Tensei
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There are quite a few ways to help vary a drum boring drum track. In this case, some snare rolls of sixteenth triplets will work wonders as fills before a transition to a different section (don't overuse this though).
Another obvious no-brainer is changing up the hi-hat rhythm, adding different cymbals, and maybe vary up the snare/bass pattern as well. Generally speaking, a pattern where you have a closed hat hitting on each sixteenth note is great for a sort of build-up section, or a section where you want to convey a sense of speed without actually speeding up (double-time).
On the other end of the spectrum, you can have a 'big' cymbal, like a crash or a china hit on each quarter note, which gives a sense of slowness and heaviness (though I'm not sure if this would work in a shuffly jazzy piece, but you can always try).
Finally, throughout the 'general' sections of your piece, you'll want to have an open hi-hat, a ride, or a splash cymbal playing on each eighth note if you want to convey a 'walking' sense, where the drums drive the piece without going overboard. Of course, things become much more interesting when you start making combinations of the hi-hats and the different cymbals, there's really a million ways to make your piece more interesting by merely experimenting with the hats.
Then, you could try to make the drums place an accent on certain sections where you want them. As an example, have a listen, and pay attention to the section at 0:28, where I've got the piano doing a bar with a few double stops, and have the snare and crash accenting them. You can get by with just using your crash cymbal to place accents on notes where you want the, but if you use your snare as well, you get a sort of pattern break, which might sometimes be necessary (because the snare doesn't continue the same rhythm it played before). This way, you can make the drum track be varied AND you can accent sections you want without having to turn up their volume or something.
Finally, about drum fills; steal 'em. Listen to a similar track that you're aiming for, pay attention to the drums, and try to recreate the drum fills you hear. This is IMO the best way to get a feeling for how drum fills are built-up, and how you can use them effectively in your song
Sorry for the long read by the way, apparently I just like to write about drums a lot =P
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I'm not exactly sure if this will help since I'm not an FL user, but if you scroll a bit down, you might notice this thread
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I'm definitely liking the vibes from this mix, it's both cute, mischievous and scary at the same time, and the instrumentation adds a lot to the originality. I especially like the little breakdowns and tempo-changes during the second half (The chase with the axe murderer, right? ).
You might want to try making the ending section sound MUCH more heroic, in line with your little story, I'm thinking of near-Final Fantasy-style fanfare, because as it is, it's a bit anticlimactic.
that's pretty much all I can think of right now. =P
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Yeah that's pretty much my only problem with it too, I didn't really take the time for extensive humanizing with the piano and bass (only did some velocities), but if I'm going to submit to OCR I'll definitely be doing that. That still leaves the saxophone though, since this is pretty much the best soundfont I could find, so maybe I'll give one of the sax players a ring about it.
Also, thanks for defining the musical genre, cause I really wouldn't have thought of that =P
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I posted my mix in the ThaSauce thread, so you can have a listen if you want (I think?). If I did anything wrong ( like yapping too long about how the mix came to be) I'm sorry, it's my first time joining the contest. =P
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Triple post!
Anyway, the final and fully mastered version is here. This is the way it'll be going into the contest. After the contest I'm going to take a look if it would be submissible to OCR, so feedback is still more than welcome.
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I am not familiar with anvil studio, but it would be something like velocity or expression
Yes, either this, or you could just find similar samples and alternate between them randomly to simulate different parts of the cymbal being hit, that's why I think it's really important to have an extensive sample library for your drums.
Anyway, good luck on getting your remix passed =D
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you can never go wrong with guitar rig 2! a little costly but its worth it! thats probably why amplitude sounds like a free program to me...
Actually, while Guitar Rig 2 might be a lot more versatile, IMO Amplitube 2's Mesa Boogie (Modern Tube Lead) sounds so much better than the one in Guitar Rig (it's called Gratifier or something), which makes it a big issue because that's pretty much the only amp I'll use.
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Yes, I'm pretty much done now, arrangement is done, production is as good as done, with the exception of a little mastering session I'll do tomorrow, so this mix is ready to rock. Now if I could just have some feedback.
