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If you're intro the eSports aspect of SC2 or if you play for the multiplayer, it's pretty much a given that you have to get this expansion. The few units they added for each race dramatically change the match-ups and increase the APM ceiling. Those Swarm Hosts especially make Zerg feel so much... swarmier. The single player missions, I feel, are pretty good. The story and atmosphere are a step below Wings of Liberty, imo, but it's still enjoyable. I don't think there's much that Blizzard could have done to make a Zerg vessel feel as lively as the Terran mission hub, but oh well. The missions themselves have great variety and do an excellent job of introducing the various aspects of playing Zerg. There's even a mission that introduces creep spread in a fun way. I should give the disclaimer that I haven't played many of Blizzard's older games, so for example, I also thought Diablo 3 was a ton of fun, having not had my expectations raised from playing Diablo 2. I approach Blizzard games with the expectation that I'm going to get kind of a loose but colorful story with gorgeous production values, and solid core gameplay mechanics. In that respect, HotS didn't disappoint. As an aside, I'm really curious what Anita Sarkeesian would have to say about the portrayal of Sarah Kerrigan. (Not trying to derail this into a 50-page topic on tropes in gaming, just saying...)

Certain familiars dominate others in terms of stat gains, but you can build a strong party out of just about any group of familiars you like. Purrloiner, it turns out, is actually really good-- later in the game (around level 50 or so, if I recall correctly), he started outperforming my Mite by a substantial margin and never looked back, even with worse equipment. And he's a pirate cat, which is just too cool to turn down. Agree'd on all fronts. And to clarify for others, that "per hour" is one recording hour. Which translates to maybe 5 minutes of music (depends on so many factors), but the point being that it's really very expensive. I thought that the score was beautiful-- one of my favorites this generation, in fact. As for the rest of the game: it might just be the best of its kind since Dragon Quest VIII. The game is gorgeous. The gameplay is pretty strong, though I do feel that the strategy aspect could have been deeper if not for an AI which doesn't take full advantage of your familiar assignments and isn't very customizable. It's very easy to overlook that though, when everything else about the game is pitch-perfect. Highly recommended!

Along the same lines as what Rozovian said, I'd recommend that you spot the video with the editor or music editor, and the producer(s) if possible. That is, you'll want to sit down together (or video conference), watch the whole thing through and make detailed notes on in/out points for different cues, what mood each scene is trying to convey, how any particularly tricky or important frames should be hit, where you should differ from the temp score (if there is one), etc. If it's, say, a 4-5 minute video with no dialogue and you just need a continuous song playing behind it, it might be okay to skip a formal spotting session. But for anything even slightly more complicated than that-- no matter how low-budget or low-experience-- at the very least, have a conversation about what they want and expect with the score. A job can easily take two or three times as long as it should if you start writing without spotting notes and it turns out that the producer wanted something completely different. You can avoid several rounds of unnecessary revisions if you talk about what your plans are first. Also, demo your score before spending money on any potential live recording. The rest of the advice in this topic is pretty consistent with what I've heard and seen. After doing a general spot with your client, you'll want to re-spot each cue on your own in greater detail, with a finer grain, leave markers in places you want to hit, and most importantly, choose a tempo before you start writing. Probably the second most common way to make a job take longer than it should is to start writing chunks of a cue without committing to a tempo and key. You don't want to be scrambling to connect disparate sections of a cue at the end. Good luck! =)

Congrats to the winners-- I'm listening through the entries now, and I'm super impressed by what everyone was able to turn out in two weeks (or less)! There's a lot of amazing stuff in here.

There's a video from a while back that addresses this (and more), which I think is worth watching if anyone hasn't seen it already: http://vimeo.com/44117178 I want to be extra clear that I'm not trying to pigeon-hole everyone who voices disagreement with Anita as being one of the "trolls." The point of the above video, really, is that it's not good for our gaming community when we brush off the trolling as unimportant because it's "just trolls being trolls." Not that that's what Cash and Change was saying exactly-- I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth-- but I don't think it's healthy for our community when we help legitimize that kind of trolling or ascribe to it the most soft-ball, optimistic motives imaginable. Certainly I like to give the benefit of the doubt to people, and sometimes trolls are best left ignored. But in the case of the tidal wave of hate that came for Anita before she even released her first video, it seems clear to me that that facet of the response to Anita has gone beyond a baseline level of trolling. Truly, the reaction to Anita's kickstarter has been so fierce and disproportionate to anything else I've seen, it's hard for me to accept that it's just trolls doing their thing. My faith in humanity has its limits.

