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Okay, let me see if I can explain this without sounding like a pompadour wearing hipster. So, width is an interesting topic of discussion in of itself and so is layering of elements, but lets start simple with the idea of masking as this has a lot to do with what I'm about to discuss. Masking is when you have one element of a mix hide or cloud the ability to hear another. So, lets listen to your mix and do some analysis of what is readily able to be heard versus what is more than likely causing it to be masked (best guesses based on the sonic qualities of everything going on). The piano can be heard, but it has no real definition in the mix. It is just kind of there and not really adding to the mix in its current state. More than likely there is a combination of the guitars and drums taking up too much space for the piano to really shine. That is probably the largest masking issue in the mix. I don't know how to tell you to correct this without you actually revisiting the mix from the start. But I can re-suggest starting the mix from zero and mixing up and developing a static mix from that. This helps you find a general level and balance of the instruments that work to keep various elements of the mix audible and not fighting each other for too much space. Don't worry about EQ or Compression or effects at this point. You just want to get something that is generally favorable and kind of what you're looking for from the focus of the instruments. Then after this point you can start to add in EQ to clear up some space and create more space for the various instruments. Now, I keep saying "space" and let me tell you this is probably the hardest thing to define in a mixing context. Not because it is necessarily hard to achieve, but because it is incredibly difficult to put into words exactly what it is. It is kind of the situation of where you know exactly what it is because the big name guys have been doing it so well for so long that you know exactly what it sounds like, and when it doesn't sound like that it is definitely noticeable. Essentially, you almost want to picture a stage or volume or something where all these various elements are playing together. Then you've got to figure out mentally how these various elements are placed on the stage or volume or whatever. Then you've got to work on making the mix of the various instruments sound like what you're picturing. Go listen to pretty much any Pop, Rock, Metal, Hip Hop, RnB, or whatever and just pay attention to where the various elements are situated relative to one another. This is where the ideas of width and layering start coming into play. So, width as I said is an interesting concept in of itself and the general idea is that there are two speakers so there is a fixed amount of separation between the two that is the inherent width of any mix. However, it is possible to go beyond those with things like stereo expanders, but those as you've pointed out can cause issues with mono compatibility. Though there are ways to make a mix that is wide and is mono compatible. Really, the general idea at play here is partially related to the idea of sum and difference of the left and right. The greater the difference between the left and right overall the wider the mix will probably sound. It is also important to note how our brain interprets sound. Most of the issues with mono compatibility are when you play with the phase of either the left or right compared to the other. The more out of phase one is with the other the wider it will sound, but that also comes at the price of compromising the phantom center (remember the center doesn't actually exist). With that being said if you have a very solid phantom center and more or less invert the left or right phase of an element in the mix you'd be surprised at how forgiving the brain is to it. Sure it still won't sound correct, but it starts to get you thinking about it. Additionally, with this we're generally less sensitive to higher frequency material being out of phase than lower frequency material. Use that to your advantage. You really have to use all sorts of tricks to make the brain think it is hearing something that it may not necessarily be hearing. That really brings me to the last point I'd like to make about layering. As I'm sure you're aware of already there is layering different sounds together to make a more complex sound. Well, you can apply the same idea to a mix in not only the stereo field, but also the depth of a mix. You've kind of got to think of the depth like drawing a 3D image on a piece of paper. Is it 3D? No it isn't, but it looks 3D and the same can apply with a mix. It is just an illusion of an element in the mix being closer or further away than another. Lets go back for a second to the idea of width. Now, if you place something halfway panned, hard pan something else, and if you apply "gentle" stereo expansion to something else then the end result is something that will likely sound wider than had you quarter panning, half panning, and just hard panning. The gentle stereo expansion is not likely to cause many issues with mono compatibility either. Plus, if you control the volume and spectral balance of what you pan out then you've also created complexity to the mix where certain instruments appear closer and further from the listener. Apply this same kind of thinking to just depth of the mix and you'll be starting to get the idea of layering within a mixing context rather than a sound design context. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you listen to the big name stuff with these ideas in place you'll likely find that they are wider in the top end and narrow the lower in frequency that they go creating like an upside down triangle. Trust me it'll take time to wrap your head around it, but these are things to start paying attention to. Ultimately, a good modern stereo mix is one of illusion. There are some monitoring tricks you can do to see what exactly is going on. For instance if you mono your monitoring then what you're hearing the sum or phantom center of the mix. If you mono your monitoring and then invert the phase of either the left or right then you're hearing the difference which is really just the out of phase material that will disappear when the mix is collapsed to mono. Now, this out of phase material doesn't necessarily translate to width. It is just what will disappear when you collapse to mono. If you hear a lot of low end like this then that is generally pretty bad. But if you hear some reverb tails or such then it probably isn't such a big deal. You've got to alternate between normal stereo, mono, and mono + invert to really get a good idea of what you're mix is doing. Also, you've got to just experiment to understand what these things all mean to the end result of the mix. The last thing I'd like to suggest is applying things in layers. That is to say if you need a lot of compression on a signal then use multiple compressors for the different aspects of the sound that need compression. This typically creates a more natural sounding result than one compressor doing all the lifting (though it may be desirable artistically to do one layer of compression). Apply the same idea to width. Add it in stages and try to bake it in from the beginning. Okay, that was a lot longer than I expected and I waffled about a bit, but hopefully it makes some sense.

