Leaderboard

Hi VQ! I’ll be giving this one a listen in full a few times, along with re-reading the judges’ feedback, before giving you some recommendations. It may take a bit, but don’t fret! - the goal is to improve and that’s what we’re gonna do! Will likely need to edit this space several times, so I’ll make another comment once all the thoughts are put together! - Opening SFX set the scene. Bar 9 (around :15) is when the mallet percussion and cello enter. The cello seems to be giving a low pad/bed for the percs to lay on; the reverb here is good, though the stomp sfx bury the instruments by about 1-2dB when they occur. I would recommend dropping the volume on the stomps at this point by about 3dB and see if that doesn't open the space up more for the melodic content to come. - Around Bar 21 (:40), we've reached the transition to the A section of Blizzard Buffalo. The cello swells up to a peak around :44, and the sustain on the peak here softens the impact of Bar 25 (:48) where the A section kicks into gear. The sustain seems to be a combination of the reverb tail and compression on the low-end; automation on the reverb (decay first, and then the reverb bus as a whole) would be my first area to tackle. - Bar 25 (:48) has harp (or pizz strings) running an arpeggio against the chords created by the perc, cello, and added violin(s), as well as the thunder sfx in the back. The reverb here is really strong, making the articulations on the strings harder to distinguish. The instruments feel stacked on the center channel as well; I would consider spreading the percs suuuuper wide to free up some space for the arpeggio. The cello will maintain its center channel position throughout to give a solid foundation, and a slight widening of the violins will also help give some room for the arpeggio. - Bar 41 (1:21) has a wonderful solo violin swell! This is good dynamics here! The reverb level is appropriate given the space it's filling out, however, it's worth automating the level of it down for the next section at Bar 45 (1:28) since the soundscape is about to be more dense with instruments. I would also keep the violin center here, even if you panned the violins earlier. - Bar 45 (1:28) trades the mallet percussion for a piccolo and adds a muted piano(?), with bells at Bar 59 (1:56). The first bell strike comes in late (about 50-60ms after the rest of the orchestra) and makes its addition feel awkward until the tempo change around Bar 60 (1:58). This combined with the reverb still being too high in this section makes distinguishing the individual parts harder, just as before. Before we look at addressing the EQ of the reverb, let's see if we can't fix it by adjusting (and automating) the verb's output volume first.

Thank you for feedback. I restarted the remix from scratch so it fits to the submission rules, I added an early version here. This time its a little more on the funky than the deep side esto gaza oc remix.mp3

Gonna have to mention FabFilter for their top notch effects (their UI has basically become the de facto UI for digital effects), but especially Pro-Q, Pro-C, and Saturn. As a bonus, they have many fantastic tutorials on how to use their tools, which are basically tutorials on how to use EQ, how to use compressors, etc in general. Sonible I have less experience with, but their smart:limit is a fantastic limiter.

Hey Vylent! As was mentioned in the live feedback, having space between vocal phrases is helpful for the listener to digest what the vocal passage is doing and saying. The guitar lead in the older version is a great example of creating that space between the vocal phrases! The intro in the older version has a stronger build than the current, though it goes without saying that your vocalist, Sirenstar, is absolutely wiping the floor with the AI vocal. Returning the levels to the drums on the out (as in the older mix) would better realize the vision of getting this mix close to Imagine Dragons. There’s some rough cutting on the vocals around 2:44, and the breath coming in around 2:48, 2:52 is a bit hot. I think that’s most of the feedback from last night! I am really looking forward to hearing this get polished and see it get submitted!!

I like the way you think. And it looks like R5 has got audio in with a nifty autotune type thing. It's called Neptune...I'm sort of disappointed that it's not called ReTune xD I think most people probably hated R4 at first. I basically went from Garage Band and Orion Platinum to R4 and I thought it was the biggest piece of bullshit I ever saw. But after crunching some deadlines for some projects in my Music Tech class, I realized, "Wow...Reason is fucking awesome!" And now I can sketch songs out everyday, quickly AND easily. It just takes some time. And Reason+Live=God.