers!
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I’m listening on unfamiliar headphones, so I’m not sure I can be very helpful mix wise. All in all, the elements all sound very clear and punchy.
I’m just wondering about the arrangement. I can hear quite a few different musical themes, motifs and riffs coming and going, but it all comes across as pretty “impressionistic” (for want of a better description).
In a traditional arrangement, I would expect the different motifs to be featured and developed in turn at different times, like characters in a story - but I’m guessing that may not be what you are going for here… Maybe more of a “mood” piece?
Nice to hear some of your work again!
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What he said! 
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Very cool Sven, I like the combination of styles and choice of instruments. Sound is great, can you give us a rundown on the instruments, live vs vst?
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Thanks for the comments - much appreciated…
From hereon I consider myself a “musical impressionist” - very happy about this… :)
The live instruments are guitar, bass and saxophone.
The Les Paul is running through my famed “Isley Brothers:” setting in Guitar Rig.
The Squier bass, same as Adrian has, has the Native Instruments Transient Master to add some punch, then also GR.
I use parallel compression a lot, including on the sax.
The vocals are VST. The Clara library for the “lead” and the Gaia library as additions.
The synths are Signal from Output.
Additional brass is from Native Instruments Symphony Series.
The strings are LASS, another Kontakt instrument.
The drums are, indeed, VST.
It’s Studio Drummer from Komplete, with Indie Disco grooves. Tracks separated into kick, snare, toms, hats and cymbals - and processed individually.
I have a “New York Compression” set-up that is applied in parallel to the bass and the drums… which I suspect contributes to them “sounding good”.
Apart from investigating the hints given here, the next step will be surgical EQ as per Dan Worrall - I use the Fab Filter EQ. One problem is I have quite a bassy sound coming from my Yamaha speakers, the way they are set up, then I have very gratifying sound from my MDR-7506 cans and a flat an uninspiring sound coming from my Sennheiser cans.
Not sure how to mix for overall-best-reference…
Cheers,
The Impressionist
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