# Action / Horror cue



## sebuko (Jun 22, 2009)

Hey Ed,

This one sounds very interesting. Would perfectly fit into a survival horror game (overfiend-fight). Would love to see the movie including your music.

Keep on da good work o-[][]-o 

Regards,
Peter o/~


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## Ed (Jun 22, 2009)

Thanks Sebuko!


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## synthetic (Jun 22, 2009)

Nice stuff! The stings didn't seem to hit hard enough, though. Maybe they need some bass or just higher levels for those. Is it compressed? 

I didn't hear much low bass overall on my system.


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## Ed (Jun 23, 2009)

Damn, thought I figured out the bass thing. I am mixing on headphones mostly so I have to over compensate usually and thought I did that enough here. Nothing is compressed.

Does anyone else hear a bass issue?


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## musicpete (Jun 23, 2009)

Me too. Not enough Bass and overall a quite muddy/wet/muffled quality to the sound.

Just like all my mixes sound... :(

Nice patchwork of drums and canned FX you got there, by the way! Funny, because I happen to work on something similar too.


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## Ed (Jun 23, 2009)

God damn it. Any tips on how to stop it sounding muffled? Aside from turning down the reverb.


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## Ed (Jun 23, 2009)

And is it simply a matter of turning up the bass instruments to make it more "basey" or is that not the correct way of doing it?


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## sebuko (Jun 23, 2009)

Ed @ Tue Jun 23 said:


> And is it simply a matter of turning up the bass instruments to make it more "basey" or is that not the correct way of doing it?



Well yes and no :mrgreen: 
You can simply turn up the volume and test it. If the result sounds good to you that would be the easiest way to do it  

I prefer to spin an volumnios carpet. That means you have to use diffrent bass instruments (or sounds by synth). Gives really cool results .But this makes the orchestra bigger and you have to balance the other instruments too. 

There is also an subwoofer like plugin for stronger bass. But i would not recommend it.

Have you tryed an 7-Band Equalizer plugin? It´s nice but wasn´t so good for my orchestra tracks. 

I guess it´s the greatest challenge in orchestra to sound not muddy. 
Guess it´s nearly impossible to do a complete clean orchestra version with samples.
Maybe with complete dry ones. But i like the samples with hall much more and risk a bit of muddyness for it o/~


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## Ed (Jun 23, 2009)

Hey, thanks Sebuko. Yea Im confused because I know the strings sound a bit buried but the main issue is the comments about "mud" and "lack of bass". 

It sounds fine to me on my headphones and on my monitors, however they are http://farm1.static.flickr.com/1/506732_79ac28fba2.jpg?v=0 (these shitty things) _(these arent my actaul monitors just the same make I found on googleimages). _Plus, the director and editor seem to have no problems with them... 

But if there is something wrong Im not picking up I would like to know about it and how I can go about fixing it.

If anyone has any ideas I would love to know!


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## Christian Marcussen (Jun 23, 2009)

Just to make you go nuts... 

To me it sounds neither muffled, nor with too little bass. In fact I think the mix sounds pretty good. Go figure.


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## JB78 (Jun 23, 2009)

Christian Marcussen @ Tue Jun 23 said:


> Just to make you go nuts...
> 
> To me it sounds neither muffled, nor with too little bass. In fact I think the mix sounds pretty good. Go figure.



+1

I like the cue as well! 
o-[][]-o


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## Ed (Jun 23, 2009)

Christian Marcussen @ Tue Jun 23 said:


> Just to make you go nuts...
> 
> To me it sounds neither muffled, nor with too little bass. In fact I think the mix sounds pretty good. Go figure.



No Christian this is helpfull as it means Im not just totally out of touch! :D 

But if some people hear a bass/mud issue I would like to know how to address it, or how people are supposed to address that generlly. I guess I need to know this from the people that think there isa lack of bass and mud issue so they can tell me what I do to make it better. 

Thanks for yours (and others) for the input though!


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## RiffWraith (Jun 23, 2009)

Like the cue. 

I am with Mr. Marcussen here, tho if it were me, I would add a_ little _bit of low end. Does not sound muffled, but i think that term is misused. I think alot of people use "muffled" when they can not hear some instruments distinctly - they can't put their finger on anything specific - alot of instruments "blend" into one another, so it's "muffled". Not putting anyone down here, but that's what I think it is when people say that.

Cheers.


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## Craig Sharmat (Jun 23, 2009)

+2

I might add a little more with the bass instruments or try it in mastering. I do not hear much wrong here and all instruments speak clearly.


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## re-peat (Jun 23, 2009)

Ed,

Not sure if the bass is actually the most problematic area of this mix. (Although you have an ugly subsonic eruption at around 0:40). Thing is, there's soooooo much energy in almost every frequency band here, that you have left yourself with very little room to create effective dynamics in any one of them. I suppose that's why some listeners feel that there's perhaps too little bass. In reality, I think there's more than enough bass, it's just that it can't compete with all the energy that's happening on top of it. You've crammed so much power in the whole spectrum that there's no space left for this power to be fully dynamic. (Not sure if that's a technically correct analysis, but that's how I hear it anyway.)

Difficult problem, really difficult. Especially in a powerhouse of a track like this one clearly is. If it were me, I'd go over all the tracks and filter frequencies away wherever I can but without damaging the sounds of course: make some more room for the bass by removing bass from the mids and the highs, make more room for the mids by removing mids from the bass and the highs and make more room for the highs by removing highs from the bass and the mids.

On a related note, but a different thing: I feel that there's perhaps a bit too much happening in the notoriously 'boxy' 700Hz range. Maybe try and attenuate that range a bit (-3 or -4 db with a fairly broad width, but not too wide or you loose definition) and see if you like it. 

_


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## kid-surf (Jul 2, 2009)

I like it...

I prefer (spec) Horror cues to be a little more brutal, but I liked it.

In numbers: 90% functional. Missing the last 10% of "holy shit, this guy really is twisted"

Having said that, it will be plenty dark for 90% of horror directors. :D


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## kid-surf (Jul 2, 2009)

Oops...I see it's for a film. Well, like I said.


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