I must respectfully disagree with what The Amazing Atheist has to say on this subject. Not less than a minute in, I was groaning at the irony of the argument that "we, the audience, are not allowed to have an opinion..." as I'm sitting here listening to his opinion. Disabling comments doesn't stop discourse; anyone is free to post his or her own response in his or her own space. Anita has simply taken control of her own platform for delivering her message. She is denying trolls, supporters, dissenters-- everyone-- free and unbridled access to the audience that her video pulls in. She's made it so that if TAA or anyone else wants to respond, then they'll have to work to find their own audience on their own youtube page, website, or platform. I think that's fair, especially considering the abuse Anita received on her kickstarter video page, and considering the general "quality" of the discourse I've seen in youtube comments. Youtube is great for getting a one-way message out to a wide audience, but there are better places for a serious discussion than the comments section of youtube, in my opinion. Anyway, the next 5 minutes of TAA's video are dedicated to tearing down Radical Feminists who don't really have anything to do with Anita's video. I guess his point is that he welcomes this kind of dissent-- highlights it, even. But I suppose my response to that would be... why? What do you gain by cherry-picking the most hateful comments to dissect and respond to? It seems like a waste of time to me. When Anita addressed these kinds of comments at her TED talk, she gave a few specific examples but otherwise simply referenced the sheer volume of the comments to illustrate that the backlash against her isn't just from a few fringe actors-- it's a widespread pathology. TAA has a point when he says that what the Radical Feminist bloggers had to say isn't any less sexist, but I think he's missing the larger picture here. At 6:38 in his video, when he compares Anita's feedback to his own, I couldn't help but notice how Anita's graphic is plastered with dozens of examples of the hate-speech and threats she received, while on TAA's side of the comparison, we have a solitary blogger. To me, that graphic plainly illustrates a large inequality, but disappointingly, TAA never recognizes it. The video kind of derails from there, imo. TAA says that disabling comments and ratings sends a signal that Anita can't handle the criticism. Well, that's not the signal I got. I just figured she was tired of the flood of unintelligible trolls, much like any one of us might hit the mute button on someone blasting music or screaming in the mic in an online game. I don't think that voluntarily subjecting oneself to unsolicited annoyance is a sign of personal strength-- that line of reasoning doesn't register with me. Next, TAA sets up a false dichotomy between Pro Feminists and Anti Feminists. The issue is much more complex than that. Radical Feminism (the kind that TAA addresses earlier in his video) has largely been replaced by the more even-tempered Modern Feminism, which casts off the misandric tendencies of its predecessor. TAA doesn't ever seem to acknowledge this, from what I can see. He characterizes all of Feminism solely by the characteristics of Radical Feminism, which is a fallacy of composition. I hope I don't come off as combative in this post... I love you all and I don't think anyone is a misogynist if they disagree with Anita, or me. I feel that TAA missed the mark on his video though.

Excellent start to the series, imo. I have to disagree about the video being too long; any shorter, and I think Anita would catch criticism for not providing enough supporting evidence. Also, I'd love to see Anita spend about 50 minutes on each topic and then translate the whole series into a college course, with each topic corresponding to one full-length lecture. I think that the general topic of "female representation in gaming" is easily deep enough and important enough to warrant that level of analysis and study. As for the content of the video, I thought it was good, yet it didn't cover much new ground for me. It was a very thorough and solid treatment of a topic I feel I already know a lot about. But, with several more videos to come, I have no doubt that there will be plenty for me to learn as the series continues. It makes total sense to tackle the easy and obvious tropes first. Viewing this video as the start of a trajectory, I'm excited for where the series is going. And contrary to what I just said about the video not really covering much new ground for me, I do have to acknowledge that it did introduce one idea that was new to me-- the concept that the game of patriarchy is played between men, with women being used as the object passed between them. That one's going to take me some time to digest. It's a complete shift in perspective from the notion that men and women are the opposing teams in the game of patriarchy... that's some truly thought-provoking stuff.

