The Vagrance

The ambient arp (as I shall now call it) has a decimator/rate reducer on it, that could be what you're hearing. That and there's just a lot of attack/release on it. Maybe, I'm also a bit concerned about the length at this stage though, because while 5 minutes is short for a Drum and Bass song, its quite above average for an OCR song. I'll try it out and if I like the idea, I'll keep it. I have to admit the vocal clip on this song was cheating a bit because nothing fills up a mix like a human voice and so I mainly used it so that the less interesting parts wouldn't be so dull. First off, I have no idea as to what you are talking about in the whole "voltage/amp'age" thing. The reason why you don't feel as much oomph comparably is because this is mixed very laidback, when what a lot of electronic artists do (in fact, I'd say a good 95% of tracks aimed at the dancefloor) is mixed very very aggressively with a lot of compression and limiting. In this mix, drums are the only thing breaching a -3dB peak, with bass hitting about -3dB exactly, with every other major element at about -7dB tops, with the main going steady at -15dB! What all of this basically means, is that there is actually more dynamic range to this song than most electronic songs. Not knocking songs that do that at all because I can't get close to a Danny Byrd or Noisia mixdown, but I'd be uncomfortable pushing it into the red and using the same techniques in this particular song. That slight rant over, this will be somewhat "mastered" before being submitted, so maybe your problems will be addressed after that. Who knows. Eh, I'll try a couple more things to fix that.

I got it right, but really the sample is a bad choice anyway. Its not that orchestral/opera pieces are bad for this sort of thing but rather that this particular sample was too short and wasn't full enough. Like Skry said, something like Jazz would've been a bigger contrast, along with a full chamber orchestra. Hell, most everything that has a great dynamic range will do. That said, this was fairly easy to tell just by listening to the release of different instruments, in that its possible to hear more of the release in the 320 one.

Holy god that's awesome. When/where exactly did that happen, at that technofest that Detroit has every year? That's sweet regardless. That CD's been floating around the intertubes for some time now, which is good because at the very least its a wonderful interpretation of Mr. James's work.

Nothing says 4th of July like playing pool, watching Superbad, and having bottle rocket fights.

I don't wanna bump this again but it hit page 2...

While this was mainly an excuse just for him to rant about how much CAD sucks (not that I mind), I think the most interesting part of this "episode" was towards the beginning, where he talked about gaming as an "art", mainly because it was spot on.

I really like the feel of this but I would've loved to hear more playing with the upbeat, which is something that Trent does a lot. Its not until about 2/3rds of the way through that you do this, and even then not to a great extent. Vocals would be nice too. don't take this as me not liking it though, because I really do, just a couple of comments.

So apparently I'm back on giving life a whole full-circle meaning. Pretty rad.

Sad thing is, I'd still probably buy the ones I don't have. Well, not sad for you I guess.

I love the contrast in quality of your snare and the rest of the kit.

Congrats! Now go get drunk with zircon!?

I should probably clarify that by no means is the arrangement finished.

Link: http://media.putfile.com/Mass-Effect-take-1 Obviously in rough form as the intro needs quite a bit of work but the entire idea behind this mix will be a transition from "Intro" (Main Theme), to "battles" (BA-ness), to "Love" (Love Theme), to "Final Battle" (Final Assault), to "Outro" (Either "The End" or "Victory"). So yeah, musical journey, real original . EDIT: Yeah, so far the mix has not reached the "Final Battle" stage, just the first two. Anyway, any opinions on this? P.S. - Just as a suggestion, when hearing the Love Theme section of this I can't help but think that it may make a good piece to do a Nine Inch Nails styled remix. just a thought.

New update: http://media.putfile.com/Zeal-Remix-possible-final-2

A wee bit unnecessary But yeah, I had to do like, a quadruple take when I first heard this. He was at the very least a true comedian and a legend, always approaching comedy from a new direction that no one else ever has. This is quite sad and unexpected, and he will be missed.

Happy birthday! Also, what everyone else said about the booze.

Ha, Deadmau5, at the very least I like where your head is on this one. Listening to it, its not bad. Where did you get the acapella, or did you not? I would have liked a fatter bassline though, I like the actual sequencing on it as-is though. The snare is also a little too phased/not punchy enough. I love the breakouts that happen at places like 3:56 though where everything builds before falling back.

Sorry, I'm pretty much imagining this mix as someone would imagine an electronic track, with the layout being: Intro - breakdown - drop - breakdown - drop - outro Anyway, first "drop" would be 0:45, second would be 3:36.

