Tensei
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http://xtourdeforce.blogspot.com/2007/10/my-thoughts-on-music.html
I appreciate Tensai-san's positive remarks, and yeah, those sweeps were put together about five minutes before the video. They're much cleaner now. Purely focusing on improving your technical side, via exercises or drilling to a metronome, is stupid in my opinion. It completely tears apart your musicality. All of the guitarists I've heard drill six note exercises over and over again, I've found to have very little musical expressiveness and very robotic and sterie vibrato. I think it's much better to "practice" to real music, or backing tracks if it comes to that.
God do I disagree with you on this. You can have the most amazing solo ever in your head, but if you can't play a steady rhythm and a lot the of notes sound dirty, people will comment on that, not on the solo itself. One of the most important aspects of soloing is knowing how to work in the notes rhythmically and use them to your advantage to build up to a climax.
Playing sloppy doesn't make you more musically expressive than someone with a perfect sense of timing and absolutely clean picking, it just makes you sound amateurish in comparison. Also, I don't really see how practicing with a metronome makes your vibrato sterile and robotic, I practice daily with a metronome (apart from 'practicing' by playing along and soloing to songs) and I can assure you that I got a vibrato that's at least as fast and wide as yours, just doesn't sound that uncontrolled.
Really, I don't mean to flame you, but calling me and most other people less of a musician just because they have the discipline to practice properly is just stupid.
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Umm, I guess you should read up on what is considered a remix here. What they want down here is a complete arrangement of the source, not just a guitar solo slapped on an already existing arrangement. If anything, this video should be in Non-Remixes.
Apart from that, the guitar solo is great. Some of the arpeggial choices show a definite knack for arrangement, but execution is relatively sloppy throughout (mostly referring to your sweep picking and tapping, though some of the alternate picking licks are quite iffy too, I can pretty much hear how you haven't been practicing to a metronome =P)
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You're in luck
- TO BE POSTED (17)[June 12] Xenogears 'Torn Apart'
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E-----------------------------------------------------------
B-------------------------------------------10-10-11~-------
G---x\-------12~---12~-------------10----12~----------------
D---x\-----------------*10~----/10----10--------------------
A---x\---/10----/10-----------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------
--15VVV^---------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------12----------------
-----------------------10-12-13-12-13-15---15-13-12-13-15--
--------/(13)-10-12-13-------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------
E---------------------------------------------15~----15-18-18~
B--------------------15---------------15-16-18----18--------
G--12-14-15-14-15-17----17-15-14-15-17----------------------
D-----------------------------------------------------------
A-----------------------------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------------------------
E-18-17-17~-----18----18\17--15-17-18-17-15-----------------
B------------15----15-----------------------18-16-15--------
G----------------------------------------------------17-----
D-----------------------------------------------------------
A-----------------------------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------------------------
E--------------------17-18-17-18~---20--20B22~--------------
B-18B20~--18B20B18~-----------------------------------------
G-----------------------------------------------------------
D-----------------------------------------------------------
A-----------------------------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------------------------
x\=Pickslide
/=Slide into note from below
*=Pinch harmonic
~= Vibrato
V=Whammy Bar Dip
^=Whammy bar Rise
()= Ghost/Grace Note
B*= Bend up to*
B*B= Bend up to* and return
Guitar Tone=
Bridge Pickup, Slight Delay added ( very low feedback)Hey guys, I was bored so I decided to tab out Sixto's Guitar solo in what I think is pretty much the coolest song of the whole VotL project, Scenes From a Memory (On that day five years ago). The fast runs are probably inaccurate, and I'm not entirely sure about the crazy whammy bar note, but it should at least sound decent enough over the backing track.
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Short, but good! The recording has some hum at the start and end so you might want to edit that out, and I'd suggest trying to widen the panorama a bit, instead of having everything coming out of the left speaker. Keep on it!
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Those are indeed some nuts sounding drums in that you tube video. the level is totally different from what I heard in Tensei san's remix, actually. It must be the difference between the free and not free version.
