Tensei

I almost thought you forgot about this song, good to see you back dude =P I agree with most of what OA said. The vocal doubling is cool, but the vocals still sound too up-front and exposed/cheesy in some parts, so I think a hint (more) reverb would help them blend better. The guitars still suffer quite a bit from production issues. Some of the heavier instrumental parts really expose the muddy low-end, and it becomes hard to distinguish the single notes during parts like 3:58. The higher lead tones overall still sound very cheap, but I'm afraid you can't get it any better purely through processing. The lick at 0:06 sounds very sloppy, as if you've put delay/ loads of reverb on it or something, the previous version sounded better. The lead guitars at 4:58 sound pretty good though, so I'm not sure what's up with the varying quality. =P The general balance has a lot of emphasis on the guitars and vocals, and the drums kind of get drowned out during busier parts, up to the point where you basically only hear cymbal sizzle and everything else is just a huge wall of sound. Also, bass is non-existent, or simply not audible at all. I think this needs still a lot of work in the mixing department, since I really want to be able to hear the rapid kick-drum rolls and distorted bass, and not just sort of vaguely feel them, if you know what I mean. =p I think a good idea would be to take a good listen to an Amon Amarth song (or whatever band has a similar sound), and try to mimic the way their song is produced, paying special attention to the vocal processing, the volume levels, and the general EQing and mixing. Arrangement is of course as great as ever, and the riff/section at 2:35 kicks absolute ass =P

The Percussion chromatic thingy + choir at the start sounds very exposed and fake, you generally just don't hear choirs singing like this. Intro is drawn out waaaaaaayy tooooooo loooooong and it's too repetitive. Transition from intro to main theme is extremely awkward, and the piano just sucks, sorry =P Kick sounds weird, I think it needs different processing, it sounds way too mid-thumpy for this genre. The main theme is very repetitive too, I think you're going to need either a way more interesting melody/chord progression or add a lot more variation. As of now it just sounds like an awkwardly produced formulaic trance song. =P

Drums are in dire need of processing, it really sounds like you've taken the samples straight out of the box and slapped them on a beat. I'm not really sure if the acoustic drum kit is appropriate for what you're aiming for, the patterns sound much more electronica than rock anyway. The intro, and the soundscape in general is a bit empty, you might want to try adding some SFX (I can perfectly imagine having some whooshing wind-like sounds, or thunder, or whatever, just be creative =p), or layer in some fatter pads (or strings). Anyway, I think the main offender here are the drums, who sound super-thin and too up-close, and arrangementwise are very iffy in terms of both patterns and fills. It'd be great if you could add some glitchy percussion/breakbeats rather than what you have now, since I can really see those working here, but if that's over your head, I think just coming up with a decent electronica beat would work well too.

Yep, this is definitely one of those moments that I'm happy I live in EUROPE of all places, and won't be getting it until november. Good luck playing it, lucky American bastards.

This is pretty much THE song (together with Chopinesque Kirby) that brought me to start learning to play the piano, and also the reason I feel like I'm progressing really fast (been playing for a month and a half, and almost got Chopinesque Kirby nailed). These two songs really hold a special place in my heart for the simple reason that they're some of the very first OCRemixes that I've heard and that were able to leave me awestruck at the amazing arrangement, and the skillful and emotive use of dynamics and playing in general. To sum it up, Bladiator, you're a god on piano, and thanks for introducing me to such a fine instrument. =P

I'd say, before anything else, TRY and get a remix posted here. If you have an OverClocked Remixer tag under your name, it's going to be a helluva difference getting people to join if they know that the project leader isn't just 'sum noob with ideas'.

You ain't heard nothing yet until you've heard Pirate Metal. =P On a more serious note, I don't think you can actually compare the two like that. I'd say comparing 'Rock' and 'Electronica' would be fairer, and even then I'm not really sure. I once heard someone saying that there is really no such thing as electronica, as the whole genre is way too broad to grasp within one word, and IMO the same goes for rock.

