Byproduct

Hello! Here's a space-themed remix: [edit: final] It has elements from the Hyperspace tune of Star Control 2 by Riku Nuottajärvi (original ) and the Camanis tune from Tyrian by Alex Brandon (original ).If anyone could give it a listen with fresh ears, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. I'll use the feedback to improve for the final version, if I can. And in return I'll comment on a bunch of other tracks here, as before, to keep the mutual feedback going. ^^ The ending is just a fade-out because it will eventually be connected to another track on an upcoming album. Genre-wise it's, well, I don't know - spacesynth-ish breakbeats and big beat, or something.

In my opinion, if you already know what to fix, then fix it first. Send it for feedback when you've done what you can. This is because good feedback is valuable - and usually limited - and it'll just go to waste if people tell you things you already knew. When you've first done your best, and then people help you get further, you'll push your limits much better.

Thank you

Apparently no mods around, so I just went ahead and submitted it. Marked it as finished too. Final version now in Soundcloud.

My initial impression was that it's a cover of one of the Ocean Loader tunes. But is Rambo loader a different thing? Is it a different tune that just uses some melodies from some of the ocean loader(s)? Anyway, nice remix, enjoyed it.

Is the "mod review" still a thing that is happening? I see threads tagged as "mod review" that are over a month old. This system is quite confusing if it's not actually active, but still in place. I understand it's something people do on their free time and out of generosity, so I'm not like "get to work, mods!". I just think it needs a status update or something.

Yeah, most people probably need to have other jobs besides composing, and they put more money into the hobby than they make out of it. But maybe there are a handful of lucky ones working on high-budget movies and AAA games, who have composing as an actual job?

Hmm, yes. In FL they do go to their separate mixer channels so it's not an effect (EQ, compression) thing. Effect-wise they are separated. I'm talking only in terms of arrangement, how to lay out the song in the playlist.

I work with FL Studio, so I'm not sure how well this applies to other DAW's, but anyway. In my latest project I started putting automations each into their separate patterns (rather than including them inside the note patterns). It made things a lot clearer and easier to manage, so I'm going to keep doing that from now on. (screenshot) That got me thinking; I still have all drums - except loops, cymbals and special fx - in single patterns called drums this and drums that. In other words, I have patterns that have the kicks, hihats, snares etc. inside together. I wonder if I should split them up too? Do you people do that? If you do, how do you arrange them (screenshot?) pros and cons? I think if you have everything in one pattern, it's more convenient to copy repeating patterns and it doesn't take a lot of space. But on the downside you don't really see what's in the pattern until you click it open. Splitting the drums - more flexible and fun? Or just a lot of pointless extra work and a bad idea?

Heh, the original is just 23 seconds. You manage to keep it not too repetitive though, nicely done. I agree with Chimpazilla, the intro is too quiet. Even if you want to do a startling volume jump, it still needs a little more there in the beginning. At around 2min it sounds imbalanced when there's a lot of stuff going on on the left and just a few long notes on the right. Overall pleasant to listen nevertheless.

Yes, I'm 95% sure it's a signal and not a speaker issue. Because you are actually getting some kind of sound from both speakers, and they very rarely break partially. Also I've had the exact same issue you described (mid missing) and it's always been a bad cord/connection. I just learnt that the AKG 240 has a replaceable cord. So you're in luck! Just get a new cable. Probably any mini-xlr will do, doesn't have to be an AKG one if they're expensive. And if a new cord doesn't help, then it's probably the tiny wires inside the phones that have come loose. Then you've just bought a spare cord - worse investments have been made. And in this case take the phones to someone who can fix electronics, it'll be way cheaper than buying new phones.

So, it's not ass, then! Good! It was the main lead being hissy, I did a filter on it as Timaeus suggested + some extra filter during the solo. Thanks a lot once again. Newest version here. I flagged it for mod review. I can't be very objective of my own tunes, so I'd appreciate anyone's opinion on if you think it's good for submitting.

These are separate tracks right? Then it's a, I don't know, a collection, compilation, album, or something. Medley is when you have several songs strung together to become one song. Didn't want to go only on semantics, but it's a lot of stuff to listen at once. The first impressions are pretty pleasant though, probably a very good listen to any castlevania fan.

Some mixing could do great things to your sound, I think. If you have learnt to use a tracker, then I see no reason why you couldn't learn to use a modern DAW too. And if you really don't want to lose the tracking style of composing, there are some hybrid programs that combine a tracker-like interface with modern music production. Renoise and Jeskola Buzz are the first ones that come to mind for me, but there are probably many others.

