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A Farewell To Heroes

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Author Comments

This was more mixing practice than anything -- I experimented a bit with reverb, and listened to this song on 5 different sound systems to try and get the balance all good.


I pictured a sendoff of sorts when listening to this. The last chord feels very "resolved", making me feel more complete and happy, much like coming to terms with saying goodbye to someone would feel.


The only instrument I made was the lead -- everything else is a preset, mwahaha.

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Aww yea the music says a lot of words know what i'm sayin?Great job!5 stars!

Birdinator99 responds:

Aw yiss. Motha. Fuckin'. 5 stars.

Oh hey man :3.

When I first heard this track I instantly knew it was something by Birdinator99. You have a very distinguishable style, perhaps due to your frequent use of fuzzy pad sounds, and dreamy lead melodies.

For the 1 minute and 16 seconds that this lasts, it's a pleasant listen that deserves some patience to properly digest. You have a nice melody that's backed up by some pretty sweet pad chords. The chord at the end just feels huge haha. It works to provide the resolution you were going for, especially since right before it there was a dominant chord that leaves the listener anticipating such a resolution.

The atmosphere, while being quite heavy for a melody that I'd imagine would fit more in a lighter, more airy atmosphere, is interesting and curiously quite great. You've got a very slow pace and really full/deep instrumentation which creates a kind of majestic, somewhat bittersweet mood.

The sounds are good. I'm still not entirely sure on you playing such prolonged and heavy chords with such thick synths, since it can get a bit overbearing to listen to (especially at the end when you have a sound that rivals the THX sound effect in thickness). Otherwise, you have a set of sounds that are very characteristic of your musical style and are interesting to listen to!

Really though, there isn't much else to say about this track haha. It's nice, but doesn't last very long. There's little development - it instantly starts by introducing the lead melody, and then introduces the drums shortly afterwards, making for very little progression. I can imagine this working in a game cutscene where main characters have to say farewell to each other, but otherwise it isn't very satisfying!

So yeah, basically, this humbly provides a nice listening experience which doesn't last that long. The mixing is solid (maybe a bit overcompressed), the composition is great, the sounds are mostly fine, etc. Keep it up :3.

7/10
5/5 not to ruin your perfect 5 streak

Birdinator99 responds:

Dude, I'm totally going to make more unintentional puns now...

I love dat fuzz, and slow music! It's kind of neat that you can tell it's me by listening now.

I don't know enough theory to know what a dominant chord is, but I know what you're talking about. I'm going to try and learn more about that stuff in the future. Glad you like the chords!

I'd thank the drums for the full sound -- I knew straight away what I was going to do with it when I reached that stage of the recording process.

The pad's a preset, and in hindsight it is a bit thick. Good observation -- I didn't spend a lot of time choosing my instrument there, so now I know what to do next time. The THX sound (haha) was used in Paradox, I'm pretty sure, but I wanted to try it again with proper mixing. It is pretty ridiculous (also a preset heh), but I love it. However, since the song was so heavy leading up to it, I suppose there was less of an impact when it finally came around. Again, back to instrument choices...

If I could do this piece again, I would start quieter and add at least one more layer of progression. The goal was to be a satisfying end, but for reasons already explained that didn't pan out so well.

Glad you liked the mixing -- the compression is probably the mastering limiter I'm using. I was wary about turning it up any more, and I'm glad I didn't, as it probably shows a little too much as it is. I enjoyed the slight pump I got with the kick, though, when I used it the way I did. I would love to increase the volume of my tracks some how -- maybe I need to record my keyboard sounds at a higher level or use more software synths.

Thanks for stopping by, and KEEP THAT STREAK ALIVE HOMIE BIRDY AND STEP 2013 KNOW WHAT I'M SAYIN'?!?!?!

It's not bad at all, way better than ech (the prototype) for certain. But as this is a review, I'm of course going to try to put in a couple suggestions. Nothing stands out to me about the notey stuff, or should I say the stuff that isn't the drums, it's good enough that no suggestions come to mind immediately. on the drums however I have a couple of thoughts.

Or maybe it's just one thought.

The shortest hit on the drums (the one that goes one two one two) doesn't feel like it has enough energy to it. It feels as though it's standing still, rather than sending it's feelings along the path of the music. If that makes any sense.

Only a little though, since after listening really closely I it might be fine the way it is, you did quite well. It's hard to come up with anything to pick on.

So instead of trying really hard to find something i'll just give a little suggestion to try out in future pieces, and that's tiny sounds. One of my favorite things about music is closing my eyes and being able to listen to exactly where each sound is coming from, and I love when tiny (not necessarily quiet) sounds are sitting way far out to the left or right.

I enjoyed how the lowest hit on the drums moved around a bit, the wiggle from left to right that the ending sound seemed to have. The cymbal up in the top right corner was interesting too, and it was nice how the background synth spanned the whole space from left to right. The other three far corners didn't have anything in them, but it wasn't a problem at all.

Gah there are so many parts of music, I don't even know how to begin on the choice of melody, as I don't really think about that specifically very often anyway.

One thing's for sure though, you did a good job for such a short piece.

Birdinator99 responds:

The melody isn't particularly inspired, so I'll meet you there (notey?!?!).

It would help to learn some vocabulary so I know what you're referring to all the time. The "shortest hit" I assume is the kick, and the "lowest hit" that moved around (apparently) and wiggled (unless that was a different sound that wiggled) I'm really not sure.

Terms like kick drum and snare help me know what you're talking about, and make your constructive criticism more helpful.

Again, with "tiny sounds", I'm guessing you mean short and staccato?

Glad you liked (I think) it.

Very airy. I like the way this is mixed and composed. It's short, but it's excellent.

Birdinator99 responds:

Just like this review -- oh snap!

Credits & Info

Listens
1,981
Downloads
36
Votes
6
Score
4.12 / 5.00

Uploaded
Sep 5, 2013
9:49 PM EDT
File Info
Song
2.9 MB
1 min 16 sec

Licensing Terms

Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.