Leaderboard

I'll continue timaeus' reviews, but focusing on Round 1 first: Wanderforce: Production here is great. I'm not much of a dance/electronica/whatever this is called guy but I dig this. I really like how the pads sound. Regarding the arrangement, I can very easily identify the Antonion usage but Palace Ground (while identifiable) felt underused in comparison. In any case, not much feedback to offer here since this actually sounds pretty great (maybe a tad too long though? haha). Magma Flow: Soundscape feels very sparse in the intro. Probably intentional but it felt a bit boring. Well, actually, not much happens in the track in its entirety... I feel the arrangement lacks variety since the same beat with the same background and slightly different leads gets a bit tiring quick. Production-wise it sounds good if a bit unbalanced in volume terms (percussions are pretty high). Rolling: There's something about the production that feels a bit muted here, a bit hard to explain. It fits with Walrus' theme so maybe it was intentional though! Anyway, this is the first appearance of vocals this round and it's great. Harmonies sound good even if the voices seem a bit tired. I also like the integration between the two sources, very clever and nicely pulled off. Not a big fan of the glitch effects in the voices, don't feel they add anything worthwile tbh. I enjoyed the bass too, nicely played. Some notes and chord progressions in the 2:17 sectin sound a bit iffy but nothing too major. Great job overall! Smoothlike Fellow: I can barely begin writing and this is over. Sigh. The E. Piano and synths sound nice but not much happens in the track sadly. My Beerly Beloved: Nice mood in the intro. I'd have honestly changed the last chord of Blizzard Buffalo's theme and let it stay in the previous rather than following the source to perfection, feel like it would have sounded better for the mood. Voice is pretty cool here too, the effects made it sound dreamy and chilly. Source integration is pretty good here too. Great track! Electric Moves and Cephalopod Grooves: This is way more calm than what I was expecting from SuperiorX, especially with a rocking track like Volt (or Volk?!) Kraken. I don't really like the bass patch used in the song sadly, it lacks punch. Overall I feel the track is a tad too slow (and short!). Source usage is pretty good though. Toxic Seas: I like how the song gains energy near 0:47, very welcome. As pointed out before, the kick is lacking presence, which is key in this kind of music. Snare is also a bit tame. The soundscape gets a bit cluttered near the 2:00 mark with too much stuff going on. Arrangement-wise, Seahorse usage is very very straightforward and Palace Ground is barely there (is it even there? haha). I feel you could've experimented more. Firefly: Intro is sweet, a pretty smart use of Hotarunicus. Production is pretty good (and loud) although I don't like the sound of the hats, seem low quality. Some of the melodies from Palace Ground seem a bit forced here but besides that source usage is good if skewed towards Hotarunicus. This was a strong contender for my third vote, especially for how groovy it is haha. Hidden in the Palace Grounds: Intro is so weird haha, feels like playing some old PC game. I'm not sure what to offer as feedback. I'm not big on melodies being so focused on low tone instruments and the arrangement doesn't have much direction. Production is pretty clean though and it's easy to identify both sources. Bounce Too High: This track stands-out a lot this week! Nice groove at the intro. Synths and bass are damn good too. I really like this track, it's pretty fun and entertaining. I'm a sucker for slap tones. I have to wonder why you didn't ask me to play the synths though (my excuse for not asking anything was being sick btw)! Very nice one. Sigmandrill Palace: This has potential but seems super rushed. Mood is cool and the weaving of the sources is interesting, shame it's so short. Sorry if I sound mean or too nitpicky, I'm trying to be as honest and helpful as I can. I'll post Round 2 impressions later.