I like the sound, and the beat is nicely punchy, but those sounds jumping widely from side to side are bothering me, esp. when listening with headphones. That effect could be made more subtle, I think.

One option, which I like, is to have the bass fully on (only) when there's a quieter part going on in the song. It then makes a nice detail to listen to. And when the song picks up again, with full drums and horns and guitars and whatnot, then you can cut off the highest frequencies of the bass to make room for the other instruments. Of course you can have the bass fully on all the time as well - I think it is in that Nemo song - but it takes a lot of time and skill with EQ and stereo image if you want to mix it properly in there. If you have several instruments competing both for the same frequencies and the same place in the stereo image, then the track will easily sound muddy/unclear and some instruments become quiet and distant (as opposed to properly 'in your face'). I think that's what's going on with this track, but unfortunately I don't have a good enough ear to tell which instruments specifically. You can also use a chorus effect (I particularly like waves doubler, but there are plenty of free ones around as well), and if needed, also a stereo separator for that chorused sound. That way you can get a real wide sound from just one take. Two takes may sound better though (haven't really compared so I don't know). Anyway, I agree that the guitars sound mono-ish and may benefit a lot from some widening.

Alright, new version up! here - Pretty much everyone I sent it to said the ending sucked, so I wrote some new stuff there. The previous ending is now a transition to a third run on the theme, and the overall length went up to ~5:30 - Stole a few details from Elrinth's ideas That sort of a thing was already in place, but I made it a little wider and it did help somewhat. There now is some (particularly audible around 1:50 ->) Ended up taking the synth backing of the early part of the solo away altogether. Done. + a few more details and tweaking here and there, as usual.

Test on another device besides your computer to make sure, but most likely it's the cord becoming loose (or broken, but probably just loose). The wires are tiny so they're not easy to solder back on, but someone who fixes electric stuff for a living can do it much cheaper than the brand's official service.

Firstly, you shouldn't lose your project files! Take backups on a separate disk every now and then. Old files may come in handy sometime in the future. I think the samples are fine, and that your energy will be much better spent on mixing and choosing the right samples for the track, rather than finding even higher-quality samples. (And I don't know what they would be anyway.) As for the track itself, I felt the hihats were too static for drum'n'bass. Listen to any DnB and hear what they're doing with the hihats. Often they have many different samples, alternating or other variation in volume etc. It makes it more "groovy" that way.

Even if you want it loud, I'm not sure if the highest frequencies of the bass are necessary in that amount. To me it sounds only like distorted noise/static. Of course there's no one right way to make a mix, but if I were you, I'd cut off the highest end of the bass to leave room for those other instruments. I think it'd help the mix a lot.

The velocities do seem somewhat odd to me too, and I don't even play the piano. (Not well anyway.) I do like the melodies, though. I'd imagine enjoying this if it had some other instrument. In my opinion make solo arrangements only for those instruments that you play yourself, and go with synths otherwise. This is because there are expectations for a solo instrument's sound, and it sounds "wrong" to a lot of people if it's programmed to play in an "unnatural" way. Synths, on the other hand, have no such limits. Then again, if you did actually record this on an actual keyboard, I'm obviously talking completely out of my ass and everyone should just ignore me.

But you don't have to always overdo it! You can do it subtly so that the pumping effect isn't audible (to most listeners anyway) but only makes the snare stand out a little better. At least in electronic genres with prominent snares (say, drum'n'bass or brostep for example) I would guess that it's almost always sidechained. But of course it's not the thing to do in every genre or song, and maybe I shouldn't have recommended it like that. But it's a good trick to add to your bag anyway and sometimes very useful. And yes it's a bit of extra work, but not too much, and I always thought quality over quantity anyway.

Sidechain it! You can make everything that's not critical to the main melody (pads, hi freq bass etc) duck the snare. You can make even the main leads duck the snares sometimes; the trick is to turn the sidechaining temporarily off during fills that have several snare hits. This way the sidechaining is less intrusive. You can use fast attack and release, and remove excess length of the snare sample to make the sidechain less obvious and thus not annoying.

Splitting the signal into two channels is an option, but then it may get tricky trying to get those two mono vibratos in sync. It becomes a mess if they're not in the same phase. I found another way around the problem in my current project so no worries for me at the moment - but I think sometimes (for example if your synth is a tricky one or doesn't have a vibrato) a stereo effect plugin would be the easiest solution. So best leave the thread here in case someone has one.

Ha, solution found - finally! Vibrato coming up in the next version. In case someone has the same problem (QuadraSID and MIDI in FL) and stumbles across this thread trying to find the solution, here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/92244749/misc/Quadramidihelp.png This is a lot of derail but I hate it when people post "I got it!" and then don't post the solution.