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While ACO has a good point, I honestly wasn't talking about "entry level" anything anywhere in my post. Orchestral samples are an entirely different beast and for those you are better off going with the best library you can get with a, dare i say it, "workflow" that appeals to you. I had a chance to try out ProjectSAM's Symphobia and wasn't much of a fan of the inflexible ensemble oriented patches. It's easy to get your big generic filmscoring sound with them but that's all it's capable of doing. Since I invested in EW's Symphonic Orchestra Platinum (which is still a viable collection despite what some would have you believe) I'm able to use a lot of those instruments in other genres and create an ensemble that's exactly what i want to fit what i'm working on. On the otherhand, someone who does a lot of freelance filmscoring and needs to have something not so personal banged out in a short time would probably get great use out of Symphobia. It's a given that you have to do your research when looking for sample libraries. Check out demos, watch videos and get a feel for what you are getting yourself into.

Orchestral sounds is something you'd best look elsewhere for. Depending on your needs, something like the Kontakt factory library (part of Native Instruments' Komplete; I highly recommend you get Komplete rather than just Kontakt) or an old library like Miroslav might be good enough. I use them - but I don't make much orchestral music. Or you might want to save up a few thousand bucks for the really big orchestral packages. It's difficult to say without knowing your needs. And none of that's free. Logic should have everything you need when it comes to electronic sounds, though. If you're only a few years into this stuff, just now going from GB to Logic, I'd recommend something like this: 1) Learn Logic's instruments, how to get a decent performance out of them. This is free, now that you have it. Find their limitations, and figure out what it is you need from future purchases. 2) Get Native Instruments' Komplete. You get Kontakt, which you'll probably want for future libraries, as well as its basic sound library which includes a wide range of instruments and a lot more options than Logic's own sampler has. Find its limitations, and figure out what it is you need form future purchases. 3) Decide whether to build a library out of smaller purchases (that usually run in Kontakt) or one big monster of a library (often its own plugin). If you're not at this point drawn towards orchestral music, you might find that you need better drum samples, or a good fake/sampled guitar, or more synths, or brass for jazz, or... something else. Figure out what you need before you start spending any money. While there is free stuff out there, I'm not sure I'd bother with it myself. These days, the tools I use the most outside of Logic's own stuff are Pianoteq (mostly the e-piano add-on), Omnisphere 1, a couple of things from Komplete, and a couple of SampleTank things. That's for e-piano, pads, various uses, and drums, respectively (with overlap). But I started with just Logic's own stuff, and that was years ago, before Sculpture and Alchemy. I think my 5 first remixes were done with just Logic's built-in stuff back then, though I can't say for sure. Sorry to not answer the question, but it's difficult without knowing your needs. Even then, it's difficult to say whether a new tool is the right way to go, or just more skill with the tools you've got. What do you want to make?

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I sure hope so. It's directly mentioned in the submission guidelines.... If you read the remainder, you can infer that a ReMix with minimal distortion, clipping, etc. are generally acceptable. There are many ocremixes with great dynamics. Several examples... Orchestral: Atmospheric (shameless plug for mine!) Acoustic: Cinematic: Drum & Bass: That covers many different genres of varying dynamics, each with considerably different mastering considerations. As long as your track reaches normal volumes, and the dynamic range is not really drastic (that your volume has to be adjusted mid-song) or really minimal or pushed (that distortion, clipping, overcompression, etc occurs), it's probably acceptable.

It's been a while since my last eval since life has gotten in the way a little bit but I thought I'd push my comfort area a bit by looking at some electronica! eval Nice work on this one man. I've given this one quite a few listens because it took me a while to decipher how much source material you've used and how much variation you've thrown in. You've done a good job of staying pretty true to the original while using sounds/embellishments to add variation and contrast the original. Personally, I'd like to hear a bit more dynamic contrast in the composition. We get a nice build up in the intro, but other than that it is balls to the wall save for the break down at 00:59 and the thinner section at 1:30. These sections offer a bit of a break don't really change a ton dynamically and so the song can become quite taxing on the ear. I think some of the sounds here also sound a bit generic as far as electronica goes and the "du hast" pad rhythm starts to get a bit tiring, I think mostly because these are things we hear all the time. I understand there are tropes of the genre, but it never hurts to change things up and it can definitely go a long way compositionally. I really like the variations to the melody you bring in starting at 1:58! As far as production goes, it sounds a bit taxing to me on the ears. A lot of this is just the sounds/dynamic shape of the composition (not really a production thing). Part of this as well in my opinion is the stereo space. It feels like a lot of the instruments are very center in the mix so we get this huge build up of energy in the piece and very little feeling of space. It might be good to widen some of the instruments and move some of them around to see if it starts to thin out a bit. I don't quite think this would fly for a YES on the panel yet but it's damn close.

@TheChargingRhino This wasn't really helpful in any way, or relevant to the topic, and came off as arrogant. Best to chime in with something relevant to the thread; if it's a tangent of some kind, it shouldn't just be objecting to someone's claim made on the side, and then dropping your asserted perfect pitch in. I'm not sure you're aware of how that comes off, but it doesn't come off well.