Really great round, guys! Reviews: bLiNd ~ Arsonist Really solid work here, and out of all the EDM tracks in this compo so far, the best production. My only production gripe is that the lead guitar felt like it stuck out of the soundscape for some reason; I think it was the reverb design and midrange EQ that did it. The arrangement was fairly predictable, but there were lots of subtle variation details. The incorporation of Doppler felt kind of "shoehorned in", so a decently-cohesive but well-executed track. Cam3 ~ Tiger Millionaire Cool concept. I get that you were going for kind of a grungy, techy feel. The production needed work in the Master track processing in that the whole track felt quite overcompressed whenever the drums played. The main drum samples also felt rather tonally weird, moreso the kick than the snare. I thought the sources were fairly well-integrated and personalized to the style. GrapplingHook ~ Arma Gonna Topple That Dopple v0.1 Not too shabby. To me the tempo felt a bit slow for what you appeared to be going for (not by much, just maybe 4~8 BPM). At 0:43 - 0:56, it felt like the lead was meandering. The production is alright, but could be better. For example, the intro guitars had quite a bit of reverberation in the treble frequencies, which isn't really audible once all the instruments come in. I find that the upper treble frequencies get cluttered fairly easily, and even the smallest EQ edits up there could help. Also, the drums felt fairly clean/uncompressed, and some controlled distortion and careful compression could have strengthened the tone of those drums some more. WillRock ~ MMMDop Dat title; what, X3 = times three, and so Mega Man X3 -> Mx3 = MMM, and then Dop? Aight, anyways, this arrangement is clearly exceptional. Loving the chord progressions throughout, especially the ones at 2:28 and 2:48. The wicked solos also weren't totally terrible (in other words, they were awesome). On the production side, I thought the midrange was a little bit cluttered with regards to the backing instruments (those could have used some slight mids scooping), but it wasn't a big deal to me. That shift to minor at 3:16 was also genius. Based on the chord progressions and crazy solos, and the solid production, this is pretty awesome. Tuberz McGee ~ I Don't Run At All Right off the bat this feels a bit quiet, but that's not too hard to fix, right? Some small crits of note: At 0:19, I can hear you make a noise with your mouth that you could have edited out, for example, and some of the fricatives and sibilances on the vocal takes don't line up to such an extent that I would call them "tight" (such as 2:13 on the "st" in "style"). And then there's the lyrics; funny, but perhaps a bit overdone on the frequency of usage. I get that that's your theme, so to speak, but I kind of anticipated cameos more so than repeated usages. I thought the rock part was fairly straightforward, and my favorite part was the acoustic outtro. The drums are serviceable, though they could be a bit stronger via some controlled distortion and careful compression. Garpocalypse ~ Is é mo aingeal imithe This was a refreshing vibe to hear amidst the more electronic tracks I tend to hear in compos. It sounded Irish to me, and I actually sang lots of Irish music in high school, so that's cool. The production is fairly clean, aside from the amount of reverb on the distant choir that shows up every now and then, and my main concern is the amount of repetition in the track. By about 3:07, I start to crave more variation in at least the textures, and if not, at least the chord progressions, or even the melodic contour. Maybe a stark left turn into a mood shift, or something new to keep us interested. I think after you incorporate more variation or eliminate repetitious areas, it's a pretty good candidate for OCR. Gario ~ Red Shifting Drift This could have been one of my top picks, actually. The lead sequencing was excellent, and the drums, while fairly generic tonally and in terms of the sequencing, are serviceable. My main gripe with this was actually the pad/synth choir you had going on, which had quite a bit of reverb and made the whole track feel a bit overly washy (the one exposed at 2:28). The sources were pretty well-integrated too. fxsnowy ~ Thermoception The intro literally felt like an X-style stage-select theme. HAH! The drums were fairly serviceable tonally, but they didn't seem to fit the mood I thought you were going for. If you wanted to go with that drum kit, I felt you needed a wider bass (even if by just a bit). The bells were pretty loud and lacking in velocity variation (such as at 1:24). I also thought at 0:46 - 0:48, the notes were rather weird, and there were some other spots that felt weird with the melodic contour and/or chord progression, such as 1:25 - 1:26, 1:36 - 1:37, and 2:13 - 2:14. My main issue with this is that the bass frequencies feel fairly bare, leading me to perceive a bit of textural sparseness overall. I realize that you actually have a bass, but it was written staccato for a good chunk of the track, so there's not as much of a "foundation" beneath the other instruments wherever it feels more fit to parallel the action of the bells and pads that each had long releases (ADSR). That really comes down to the flow of the way you wrote the bass, so I realize that it may not be an easy fix. Shadix ~ Winter Weather Advisor I see you were going for a Jazz Fusion feel. I think that tonally it worked. I enjoyed the less busy parts the most! One of my three main concerns with this is that in the spots where the drums are busiest, they feel conflicting relative to the other lower-energy instruments. Perhaps if the writing in those spots was lighter (such as using primarily overhead and not writing such hard hits), even if nearly as busy in terms of the rhythm, would feel less busy overall. My second is that there is a bit much reverb on most of the "primary" instruments. For example, the sax could have a higher low-cut cutoff frequency on its reverb to minimize low-mids reverberation (the character of the reverb is fairly perceivable at 3:07). My last concern was that the overall track feels overcompressed, but you knew that. I would check the Attack and Release on FabFilter Pro-L, and experiment with the Attack, Release, and GR settings on the LA-3A compressor emulation. DusK ~ Just Give Me a Minute Fun metal track! Sounds "like you" (easily identifiable as something you wrote). Rather short, though; to me it felt like it could have been longer, based on the arrangement flow, but that's alright. Fairly solid production, and I wasn't bothered by the clicky kick. I forget if that's FPC or something else. Cash ~ Dark Times, Happy World To me, the arrangement felt rather forced, and the stereo field was strange. I personally have (almost) never auto-panned a bass or anything having low-mids frequencies, because it tends to feel weird doing so. The people I know are so used to bass being centered (typical) or wide (dubsteppish). The overall soundscape also felt sparse, and lacking a chordal component; you seem to have tried to make up for it with reverb, but I think it would be more helpful to write chords. Lastly, the ending note tail needed to last in its entirety before the track ended, and it's an easy fix (just add an empty/silent clip at the end of the track, perhaps). jnWake ~ Beetle Dopplerganger The arrangement was really fun, and my favorite part of this was the chord progressions you used. The solos were quite nice too, though they could have used a synth tone that had more body to give them more of a commanding presence. The rhythm guitars were fairly straightforward but pretty realistically sequenced/MIDIed in. I don't think the lead guitar was really lacking realism, per se, but the execution of the performance emulation wasn't as impressive as a real person playing the same notes, and was lacking the variation in playing style that a real person would naturally incorporate out of human tendencies to not play the same thing the exact same way each time (even if it was written that way on sheet music). Overall, based on the chord progressions and pretty good solos, I think you should continue polishing this track in the guitars and solo synth tones and submit this sometime to OCR.