I'm guessing the genre you're looking for is Melodic Electronica. It's not really a mainstream electronica genre, but it's the closest I could think of that could match your description. I suggest you check out the british electronica artist Plaid, who have a quite typical Melodic Electronic sound, might be a bit too avant-gardist for your taste though =P Edit: Also, Aphex Twin

I'm going to be honest and say that this is not the time to start up another remix project. Most, if not all decent mixers around here are occupied with the more high-profile remixing projects, so I expect there will not be a lot of interest right now. The least you should do is wait until the buzz around the FF7 project has died down a bit after the release, and even then I would not recommend starting a new project. Now, nothing personal, but the fact that you have around 50 posts is REALLY going incriminate the number of mixers who would want to get involved. I'm not saying it's impossible to get the project underway while you're not very well known yet (the same happened to the Xenogears project), it's just going to be a LOT harder to get motivated people to join. Please just consider this carefully, and be prepared to put a LOT of time and effort into the project.

let's just say that this doesn't phase me at all after seeing a site for a furry musical. Let that sink in.. A FUCKING furry musical. They even got a goddamn abortion of a song up about how furries should come out of their closet and what not. http://www.yiff.org.uk/index2.html enjoy. Edit: they actually took the song down, so just trust me on it that it was bad, k? Edit2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_MFl9jjF8o Found it, it's even worse than I remember it being.

I guess you can ask either someone like Sixto or Fishy to record the guitars, if they're not too busy (Which they probably are), or I guess I could record the guitars too if you want, though I don't have access to fancypancy Mesa Boogie amps and top of the line recording mics, I can do a decent enough job with just my M-audio fasttrack and Guitar Rig 2. =P

Yes, this can definitely be a rock mix, especially due to the chord progressions, and the fact I actually enjoyed jamming along with it. Though if you go with guitars, you're going to need drums and bass as well, it just wouldn't sound right without them. =P

This is definitely some quality work. Intro is nice and ethereal, it really retains the sort of mystical quality from the original, which is a good thing. When the drums came in I was a bit concerned that they'd stay that weak, but you quickly layered in more samples and loops, and all was good. =P The mix definitely has a more ambient-ish quality to it than anything else as the melodies don't really carry the mix on, but sort of linger around, melding together with the pads etc. The breakbeats definitely sound professional to my laymen's ears, so no criticism about those. The flute/shakuhachi/whatever adds some nice oriental vibes, and kind of reminds me of some of Toshiro Masuda's stuff (who did pretty much the whole Naruto OST) Really, productionwise, it's hard to find any flaw at all, and in terms of arrangement, I'd only say that the ending section is a bit too drawn out for my taste, but you might have done that on purpose.

Clap (me thinks)

Oi, a fellow dutchman. I guess I'll have to comment then. =P Well the main problem with the arrangement is that the mix doesn't really develop. You got lots of interesting stuff going on in terms of instrumentation, but the mix really needs variation in terms of melodic and harmonic content, since you're basically restricting yourself around a relatively short part from the original, and only bring in the main melody near the ending. Also, It really needs to build up to some kind of climax. While the drums are interesting, I think they're in fact a bit TOO varied. You might want to try and lay down a steady groove somewhere, because the whole song felt as a kind of intro to something.

Once again, can I copy your signature? =P

This sounds VERY much like Kefka's theme from final fantasy VI, which is an amazing theme in itself, so this should be very cool as well, I guess I'll see if I can do something with this. Excellent choice of source material =P By the way: Isn't this supposed to be in General stuff nowadays? I thought that it was moved (along with a few other big competitions) so they could get more public attention.

(55= Splash Cymbal, 36= Bass Drum, 38= Snare) This is the basic template for a blast-beat, a sixteenth note pattern alternating between a bass and a snare, backed by a simple cymbal/hi-hat pattern. It's not groovy, it doesn't put accents anywhere, but it has a charming 'wall of sound'-like quality which is exactly what makes it so agressive and in your face. Use with discretion. Some other general guidelines on blastbeats are that since there is NO variation in the bass/snare pattern, you'll want to change the cymbal/hi-hat patterns a lot more often than usually to prevent them from getting stale. Also, I'm not entirely sure about whether the bass drum should be played in a constant 16th pattern, or whether it should stop when the snare plays, so maybe someone who actually CAN play the drums can clarify that for us. Anyway, this is turning out longer than I expected, so I'll be covering drum fills, drum solo's, accenting and the like in the next update. Thanks for reading.