That, and probably because they're using NI's Battery as well. In my experience NSkit7free is workable, though it took me a huge amount of processing and layering with different soundfonts to get something that sounded more or less acceptable, and I'm still not very content with it, so I presume the full version will have a lot better sample quality.
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Um..are you kidding me?
I don't see what's so great about 10+ minutes of pentatonic noodling + wah-wah wankery over a lame arpeggiated chord pattern that's probably been used in dozens of other songs, but maybe it's just me.
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I think this was some time after I heard about the Black Mages, and went on a frenzy to download as many of their "remixes" of well-known songs when my filesharing program returned my search for "Jenova" with " Jenova for Piano" and " Jenova Trance remix" both with an added OCremix.org tag at the end. The rest of this story is pretty obvious I guess. =P
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Okay thanks Sensei Tan
thats good clarification. But, what kind of brass?<----I R nub
BASS, not brass, hehe =P
I suggest finding some sort of synth bass preset that you like, layer it with some other bass/sub-bass samples you like, so you get a nice and phat bass sound.
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Hm okay the rest of the tips make sense, but I don't know how to widen a synth. I'm still new to this stuff and I'm providing all the samples =S LagunaCloud is doing the melody and note progression mostly. (I'm the one who made the weak drums though)
Additonaly, I can tell you that I'm using Sytrus and Toxic III mainly for my synths, I don't how to make my own samples unfortunately.
Sensei-tan to the rescue I guess.
Layering, Layering, Layering is the way to go. What OA meant was that you take the synth you have now, you copy it once or twice, pan one to the right, the other to the left, and you'll get a much meatier and phatter sound.
I think this mix needs much more bass. You have the synth, some pads and the drums, but it really feels like there's nothing under the ~100 Hz mark, which is exactly what this mix needs for booty-shaking.
Also, the " We are the reptites" voice was awesome, but put it somewhere in the intro, just before the beat drops.
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Reason is not exactly known to have great orchestral samples included, but they are definitely moldable into something that sounds 'alright', if you know the necessary things about processing and articulations.
In my experience the strings from Reason work best by layering them extensively, to create a lush soundscape. If you're just using the strings as a 'pad' then you'll only need to correctly segue between the different chords, which can be done by applying legato (i.e. smooth transitions between the chords).
Play around with the ADSR-envelope (mainly the attack is of importance) and try to procreate crescendo and decrescendo (I think this should be done by automating the channels level, but there might be a more obvious and simple way).
If you want a more flattering role for the strings, be prepared to load up all the different articulations (legato, staccato, marcato, string runs, tremolo, glissando, etc, etc, etc.). You'll have to understand how to use each of these effectively, and yes, this can be a huge pain in the ass.
Even worse is the brass. Without decent samples, this will never sound convincing, but with correct articulations etc. this can come close to 'decent' even with sub-par samples. In short, same here with the articulations (sforzando crescendo, staccato, legato, glissando, and oh so much more).
To sum it up, orchestrating can be quite a bitch, both in terms of composition as well as the production, but it really isn't so much about decent samples as it is about the processing and articulations. Even the most expensive sample library will sound like crap if you don't pay attention to those.
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Tensei, I really hate to do this on your bad ass drum tutorial, but I think you got blast beats all wrong. I live in Japan and everybody calls everything something else out here, but I'm pretty sure that a blast beat is when you hit the bass drum, snare drum, and a cymbal all at the same time in rapid succession.
Watch as I go into detail:
In the pattern you've got: (S=snare, B=bass, C=cymbal)
C---C---C---C---C---C---C---C---
--S---S---S---S---S---S---S---S-
B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-
There are cymbals on the down beats and snares on the ups. If you think about it deeply, I think you'll notice that this is just like all those basic rock beats you've been talking about, except it's a lot faster and there's double bass added. An actual Blast Beat hits all three of these things at the same time: On the down AND up beats. So it should look like this.