Tried the link as well. Doesn't seem to work for me either.

So for the past year, I've been "trying to find a new voice" as a musician. It just seems like for the past half decade, my whole artistic career was hitting rock bottom. I just wasn't satisfied with things I was creating. Then I had a revelation. I was only composing music and creating other art for my own benefit and it wasn't for anyone else to really take seriously or enjoy. So basically in a nutshell, I'm composing for other people and it has been a profitable business. Here's my latest original FF style track which can be used free of charge for any game. http://soundcloud.com/aarparmd/a-wild-creature-appears Or you can find other stuff I'm working on at http://soundcloud.com/aarparmd And to all the haters: you have no idea how high I can fly.

I tend to recommend the dual-band compressor endorphin as a post-distortion compressor. It really brightens up my drums whenever they are lacking the presence I want them to have. One note I should say though is that if you use both distortion and compression, just be aware that compression affects the strongest harmonics most, and distortion strengthens those strongest harmonics most noticeably, so using both for the same instrument may come down to thinking more methodically about how you want to go about it (otherwise you might overemphasize the click of the kick, for example).

I recently read an article on how on of the Beatles' producers added some distortion to Ringo's drums, it's definitely a good effect to use (tastefully) on any kind of drums. I personally have started using CamelAudio's CamelCrusher plugin on just about everything, especially drums. It's a compressor with distortion effects built in that can be used subtly (or not, according to taste). It used to be a free download but the company shut down, if you want a copy I can provide you with one.

Applied, thanks for fixing the link.

Applied! Looking forward to hearing back and seeing if there's anything I can do for you guys

Got a final update from Slimy, and he should be done once I give his track a listen during my lunch break. Now I just need Brandon's final track, which should arrive soon, and a few track names and notes. It's almost ready!!