Part 2: Feelin Tha Beat Well, now that I've properly introduced the whole drum kit, it's time to get down to more interesting business, the actual construction of beats. We'll start with the standard rock rhythm, move on to more complicated rock patterns (yes, including blast beats), talk about some metal, go into detail about drum fills, and finally deconstruct a drum solo. I'll be using an unconventional, but hopefully easily understandable way of writing down the drum beats, so I don't have to resort to BOOM TAP TSSSS CRASHHHHHH-like drum impressions like last time, and since I have no idea where I can upload midis without getting deleted after 24 hours, I'm sure you can copy the things I write down into your drum machine/sequencer to listen for yourself. The Feather that breaks the camels backbeat Chuck Berry summed it up pretty nicely in his song 'Rock 'n Roll Music' by saying " You can't lose it, it's got a backbeat to it". What he meant to say by that, that as opposed to jazz, where the patterns can get very chaotic, in rock music, the snare will ALWAYS be sitting there on the off-beat, and the kick will ALWAYS be on the beat. Nowadays, things aren't so tightly defined, and of course you don't have to feel urged to do it like Chuck Berry when you're writing rock music. But the most basic template for a rock beat is this: (36 = Bass Drum, 38 = Snare) I think NEARLY any rock beat that isn't from a prog rock song, or a blast beat, has had this basic structure as a template (Don't come whining to me about putting only one snare on the third beat, and bass drums on 1, 2, 4, we all know that that's called half-time, and that's in essence the same) Of course, this pattern is way too boring, so we still need to spice it up with some hawt hi-hat action before it can be put into a song, and add some more interesting bass drum patterns. As a disclaimer, I'm not claiming this is the right way to construct a decent beat, nor that I'm suggesting you copy it ( In fact, write your own), this really is just an example of a relatively common rock pattern, and I'm showing how it comes to existence from the basic template. (42 being a closed hi-hat, though an open one can work as well here) What I've done here, is I've put a double-time hi-hat over our beat (so the hi-hat is played twice a beat, hence the double-time name), which adds an extra 'groove'( yes, even more vague descriptions), and drives on the backbeat, because it's such a continuous rhythm. The bass-drum pattern has been made interesting by adding double-time, but only at a few places, because we don't want to fill absolutely everything with bass-drums (sort of you how you don't! want! to! put! an! exclamation mark! behind every word or sentence, because it's power will be lost by overusing it, but yeah, metal drums are an exception to this analogy) Now, this is really ALL I'm telling you about bass-drum placement, since I don't want everyone to sound the same as me, I'll only say that as a general rule of thumb, you'll want the bass-drum on the beat, and the snare off the beat, and for the rest just experiment with what sounds good. HI-FIVE, DUDE The influence of interesting hi-hat (and cymbal) patterns on a beat is one of the most underestimated aspects of beat construction at all. Generally, with EACH significant transition, you'll want another hi-hat pattern as well, possibly even a totally different beat (refer to what I said about bass-drum placement). Unfortunately for you, I'm going to have to present the subtleties of this in the context of a song of mine, because it really isn't too easy to explain without having an instrumental backing. http://neutronstar.org/tensei/Bloody%20Tears%20Example.mid The first part you hear: 35= Bass Drum 40= Snare 57= Crash Cymbal Now notice how the Crash is on each beat, because it's such a big cymbal, you really can't do it much faster than that (no double-time) without muddying things up, but the