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Nick

Mega Poster
My main interest in life (even before coasters :eek: !!!) is composing music. I'm not much of a performer on any instrument so I use all my time composing instead. I'm currently studying Creative Music Technology at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK.

The two main genres I compose are Electronic Chillout stuff as well as Film Score and soundtrack type stuff.

I upload most of my new tracks on youtube (I'll send the link below) and i'll embed a couple of my newer compositions below.

Hope you enjoy! Any comments and feedback will be greatly appreciated!

Here's the link to my youtube profile. http://www.youtube.com/user/nickmaymusic

The first track is called 'Mission for Money' It's a film score style suit of themes and ideas.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVNSAELFUm0[/youtube]

The second is a Electronic, Chillout, Downtempo type track, but I still think it has a cinematic sound to it...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKslsFCXCqo[/youtube]
 
I used Logic Pro 8 for those two. I used to use Cubase 4 but my uni is all mac based so I made the switch to logic
 
^ Cheers for the comment!
I've only used software synthesis, however I have used some heavily eddited samples in the second track.
 
^ good music, mate. Excellently written. It's very cinematic indeed.

I hope you're willing to listen to some hopfully constructive critisism.

Strings in Mission for Money sound really sampler, which i guess they are, is that the ESX24? Would be lovely to get them a little more realistic. The horns seem to get away with it a bit better. Maybe, get some variation from some swing, or knock the odd not out of tune by a tiny number of cents, put in deliberate errors, as it were. Or get hold of an orchestra. :)

The second track would benefit from some more focus in the low frequencies. Maybe, an extreme hi-pass filter at around 40Hz. Kick is loosing it's power to the bass synth, seperate them more using EQ. You could also try using a multiband compressor to get that dynamic throb on the bass whilst leaving the leaving the top end free to jangle around like it does.
 
Cheers for the advice Inverse! I agree with you on pretty much all the points you've raised. I haven't really played around with humanising pitch before, only rhythm, so I'll try this out some time.

And production is something I'm slowly working on, I'm more of a creative musician than a technical one so this is an area I need to pay more attention to.

But cheers again for all the comments!
 
^Ah right, Pitch humanizing (actually any humanizing) is best achieved by splitting your samplers up. It chews up CPU, but if you can get some strings played by one sampler, and some by the other, even three or four samplers if you have the time/processing power. This'll allow you to have some of the strings slightly out with the others, rather than them all out together. Kontact can do all this with one instance, i believe the ESX24 will require multiple plug ins. Play with it. If the ESX24 doesn't have a tuning dial (I'm a ProTool man, myself, so i'm unsure) use Logic's Frequency shifter, it can be really subtle.
 
^thanks again for all the advice. I'm impressed with your knowledge so I'm now intrigued how you know all this lol.
And what sort of stuff do you write?
Cheers again :)
 
I study as a Music Technology Specialist. I would imagen it's similar to your course, but it leans heavily towards tech over composing. I also top up my pockets with Recording, Mixing and Mastering work whenever i can.

I do compose, but what kinda stuff it is depends very much on what my current fads and phases are! There are songs and things on my website, i think you'd like "Stereo Progression" (it was written in surround sound, originally just called "Progression").

I'm definatly more recording based than you seem to be. Synths are cool and all, i love to build them in Reaktor and MaxMSP, but i write and record more traditionally, guess that's why i'm a ProTools man. I use Logic for many assignments but i ain't so quick on it.

By the sounds of your work you are a more than capable producer yourself, but let me know if you want a tech-based opinion on anything. I am always willing to help.
 
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