DarkEco

Don't you worry - we're still alive and kickin'. Lots of work on the back end of the site going on at the moment in order to make sure that things keep moving on the site, which while less noticeable is important in keeping the site moving along with little problem.
Generally, it's easy to think that OCR isn't what it used to be, and in some ways you're correct - what OCR used to be was a monolith of a site where most VG arrangements were vetted and distributed. Today, though, we have sites like Youtube, the Materia collective, Pixel Mixers, etc., that all distribute VG arrangements elsewhere, which is only a good thing for the community at large. It does look like it shrinks OCR's contribution to the community by comparison, but it's really an illusion: take a look at OCR in 2009 and compare it to today, and you'll find that we've grown considerably in that time. Forum activity has waned, but that's true across the spectrum; a lot of communities have moved onto things like Discord (of which OCR still has an active and thriving community - check it out), so that's less telling of OCR's condition and more the state of the internet in general.
Concerning albums, we generally don't officially direct any albums - that's entirely community based. If you want more albums to be made, then by all means help out with those that are already in the works (you can check em' out in the Projects forum), or you can get to recruitin' for one. Had a wonderful album come out recently from a relative newer member (who isn't a remixer herself), so it's not unheard of.
Really, though, it's not a bad thing to hear fans "lament" OCR's glory days - it means we still have something to live up to, which is encouraging. That being said, don't despair, OCR is still quite an active force on the internet; we're not going anywhere.

If you use sends, you typically set the dry to 0 and the wet to 100% and use the send level to control the balance.
I have the impression you’re looking at this from the perspective of a single instrument. When mixing, it’s important to look at the track and balance as a whole. And trust me, I’d rather have 3 reverb sends where I can control the send levels directly from the mixer, rather than having 60 insert effects where I’d have to open the vst or automation lane to control the balance.
Make it easy for yourself, save some cpu and look at it from the perspective of mixing a complete track. $0.02.

When do you use inserts: for distortion, EQ, compression, chorus, flanger, phaser.
When do you use sends: for reverb, delay.
When are there exceptions: any time you want 'm. You can use compression as a send effect to get something called parallel compression.
These are rules of thumb, and rules can and should be broken if you learn something from them.
Chorus (or plain old oscillator detuning) can make the sound wider, but at the same time it can get weaker, because it's cancelling itself out in terms of phase. Reverb lets a focused sound compete with a smeared copy of itself; naturally, when the copy gets stronger, the sound is less focused. You camouflage the transients.
In the end, all you're doing is controlling the ratio of dry and wet. Send effects aren't "better" in this regard. It's just that you start with 100% dry and sum a wet signal on top of that. Let's say you have 100% dry and 20% send; the total is 120%. 100% is 100/120*100 = 83% of that, so the signal is 100 - 83 = 17% wet.
This is effectively not different from using an insert effect and setting the wet/dry to 17% wet. The difference comes in once you start adding other tracks, because then you get something you can't do with insert effects. The other difference is that 20% on an insert is not the same as 20% on an aux send, so you'll indeed hear more of the dry signal.
"You have too much reverb" is an oft-heard complaint. Reverb is like MSG for the sound; it makes everything better. However, you usually don't notice that you're using too much of it.
You can use a reverb as an insert effect. The downside is that if you have two tracks and you use two distinct reverbs, it sounds pretty unrealistic; you can't have one instrument sounding like it was recorded in a small tiled room and another in a concert hall. That ruins the illusion. If you use exactly the same reverbs, they may still mismatch, because the result of two dry instruments playing in the same room is not identical to summing two instruments each playing in their own room.
What aux does, effectively, is that it creates a submix. Let's say you have a dry mix of guitar, bass and drums. Drums are set to 100% volume. Guitar is set to 60%, bass to 80%. That is the mix that you hear.
With auxes, you can make the mix completely different; on an aux you create a duplicate of the mix that may be set to guitar 100%, bass 40%, drums 20%. That is the duplicate mix that you send to an effect (any kind of effect). The effect will "hear" that mix completely different from how you're hearing it. The end result is sent back to the mixer as if it were a single stereo track, and summed with the original. If you're using a reverb effect, the guitar's wet/dry mix may be a lot stronger than that of the drums, but since everything is still in the same "room", it'll do more to suggest positioning (i.e. how close to the microphone was the instrument). Panning is in that sense not different from any effect.
Experiment! Keep things simple initially; just a few tracks. Try all combinations. You'll learn a lot.

I find that thinking about my creative endeavours often fills me with anxiety, to the point where I'm compelled to avoid them at all costs. Things like knowing I have no ideas, or being afraid to return to a half finished piece of music because I don't know how to improve it further.
I often read when looking for anxiety management tips that channeling your anxious thoughts into something creative can be a great outlet, but when it's your creative outlet that is causing the problem how do you learn to reprogram your mindset?
Any help is much appreciated. 

I find that thinking about my creative endeavours often fills me with anxiety, to the point where I'm compelled to avoid them at all costs. Things like knowing I have no ideas, or being afraid to return to a half finished piece of music because I don't know how to improve it further.
I often read when looking for anxiety management tips that channeling your anxious thoughts into something creative can be a great outlet, but when it's your creative outlet that is causing the problem how do you learn to reprogram your mindset?
Any help is much appreciated. 