result is this kind of placement (I.E. a BIG cymbal like a crash or china on each beat) helps to make the beat sound relatively slow and heavy, and works great for this sort of breakdowns. The second part after the crazy strings with the drum fills is in fact real simple, as it ultimately descends to this: (51= Ride Cymbal, 42= Closed Hi-hat) The Ride Cymbal has the familiar pattern of being twice on each beat, which makes it drive the song forward without going overboard. Generally I refer to the ride, the splash and the open hi-hat as the Medium Cymbals, which can be played quite fast (I'd say twice on each beat), without muddying things up, but I wouldn't recommend them playing faster than that. Also of note is that while the strings play the same chords, the drums go smoothly from playing fills to a beat, which can really give a relatively repetitive pattern a feeling of moving forward. After the transition we get into the part with the crazy bass, which is backed by a SIXTEENTH closed hi-hat pattern (the equivalent of quadruple time). As you can hear, this has the effect of giving it a sense of even more acceleration than the previous beat, and IMO it's great as a backing for a solo instrument. So as a conclusion: Big Cymbals: Never faster than once on each beat, gives a sense of heaviness, slowness, etc. Works great as a backing for slower parts, during so-called break-downs or during the chorus of a song. Medium Cymbals: Never faster than twice on each beat, gives a sense of forward motion, works well in the verse parts of a mix. Small Cymbals (pretty much closed hi-hat only): As fast as you want, though you should keep it real and within human capabilities, works great for parts where you want a fast solo backing, or give the impression that some FAST SHIT IZ GOIN DOWN. Now as to the exact arrangement of the cymbals during a beat, I'll leave that up to you, I gave some general guidelines, and some examples, but I'm not going to hold your hand all the way obviously. When Rock just isn't hard enough So you think all this talk of Rock 'n Roll and shit is not for you? Are your walls plastered with Pantera-posters? Can't get enough of Slayers latest album? Well, I guess I'll have to talk about some metal then. Metal drums are in fact similar to general rock drums, except that they're taken to the extreme. Metal drum kits can have upwards of 5 tom drums, 2 bass drums, and a shitload of different cymbals, which gives you uh, quite a lot of stuff to work with. Of course the cymbals can all be subdivided into the three main classes I described above, so that makes it a lot easier for you. But what the hell are you supposed to do with those two humongous bass-drums? Well, let me start of by saying that while bass-drums are normally used to accent the beat, and determine the main feel and pattern of a beat, a double bass-drum is often used to totally fill-up the lower end of a bar by playing sixteenth notes. The way this is often used is to either intensify a repetitive instrumental pattern, where you for example first have a standard bass-drum pattern, and after two bars or so, the drummer starts thumping out sixteenth notes, which, again, gives a sense of forward movement. Another application of this are bass-drum rolls, which are essentially drum fills, so I'll leave that for another time when I'll be discussing those. Blast-off! Now I'm not going to go into a metal subgenre discussion, but I'll just say that both Death Metal and hardcore punk are known for a drum application called a blast-beat. In essence, it's really an exaggeration of the basic rock and roll beat played in quadruple time (though even faster is possible as well!) http://neutronstar.org/tensei/Hardcore%20Gerudo.mid As you can hear, the blast beats used here make the song intense, agressive, and in-your-face (which exactly happen to be those qualities in Death Metal we all know and adore.) (see next post due to image limit)