The Haas Effect is a psychoacoustic effect whereby our ears localize/locate the sounds we hear around us in correspondence to the delay between when we hear them in one ear versus the other. It has many applications (particularly in live music), but it's also extremely useful in regular old mixing, as it allows you to create a greater sense of depth in your mix. When you use your panning knobs normally to position sounds in the stereo field, you're really just altering the volume at which the sound plays in the left and right speakers. So, if you play a sound with equal volume in each speaker, it sounds centered in the stereo field. The Haas effect "positions" a sound in a different way; it utilizes time delays in the neighborhood of 1-35ms to trick your ears. So, if you pan your track hard to one direction with zero delay, and then pan the delay to the other side, you can "move" the sound around in a variety of ways. You can make any given instrument/track sound especially deep if you apply this effect, double the track and then apply the inverse on the second track. Depending on how you tweak it, you can end up with a wider, more spacious, deeper, thicker sound. What's nice about this approach is that it is accomplished through panning, volume, and timing, rather than by doubling 8vb/8va or by changing the harmonics and timbre of the instrument. You can get a bigger sound by manipulating the spacial dimension of your mix while leaving frequency distribution alone. However, it's important to note that like frequency, the spatial aspect of a mix can also be filled to the point of being completely muddy, so be careful not to overdo it. =)

Ah, finally a longer song from you, like we've all been begging for. =) Not that I don't also love the 30-second concept pieces, but now we get a chance to hear how you develop your musical ideas over a little more time... ...and predictably, it's freaking amazing as usual. I recall that my only real nitpicks from your previous experiments have been choir samples that weren't absolutely bullet-proof, and that the percussion melted into the background and became almost inaudible from time to time on certain demos. (And please keep in mind that I really had to reach to find even the slightest thing to "complain" about). Neither is an issue here Am I hearing a bit of your stage noise library at the very end again? Sorry, I know my comments are never any help, but damn this song is so good. Honestly, I don't know if I would be able to tell that this wasn't a live orchestra if I didn't already know.

Monstrous Gators! =) I'm kind of conflicted on the guitar sounds. There are places where they sound kind of sharp/abrupt (especially the first time they come in). Yet, other times they squeal just right, or blend in well-enough to create a pretty rad texture. I like where you're using them, but I think the sound/timbre isn't really doing the writing justice. As for the "liberal" arrangement... I'm conflicted there too. On the one hand, I had a hard time identifying where the source was being used throughout much of the song. Pieces of it are present almost all of the time, but I had to switch between the remix and the source a lot to find them. On the other hand, there's a ton of originality here (outside of the zircon influence, which you noted in the soundcloud comments), which is refreshing. I think it's incredible that you were able to work the source into anything cohesive at all. The source is all over the place. Like, it's straight-up Banjo-Kazooie sometimes. Grant Kirkhope copied his BK score verbatim in at least a few places. He weaves in themes from all over the game into one giant orchestral climax, often connected by pure orchestral flair and ostinatos without a memorable melody. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm bagging on the piece, because it's amazing, but it's also a real challenge to take a piece like this and make it your own. However, I think you've done an admirable job on that front. There's one specific melodic line from the source I couldn't find anywhere in the remix, and I think it is sorely missed. It plays at 1:53 in this version of the source: It's quite possible it's there and I just didn't hear it, but for me it's such a highlight of the source that I would consider highlighting more in your remix to better solidify the connection. Totally up to you and your creative determination though-- that's just my two cents.Okay, all of that out of the way, I love the work you did on the various synths, both in the lead and flittering [sic] about in the background. Solid work there. The drum sequencing is varied and interesting. All of the delayed bell/chimes/etc effects are nice. The various sections of the song connect together with cymbal rolls and other effects very nicely and naturally. And speaking of the various sections... man, do you cover a lot of ground. That's another thing that reminds me of some of zircon's earlier work, actually. Let's see... 'Subterranean Opus' comes to mind. He takes us to so many different and interesting places in that song, I don't know if any 8 bars have quite the same instrumentation. Take any two parts of that song, and it's bewildering that he was able to connect them so seamlessly. You've got a similar kind of thing going on in your remix. To sum up all of my ramblings into a succinct point: I like this song. There is source all over it, but I would be concerned about whether that source is recognizable enough in the way that you used it. Great work on a tough source!

