sci

I'm coming out of the woodwork to give a salute to the insane amount of time and energy you've poured into this site. I'm not even sad to see you go. you deserve a break, and it sounds like we'll still hear from you. wishing you the best. and to those who are taking up the torch: i think this site is in good hands.

I'm going to +1 that it's more of an 80s sound, though I'd say it's closer to the turn of the decade what comes to mind: the synthy portions of Ozric Tentacle's "Erpsongs" https://youtu.be/_k-kJu8Ejz0?t=1067 (should start around 18 minutes in) and Jean-Michel Jarre's "Oxygene", which was a huge influence for electronic musicians everywhere at the time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttpPIRnEFVE

oh, I know just the place! SOASC= http://se2a1.bigbox.info/soasc/index.php?av=0&sb=SOASC&ss=&sf=&sy=&sil=N%2FA&sc=tim+follin&srd=&sd=&sip=N%2FA&sr=&sx=&sl=&sis=N%2FA that has pretty much every C64 tune made before 2009, rendered on real hardware, with multiple chipset download options. the downside: it was all automated and usually the tune will cut off instead of fading out. but it's worth adding a fadeout and transcoding, imo. the site also has amiga tunes (tick the SOAMC= radio button) but I haven't explored that as much

ohoho i love being pedantic with this sort of thing, though currently is a bad time for me to sort through these things en masse can I just tag my own remixes, or would that mess with the block assignment or something? also, along with vocoding, you should probably include autotune/melodyne edit: "tracker" under instrumentation..? are you talking about like Impulse Tracker / the thing Mazedude uses?

100% their respective VSTs, plus occasional reverb, EQ, and/or soundgoodizers. I did use some overdrive on a few patches in the F2FM demo, too, which hopefully isn't too misleading!

I only ever made it to one of your streams, and it wasn't for this. but having listened to this album: wow that's impressive. also you're extra awesome for giving Tim Follin some piano love <3

ok but I had a thought: what if it were just a site for resubs like a blog of sorts, where a judge panel compares the rejected remix with the resubbed remix, see what was improved, how it could be improved further, talks about relevant sound design / arrangement techniques etc. it'd be a neat way to learn about what's important in a song and get ideas from the know-how people, and it's not incongruent with the revised WIP forum. it'd be like reading the judges decision thread, but more educational. that'd be cool. /2¢

hah, yeah that helps! but even if you don't know anything about sound design, I highly recommend playing with DoFi! it's really easy to get really nice sounds out of that synth, since it's basically a one trick pony

like the title says, I made 4 VSTs, and now I'm sharing them: http://www.mediafire.com/download/9hjaj0haa0u3uxv/anosci+-+4+VSTs+%281504RC2%29.zip a brief description of each: DoFi: a toy that makes vocal-esque sounds. STriFE: ringmod-based synth, really cool at chords and leads F2FM: FM/PM synth with a filter before the carrier BRSfx: simulates a bad radio signal, sort of. here's a quick demo of the 3 synths: https://soundsfromsci.bandcamp.com/album/4-vsts-from-anosci these were all made with synthmaker, so it's nothing too fancy. but they're fun (especially DoFi.) I'd love to hear what you make with these, thoughts, etc