C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-
S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-
B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-
Now, I don't know if they could actually play it at the speed of this song, but that's a Blast Beat. And I'm pretty sure that if you make any variations to the rhythm of anything, it is no longer a Blast Beat. The only way to vary it is to change the cymbal you're hitting. It seems most commonly to me to be the ride cymbal, but I don't have the scientific data to back that up. And I'm sorry that I don't have an audio file to give an example. Anyway, I've done my good deed for the day.
Nice Tutorial, man. I, too, am looking forward to the production values section of this tutorial cause I'm such a n00b at it. Hahaha.I'm pretty sure what you did is just a possible variation on it, and the bass-drum can be played at double the speed of the cymbal and the snare, and wikipedia agrees with me on it =P
Really, when I think of the word blast-beat I hear this:
--S---S---S---S---S---S---S---S-
B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B- -
Apart from complimenting on the obvious awesomeness of the mix, I'd like to suggest trying to process the drums differently. If I'm not mistaken, especially the snare should have a big gated reverb tail, and the toms possibly as well, as this is the custom in most eighties hair-metal songs ( Mötley Crue etc.)
For the rest, I can't tell for sure yet without hearing the lead and clean guitars, but the mix tends to get repetitive in quite a few places, especially with the lead synth melody, so you might want to try making a longer and more different Bridge section instead of just a few breakdowns. Anyways, rock on! =P
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I think that aside from personal opinions, one should pay attention to how the style the mixer was aiming for was executed, which in this case, is near flawless.
The cheesy guitar chugs, the distorted rapping/singing/growling and the harmonized clean singing all are VERY common elements in J-pop, and even though I despise this kind of music, and don't like this particular song very much either, the whole execution and quality of both arrangement and production should be able to shine through any genre-bias. It's easy to just flat-out say that it sucks, but the mixer had an idea for the style mix, and IMO nailed it perfectly.
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Well I'm not going to lie about this, I was disappointed, at first. I really expected a ~10 minute epic that would kick the ass of the black mages mix, especially with all the great remixers on it, so when I saw it was 3-minutes, and started with a chiptune-intro, I didn't have very high hopes for it (nothing against chiptunes, I just didn't really expect it here =P).
Of course, after hearing the Elfman-esque marcato strings entering, things changed, and I realised this really wasn't meant to be a Black Mages-killer, but a mix in itself.
Personal opinions aside, this is extremely well executed, though perhaps not too interpretative (which is probably because of the exact chord voicings sung by the sampled choir), but all the elements work surprisingly well together, and each element is produced/ sequenced/played with near-professional skill and attention to detail. Unexpected, but very good nonetheless!
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Hah! So Snappleman does have the skills to back up his thrash-talking after all. Holy shit I am listen to it right now for the first time and this rocks on a whole new level. There's just so much going on and the production is amazing. I love the kick drums punchiness, the mad synth soloing and the pristine lead guitar. So far I've heard two tracks from the project, and if they keep this quality up, I might have to kick the whole album down to my MP3 player. =P
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Hah, I kept an eye on this one since I heard it in the demo medley. The usual ska melange that pretty much became LuIza's trademark makes another appearance. Very bluesy overall, though some of the more rocking parts ticked me off by their (intentional) dissonance, but this is more of a personal opinion.
Bass is very gritty and sounds great, guitars are very good, drums are punchy, but the bass is what does it for me in this mix. Great job altogether =P
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Sorry this made me laugh...I'm sitting at the music school and there's some classical guitarist sitting across the room who's been playing for like 10 minutes and all he's doing is some pretty crazy intense fingerpicking.
Yeah, go ahead, rub it in, I really needed that =P
Anyway, in the immortal words spoken by El Sixto: LEAD GUITARS GO!
I'm mostly just copy+ pasting, in the end I guess I'll record all the repeating parts separately with minor improvised variations to keep stuff going. Anyway, still waiting for a .wav from Cerrax, and still no decent mixing =P
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Basically, you're going to want to shell out some money on a decent DAW or at least something similar, because that's pretty much the beating heart of a remixer's tools, and there's not much of a free alternative to even the cheaper ones.
The two most often used DAWs here would be Fruity Loops and Reason (though the latter isn't a DAW in the exact sense of the word) so I suggest you take a look at those two, and maybe download the demo's to test them out.