First story video set in the fictional cybersoccer universe that ties together several of my albums, including an announcement at the end:

Cool mix! I love the mixture of vibes here. I love it when an old standby gets a new and unique treatment. Definitely a solid arrangement of my second-favorite DKC2 source (I like Forest Interlude ever so slightly more than Stickerbrush Symphony; it's super-close). Nice Work.

Whoa, that bass is deep on these headphones! Fun song!

Aaaaaah so many comments! Thanks for all the feedback, guys. Firstly yeah; the mix is muddy as all hell and I had an absolutely nightmare of a time even getting it to that point. Really I could have done with starting the mastering from scratch but sadly Time waits for no remixer. @Dextastic The VST is Cinematic Keys by Sample Logic and it's awesome. I got is solely for the organ sounds but the other presets are very cool as well. @APZX Yes, sadly the choir ended up being too forward in the mix. This was one of those situations where it sounded fine on the headphones I use with my computer but way out of whack on every other device I listened to it on. Cést la vie, as they say. I have to admit that I didn't listen to your two mixes, guys and I'm really sorry about that as I always try and make a point of listening to every track submitted for a round. I'll attempt to rectify that ASAP. And @HoboKa I'll get a source to you ASAP

Thanks! The guitars are all programmed (actually everything in my track is programmed), and part of what took me so long with this track was learning how to use my guitar VST. I've still got a few things to learn on it for sure. In case anyone cares, the guitars are all AME with some freeware distorition, and one of the lead guitars has a light flanger on it for parts of the song. I worked on that damn transition at 1:10 for a long time. I tried three or four things and finally settled on what you hear in the track. I don't know if you noticed but during the first few bars of Cutting Edge, one of the lead guitars continues playing the Mute City melody until it "links" up with the Cutting Edge melody. It's probably my favorite thing about my remix. Thanks for the mixing feedback. I'll work on it. I'm still new to mixing though and I don't understand what you meant by this part. I'm not sure what you mean by width or layering. Do you mean doing non-static panning and automating gainers, stuff like that? I'm trying to stay away from things like stereo expanders because of the problems they have if you listen to the song in mono. In the track I submitted I used the following static panning (everything on a scale from 50L to 50R). Rhythm guitar 1 panned hard L Rhythm guitar 2 same part, panned hard R Lead guitar 1 panned 29 L Piano left hand panned 15 L Bass center Piano right hand panned 15 R Lead guitar 2 panned 27 R Drums panned statically, each piece placed in its natural position in the kit.

FEEDBACK POST @Trism I like the organ. What vst is it? 1:50-2:05 uses a different organ. Is it part of the same vst? Unfortunately as Austin pointed out the organ part is often overshadowed by the choir parts. I'm not sure if you would want to adjust the volume levels or mix it differently to make the organ sound come through better. I still suck at mixing so I can't offer much feedback there. I like the choir part itself. I think it fits well with the song. I also like that you let instruments like the choir part and the organ at 1:50-2:05 come in and drop out over the course of the song and it all still fits together pretty well. I also agree with Austin that the drums sound like an afterthought. The drums on the original version are better, which should not happen in a remix. The original drum part is pretty complicated, bordering on overplaying, so replacing it with a simpler drum part would be fine, but what you have doesn't quite work. For instance, if you start counting after the first crash cymbal, the ninth snare hit should be part of a fill and doesn't sound right on its own. I know you didn't have a lot of time to work on this so it's fine, but what you wrote for the drum track sounds like an outline to be filled in later, and filling in a few little things like this fill can be enough to finish the part and make the whole song sound a lot better. My main instrument is drums so please let me know if you'd like more constructive criticism on the drum part. @APZX I love what you did with Cutting Edge. I wasn't sold on the idea of putting it in an EDM style when you first mentioned it, but you really made it work. As far as style goes I usually don't care much for electronic music (the kind you submitted this and the previous round)-I'm more of a rock guy-but this is something I would legitimately listen to in my normal playlist. The bass drum is heavy in the Cutting Edge section and I love it. I think you did a good job with the Mute City part too-particularly 1:30-2:07 (and 1:57-2:07 really kicks ass)-but I don't agree that it's high energy all the way through. This is probably just my inner drummer talking, but for me I don't feel like a whole lot is going on until around 0:40, and the break from 1:04-1:20 really kills the momentum you'd built up to that point. Musically it's all fine, but if high energy is what you were going for the whole way through, that's not what came across to me.