Edit: Yeah I knew I said there'd be guitar, but it just didn't really fit, so I let the piano take over it's part.
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Ah, I'm just so used to click directly on the links that this hadn't even occured to me =P . Okay, let's have a listen...
Well your voice isn't really THAT bad, I mean okay, the guy from the original had a voice that was a bit more developed, but still, mad props for being able to do the falsetto's (Can't hear if you used pitch correction, I guess not =P)
I wouldn't call this a real ReMix in the purest sense of the word though, since apart from the instrumentation this is pretty much a straight cover from the original, but a good one at that. I like the ending =P
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well for some reason I still get a connection time-out, which is too bad, cause I really want to hear Take on Me =(
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Your link is dead..
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Hay guys, this is what is going to be my submission for this weeks PRC contest. I've done the whole arrangement in 1 day (yesterday), and the whole production in 1 day as well (today), so as of now this is my quickest remix yet, but hopefully it's not too obvious.
I still have to fix velocities and humanization and record guitar, but it's mostly done. Also, those Tom-tom drums sound like shit, back to EQing again for me.
And yes, I totally ripped off the bassline as well as some piano sections, but at least the guitar is going to be playing a cookie cutter blues riff, so screw originality!
The original:
http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/gameboy/z_OofAcrescentisland.mid
Me screwing up the original:
Edit: ARGH whatever, guess it was Oracle of AGES, not Seasons. But who cares, it's not like I played either of them.
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Words
So what you're basically saying is that a guy like Protricity (correct me if I'm wrong on this) without experience with musical instruments and without formal theoretical education isn't a real (and a damn awesome one at that) musician?
Because that would be an extremely bold statement.
A true musician is in my opinion not one who conforms himself to playing the music of others from sheet, nor one who knows all the modes from dorian to locrian from his head. A true musician simply knows what sounds best, and knows how to implement it when creating his music.
Whether a guy like that plays a 'classical' instrument like guitar, piano or violin, or just knows his way around the sequencer and the sampler (which are IMO instruments just as well, I don't care what you purists think) doesn't matter. If the results sound awesome, what is there to nitpick about having used sampled drums as opposed to fiddling around with recording 'real' ones?
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You're allowed to post a mix in the thread, to show people what they're up against, but no one is supposed to comment on it's quality.
I don't know about putting things in the WIP forum though.
Well in that case it really depends on what you mean by 'commenting on it's quality', since what I'm really looking for is objective feedback in the vein of " You should tone down the reverb" or " That transition could be a bit smoother", not necessarily for comments like " I love the drum sequencing".
But anyway, since it seems like the question in my previous post hasn't been asked before, I guess it's customary for you guys not to post your submissions in the WIP-forum for feedback, so I'll abide by that for now, at least until anyone else clears this up.
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You listen to the original song and then construct an arrangement based on what your ears can pick up.
QFT
I wouldn't do it any other way than this, otherwise your mix will either sound like an original with a vaguely similar tacked on extra melody, or like a bland midi-rip (In my experience at least)
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Ooh I forgot to ask, are you allowed to post a mix you're planning to use for the contest in the WIP-forum?
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Yeah I'm kinda signing in here for the first time, I saw this thread yesterday, and after listening to the song a few times I've found a pretty amazing way to arrange it, so I guess I'll be joining this contest =P
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If anything like this would happen, it would most certainly have to be a collab to spread out the humongous amount of work that would have to be done on arranging it in a fashion that doesn't suffer from a typical medleyish sound.
Just selecting the songs from all the games you named that are suitable to be used in the same mix would be a true nightmare..
I actually feel like doing this, but it's just so friggin ambitious , and I got so many other mixes and unfinished ideas I'm currently working on, it would take a long time before I would feel up to it.