I wasn't familiar with the source and gave it a listen first-- good selection. On to the remix: you definitely succeeded in making a cool bass with the slap sound, in my opinion. So sick! I like the choice to take the tempo down a bit and give the bass some space to move around. The way you wrote it, it matches (if not surpasses) the energy and intensity of the original, despite the slower tempo. The live synths pay off too-- they sound very human, as well they should. I love all of the creative ornaments you hung on the source melody, as well as the completely original riffs. There are a few things I think you could do to improve the song. First, I don't think that the drums are cutting through as much as they could in some places. Mainly, it's the kick that's getting a little lost in certain places, like much of the beginning of the song. The cymbals also sound a little loud relative to the snare, to my ears (which you shouldn't trust too much, by the way, but maybe listen back and see how it sounds to you). The panning on the drum set is really well done though. Next, some of the synths feel a little thin at times. It might just be because they're so high, I can't hear much in the way of harmonics on the individual instruments. On the other hand, I'm not sure I should harp on that too much since the mix is so clean sounding... maybe you put the leads up in that range for a reason. But I think it sounds a little better and a little more full when you harmonize with it an octave or so lower, like at 0:53 or 2:17, for example. Also, are you utilizing the Haas Effect on them? It's hard to tell, but that's one way you could "thicken" them up without polluting the lower frequencies. I enjoyed this remix a lot. Great pick, smart tempo change, and over all good production. This probably needs a more qualified ear than my own to take it to the next level, but it is sounding really good to me. Nice work.

And... my remix is sent. Whew! Good luck to every one. =)

I really like how that moving line harmonizes with the original composition in the beginning. And the unresolved tones at the end work nicely together... they elicit a sense of hopeful uncertainty. The samples themselves leave a little to be desired, and there's plenty left to do in terms of forming a complete song and all that. But this is a nice start.

The percussive elements are great throughout. Nice variation and humanization in the beginning, but even more impressive are the Sigma/MMX6 sections. Those drums are so thick and meaty, complex and interesting. Love it! For me, the rest of the harmonic and melodic work going on over the drums seems a little thin in places... I mostly notice it in the Electric Man sections (where there's not as much percussion to focus on) until 2:00, where you get a nice counter-melody going. There's nothing "wrong" with any of this, but rather I think you have an opportunity to make these areas a little more interesting. It feels like there's space to do more, if you so choose. One minor thing: the ending cuts off abruptly. An abrupt cut-off can be a effective technique in some cases, but here it sounds more like a mistake because we get get pretty far into the tail of the last note and the cut happens kind of in the middle of the reverb. Your sequencer may have picked an arbitrary number of extra beats to include after the last midi event when you bounced the audio, so be sure to manually adjust this precisely how you want it so that your sequencer doesn't cut off your reverb too early. Nice work; I like what I hear so far!

This is an awesome concept. So much is going to depend on the performance, when you do eventually get that far with it, this being a solo piece and all. If you can get access to a real organ, that would be amazing. I mean, I've got no idea how you go about capturing the immense sound of a live organ, but I'm sure there must be a solution to that. The only other production-related note I want to make is that I think the performance could use a good amount more personality than the demo is demonstrating so far. But it sounds like you're already on top of all of these things. Writing-wise, I think this is a smart take on the source. You've managed to stretch a very short source tune into a respectable 2:20-long remix, yet it never feels stretched too far thin. There's plenty of originality and variation so that it doesn't get boring, but it never strays so far from the source that I forget what I'm listening to. This is a really tricky source you've chosen, and you've done a good job with it so far. Very imaginative! I also think it's a great idea to pair it with the Hyrule Castle theme as a second movement. 2:20 is a huge achievement given the length of the Sanctuary source, but it's still a little short in the grand scheme of things. Not that every song needs to fit into a contrived, 4 - 5 minute box, but that second movement would be a welcome addition and would give you more room to extend this project into a more musically-complex and deeper narrative. My hope for the second movement is that you'll find ways to tie it back to the first. Ideally the pair should enhance one another and not just be a "medley" for sake of filling time. Sorry I can't really help with anything here, other than to say that I totally love the concept and the direction you plan to go with this, and you should definitely see it through. Can't wait to hear more.

Necro-post! I still remember your Sky Chase piano arrangement from a little while ago-- what a beautiful piece that was. Your rendition of Mystic Cave, on the other hand, shows off a more playful side. You note in the video description that the 2nd half gets a little off-track, but I think that's a major plus; it's more interesting when you bring something new and unexpected to the table. Truly an enjoyable listen, once again. Thank you for sharing!