It's only taken 20 years to add proper time signatures

I won't pretend to have any valuable experience to offer in your situation, but if i was to advise something, it would be not to establish your self limitations too early. It takes a while for ANYBODY to naturally start asking those questions. Just being able to isolate and analyse a single sound out of an ensemble with only your ear is a skill in itself. I'm a few years in and it's only now that i'm really thinking about music, because frankly if i had been too analytical too early then the passion would have worn out (in fact it did for a while). Years ago, I bought a theory book and began writing out fake lessons (they were planned for YouTube, because obviously YouTube needs MORE videos explaining what a major chord is haha), and i was abosrbing all this new information while doing so. I ended up with about 12 pages before stopping and i felt like i hadn't even scratched the surface.
 
What did i retain from doing that? Mainly the formulae to build scales and chords because that was the one thing that was ALWAYS useful, but that's about it. I consistently have to remind myself how modes work, despite using them all the time, and who actually gives a fuck what a subdominant and submediant are. I can hear when notes work together and when they don't. On paper, i was getting it, but the time spent writing this stuff out was time not spent on just working towards what i was hearing in my head, which was much easier to realise by simply placing my hands on a piano or guitar. I would feel forced to apply something just for the sake of memory retention and frankly was uninspired by the whole thing, and i wouldn't even feel like i was learning how to utilise it properly. Theory rarely ever tells you how to actually apply all this jargon you're learning unless you have a good teacher right there with you, and the application is the most important part! However when i just sat down and played something that resonated with me, i would WANT to find out the theory. For example, i discovered that i naturally, in almost ever scenario, gravitate towards the Mixolydian mode when playing. It would always come through in my music, and from this i began to notice how much of the old video game music i used to listen to as a kid was also Mixolydian. Just making that personal connection was a thousand times for satisfying than learning the Circle of Fifths.
 
Nowadays i definitely spend more time (not a lot though) reading about the "why" more than the "how". Sometimes i'll find something helpful, sometimes i won't. But asking "why" allows me to pursue the "right theory", which severly narrows the learning required, and you can gradually allow the not-so-important stuff to come together naturally over time. Patience is important in this, and i notice you mentioned impatience in a previous post. We're definitely not so different as people. Overthinking is creativity-cancer and i've been a long time victim myself. Overall when it comes to learning music, I believe that listening to what you like and imitating is the most important thing and i stand by that. That way when you're brainstorming your own ideas, you'll be applying more complex theory that they used without even realising it, and you don't have to worry about the analytics of it all until you're ready to. And you will never be completely imitating other peoples work because something will always happen mid way through the process that sets you apart, usually some form of happy accident. The key is to turn it into a happy not-accident
 
As for your comment about motivation dwindling when it comes to the "tiny strokes", i don't know a single person who doesn't go through this. I don't believe it's possible to love a project from start to finish. Just because you care about something immensely doesn't mean you love it, or love sitting in front of it for hours every day. The two main points i've found to be consistently stressful are the halfway mark and the final stretch. The halfway mark is where you will most likely be lost for where to go next and also start obsessively fiddling with the material you already have. The final stretch is due to the fact a project is NEVER FINISHED. Perfection is impossible and even if you feel amazing satisfaction on the day you call a project finished, you'll listen to it a week later and want to change things. For example, i just submitted an OCR that i was immensely happy with. Listened to it a week later and wondered how the hell i didn't realise the rhythm guitars were too loud. Now i'm hoping they ask for me to resubmit it so i can fix it. It's natural and everybody goes through it, and i still struggle with it as much as i did when i started, maybe even more so now that i have a lot more knowledge rattling around in my head. My goal to eventually overcome this is again, consistency. Repetition breeds confidence, of which i have very little, but i do believe gaining confidence over time will make the process less stressful and the quesitons in my head easier to answer.
 
EDIT: Btw i appreciate you creating this thread, as it's not only helped you but given me a good outlet to really sift through my thoughts and read back to myself just how i feel about these things. I've never said this stuff "out loud" to myself or really pinpointed my feelings this way. It's quite therapeutic.

My life.
 
I'm starting to find that having more of a "leap before you look" approach to things helps. Come up with a project idea and then try to fulfill it to its full potential. You will naturally do all the learning you need along the way because your curiosities will guide you. Theory books do nothing for me unless i need them for a specific purpose. Reading through a few consecutive chapters about chords, scales, modes, cadences, circle of fifths etc just overwhelms me, because i can't possibly apply all that to the next thing i write and still have a natural flow of ideas or any amount of FUN, and without application all those concepts are just abstract, which really doesn't gel with me. However, If i'm halfway through a piece and i'm struggling to make a melody and harmony work, then it can be helpful to maybe ask myself what my notes are really doing and what my options are, and the experience is far more beneficial because i can apply my learning right there and then.
 
To begin with, you can't easily come up with a direction for a piece unless you listen to the music that fascinates you and pay attention to the composition, arrangement, sound design and production in said music. That will raise questions in your head. "Why does that lead sound soar so well?", "Why does that melody over that chord change give me butterflies?", "How is that kick drum so punchy?". This will start your process, even if it's simply Youtubing "How to make dank kicks yo?" (Disclaimer: I can't make dank kicks).
Doing this will eventually open up a rabbit hole of resources and learning; the tricky bit is trying not to fall too far into it otherwise you'll get distracted and the project will get shelved in "that folder". You know the one, with the 50 other projects you never finished that makes your stomach sink when you think about it. I think we all have that folder. So make sure you only go as far as you need to in order to fulfill the project. The next project will reinforce and build your learning further as you'll already have that base experience that you'll be applying and can afford to dig a little deeper. Don't right off the bat think "Fuck! I need to know sidechain compression! I'll never be able to do a proper music without it! All those popular people like Skrawlex and Ziggy Dog Dog use it!". Yes it's useful, but not using it doesn't make your mix unlistenable, and not every genre requires it. Unless you're trying to make a dance music-esque "pump" then the mix benefits of sidechaining are subtle and only necessary on something that repeats a lot e.g kick and bass as it's really just automatic amplitude automation. Don't think i'm understating the benefits of sidechaining though, it does make a noticeable difference that's worth it when you get a better ear for mixing. But before worrying about "mix tricks" like that, i'd say it's more important to understand general mixing practice and balancing of levels, then enhance that understanding with sidechaining. This will make you more assertive and justified in your choice of using sidechaining, rather than just doing it because other people do and you think it's helping (I'm saying all this because you mentioned sidechaning in your post above).
 