I know you probably want to stick to Finale with the notation stuff, but especially percussion parts are so much easier to do in a step sequencer than in notation.
In terms of instruments and samples, most DAWs have a decent array of built-in VSTi's and effects, and you can find a lot of half-decent stuff for free on sites like kvraudio, so you don't really have to spend your cash on things like that just yet.
In short: Get a DAW, start learning, have fun mixing.
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So there I was watching this video playthrough of LoZ: aLttP, when suddenly this absolutely bad-ass metal remix of Ganon's theme starts, which quickly segues into an arranged version of the Darkworld theme, and so on.
The video in question is this one, and the song mentioned starts at 2:24. I was wondering if anyone who recognizes it could point me into direction of the artist and the songs name. Productionwise it sounds like an official remix to me, or at least a VERY well executed amateur remix. Thanks for your attention =P
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Since you all seem to like this song so much, I've done some live guitars. Also, Cerrax hasn't responded to my PM, and I'm really dying for feedback.
A few notes:
- Some timing issues, especially with the clean guitar. Seriously, SCREW fingerpicking. =P
- No proper mixing, due to having to work with an MP3-backing track, thus the 'mixing' occured in audacity, which doesn't exactly have an effective limiter for multiple tracks, so yes, there's clipping.
- The Phasered guitar was an idea to have it sound like a soaring Arwing, tell me what you think. =P
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Same here by the way, I've already said this, but I'm re-emphasizing: if you need guitars I could do them for you too, if your other collabs wouldn't work out.
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Sensei-Tan, do you know of any free electric guitar samples?? Samplefusion only has muted and power chords for free...the rest you have to buy in expensive CD's. And I haven't found any good SF2.'s
You can do some amazing things even with free/cheap/cheesy samples/soundfonts, but you it will probably never sound like a real guitar, so you can pretty much forget about that, sorry. =P
Electric Guitars really aren't that hard to get recorded, and I'm sure there's lots of people available who can play something for you. For now, just make sure you finish your remix using fake samples, and when it's done, find someone who can play it for you. It's way better than spending hundreds of dollars on expensive guitar samples, and the result will ALMOST always be better.
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - Bloody Tears ~Metal Remix~
in Post Your Game ReMixes!
Posted
I don't hate Yngwie because I live in America (because I don't), but I hate him for being a pretentious fuck with a relatively sloppy technique (if you compare him to Petrucci, Batio or Gilbert) and writing songs with NO musical content whatsoever. Seriously, EVERY song sounds the same, with the same harmonic minor/phrygian scales+ diminished arpeggio's being shredded over a half-assed chord progression.
Geez, I don't understand how you can rip on Death Metal in your blog for 'being too pretentious in terms of technique' while happily proclaiming what a musical genius Yngwie is. At least Death Metal is funny and something you can nod (or bang) your head to.
Also, I disagree with your notions on melody. Take a look at the solo to Stairway to Heaven. You can analyze it and say " Well it's pretty much just pentatonic noodling", but it's in the way the notes are implemented rhythmically over the backing that is what sets this solo apart. It's incredibly hard to get a feeling for WHEN to put a note over a chord progression (and for determining the duration of the note too of course) to create an effective counterpoint. Of course melody has a role too, but don't tell me Eric Clapton and Santana are bad guitar players just because they usually just stay in Major/Minor/Pentatonic scales.
Also, NOT thinking before you play? How the hell would that work?
I'm not referring to thinking " Oh Geez, a Dm#6 Arpeggio would work greatly over this chord progression", but to thinking (subconciously)" I'm going to play this note because I can hear in my head how it sounds over this backing and I like it". IMO that's the only proper approach to improvisation, what you're saying is basically "Play random notes".
I don't have decent cam, nor am I planning on posting youtube video's but you can assume from me that I don't play like a random youtube shredder ( I'm not even that fast). If you're really desperate to hear some of my music knock yourself out but there's not much shredding going on.
By the way, this thread kind of got derailed, sorry for that =P