yeah temperature is all well and good but you should probably also take in to consideration the humidity, warmth provided by sunlight, and wind speed. I divide my music into drinks (instead of temperature) so...i'll just shuffle a few of those around and pull examples: Brand New Retro - This Hazy Place http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01818 this is slightly warm, maybe 75F? but it's humid af, and with no movement in the air. no sunlight to warm you in this case (btw, filed under: elixir) Masuda Toshio - Shinen slightly cool, maybe around 60F, maybe lower not really humid, but not dry either. very gentle breeze. no sunlight (overcast). (filed under: belle thé) Seefeel - Dead Guitars this is about as hot as songs get, with my perception. 115F, possibly more. dry af. slight breeze but not in a way that alleviates the heat (filed under: black tea) Willbe - Zephyr ~40F. warm winter weather, so to speak. dry but not completely. almost no wind, and the sun warms your body a little. (filed under: green tea) Mosaik - Plateau welcome to below freezing. this is pretty near 0F dry, slight breeze, overcast (filed under: iced tea) Groove Armada - Hands of Time nice summer day, ~80F slight breeze, very low humidity, sunny. (filed under: sweet tea) most of my music forgoes temperature and instead becomes a vista of some sort, I think :S for science, here's my perception of your tunes: zircon - ice lock cold but not that cold, jeez hovering right below freezing, 25F or so. sunny day, fairly dry, almost no breeze. it's like a very large castle next to a frozen lake. zircon - Picolescence well above freezing. 50F maybe? it's a place near water, just before sunset...with a noticeable breeze. Joshua Morse - Morse's Morsecode not really apt to place a temperature to imo, but I'd say it's near room temperature. Darkesword - Stranger in the Desert ~50F but with no humidity, I guess? dunno this one's not really conjuring a temperature either lol. more like a vast open field at a high latitude, so the sun is low even though it's noon. (whoops this is a way too long post and I only added 1 ocr tune oh well)

I may have exaggerated slightly. but still, djp is a vip. a djvip, if you will. QFT. This remix is also required listening.

hi let me make a short list of artists that you should include. (asking for specific remixes is a bit too subjective I think) AeroZ: hella skilled with the bowed instruments and the electronic sounds. his album is currently featured on the front page of the site. Benjamin Briggs and halc: together, they are Insert Rupee, and I think they basically invented the "9-bit" aesthetic. Brandon Strader: metal by default, but flexible into so many genres. he recently usurped djpretzel as the most prolific remixer on the site. djpretzel: literally invented the concept of video game remixes. Joshua Morse: this guy is untouchable when it comes to groove Mazedude: the most prolific remixer that isn't djpretzel, and basically always has been...until recently. he has a long history with the site, too. ProtoDome: for your daily dose of chip jazz PrototypeRaptor: the definitive electrohouse guy, last I checked Shnabubula: piano prodigy turned electronic musician extraordinaire. possibly the most adored guy on the site? maybe thats just me, hah. Sixto Sounds: the definitive rock guy since 2005 WillRock: the definitive 80s rock guy XPRTNovice: I think this guy plays every instrument ever made? I'm not sure, but he's quite the dude. Zircon: pro electronic sounds, and the guy behind some sample libraries you might be using right now a different category, composers turned remixers...just off the top of my head: George Alistair Sanger: 7th guest Tommy Tallarico: Earthworm Jim, though he's on here for a pacman remix. David Wise: DKC. he did a collab with Grant Kirkhope (Banjo Kazooie) and Robin Beanland (N64 era Rare in general), which should be required listening. Jake Kaufman: known more recently for Shovel Knight. he's an odd case because he's been around forever, and I'm not sure which came first: Jake composing for games or remixing from games. there are many, many more people I could name...but I think this is a nice working list.

my experience: from 2006 to 2011, basically everything I made was chillout. then in April 2011, I discovered hardcore / breakcore / etc. I was inspired. I made a ridiculous breakcore track that ended up getting a lot of attention, and to this day it's one of the most commented-on videos on my channel...and the comments are 75% "this doesn't even qualify as music" but I love how my song turned out, and I like reading those comments (some more than others, but still). they're funny to me eventually I decided to split my name: anosa for my crazy breakcore junk, sci for my usual chillout, anosci for a more recent style I've developed (tbh I haven't quite figured out where these divides are exactly, but yeah) that leads into my advice: spit your alias. try to find the divide in your music. rock vs 9bit, perhaps? willrock and maychip. or whatever. with a divide like this, your style can grow in different directions in a fluid, non-discreet way ...and your fans can pick a name that they like. (example: General Mumble. if he releases an album under his Pupae alias, I know I'm skipping it. but if it's under his Spott alias, I know I need to hear it.)