By the end of a project you probably won't remember everything you've learned, but something i do is to just have a small notepad on my desk for "Session Notes", stick the date at the top and any time you learn something or discover something that could be important, just jot it down quickly. For example, i learned when doing my last remix that the tom drums in my plugin needed to have their release times turned down to almost zilch because they were overlapping and creating a lot of mud and resonance. I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint the toms as the "bad mix culprit" without painstakingly soloing EVERYTHING, but now i don't have to do that again and i'll have a note on how to set up my drums next time. I still don't have notes on how to make a perfect snare drum, but i have some notes here and there. Over time i'll have more and i'll start to realise what it is i actually like in a snare sound, and then crafting what i like in the future will become second nature. By the end you'll have a pile of these notes and you can flick through them to remind yourself of small things. Eventually you'll have so many you'll want to consolidate them, and by this point you will have been through a fair few projects so it'll be easier to know which notes were valuable to you in the long run. Maybe by this point you'll have experience in mixing an entire drum kit and not just the kick, for example. Why not use your compiled notes to write a mix strategy for drums and pin that shit on your wall?
 
What i'm trying to get at is that it's more important to just "do". The learning comes with the doing. I can vouch for it as i've been doing this for a few years now and this is the first time i'm reading back a post and feeling like an actual human who kinda knows what he's talking about. Sitting, paralysed with anxiety over what i should be learning didn't get me anywhere. I'm assuming from your OP that you know a fair bit of piano. Well when i started i was just putting my fingers in random places, but it was enough to get SOMETHING down (I also cared a lot less back then). Over time i'd just hit a wall and start to ask myself "Right, how the hell do i make Major and minor chords, because this shit just ain't working for me anymore", and that was my learning motivation. When Major and minor chords weren't doing it for me anymore i started adding some 7ths etc. Simple example, but you see what i mean. The "doing" part is daunting, but not necessarily difficult. The hardest part for me personally is coming up with a defined style in the first place, which is where listening to already existing elements of your favourite tracks comes in handy. The best starting point for anyone in my opinion is to take elements you like from the genres you like and try to mash them together and see what happens. That's your ruleset established and your necessary learning narrowed down and from there you can refine your style. That's how i made my frankenstein of a debut track on OCR. I mean, I'd love to learn how to write beautifully composed scores on a piece of manuscript and conduct a symphony orchestra, but that'll only come after i learn how to make a song out of mic feedback and guitars processed through 12 synthesizers while i play with my feet! This is how you make a Doom 2016 soundtrack and change the game, guys!
 
Mastery comes with repetition. Don't listen to the voice in the back of your head telling you you're doing it wrong, or you should be learning this or that. You can't do it wrong, and i believe it's an impossibility to somehow lose progress and get worse over time. Just keep doing shit. As @Rozovian said to me when i made a similar post some time ago...
"Keep making pancakes."

This is my first game audio project (also a student project) and the client is pitching to a well known publisher at GDC this month. Now i think i've got it in a good place overall, but the anxiety bells are ringing a fair bit so i could do with some solid feedback on things.

The game is being pitched in a prototype state so i wanted to get a 3-4min loop that demonstrates the overall vibe of things. The genre is a tropical themed, competitive multiplayer, collect-a-thon, brawler type thing. Music inspiration came from games like DKC: Returns, Move or Die, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Spyro, Crash, Candy Crush (for musical type SFX), Sonic CD (US) and various Rayman games, as well as trying to add a bit of an electronic aesthetic to match the clients more recent releases.
I'm at the point of polishing but not sure if i'm looking for issues that aren't even there, so if there's anything glaringly obvious then i'd love you to tell me <3
FYI The abrupt ending is because it loops, and the semi-abrupt start is because it cuts from the menu music (on the beat) as soon as the gameplay begins.
 
 

I won't pretend to have any valuable experience to offer in your situation, but if i was to advise something, it would be not to establish your self limitations too early. It takes a while for ANYBODY to naturally start asking those questions. Just being able to isolate and analyse a single sound out of an ensemble with only your ear is a skill in itself. I'm a few years in and it's only now that i'm really thinking about music, because frankly if i had been too analytical too early then the passion would have worn out (in fact it did for a while). Years ago, I bought a theory book and began writing out fake lessons (they were planned for YouTube, because obviously YouTube needs MORE videos explaining what a major chord is haha), and i was abosrbing all this new information while doing so. I ended up with about 12 pages before stopping and i felt like i hadn't even scratched the surface.
 