Thanks for the crits d00d. I'd be really keen to get some more in depth thoughts on things like distortion on the drums. Never really applied distortion there but it sounds rad. As for every other crit, I pretty much expected that. Busy week + Channeling too much Rick Astley = A Bad Time For Everybody Ever <3 ily babe xoxo

I'd attribute that to FL's inconsistency; it does some pretty weird shit sometimes. One time, rendering with wrapped remainder gave me an entire export of silence.

Pffft. I make seamless loops all the time. 1: Export your song loop as a wav - don't cut off any reverb at the end. 2: Throw your wav into Audacity. 3: Duplicate the track. 4: Drag the second track to the end of the first one so that it loops - the two tracks should overlap a bit. 5: Copy the overlapping bit, and paste it at the end of the second track. 6: Delete that bit on both tracks. 7: Selects the part of the first track that doesn't overlap the second track 6: Delete that too. 7: Export as a wav, ogg, whatever. You're done. Basically, you just took the reverb from the end of the loop, cut it out and slapped it on the beginning, and used it as a measuring stick so that it loops seamlessly.

I have no experience with FL Studio, but what I've done to get rid of this in other situations is to open the file in a WAV editor (e.g. Audacity) and zoom way the hell in to the waveform. If the location and direction of the waveform at the beginning and end of the loop are exactly the same (e.g. exactly in the middle and on the way up), at least in my experience, there doesn't seem to be a click.

I never really had much of a workaround for this, but whenever I encountered something like this, if it was necessary, I slightly adjusted the writing of the track so that the loop point and the first second match harmonically, and adding a soft cymbal at the first second sometimes helped. Sometimes, it can also help if you automate the EQ to match at the loop point versus the beginning. For example, on a render using Wrap Remainder, if the loop point has a tom creating a boomy tail, and the first seconds of the track do not contain a tom, you can automate a high pass on the toms that starts near the loop point and match that up with the beginning of the track so the boominess won't overlay with the beginning of the track and clash with the low-mids. Ideally it would be great for you to find an OGG-supported audio editor (like Audacity). Then maybe if the click is fairly quick, you can either use a declicking feature or highlight the click itself and decrease its volume until it's even with the rest of the nearby milliseconds.

Two thoughts today: 1) I really missed an opportunity with the name of my Round 1 track. Totally should have named it "Electric Moves and Symmetric Grooves". It would have rhymed even better and still would have fit the theme, given that squids/cephalopods are bilaterally symmetrical. Oh well. 2) Will, your track sounds nothing like Hanson. I am disappointed. Way more calm? Hmm, I make a lot of chill jams. I'd say this is somewhere in the middle between upbeat and chill And yeah after I made it, I thought I could have bumped the BMP up a tad. Also didn't have any time to make the arrangement longer unfortunately. Thanks for the comments!

I liked the clicky drums, personally.

If you're looking for several remixers, keep me a spot

Turns out they accidentally remixed Final Fantasy XI instead of IX so they gotta shuffle really fast to make a FF IX album now

The apply page is broken. Could you fix this? I'd love to talk with you guys about this.

Listening party is over! Thanks everyone for coming and giving feedback! Here's the listening party log: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93696675/sfrg_round2_party_log.txt

I'll definitelty be there so all you fine OCR people better be there as well!

I liked the accessibility of DS2, I saw it as an improvement over DS1. I generally roll my eyes at hardcore culture, and when people think that something being hard to latch onto or just really hard is somehow a strength of said thing (probably an empowerment attitude from justifying their interests). This isn't directed at you, Moseph, but rather I do encounter many people on forums who treat the game design flaws as things you're supposed to get used to, or as they say "get good". That being said, the fast-travel concern I think is valid. In DS1, the multiple areas were masterfully connected, and it was really apparent on my second playthrough. Being able to bypass Blight Town through the Valley of Drakes was a real treat. I was able to ring the two bells within an hour of each other. In general, the entire game world FEELS like one big area, and it's even better when you discover a new area, have the text pop up that says the name, and it turns out to be somewhere you've already been. In DS2, everything just sort of branches out in separate directions, without much coherency between them. Every level in DS2 is its own isolated rabbit hole, and to get back to the hub? Warp to Majula. Very different from DS1, and I personally prefer DS1's handling of navigation better (lots of manual shortcut rewards).