Um, I think there's some kind of misunderstanding, but Valkyriemix is not a WIP for this Xenogears project, right? I thought it was just a standalone mix.

You mean as in blast-beats?

Well I really wanted to start just from the ground up, which is why I'll cover more advanced topics later on, and it's not like I'm going to say what kind of beats you should be using where, I'm just going to try and describe the functions of each drum component in the construction of a beat, and how you can utilize each of them best.

Yeah that was actually not meant to detract anyone from trying, it just occured to me that 90% of the time tom rolls are in triplets, and they're ALWAYS from high to low. =P

Given that besides Zircon's excellent, though brief tutorial on realistic drum sequencing there's really not a lot of in-depth material on drums at all, and since I've been noticing a lot of people having trouble with writing catchy and realistic drum parts, I've decided to try and write a comprehensive guide to writing and sequencing realistic drum parts. Not because I'm some virtuoso Mike Portnoy-level drummer, nor because I'm an amazing remixer (both of which I'm not, at least not to my knowledge), but just because I really like writing drum parts, and always find myself paying extra attention to them when I'm listening to songs. Therefore, rather than thinking of this guide as a be-all, end-all, you should think of it more as my personal view, which may or may not help you. Oh, and just so you know, I've never touched a drum kit before..ever. Introduction The modern drum kit different from other instruments in the fact that it is basically an amalgam of all kinds of different percussion instruments from different parts of the world, rather than having one common predecessor (as for example the guitar has evolved from the lute). We have the african tom-toms, the asian china-cymbal, and the different western orchestral snares/cymbals/bass-drums. The drum kit as it's known nowadays is an evolution of the jazz drum kits that came into popularity during the start of the 20th century, and the elements can even be traced further into the future in electronica beats, which emulate, or at least sound similar to the different components of a drum kit. Getting to know the kit The modern drum kit is always constructed from a number of pretty specific drums and cymbals, and while there may be some exotic variations (timbales, cowbells), the elements that make a drum kit a drum kit are usually very strictly defined. The Bass Drum/ Kick Drum "The Beating heart of the drum kit" is an apt name for the bass-drum. It's the biggest drum in the whole kit, and it's operated by the drummer's foot (or feet), it's the big rotund thingamajig that sits right in front of the drummer, of which you probably thought it was just a support for the other drums. It comes in three basic variations, the single beater/single drum, the double-beater/single drum and the almighty double-beater/double drum (the last two are obviously operated by both feet) If you've ever listened to music ( I recommend you do this, it's pretty cool actually), chances are, you've heard a bass drum in some form or mutation. The big and regular BOOM BOOM BOOM smacks on modern club hits? The machine-gun like rolls on Dimmu Borgir's latest release? All bass-drum baby. And that's also pretty much a summary of the extremes of the bass-drums functions. It is either used to accent each beat to drive the song on, in a 'walking' kind of way, or it gets into more complicated patterns with double-time and all that jazz ( which I'll definitely dive into some other time) to create a compelling and interesting beat. Of course on your average black metal release the drums have an extra function, namely to create a 'wall of sound'-like quality by basically having a non-stop bass-drum roll going on, which imparts a sense of blinding speed to the music. The snare If the bass-drum is the beating heart, then the snare is definitely the brains/head of the drum kit. It's the relatively small, unconvincing drum that's sitting right above the bass-drum, somewhere between the toms. Really, a snare and a bass-drum is all that you need to construct a beat, though it will probably be quite boring without the use of different cymbals (read about those below). If you like to drum on your table (I can suggest this, I do it all the time!), chances are, you've already made some sort of emulation of a snare. Let's start drumming now, make a fist with your right hand (that will be our bass-drum that's going to go boom), and use your left index finger to tap on the table (or better yet, the nail, for some hawt rimshot action!), and tap with me: Boom, tap, boom boom tap, boom, tap, boom boom, tap. Sounds familiar eh? That's cause it's probably the single most overused rock 'n roll rhythm in existence. Now, if you would isolate the taps, and you know something about rhythm theory, you'd know that all the taps fall on the second and fourth beat of the measure, i.e., the off-beat. And THAT's the main function of the snare, by accenting the off-beat, you create a sort of tension, which is exactly what has driven on COUNTLESS of pop and rock hits. Of course, that's not everything you can do with the snare at all. The snare can be perfectly used for