It does feel a bit flat for the first 1:30. I think this is mostly because the song starts off with very little melodic presence (not much chord progression either, for that matter). Also, there's very little dynamic range in the first 0:35 seconds, which on its own is not that outlandish a time span to go without shifting the over-all intensity-level of a song, but at the start of a song, it feels like an eternity. Whether you choose to slowly build momentum or start by blasting the listener in the face as a declaration of war, it's important to establish some kind of direction in the beginning, imo. Sorry to belabor the point since you already identified it as a potential trouble-spot, but I do think this section can be improved without betraying the genre. Things start getting progressively more interesting from 1:30 to 2:05 when you introduce more harmonization, chord changes and melody, and then again from 2:35 and onwards as the filter transitions into a reprisal of the sfx rhythms. Inclusion of sfx tends to be a risky proposition, as it's easy for listeners to be turned off by them if they aren't balanced perfectly on that thinnest of tightrope lines between tastefulness and tackiness. Personally, I feel that the sfx work well here. They're reminiscent of Heath Morris' "Tricky Swamp Style" remix (based on "Bayou Boogie" from DKC2), which is just so cheeky about the sfx that I can't help but smile whenever I hear it. This is a great start. Lots of cool ideas in there. You just have to be careful not to lose your audience before it gets to the interesting stuff, imo.

Awesome! A belated "thank you" for posting that library of yours. My studio is in boxes on account of me moving recently, but I can't wait to try it out once I get unpacked.

I love how original this is. You really made it your own! If I'm looking for something to nitpick (and I always am), then I'd say one area where the song could improve for me is on some of the transitions between major sections and phrases. A couple transitions that really worked for me: 1. The build into the downbeat of 0:53 2. The build into 2:44 Some bits I felt could have used more emphasis/variation: 1. The key change at 1:20 I felt could have been more dramatic, with something leading up to it rather than just an extra juicy hit on the downbeat. 2. In general, from 2:45-on, there's nothing really marking the end of each phrase; the drums sometimes change patterns at the start of a new phrase, but there's never any fill or ramp up leading into the change. Not every four-to-eight bars needs to be as huge as the two nice transitions I noted above. However, you could emphasize them a little more with slight variations in the drum writing (like a tiny drum fill), a subtle sus cymbal roll (or electronic noise sweep... if that's the right term for it), maybe a fortepiano hit on the last measure of a phrase with a crescendo and/or filter effect resolving on beat one of the following measure. It's good to punctuate your phrases with something, even if it's really subtle, to avoid having them run on like a run-on sentence. Nice work on this. In terms of meeting OCR's standard of creative interpretation, I think you nailed it.

The Lufia II soundtrack is criminally underrepresented on OCR. There's an album project in the works that's looking like it's nearing completion, but anyway... on to your remix! Love love love it. Really nice instrument choices. Suggestions for improvement: 1. The strings and brass, when they carry the melody, become exposed and sound more synthetic than real. Man, that string line would sound killer with a real violin (or some advanced samples), with more vibrato, swelling, some tasteful slides... it's such a good melody, you could really milk it more. 2. The song is very conservative over all. I'd mess with the song structure some more, make it longer, stray from the source more... 3. On the other hand, I hear a tantalizing counter-melodic line hiding deep behind the strings starting at 0:50. I can't even make out whether it's an Oboe, a Clarinet, or Flute, it's so quiet. Please bring it out more! That's the kind of original, creative addition I love to hear. 4. The drums feel a little lack-luster. I'm not sure if it's just repetitive sample choice, the compression, not quite-enough-humanization or what... I struggle with drums in all of my projects, and they never seem to pop with quite the same intensity I hear in most OCR-accepted songs. At the same time, I like that you made the drum part sound playable; for example, avoiding the classic mistake of the "three-handed" (or worse) drummer who can hit hats and crash cymbals at the same time. By the way, is the choice of orchestral crash cymbals over a drumset crash (sus cymbal hit with a stick) intentional? It throws me off a little, because my ears aren't expecting plate-on-plate action where a traditional drum set crash would normally go. It's not necessarily wrong, just a little odd. 5. A fade-out is a cop-out! Don't take the easy way out! Really nice start. I really enjoyed listening, and I hope you decide to revisit this song and expand on what you have here.

No idea what library this is. But you could take these base samples pretty far, I think. They need some more humanization, and maybe some different processing on the reverb. Like the combination of orchestra with electronic elements floating through it, by the way. Would love to hear some of your own creative interpretation using this template next.