is that true? because that was exactly what I guessed, haha as for my own name, I go by "anosci" as my full name, which does break down like so: ano (japanese for "umm") sci (literally just "science") I've been using sci as my name everywhere since I was like 11 or so. I liked science. I still like science. I recently added ano as my surname, because "sci" is an incredibly un-google-able artist name. and also I think anosa / アノサ sounds really cool. (anosci, anosai, アノサイ.)

actually I'd be willing to share my project files (after cleaning them up a bit), but there are a few problems: first of all, yeah. plugins. I use some ancient plugins that don't even exist on the internet anymore, afaict. second, I use OpenMPT as my main DAW. does anyone else use that? I have no idea. but yeah just ask and ill clean it up and send it your way --- also I disagree with this sort of vibe: "I encourage you to consider that most DAW projects are actually incomprehensible to the people who didn't make them." Mazedude released the modules for a few of his remixes (see sixty funk, turtle wave...a few others) and that was a huge boost of inspiration and learning for me when I was just starting out. (but, yknow. that's just like my opinion, man)

regarding that...in the acoustic piano soundfont I'm using, each note has a really strong attack and quick decay, so I added a compressor to even that out. so...that is quite possibly what is causing your hunch. I'll play around with it of all of the feedback I've gotten on this track, here or otherwise, this is the most confusing to me. at the risk of being an obvious piano noob: I'm not sure how to work with a sustain pedal, or rather, emulate it? also, where? I'm guessing it just involves lots of long lines on the piano roll. with that in mind, I think it works nicely in the beginning, a la https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/149306395/sustain%20like%20this%20questionmark.wav.mp3 but I can't fathom that sounding good on the physical piano in my mix @_@ yeah, with that...I think I need to heavily rework that section. I'm just not sure how to tackle it yet.

I'm going to strike my complaint about the synths at 0:36. sounds good to me now, though I'm not sure if that's my perception or if you did subtly change it... the piano that you bring in around the 2 minute mark is slightly too loud, kinda overpowering everything else but on that same section: oh man dat bass. that's how it should be! and again around the 4 minute mark. good. I'd say bring it up even more, perhaps with some saturation or something, but that might be too much (I'm known to have a bias towards over-cranked bass) weirdly, though, the bassline around 1:10 strikes me as a little bit weaker than I remember it...arrangement-wise, not mixing-wise. I'm not sure what to think of that.

ok, recorded everything and concatenated and quantized and https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/149306395/dire%20dicks%20love%20entire.wav.mp3 ...I think that really helped! but it opened a new can of problems. the section at 1:13 sounds pretty bad now. a piano swap kind of helps: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/149306395/alternate%20pianos.wav.mp3 but I think I'm going to have to bring back the bass either way. (for that section, at least) I think this also shows you're right about the bass: it's too loud. or too slow to decay, imo.

bootleggedly. I recorded it in the most bootleg way possible. kinda interesting timings that you gave me, since I copy and pasted most of the above section for the second loop I'm going to try following the grid and manually quantizing each note as needed, then slamming out the rest of the song tomorrow when it's not 1 in the morning. as for the low end, I think that can be fixed by just shortening those bass notes

I'm begining to think this is actually related to the mechanical, non-humanized sequencing that you mentioned in your second point, actually! this makes me think I should refrain from sending this ocremix-ways. hmm. oh damn, haha like I said, this is kinda outside of the relm of things I'm good at. I guess it shows lol I'd describe the arrangement more as "self contained". happy to see you agree it's ok in the time department though believe it or not I'm using a pretty hella library right now, I just suck at using it. (since my keyboard has two velocities: 0 and max. I have to enter everything else manually.) <-- guilty trap shitter oh, good point. I've been so focused on not fucking up the piano that the strings kind of escaped my critical ear ok. ok. I'm going to try something I've never done before: actually recording this shit live, on a real keyboard. wish me luck edit: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/149306395/dire%20dicks%20love.wav.mp3 wow look at these varying velocities however I still actually don't know about those note lengths since I'm basically just concatenating each group of 5 notes

this is kinda quiet! you should normalize it on your next render! listening through: I think I might make the lead at 0:36 a bit...stronger? like decrease the low pass slightly, or something. I can't really place what it is exactly, but it strikes me as too soft, I think. 1:10 is the highlight of your mix, imo. just needs a more prominent bass. 1:27 that gated synth just doesn't sit well with me. I can't really place why :S the synth that enters around 1:38 is probably the best one in the mix and...not much else to say after that that isn't me repeating myself ---- my biggest complaint is probably the low levels of the bass. it's really smooth, you should feature it more prominently in the mix! I like your mix a lot more than the original, so kudos to that. it just needs a little more work.

