Into The Valley_20120505idea02 v007

Listen on SoundCloud.com


Originally created for a game, but project was later put on hold.

Created in Sonar.

All pitched instruments from NI Kontakt Factory Library, with an orchestral kit from NI Battery. Big percussive hits were from EastWest StormDrums2.

Completed in 25 May 2012, uploaded to SoundCloud.com on 13 Aug 2012.

I was going for something massive sounding. At that point I was not aware of limiters and multi-band compression. Very early on I ran into the ceiling on the dynamic range, mainly on the low frequencies, due to the booming drums and percussive hits.

In my desperation I turned to my good friend since Poly days, Robin Wong, who helped me troubleshoot the problem. He explained to me about the 'loudness war' in the recording business, and advised me to use a multi-band compressor.

Also, he was very quick to tell me to kill any reverb applied to my low end sounds. This can very easily muddy-up the mix on the low end.

Robin has been doing audio mixing for much longer than me, and in a much more involved capacity. I hope I did a decent job on my own.

I promised to send him my unprocessed tracks so he could do another mix for this, just to keep in practice.

Thanks for all your advise, Robin.