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Yes, version 3 sounds very good, the bass is clearly audible and version 4 probably has the best loud/clean ratio you'll get without using professional mastering. I still think version 3 sounds better than 4 though =) I'm just not that much of a fan of overcompression. Anyway, you're definitely getting there, maybe just polish it up a bit and PM a judge to ask if he can have a listen and tell you if it's up to OCR production standards yet. I'm not going to comment on the arrangement just yet, because I'm about to hit the sack, except saying that it's a bit repetitive. Expect some decent feedback tomorrow =p
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Wow, it sounds SO MUCH better now, the hi-hats and cymbals sound crisp and everything, and you even got some nice dynamics going on because of the soft mastering.
Now, let me ask you, why exactly do you need the volume to be close to professional level? Take this for example: Everyone is going to adjust their speakers to a pleasant volume, so it really doesn't matter that much how loud your mix is in the end. If I'm going to put a soft version and a loud version next to each other, then yes, the loud version will sound better, but if I listen to the soft version by itself, I'm still going to adjust the speakers to roughly the same volume I'd be hearing the loud version on, except the soft version will not be sounding like an overcompressed turd, and neither will there be noticable clipping/artifacts.
And obviously the judges might make a remark about 'having mastered a bit too softly', but no way are they going to refuse a mix where the only 'issue' is having to increase their speaker volume a bit, as opposed to a mix with noticable clipping throughout.
Edit:
VVVVV
Definitely do what Nutritious says, most of the issues you have left (muddiness etc.) can not be solved in the mastering stage, but you're going to have to dive into the individual tracks again. I suggest chopping off nearly all lower-end frequencies from the guitars so you can make your bass stand out a lot more. Also, a VERY minor high frequency boost should make your cymbals etc. a bit more sizzly to add some high-end frequencies and spread out the whole spectrum.
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Still looking for NES-percussion?
Cause this is pretty much the most awesome .NSF file I've ever heard, and it's from a certain totally overlooked NES-game.
http://rapidshare.com/files/41909506/SILVERSU.NSF.html
some kick-ass source material for remixing, if I may say so. =P
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Okay, Arrangement is pretty cool, but yes, it's lacking severely in production. Take a good hard listen to the cymbals and hats, whenever the multiple guitars, bass and drums are going, they just sound absolutely VILE and grainy, which is one of the indicators of having mastered a bit too hot.
I kinda had the same problem, so I made an example of how soft mastering can make a huge difference. Pay special attention how crisp the hi-hats sound in the remastered version compared to the original (the second part)
http://www.tindeck.com/audio/my/qpol/Remastered--Original
(Yes, I am hijacking your topic to post my own material =p)
Now I know you got the whole " IT'S METAL, SO IT'S GOT TO BE LOUUUDDD" -thing going on, so I'm not going to suggest you turn the gain down just yet. I believe some clever use of a good multiband compressor should be able to solve your production issues.
That, or if you want a simpler solution, check the levels on the different instruments by turning the master gain down at first, you should notice how (for example) the drums are still peaking, while the rest of the mix is noticably softer. Now because the drums would be already loud enough (again, just as an example), there's no need to increase the master gain again, because this would mean the drums would become totally squashed against the limiter, and that doesn't sound too pretty. Rather than that, it would be better to simply turn up the volume on everything BUT the drums, so the drums still have some breathing space. I believe the 'being squashed against the limiter' is the issue with the cymbals and hats.
Sorry for the long read by the way =P
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Or when you misspell "tongue."
..Or when you threaten people who are trying to help you =P
But anyway, Nicholestien, you SHOULD take a look at the arrangement, if you've tried just about everything in terms of EQing and Compression, and still get a cluttered result, maybe it's just best to scrap one or two tracks. Doesn't the saying go something like "Sometimes less is more"?
Of course going crazy with polyphony is fun, when you're in the midi stage, but it's going to bite you back HARD when you get down to mixing, so sometimes you can do nothing else than to scrap some of the redundant melody lines.
PRC98: Time is a Hylian's Virtue (Zelda: Oracle of Ages)
in Competitions
Posted
I agree with this, I only found this thread because it was the only thread with a new post after a refresh. Were this in GenDisc I would probably have seen it much sooner.