link to remix: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/149306395/direreverb%20ducks%20v4.mp3 backstory: I slammed this out in some weird emotional fit one night and I've been tinkering with it slowly ever since. pianos are not my specialty but I can't seem to change it to anything else...and I like this arrangement, even if the performance is kinda gauche and obviously sequenced in MS Excel. technical details: original: which four sections basically: 0:00 - 0:21 a 0:21 - 0:42 b 0:42 - 0:55 c 1:16 - 1:27 d (and then repeat with layers) my remix: 0:00 - 0:23 a 0:23 - 0:55 b 0:55 - 1:10 c 1:10 - 1:42 b (somewhat liberally) 1:42 - 2:00 a specific question for the listener: 1. is that repeated chord annoying? how do fix? 2. how detrimental to the mix is the fakeness of the pianos? what should I do about this? 3. since this is so piano heavy, I worry that the overall texture and dynamics are too still/constant. what do your song-virgin ears think? thanks for listening, and I appreciate whatever feedback you throw at me.

what you're looking for is dnb and possibly darkstep...but perhaps with an extra layer of guitars + vocals. dieselboy has a ton of dnb/darkstep/drumstep mixes, which may be worth checking out. a very specific EP: The Road, by Jackal Queenston. specifically defined as "pendulum-inspired", and a good track. (you might like a few other tracks under that name, his remix of "Mind Killer" (from Rez!) is pretty sweet)

I started making noise (literally like music in the genre of harsh noise) at age 15. I started making decent music at age 17 or 18 or so I'm 22 now. I don't think I'm good because I started at an early age, per se. I think I'm good because I am obsessed with working on music ALL THE TIME example: I went to a con a few weeks ago, mostly to hang out with friends. I still made 1 song per day when I was there --often with friends. Working on a skill will lead to improvement. Breathing a skill will lead to very quick improvement. I breathe music.

hello I quite enjoy stepping my dubs, though I'm not too knowledgable on exactly where the genre lies. I'm going to keep talking anyway. iirc that's actually called darkstep, which is completely different from dubstep! (lineage-wise)just a fun fact that is neither dubstep nor darkstep. in fact, I'm not sure what it is. I'd place it closer to bigbeat a la hardknox, with a slight emphasis on electro-bass (barely) it's too slow for dnb and doesn't have that kick snare kicksnare pattern. ok this is where my missing knowledge will show but hopefully someone else can fill in the gaps for me: DUBSTEP IS AN UMBRELLA GENRE this entire thread is actually about "Bass music", the proper umbrella term for, well, music with an emphasis on bass. "dubstep" and "bass music" are often used interchangeably, though dubstep is actually much more specific (140bpm, halftime drums, drop bass after 16 bars, no items, final destination, fox only). as for what OP is specifically complaining about this sounds to me a bit like complaining about how hardcore has such a focus on distorted kicks, or how french house seems to use phasers and filters so often... just a bit. I think I'm just rambling now, so here's the most important thing I have to say: 90% of all music is terrible. this applies to every genre. 90% of listeners can't tell the difference between good music and bad music within a genre. this is subjective but worth considering. now...dubstep bass music is EXTREMELY POPULAR right now. so you're going to see a lot of it. combining the two statics I just mentioned, you're also going to see a lot of bad dubstep....and you're going to see a lot of bad dubstep being spread around as if it were great. and, since you're looking at the intersection of VGM and dubstep, it's even worse. and by worse I mean both common and easier to mess up.