What did i retain from doing that? Mainly the formulae to build scales and chords because that was the one thing that was ALWAYS useful, but that's about it. I consistently have to remind myself how modes work, despite using them all the time, and who actually gives a fuck what a subdominant and submediant are. I can hear when notes work together and when they don't. On paper, i was getting it, but the time spent writing this stuff out was time not spent on just working towards what i was hearing in my head, which was much easier to realise by simply placing my hands on a piano or guitar. I would feel forced to apply something just for the sake of memory retention and frankly was uninspired by the whole thing, and i wouldn't even feel like i was learning how to utilise it properly. Theory rarely ever tells you how to actually apply all this jargon you're learning unless you have a good teacher right there with you, and the application is the most important part! However when i just sat down and played something that resonated with me, i would WANT to find out the theory. For example, i discovered that i naturally, in almost ever scenario, gravitate towards the Mixolydian mode when playing. It would always come through in my music, and from this i began to notice how much of the old video game music i used to listen to as a kid was also Mixolydian. Just making that personal connection was a thousand times for satisfying than learning the Circle of Fifths.
 
Nowadays i definitely spend more time (not a lot though) reading about the "why" more than the "how". Sometimes i'll find something helpful, sometimes i won't. But asking "why" allows me to pursue the "right theory", which severly narrows the learning required, and you can gradually allow the not-so-important stuff to come together naturally over time. Patience is important in this, and i notice you mentioned impatience in a previous post. We're definitely not so different as people. Overthinking is creativity-cancer and i've been a long time victim myself. Overall when it comes to learning music, I believe that listening to what you like and imitating is the most important thing and i stand by that. That way when you're brainstorming your own ideas, you'll be applying more complex theory that they used without even realising it, and you don't have to worry about the analytics of it all until you're ready to. And you will never be completely imitating other peoples work because something will always happen mid way through the process that sets you apart, usually some form of happy accident. The key is to turn it into a happy not-accident
 
As for your comment about motivation dwindling when it comes to the "tiny strokes", i don't know a single person who doesn't go through this. I don't believe it's possible to love a project from start to finish. Just because you care about something immensely doesn't mean you love it, or love sitting in front of it for hours every day. The two main points i've found to be consistently stressful are the halfway mark and the final stretch. The halfway mark is where you will most likely be lost for where to go next and also start obsessively fiddling with the material you already have. The final stretch is due to the fact a project is NEVER FINISHED. Perfection is impossible and even if you feel amazing satisfaction on the day you call a project finished, you'll listen to it a week later and want to change things. For example, i just submitted an OCR that i was immensely happy with. Listened to it a week later and wondered how the hell i didn't realise the rhythm guitars were too loud. Now i'm hoping they ask for me to resubmit it so i can fix it. It's natural and everybody goes through it, and i still struggle with it as much as i did when i started, maybe even more so now that i have a lot more knowledge rattling around in my head. My goal to eventually overcome this is again, consistency. Repetition breeds confidence, of which i have very little, but i do believe gaining confidence over time will make the process less stressful and the quesitons in my head easier to answer.
 
EDIT: Btw i appreciate you creating this thread, as it's not only helped you but given me a good outlet to really sift through my thoughts and read back to myself just how i feel about these things. I've never said this stuff "out loud" to myself or really pinpointed my feelings this way. It's quite therapeutic.

Your teacher sounds amazing!
 
Names of the scale degrees. I prefer to just say numbers like a normal human being. I'll often use the term Tonic and Dominant as you tend to hear them a lot more, but between that its just second degree, third degree etc. I call the 7th degree the Leading Tone because it has so much pull towards the Tonic. You don't really land on a 7th unless you want to go to the 1st afterwards, so the name makes a lot of sense. I never actively learned this, i just stumbled upon it one day, probably when i was supposed to be doing something more important.
 
This community and their work is the reason I changed my my career prospects.

My experience so far has been somewhat similar to yours. I just started playing around on the piano, gradually "discovering" more things like chords, 8th notes and what have you. And then after having made the so many-th song using just whole note chords I figured its time to move on to something more interesting. I did simultaneously dive into music theory using the website with the same name. I understand perfectly what you're saying and I think the "just do it" approach does work well enough most of the time. I do personally benefit from a bit of  theoretical approach because I had zero knowledge when I started. I need those basic building blocks or I'll stay paralyzed.  Usually I'll take whatever I learned and work that into a new piece. Things that are yet too difficult I just drop and forget for the moment.
I mainly learn by literally seeing how something is done (I'm more of a visual learner I think) even if something simple like seeing my piano teacher do the circle of fifths. That's why I found one OCR member's video on EQ-ing profoundly helpful. I can see what he's doing and hear the result of what he's doing at the same time. I need that connection between the theory and the practice or it won't stick, and if I do, it will stick amazingly well.
Your comments on those questions that arise in your brain when you're listening to music ("Why does this and that sound do this or that to me?") are very helpful. You may think "Well, doesn't everyone have that?", but ever since I got my diagnosis (Asperger's) I learned that I don't do a lot of things that other people do naturally. Consciously asking myself such questions is one of those things. But once I am aware of such principles, I can start applying them anyway, so thanks for bringing it to my attention :).
In general, I do have a good feel for where I want my musical piece to go, but the difficulty finishing has more to do with stamina, discipline and dedication than with creativity per say. To draw a parallel with painting: it is easy to come up with an idea for a picture, drawing up the lines and putting down the broad strokes. But when it comes down to the details and those tiny strokes, that's where I tend to break down.
That's when the motivation starts dropping and the discouragement kicks in.
Like you, I do keep a list of things I learned. And I do experience that joy when I realize my next mix is better than the first was. I need those encouragements or I'll feel like I'm not getting anywhere. My piano teacher would agree with your statement "Don't listen to the voice in the back of your head..."
Thanks for your detailed response!
 

My life.
 
