Goofy Western Orchestral Track

Hi everyone!

I'm new to this forum, but I've been watching a couple of masterclasses (namely Here's Johnny and Template Balancing) from Mike. I wrote this small tune which sounds like it's from Back To The Future 3 or Toy Story or something... And I wanted to try to milk it and see if I could use some of the vocabulary I learned from the Here's Johnny video. Here it is:



So the first part is mostly the same idea over and over, just with different harmonies, rhythms and orchestration. The second part is slower and I had help from a team I usually work with to write it and add the country elements in the end (and the upright bass throughout the song).

I'm thinking it could have been better programmed: I did NO quantizing and I fear I might have forgotten a few misplacements here and there. Although it can often contribute to the realism, I think some notes are way off the beat and I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.
Furthermore, I had quite a lot of feedback on the track, and one interesting comment was that the whole piece was probably just a few bpm too fast (the person was very specific and adviced a slowing down of 4bpm^^ but it's a very good idea and another possibility to add variation, which I did not think about when "Milking" my little melody).

The biggest issue I have is with mixing.
First: I did not implement the principles discussed by Mike and some of you in the Template Balancing video, shame on me.
Second: I have a crapy shaped room with no treatment whatsoever and a pair of old M-Audio speakers so I'm always second-guessing myself, and that's not gonna get better until I have a crib of my own I can treat.

Out of topic: it was super-fun to watch Mike's masterclass, literally getting ideas on the fly and pausing the video to compose. The amount of knowledge in there is mind-blowing. If you read this, M. Verta: Thank you, you really get my inspiration going, AND you cured my GAS! I just want to transcribe and learn new chords, experiment with stuff instead of buying sh*t. Plus: the insights into the industy and the honesty you give off is refreshing. Ok, the ass-kissing is over, happy listening and thanks in advance!

 

Thanks Doug for your reply!

No, not like that! 2 composer friends and I have this monthly challenge where we send a musical idea and the other two have to "finish" it.This one I applied a third layer of work to make the two parts match.
Like you said, though: it sounds like a different piece. I have this problem with transitions, I'd love to be able to make them seamless but maybe the two emotions are just too far apart... Or is it just my limitations?

I'm not sure I understand this. Do you mean that there is too few things happening (melody + harmony)? the last few seconds actually have 3 differents melody lines playing (the right and left hands on the piano answer each other like a counterpoint and the trumpet plays another voice up high. Does that qualify as "3D"? or am I missing something?)

It sure would! Yet another tool I don't use often enough.

Thank you very much and I'll try to hang out around here and post more stuff.

Cheers!