Tribute to Silent Hill - SIlent Hillwav3

Here I am again, asking for your feedback. This time is something special, I wanted to make a tribute track to one of the game franchises I love the most: Silent Hill.

On the artistic side, I’m very happy with the results: it “sounds like Silent Hill”, but different to Akira Yamaoka’s stuff. On the mixing and mastering side, I’m worried about my usual suspects: ear fatigue, boomy elements, crossing the line between punchy and tiresome…

So here it is.

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Hi there, long time no see :wink:

Nice one actually, it’s loud and wide with a nice stereo image.

For suggestions on levels or ear fatigue, maybe for the drums : kick and those snare/toms ( I mean this sound at 0:50 i.e ) they are rather sharp sounding percussive sounds and quite loud as well. Maybe a more “loose” kick ( with less attack ) and leveling them down a bit.

It’s a conjunction of the repetitive pattern with those sharp percussive elements that may bring ear fatigue in my opinion, less focus on the other nice parts & details after some time, could be a bit “smoother” IMO, so levels, attack and maybe more reverb to wash away the aggressiveness of those elements ?

Not much more to say other than this, nice track :sunglasses:

Oh, yeah, a bit of room reverb in a send and tweaking the kick and Simmons drums attack by just 1ms makes a subtle but noticeable difference. Still punchy, but less tiresome. Thank you!

BTW, guess who used the Black Friday deal to get a whole year of Sonic Academy…

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So, does that means I haven’t loss too much of my hearing with aging ?? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: haha

Great !!

How is the Man From Space and teaching going BTW ?
You managed with Covid-19 ? Not that cool for anything school related I imagine.

Hey,

As always with your songs: really good and in a style that I personally like to listen to and would also like to be able to create myself. It’s some form of dark wave or how would this style be called?

For constructive cricticism, the drums have this sharp sound. It’s impossible to ignore and quite unpleasant. I’m referring to this tiny pinching harsh tick on the kick and when kick and snare hit together; in my projects usually coming from up there around the 3khz+ or overly ambitious saturation+compression. With retro drums it’s always a problem.

As for the arrangement, to be honest, it’s not your strongest song because it sounds unfinished to me. With the break at 1:40 you’d think something is going to happen, but then it plays around with some ideas and suddenly it’s over. It could easily be 5-7 minutes or even more to explore this atmosphere and take the listener on a journey that lasts at least one cigarette.

Quite well considering the circumstances. I’m starting with a new group of students. Can’t wait to start teaching them the glory of sound FX design.

It always happens this way: my ear hears nothing wrong, then you point something super specific and then that thing pops out and I can’t hear anything else. LOL.

I applied multiband compression at 2K and 6K, there were two recurring peaks there. I applied very little compression there, but I AB tested it, and the difference is clear. The drums are less harsh now.

As for a more developed arrangement, it’s a possibility I explored, but somehow I got stuck with the track. After a month trying to force me in, I decided to give it a closure and let it sleep. At this moment I feel like I need to make a music with a more positive and intimate vibe.

Eventually, the “darksynth” mood will come back, only that this is not the moment for me.

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