I'm starting to find that having more of a "leap before you look" approach to things helps. Come up with a project idea and then try to fulfill it to its full potential. You will naturally do all the learning you need along the way because your curiosities will guide you. Theory books do nothing for me unless i need them for a specific purpose. Reading through a few consecutive chapters about chords, scales, modes, cadences, circle of fifths etc just overwhelms me, because i can't possibly apply all that to the next thing i write and still have a natural flow of ideas or any amount of FUN, and without application all those concepts are just abstract, which really doesn't gel with me. However, If i'm halfway through a piece and i'm struggling to make a melody and harmony work, then it can be helpful to maybe ask myself what my notes are really doing and what my options are, and the experience is far more beneficial because i can apply my learning right there and then.
 
To begin with, you can't easily come up with a direction for a piece unless you listen to the music that fascinates you and pay attention to the composition, arrangement, sound design and production in said music. That will raise questions in your head. "Why does that lead sound soar so well?", "Why does that melody over that chord change give me butterflies?", "How is that kick drum so punchy?". This will start your process, even if it's simply Youtubing "How to make dank kicks yo?" (Disclaimer: I can't make dank kicks).
Doing this will eventually open up a rabbit hole of resources and learning; the tricky bit is trying not to fall too far into it otherwise you'll get distracted and the project will get shelved in "that folder". You know the one, with the 50 other projects you never finished that makes your stomach sink when you think about it. I think we all have that folder. So make sure you only go as far as you need to in order to fulfill the project. The next project will reinforce and build your learning further as you'll already have that base experience that you'll be applying and can afford to dig a little deeper. Don't right off the bat think "Fuck! I need to know sidechain compression! I'll never be able to do a proper music without it! All those popular people like Skrawlex and Ziggy Dog Dog use it!". Yes it's useful, but not using it doesn't make your mix unlistenable, and not every genre requires it. Unless you're trying to make a dance music-esque "pump" then the mix benefits of sidechaining are subtle and only necessary on something that repeats a lot e.g kick and bass as it's really just automatic amplitude automation. Don't think i'm understating the benefits of sidechaining though, it does make a noticeable difference that's worth it when you get a better ear for mixing. But before worrying about "mix tricks" like that, i'd say it's more important to understand general mixing practice and balancing of levels, then enhance that understanding with sidechaining. This will make you more assertive and justified in your choice of using sidechaining, rather than just doing it because other people do and you think it's helping (I'm saying all this because you mentioned sidechaning in your post above).
 
By the end of a project you probably won't remember everything you've learned, but something i do is to just have a small notepad on my desk for "Session Notes", stick the date at the top and any time you learn something or discover something that could be important, just jot it down quickly. For example, i learned when doing my last remix that the tom drums in my plugin needed to have their release times turned down to almost zilch because they were overlapping and creating a lot of mud and resonance. I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint the toms as the "bad mix culprit" without painstakingly soloing EVERYTHING, but now i don't have to do that again and i'll have a note on how to set up my drums next time. I still don't have notes on how to make a perfect snare drum, but i have some notes here and there. Over time i'll have more and i'll start to realise what it is i actually like in a snare sound, and then crafting what i like in the future will become second nature. By the end you'll have a pile of these notes and you can flick through them to remind yourself of small things. Eventually you'll have so many you'll want to consolidate them, and by this point you will have been through a fair few projects so it'll be easier to know which notes were valuable to you in the long run. Maybe by this point you'll have experience in mixing an entire drum kit and not just the kick, for example. Why not use your compiled notes to write a mix strategy for drums and pin that shit on your wall?
 
What i'm trying to get at is that it's more important to just "do". The learning comes with the doing. I can vouch for it as i've been doing this for a few years now and this is the first time i'm reading back a post and feeling like an actual human who kinda knows what he's talking about. Sitting, paralysed with anxiety over what i should be learning didn't get me anywhere. I'm assuming from your OP that you know a fair bit of piano. Well when i started i was just putting my fingers in random places, but it was enough to get SOMETHING down (I also cared a lot less back then). Over time i'd just hit a wall and start to ask myself "Right, how the hell do i make Major and minor chords, because this shit just ain't working for me anymore", and that was my learning motivation. When Major and minor chords weren't doing it for me anymore i started adding some 7ths etc. Simple example, but you see what i mean. The "doing" part is daunting, but not necessarily difficult. The hardest part for me personally is coming up with a defined style in the first place, which is where listening to already existing elements of your favourite tracks comes in handy. The best starting point for anyone in my opinion is to take elements you like from the genres you like and try to mash them together and see what happens. That's your ruleset established and your necessary learning narrowed down and from there you can refine your style. That's how i made my frankenstein of a debut track on OCR. I mean, I'd love to learn how to write beautifully composed scores on a piece of manuscript and conduct a symphony orchestra, but that'll only come after i learn how to make a song out of mic feedback and guitars processed through 12 synthesizers while i play with my feet! This is how you make a Doom 2016 soundtrack and change the game, guys!
 
Mastery comes with repetition. Don't listen to the voice in the back of your head telling you you're doing it wrong, or you should be learning this or that. You can't do it wrong, and i believe it's an impossibility to somehow lose progress and get worse over time. Just keep doing shit. As @Rozovian said to me when i made a similar post some time ago...
"Keep making pancakes."