@Trism You know I don't think there is quite enough organ in this. Seems completely overshadowed by those choirs you got there. And man I gotta say those choirs are pretty sweet. They've got some great vocal and airy qualities to them. But seriously, I think the mix is a bit too understated. You've got some nice sounds in there, but the choir does completely swamp the organs and the drums kind of sound like an after thought @Dextastic Ooooooh GEEEETTTAAARSSS!!!! I much like the drums in Mute City. Cymbals sound quite well balanced, if lacking just a smidgen of a transient for the most part. The guitars sound very good, but maybe slightly hollow (give just a bit more midrange focus to them). Also, the only really wide thing to the mix is the drums. Now, that isn't inherently bad, but you really want to kind of try and layer your mix to make it more interesting to listen to. For the most part I also like the piano, but it seems a bit swamped out by the guitars. There are some things you could try but something to try when mixing is to basically zero out your mix and bring things up until you've got a good static mix going on. Then from there you color and highlight as desired. The bass sounds pretty good as well, but perhaps too "tubby". Try to focus your attention to that 100-200Hz range there. Though on the plus the kick and bass interact very well with one another. Beyond that, KICK ASS rendition!

Glad to see my track survived lol.

Organs, organs everywhere! I got a new VST, can you tell?

Glad I could help! No worries about the arrangement commentary - it was just a personal thought of mine. Good luck, and I hope to hear more from you.

Well hello there! Welcome to OCR! Seems like you want to send this in as a submission, right? Awesome, I'll give you an idea of how it'll fare on the panel if you submit it as is. Nice combination of instruments you've got going there - this works pretty darn well as a synthwave track. The overall soundscape is delicious, and the way that the track builds off of itself does a great job to progress the track. Your synths are well crafted, and when the drums come in they compliment the overall soundscape very well. In the beginning the production works well enough, but as the track progresses and more instruments are introduced the soundscape tends to get pretty muddy, due to how wet the synths are. The moments of clarity in this give me goosebumps, like at 0:45 (the introduction of that bass synth) and 2:12 (that drum over the bass), but 2:46 onward the instruments all bleed into one another and create a messy soundscape. The Sanctuary portion's main synth is also overly wet and would otherwise be problematic, but that section doesn't have nearly as many synths going at once to cause issue. Release heavy synths, delay and reverb are solid tools in the Synthwave genre, but there's too much of it in this track so tone it down to clean it up. Related to the issue above, when things get overly crowded the track takes a hit as far as having limiting artifacts. When everything is going down in the second have it sounds like there's a constant "buzzing". While I can't 100% confirm this to be a limiting issue, clipping or anything without uploading it to Audacity, it's very likely when this gets busy it also hits your limiter. Be careful with that. The drums in this, while great for the genre, suffer from being pretty static. Change it up from time to time, add a pattern, switch the beat a little in subtle ways, etc.. The fills are a good start, but the pattern drones on after 2:12, so you'd very likely be called out on it on the panel. If you were to send this to the inbox as is, I would likely pass it on to the panel, but it would very likely be rejected on production grounds, overly crowded soundscape and that static drumset. I'd suggest making your synths a bit more dry, and giving some more variety and life to those drums. Pay attention to your production levels, too, though they'd likely be almost automatically fixed once the soundscape is less crowded. ... On an unofficial note, I really like the arrangement, here. Personally, I feel there was a lot of potential to expand on the Sanctuary track after 2:12, but that's just my opinion. Most of your issues in this track come into play after you start the Castle theme, though, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a more rich and focused Sanctuary arrangement. This doesn't affect your track in any way as far as the panel goes, but I thought I'd add that suggestion in there a bit off the record. Best of luck, and thanks for sharing your track, here - it's a pretty cool track.

(this quote was from PRC345) I've signed up for the Discord group today, didn't get around to it earlier. I'm going to post small announcement over there in the #comps page, linking to this thread and/or ThaSauce.

Binnie also needs to put the link to Rare's website in the last blurb in a new window, and not the small popup window. Anyway I have compiled this useful text-file: (Kong in Concert - Blurbs.txt) NOW people won't miss them!