Returning the favour here, as I feel it is my civil duty. The arrangement isn't bad at all, and really thats all I'm going to judge on because I understand that most of this will probably be replaced with quality instruments. Ok, I'm going to mark off this section because its more of a personal preference thing that a general critique (that I will give later) so take all of this with a grain of salt. ------------------------------- I really like the arrangement, but I think everything from 3:04 onward should be redone. I would have loved to hear a guitar come in right there along with some pseudo-military styled drumming on the snare before the entire thing going into a half-time breakdown with both orchestral elements (mainly sustained violins and violas) and rock elements going on at the same time. While this all goes on, it evolves into a huge rock breakdown with an insane drum solo, I'm talking Rush's Tom Sawyer insane. Then it all comes back into the main rock theme with a 1/16th note palm muted guitar going on in the background. -------------------------------- Ok, non-styled critiques. The main reason why I felt that is because it doesn't feel like the mix kicks in fully at any point; there is no "holy shit" moment to it and this mix, as ambitious as it is, needs one. Also, once the second drop comes in it all kinda feels a bit redundant, like not much has changed from the first time around. I think there either needs to be a climax to this song when the second rock drop happens or right before it because as it is, the second rock part only feels like its there because it was necessary. I would also like to see more variety to the drums, but I pretty much can assume that, along with any other embellishments will be made when the samples are either replaced with better samples, or real people playing. So yeah, overall the arrangement is good, but I really feel like its missing a big epic "I need this mix" part to it. I would offer to contribute something to this but I have no cool sample packs and my drum skills pale in comparison to yours. I do wish you luck though and I'd be willing to help mix it.

Wow, first I want to say thanks to all three of you for commenting so thoroughly, especially three different people who are top notch at different elements of remixing (production, arrangement, etc.) Also, just for reference, the hotpants loop is that one that comes in at 2:23-2:51 and 4:14-4:41. You'll know it because suddenly there is a lot of high end in the song. I I was trying to pick out specific comments in your post but most of them equated to this, which isn't a bad thing at all. Everyone who has commented on this mix has mentioned something about the main lead sucking, so I guess its back to the drawing board for that. I also tried to make things more epic towards the part with the organ before the second drop, with the drums kicking a lot more and the hotpants loop but obviously that wasn't enough. I understand the static texture complaint, and avaris also referred to it as well. Right now I'm trying to add a bit of variety to the pad thats going on, especially during key parts. Also, its going to be a lot more active in the second half of the song than in the last version to help fill up space a bit more. Also, I've cut down significantly on the Zeal motif that you referred so much. I haven't really cut down on how much of it is in the intro, but on both drops it only comes back in once the hotpants loops kick in, trying to give it a more epic feel at those key parts before the breakdowns. I kind of like it in the intro simply because I'm still aiming to make this as much of a legit DnB tune as possible, and usually intros are kind of throwaways until the main drop hits, which is why there is not much movement there. I know this is OCR and songs have to be styled a bit differently but bLiNd managed to pull off something similar with his Mt. Gagazett remix so I'm hoping I can squeak by. As for the abrupt ending part, I kinda want it to end right after the speech ends, but I kinda wish the speech went on a little longer. I was mainly hoping for a speech about how ancient civilizations have died out to give this piece a bit more perspective (like how basically the Zeal Empire imploded itself) but I settled for a TED talk (www.ted.com) on civilizations that were dying out and that was probably the most relevant sample from it. I'd prefer not to shorten the overall length, but I am now working on more melodic material (specifically on the second drop). I may also go a bit more nuts on the organ part as well because I kinda tipped that I was going to do something awesome there and didn't. Coming from you, that means a lot </gush> But yeah, big ups to all of you and hopefully I'll be back with something at the very least slightly more kick ass.

The best way to learn, is to simply dive and and figure everything out on your own. Look at some of the project files that came with FLStudio and figure out what people did in each of them in order to get a general idea of how to work things. Backwards-engineering songs is probably the quickest way to learn how to do things. there really are no comprehensive ways to learn how to make a song simple because its an artform and everyone has their own techniques that others will never use and workflows that others will never understand. Its a personal thing really.

382 views and 1 reply...nice.

You know, I think the whole "the good team is trying to come back" aspect is kinda cool but one thing that would really emphasize that more is if you had everything get kinda quiet and tense right before the final switch-off, like a final basket is about to be made. You could also sample ESPN or a sports movie and have a commentator comment on the "game" during that point, pushing the idea even further. Or you could commentate on it yourself if you're hardcore and add in fan sounds or something. I don't know, just something random I thought of today.

1. LoZ:TP - I got really far in the second-to-last dungeon but then I completely forgot to do something really far into it, so now I have to go all the way back :/ 2. Rock Band - Because I can't play real guitar and I can imagine I'm way better on drums than I really am. 3. Dark Cloud 2 - Once I get that disc resurfaced, at least. 4. Ikaruga - because I'm 1337

Just submitted, wish me luck!