Just wanted to add that having a good sound library is something that not only greatly helps inspire you, it also makes your life easier, because you have to work less hard to make it sound good. Consider it like an investment and use it to learn and hone your skills, rather than boring and depressing yourself with things that don’t inspire you.
I probably have too much stuff in mine, but I accumulated it over the years. I remember buying Komplete years ago and thinking it was a lot of money. Turns out I did and do use it a lot, still, and I definitely got my money’s worth out of it. And I don’t even use all of it.
So yeah, mine is a bit of a contrast with Rozo’s post above, I probably have too much stuff, I didn’t learn a lot of it in-depth, I mostly stick to presets, but it’s very comforting to know that I have a varied and good quality sound palette that inspires me and is able to get the job done.
As for point 4: do what you love and figure out the related stuff as you go along. For me, I like arranging the most, but as my skills grew, I also sort-of out of necessity had to pick up related skills like EQ-ing, mixing, mastering, etc. Just because I want to make every track better than the previous one, and you learn something from every track you do. The more you learn, the more you learn about things you don’t know yet, too. It can be overwhelming at times, but on the other hand: try to just dive into something and look back after a few months. Chances are you will be like ‘wow, did I learn all of that?’ and can be proud of what you learned rather than being paralyzed about stuff you didn’t learn yet.
 
 

The more, the better. :D

My life.
 
I'm starting to find that having more of a "leap before you look" approach to things helps. Come up with a project idea and then try to fulfill it to its full potential. You will naturally do all the learning you need along the way because your curiosities will guide you. Theory books do nothing for me unless i need them for a specific purpose. Reading through a few consecutive chapters about chords, scales, modes, cadences, circle of fifths etc just overwhelms me, because i can't possibly apply all that to the next thing i write and still have a natural flow of ideas or any amount of FUN, and without application all those concepts are just abstract, which really doesn't gel with me. However, If i'm halfway through a piece and i'm struggling to make a melody and harmony work, then it can be helpful to maybe ask myself what my notes are really doing and what my options are, and the experience is far more beneficial because i can apply my learning right there and then.
 
To begin with, you can't easily come up with a direction for a piece unless you listen to the music that fascinates you and pay attention to the composition, arrangement, sound design and production in said music. That will raise questions in your head. "Why does that lead sound soar so well?", "Why does that melody over that chord change give me butterflies?", "How is that kick drum so punchy?". This will start your process, even if it's simply Youtubing "How to make dank kicks yo?" (Disclaimer: I can't make dank kicks).
Doing this will eventually open up a rabbit hole of resources and learning; the tricky bit is trying not to fall too far into it otherwise you'll get distracted and the project will get shelved in "that folder". You know the one, with the 50 other projects you never finished that makes your stomach sink when you think about it. I think we all have that folder. So make sure you only go as far as you need to in order to fulfill the project. The next project will reinforce and build your learning further as you'll already have that base experience that you'll be applying and can afford to dig a little deeper. Don't right off the bat think "Fuck! I need to know sidechain compression! I'll never be able to do a proper music without it! All those popular people like Skrawlex and Ziggy Dog Dog use it!". Yes it's useful, but not using it doesn't make your mix unlistenable, and not every genre requires it. Unless you're trying to make a dance music-esque "pump" then the mix benefits of sidechaining are subtle and only necessary on something that repeats a lot e.g kick and bass as it's really just automatic amplitude automation. Don't think i'm understating the benefits of sidechaining though, it does make a noticeable difference that's worth it when you get a better ear for mixing. But before worrying about "mix tricks" like that, i'd say it's more important to understand general mixing practice and balancing of levels, then enhance that understanding with sidechaining. This will make you more assertive and justified in your choice of using sidechaining, rather than just doing it because other people do and you think it's helping (I'm saying all this because you mentioned sidechaning in your post above).
 
By the end of a project you probably won't remember everything you've learned, but something i do is to just have a small notepad on my desk for "Session Notes", stick the date at the top and any time you learn something or discover something that could be important, just jot it down quickly. For example, i learned when doing my last remix that the tom drums in my plugin needed to have their release times turned down to almost zilch because they were overlapping and creating a lot of mud and resonance. I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint the toms as the "bad mix culprit" without painstakingly soloing EVERYTHING, but now i don't have to do that again and i'll have a note on how to set up my drums next time. I still don't have notes on how to make a perfect snare drum, but i have some notes here and there. Over time i'll have more and i'll start to realise what it is i actually like in a snare sound, and then crafting what i like in the future will become second nature. By the end you'll have a pile of these notes and you can flick through them to remind yourself of small things. Eventually you'll have so many you'll want to consolidate them, and by this point you will have been through a fair few projects so it'll be easier to know which notes were valuable to you in the long run. Maybe by this point you'll have experience in mixing an entire drum kit and not just the kick, for example. Why not use your compiled notes to write a mix strategy for drums and pin that shit on your wall?
 
What i'm trying to get at is that it's more important to just "do". The learning comes with the doing. I can vouch for it as i've been doing this for a few years now and this is the first time i'm reading back a post and feeling like an actual human who kinda knows what he's talking about. Sitting, paralysed with anxiety over what i should be learning didn't get me anywhere. I'm assuming from your OP that you know a fair bit of piano. Well when i started i was just putting my fingers in random places, but it was enough to get SOMETHING down (I also cared a lot less back then). Over time i'd just hit a wall and start to ask myself "Right, how the hell do i make Major and minor chords, because this shit just ain't working for me anymore", and that was my learning motivation. When Major and minor chords weren't doing it for me anymore i started adding some 7ths etc. Simple example, but you see what i mean. The "doing" part is daunting, but not necessarily difficult. The hardest part for me personally is coming up with a defined style in the first place, which is where listening to already existing elements of your favourite tracks comes in handy. The best starting point for anyone in my opinion is to take elements you like from the genres you like and try to mash them together and see what happens. That's your ruleset established and your necessary learning narrowed down and from there you can refine your style. That's how i made my frankenstein of a debut track on OCR. I mean, I'd love to learn how to write beautifully composed scores on a piece of manuscript and conduct a symphony orchestra, but that'll only come after i learn how to make a song out of mic feedback and guitars processed through 12 synthesizers while i play with my feet! This is how you make a Doom 2016 soundtrack and change the game, guys!
 