creating so-called "drum-fills", which I'll look into some other time. What is interesting to know is the rimshot action I was talking about. While the snare usually is hit where it's supposed to be hit, by hitting on the very edge, you can get sort of a tick or click, which is perfect for your average prom-evening slow-dance ballad, or just to add an extra accent or ghost note somewhere, or whatever you want, just use your imagination. The Hi-Hats We're slowly moving on into cymbal territory, and on your left hand you can see a beautiful pair of Hi-hats. The Hi-hats are without a doubt the most often-used cymbals because of their recognizable timbre and relatively short decay times, which makes them apt for spicing up a beat without muddying it up. Hi-hats are basically two cymbals pressed onto each other, but by operating the foot-pedal, the drummer can increase the distance between them. So if he were to suddenly let go of the pedal, you'd get a 'clankingmetalthingiesclosing' kind of vibe, which is one of the ways of operating them. When they're open, and the drummer hits them, they go like TSSSS TSSS TSSSS TSSS, which is great as a sort of countdown ( I'm sure you've heard it before and you know what I mean). A very typical use of the open hi-hats is just splashing them over the BOOM tap BOOM BOOM tap-beat in a eighth-note pattern, which helps them to drive on the beat. When the hi-hats are closed, they really go more like TF, or maybe even just T, which means a good drummer can play them really quickly without muddying everything up. Therefore, you can use the famous 'sixteenth beat', which is again the familiar BOOM tap pattern, except that on every quarter note, you get four TF TF TF TF's. That's very fast indeed, and imparts a greater sense of urgency than the open hi-hat pattern. This was really just the most basic of hi-hat uses, I'll look deeper into how you can use them to impart different moods and accents in your beats later. Crash, China & Splash Cymbals These are generally not so much used for driving on a beat, but rather for placing accents on places where you want them. They are the BIG round yellow plates, that all kind of go CRASHHSSSSSSSsssssss, except the China sounds more like a Chinese gong, and the Splash sounds more like a..well, a splash. If you want a real sluggish beat though, try putting a crash on each quarter note, this makes it sound really slow and heavy (if you have the guitar riffage to back it up) Generally, you'll want one of these (the crash usually) to hit at the same moment as an IMPORTANT note played by one of your instruments, thus placing extra emphasis on it. Another use for it is after an (instrumental) transition, you might want to use a crash at the very beginning of the measure to signify that something has changed. Ride Cymbal This is usually an even bigger plate than a crash cymbal, but it is usually played surprisingly soft, and it has a very distinct, almost bell-like timbre. It might be hard to recognize it, but it's generally used in place of an open hi-hat, when the hi-hat has become lame, and your drums need variation. There really can't be said much about it, it's basically an alternate hi-hat, though I've heard it can be used as a crash as well. Tom Drums Ah yes, there's nothing like some phat african beatz to spice up your boring drum tracks, and the toms do a perfect job of emulating those classic George of the Jungle vibes. They are the drums above, and next to the bass-drum, but they're not the snare, which leaves you with about three other drums (or more, if you're rich), that are probably the toms. They have a deep, resonant TOM TOM TOM-like sound, and they're usually pitched from high to low. A typical way of using a tom is having a triplet where you play them from high to low ( NEVER the other way around, it might invoke the implosion of the universe, toms are NOT meant to be played from low to high.), which works great as a drum fill, but is actually a pretty darn lame fill too. Toms can be used in driving beats (I.E., Beats that drive the song on, not fills) as well, but their application here is very slippery, and there really are no set rules, nor commonly known extremely popular rhythms that everyone uses (not like the BOOM TAP obviously), that incorporate toms into driving beats. Anyway, this was sort of a pilot-episode of my tutorial on rock drums, I hope you liked it, and if not, I'm sorry for wasting your time reading. I'm just sort of measuring how much interest there would be for this sort of article, and whether my writing is acceptable and readable. I know I kind of ventured into the very basics here, but if there's enough interest, I'll follow up with an Episode 2 about constructing your own Phat Rock Beatz, which will be a bit more advanced, and might be interesting for veteran remixers to read as well.

Now look here, young man, just because I happen to like a lot of other musical styles doesn't mean I can't do metal, because extreme metal still happens to be my favorite musical style ( More specifically Melodic Death and Thrash). I'm pretty sure I'd be able to play and write other extreme genres as well, it's just that I haven't gotten into it yet. =P Speaking of guitars, is there any news from Fishy? I thought he was going to write "Awakening" further?