I feel that a piano could be made to work for much of the song, but there are definitely some unplayable passages in there... particularly, you can't do repeated notes in rapid succession like that; the physical keys don't rise back up fast enough for the player to re-strike them like you do at 0:41. The strings are problematic much in the same way, but for much more of the song. String players can play some pretty insanely fast passages, but it's not going to sound all neat and tidy and mechanical when they do. We need to hear the effort. The samples/articulations also aren't helping the lines you're writing. Specifically, there's too much space between the notes; no way is a string player going to be able to move his or her bow like that, coming to a complete stop with that much room to spare before reversing direction. If you want to take this song in an orchestral direction, that is going to be a real challenge, I think, because the source tempo is crazy fast, but here's how I would approach it: first, consider moving the solo line to an instrument which excels in staccato lines, like the xylophone or any other non-metallic keyboard. Consider rewriting the supporting chords into something more playable, like "oom-pah" pizzicato strings (just an example). Try trading fast lines between the winds. Don't be afraid to have most of your instruments just accentuate major beats and downbeats, to avoid overcrowding. Production-wise, be careful of the tails of each note, and be extra careful with reverb. In the mix you posted, the tails were often cut off, creating too much space, while the reverb was almost non-existent. I'd caution against overcompensating and going overboard with the reverb though, especially with a very fast song; there are so many notes so close together that even the slightest hint of too much 'verb could turn the song to mud. A worthy experiment and a challenging source! I wish I could play it on the piano, because it sounds like fun!

Put simply, I think that your samples don't do your writing justice. But the musical ideas behind this are great-- what a fun arrangement! I'm always hesitant to suggest that people run out and buy better samples, because it's almost always the case that they can just make better use of what they've already got... if you've got access to a friend or two who would be willing to record guitars or saxophone, that would help immensely. For piano samples, you could probably replace them with something better for free, or record them yourself. For the big band brass, the only practical way to do that is with samples, and I don't have a recommendation on a good library... maybe check in the sample/instrument requests topic in the Newbie forum. If new samples or free live recordings from generous friends aren't an option for you, you could always alter the writing to fit the tools you have (don't feature/expose sounds you can't pull of convincingly, for example). Although, I have to say that I feel horrible about giving that advice... I mean, you shouldn't stunt your growth as a writer just because your samples can't keep up with you. But at all levels of music production, when you're aiming to put out a finished product, the budget often constrains the creative freedom of the composer-- even for the professionals. One more suggestion: keep posting, stay involved, network, and you may find someone here could collaborate with you, record some saxophone, etc. Great work so far, and excellent first post.

Top-notch stuff, again. Over all, the mix feels a little quiet to me. This could just be because I've been on headphones all day and my ears are tired, but I'm also hearing a slight hiss, even before adjusting my volume up. The section that starts at 0:32 is a nice shift. I'm having trouble hearing certain elements though. The xylophone, for instance, is just barely audible at first and then nudges just slightly up later; likewise, the tubular bells almost just blend right into the string swells, which is okay, but is another example of things being perhaps tucked too far behind the strings. Really though, I feel like a Novice trying to give a Professional advice... so by all means, trust your own ears. I like the subtle stage noises at the end. It's kind of funny how much time people spend in the studio doing retakes because of stage noise, yet when it's purposefully injected into sampled songs, it lends a certain amount of credibility and enhances the sound. As always, orchestration, articulations, etc are all amazing. I'm loving the restrained intensity of this piece. Always a pleasure to listen.

Nice work on the guitars. If you're looking for feedback, I think an area to work on would be the drums. Specifically: -The kick has trouble cutting through the mix. Maybe try some layered kicks with different frequencies and side-chain them to whatever else is eating up their space. -The drums in general could benefit from some humanization, I think. Especially the hi-hat, which seems the most mechanical. -Certain cymbals stick out as significantly louder than others. For example, at 1:17 the ride cymbal hits feel rather loud compared to the hi-hat. Maybe the hi-hat is a bit on the quiet side, too. Honestly, mixing is not my strong point, but my ears are telling me that the volumes seem a little off... the ride and hat don't sound like they're part of the same drum set, if that makes any sense. Pretty rocking remix-- lots of things are working well in this one, particularly in the guitar performance. I like it!