Mastery comes with repetition. Don't listen to the voice in the back of your head telling you you're doing it wrong, or you should be learning this or that. You can't do it wrong, and i believe it's an impossibility to somehow lose progress and get worse over time. Just keep doing shit. As @Rozovian said to me when i made a similar post some time ago...
"Keep making pancakes."

I can't absorb myself in long gaming sessions anymore because I start to feel guilty and anxious about not doing other things. Even if I've sat at my desk and worked for 12 hours I find it really hard to relax in the evenings. Part of me thinks it's because I don't actually want to play games as much in my free time, but i'm so used to seeing it as the only option that I feel obligated to do it out of habit. Heck, if i'm honest they feel like work now in a lot of ways. I've been wanting to get back into Terraria for months but every time I open it I feel overwhelmed about the amount of work it would take to build something cool. Same with Skyrim. Additionally, with the speed games are released these days I feel more pressure to play often so I can actually feel that sensation of knowing a game inside out like I did when I was younger, because to me that was the difference between just playing a game and loving a game. It was so much easier when I would get a game maybe once every 6 months and completely master it because of the multiple playthroughs I would have to do. Nowadays it feels more like a race to just finish the games that are being spat out every week.
To remedy things I've started only buying games that I believe will offer me a valuable experience and preferably has a start and an end. I'm putting a serious dampener on games like Fallout that could potentially go on forever, and I've pretty much quit Guild Wars 2, Warframe and anything that has a grind factor like that (though I will get Monster Hunter World because I love the series. To scratch the online competitive itch I play Atlas Reactor, because it's a quick 15-20min game I can play in work breaks on my laptop with little commitment. Forcing myself to reduce the gaming scope has opened up some time for things like reading, which is nice.

This is my first game audio project (also a student project) and the client is pitching to a well known publisher at GDC this month. Now i think i've got it in a good place overall, but the anxiety bells are ringing a fair bit so i could do with some solid feedback on things.

The game is being pitched in a prototype state so i wanted to get a 3-4min loop that demonstrates the overall vibe of things. The genre is a tropical themed, competitive multiplayer, collect-a-thon, brawler type thing. Music inspiration came from games like DKC: Returns, Move or Die, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Spyro, Crash, Candy Crush (for musical type SFX), Sonic CD (US) and various Rayman games, as well as trying to add a bit of an electronic aesthetic to match the clients more recent releases.
I'm at the point of polishing but not sure if i'm looking for issues that aren't even there, so if there's anything glaringly obvious then i'd love you to tell me <3
FYI The abrupt ending is because it loops, and the semi-abrupt start is because it cuts from the menu music (on the beat) as soon as the gameplay begins.
 
 

Oh, actual game music, would ya look at that. For what it is I think it sounds pretty solid, but you're looking for some critiques so I'll give you one or two nitpicks.
The really does scream Rayman and the like, so great work on that. I actually like some of the melodic hooks that come in from time (like at 0:58 and 1:05), but they're pretty undermixed. Melodic moments like that really sound like they could stand out more in the mix - give the listeners something to latch onto, there. For most of the track it's more like great filler (fun and fitting, but no melodic action to emphasize), but you have a few great little themes that could come out in the mix better.
To be honest, otherwise I think this is a great little tune for a playful jungle platformer - not too much else that I could hammer this for. Even without touching it I think it's in a great spot, so don't worry too much about it. Good luck with your GDC client!

I can't absorb myself in long gaming sessions anymore because I start to feel guilty and anxious about not doing other things. Even if I've sat at my desk and worked for 12 hours I find it really hard to relax in the evenings. Part of me thinks it's because I don't actually want to play games as much in my free time, but i'm so used to seeing it as the only option that I feel obligated to do it out of habit. Heck, if i'm honest they feel like work now in a lot of ways. I've been wanting to get back into Terraria for months but every time I open it I feel overwhelmed about the amount of work it would take to build something cool. Same with Skyrim. Additionally, with the speed games are released these days I feel more pressure to play often so I can actually feel that sensation of knowing a game inside out like I did when I was younger, because to me that was the difference between just playing a game and loving a game. It was so much easier when I would get a game maybe once every 6 months and completely master it because of the multiple playthroughs I would have to do. Nowadays it feels more like a race to just finish the games that are being spat out every week.
To remedy things I've started only buying games that I believe will offer me a valuable experience and preferably has a start and an end. I'm putting a serious dampener on games like Fallout that could potentially go on forever, and I've pretty much quit Guild Wars 2, Warframe and anything that has a grind factor like that (though I will get Monster Hunter World because I love the series. To scratch the online competitive itch I play Atlas Reactor, because it's a quick 15-20min game I can play in work breaks on my laptop with little commitment. Forcing myself to reduce the gaming scope has opened up some time for things like reading, which is nice.

I can't absorb myself in long gaming sessions anymore because I start to feel guilty and anxious about not doing other things. Even if I've sat at my desk and worked for 12 hours I find it really hard to relax in the evenings. Part of me thinks it's because I don't actually want to play games as much in my free time, but i'm so used to seeing it as the only option that I feel obligated to do it out of habit. Heck, if i'm honest they feel like work now in a lot of ways. I've been wanting to get back into Terraria for months but every time I open it I feel overwhelmed about the amount of work it would take to build something cool. Same with Skyrim. Additionally, with the speed games are released these days I feel more pressure to play often so I can actually feel that sensation of knowing a game inside out like I did when I was younger, because to me that was the difference between just playing a game and loving a game. It was so much easier when I would get a game maybe once every 6 months and completely master it because of the multiple playthroughs I would have to do. Nowadays it feels more like a race to just finish the games that are being spat out every week.
To remedy things I've started only buying games that I believe will offer me a valuable experience and preferably has a start and an end. I'm putting a serious dampener on games like Fallout that could potentially go on forever, and I've pretty much quit Guild Wars 2, Warframe and anything that has a grind factor like that (though I will get Monster Hunter World because I love the series. To scratch the online competitive itch I play Atlas Reactor, because it's a quick 15-20min game I can play in work breaks on my laptop with little commitment. Forcing myself to reduce the gaming scope has opened up some time for things like reading, which is nice.

I can't absorb myself in long gaming sessions anymore because I start to feel guilty and anxious about not doing other things. Even if I've sat at my desk and worked for 12 hours I find it really hard to relax in the evenings. Part of me thinks it's because I don't actually want to play games as much in my free time, but i'm so used to seeing it as the only option that I feel obligated to do it out of habit. Heck, if i'm honest they feel like work now in a lot of ways. I've been wanting to get back into Terraria for months but every time I open it I feel overwhelmed about the amount of work it would take to build something cool. Same with Skyrim. Additionally, with the speed games are released these days I feel more pressure to play often so I can actually feel that sensation of knowing a game inside out like I did when I was younger, because to me that was the difference between just playing a game and loving a game. It was so much easier when I would get a game maybe once every 6 months and completely master it because of the multiple playthroughs I would have to do. Nowadays it feels more like a race to just finish the games that are being spat out every week.
To remedy things I've started only buying games that I believe will offer me a valuable experience and preferably has a start and an end. I'm putting a serious dampener on games like Fallout that could potentially go on forever, and I've pretty much quit Guild Wars 2, Warframe and anything that has a grind factor like that (though I will get Monster Hunter World because I love the series. To scratch the online competitive itch I play Atlas Reactor, because it's a quick 15-20min game I can play in work breaks on my laptop with little commitment. Forcing myself to reduce the gaming scope has opened up some time for things like reading, which is nice.

This pretty much resonates with what i was saying about hearing underdeveloped sections too many times and not being able to imagine them any other way.
@Mazedude definitely has the right idea and it's been working for me as well. I'll wake up at 6am, get the usual morning habits done and by 7am i'm at my desk for a dedicated 2 hour period where i will concentrate on music production. Than when 9am hits i'll start to work on my more essential things like University work. That way i know i got two hours done and even if the progress i made was little, i know that i still made progress and i'm being consistent. I find i have a lot less anxiety by starting work in the morning since i've still got the whole day ahead of me, which free's my mind a lot because i'm not feeling pressure from the hours in the day running out. I hate doing anything that requires deep thought in the evening and would rather just read or watch Netflix. Now i don't feel guilty about having chill evenings.
Actually getting up at 6am is horrible though.

This pretty much resonates with what i was saying about hearing underdeveloped sections too many times and not being able to imagine them any other way.
@Mazedude definitely has the right idea and it's been working for me as well. I'll wake up at 6am, get the usual morning habits done and by 7am i'm at my desk for a dedicated 2 hour period where i will concentrate on music production. Than when 9am hits i'll start to work on my more essential things like University work. That way i know i got two hours done and even if the progress i made was little, i know that i still made progress and i'm being consistent. I find i have a lot less anxiety by starting work in the morning since i've still got the whole day ahead of me, which free's my mind a lot because i'm not feeling pressure from the hours in the day running out. I hate doing anything that requires deep thought in the evening and would rather just read or watch Netflix. Now i don't feel guilty about having chill evenings.
Actually getting up at 6am is horrible though.

Not sure if I'd call myself a pro, but I've done quite a few collabs, and as a matter of fact work is in progress to wrap up another collab, with me using Logic Pro and my collab partner using Pro Tools.
As you said, you probably have to resign to sending audio back and forth, but that doesn't mean you have to commit to something right away. What we did for the aforementioned collab is up front get a rough sense of who would roughly do what. Essentially who would focus on arrangement, who would do mixing & production, who would take what parts (e.g. leads, drums, bass). 
It ended up with me doing the bulk of the arrangement work, after my collab partner started me off with a very bare bones MIDI piano part that I rearranged, restructured, expanded upon, etc. Typically I'd work on it for a bit and share a rough WIP render that we would discuss a bit about on what needed changing, and then I would work on it some more. After the arrangement was fleshed out enough, we both would soup up our parts (polishing up the midi, recorded performances, etc) and I sent over my finalised parts for my collab partner to mix.
The big reason why this works well is that we had good communication throughout the process and up front were able to divide the work without getting in each others way. That's also what I suggested.
Another approach I tried once is a bit Frankensteinian; I did a collab where I did have the DAW the other guy was using (Renoise), but I didn't feel like leaving Logic Pro and switch back to a tracker. So I simply loaded up his project in Renoise, rewired Renoise into Logic so I would have the audio of his parts in my own DAW, and simply wrote my own parts and did the full track mixing in Logic. A bit cumbersome, but it worked.
Hope it helps!