Tensei
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Well after re-listening to it a few times, I do agree the guitar takes a wee bit of a too prominent role compared to the other instruments, so I guess I'll just have to take it down a decibel or so while the piano is playing.
And yes, I agree about the organ, it's just that I haven't been able to find a sound in the huge amount of different presets of Jeux 1.4 that comes close to sounding like a true gothic/baroque pipe organ, so this was the best thing I could come up with. When I listen to it by itself, I kinda like it, but indeed, after listening to some Malice Mizer, (gee, I just figured out this song looks a LOT like Malice Mizer's work due to the instrumentation) my organ patch sucks donkey balls.
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Variable Bitrate Encoding is your friend.
Anyway, great mix, and definitely good enough for an OCR-submission. This should get accepted.
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While you're at it, try to fit in at least some reverb/delay, it would do this mix so much good, and it only takes a few minutes of work.
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Well, I'm going for the most obvious criticism first: as far as sequenced guitar goes, this mix is decent. HOWEVER, it's still miles away from the quality it would be have if you had live guitars.
The obvious solution is contacting some decent guitar player to do it for you (heck, even I'd be willing to record it for you, though there's much better guitarists around these forums).
You have some interesting things going on with the violin and the choir and strings and stuff, but the guitar is IMO way too loud, and prevents the more interesting counter-melodies from surfacing.
Also, the arrangement seems kind of repetitive, mainly because, even though the guitar plays around a lot of different melodies, it tends to stay in the same scale, and doesn't really explore the whole range of the guitar-neck. You also have some dissonance going on at 03:09.
Also, the drums are CONSTANTLY repeated. If anything, try to at least change up the hi-hat rhythm, or maybe do some double-time/speed-up at some point to introduce variation. The mix as a whole has some interesting ideas, but it's just really repetitive.
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Yay, another update, new stuff:
- EQ, compression, limiting, etc.
- Newly recorded rhythm Guitar
- Piano Piano Piano!
- Tweaked the arrangement of the intro a bit so I don't have to play in drop D
- recorded "SFX": whammy bar harmonics and pick slides
- Sequenced a silly piano intro, I'll probably leave that out in the final thing
- New organ patch, straight from Jeux 1.4
All in all, I'm pretty content so far, my only real gripe is how the harpsichord has some dissonant harmonies, so I'll have to fix that. Also, the lead guitars SUCK, so I'm rearranging them a bit, and will be re-recording them with a different preset.
Also, rhythm guitar makes things still too muddy, so I guess I'll have to rearrange the rhythm part so it doesn't contain that much full-blown power chords, but mostly one-string runs.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback so far, it helped me a lot, but keep it coming!
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Okay, I'd say this is a bit better, but still, a lot of my previous criticism remains. A good idea would be to add a LOT more of pads, because I definitely like the phasered-pad-thingy, and this would add SO MUCH more of your own input to the mix.
Also, you might want to consider to have some kind of longer intro, and not have the bassline already playing from the start, maybe instead of it just have a few weird noises at the start, and then slowly fade-in the lead instrument, and after some time put the bass in. I would also love to hear some kind of really low-frequency pad, to create a very ominous hum, since that would fit this mix perfectly.
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but don't bother submitting this as of now, it's definitely no OCR quality yet.
- First and foremost, find decent samples, while the phasered pads and the bassline are decent, the lead-instrument just sounds way too bland and midi-ish to hold my interest for the duration of the song. Same thing for the snare.
- You're basically conforming yourself to a very limited soundspectrum, as you have next to no low-end things going on. Even the mere addition of a kick-drum would fix a lot. Maybe layering the bass-like-thingy with a nice sub-bass patch would make it stand out a lot more, and fill up the empty soundscape.
- You need variation to hold a listener's attention. Apart from maybe two short parts, the whole melody and rhythm keeps repeating itself. Try adding more melodic context, countermelodies, more pads, change the drum rhythm, the lead instrument, add arpeggio's, in short: be creative.
- Utilize your effects rack, that's what it's for. Even the mere adding of some reverb here and there would fill up a lot of the empty space you currently have.
- Decide what direction you're taking with your mix; Ambient? Add a lot more pads, delay, weird effects, slow down the tempo, throw the drums out of the window. Techno? Up the tempo, add rhythmic context, pumping bass. Your mix is currently floating sort of in between, it is absolutely critical you have a good idea of how you want your mix to sound, and try to work up to it.
Hope my (lengthy) advice was sort of useful to you, anyway, good luck mixing
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Yay rhythm guitar take 1
I've spent a lot of time EQing it, and (at least to my inexperienced ears), each separate part is now pretty clearly audible. The rhythm guitar gets kind of meh during the chorus (0:31) but I think that's more due to my sloppy playing (I had this recording lying around for some time, didn't have the chance to make a fresh recording because I busted my strings) than because of bad EQing. Anyway, feedback is welcome as always.
Edit: Also, gawd that organ sucks. I need a good organ refill/soundfont, if anyone has access to a decent sounding gothic organ patch, maybe I could send the midi-organ part, and they would be able to fix a .wav file for me? =D
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Well, thanks a lot for your compliments on the arrangement. I tend to get dissatisfied with it after working to long on it as it all seems to get repetitive, but I guess that's normal, so I won't touch it.
And yes, I've only recorded about a third of the guitars you hear in the synth part, so that explains the improved clarity of the real version.
Anyway, since at parts I'm having something like six different instruments playing different melodies, EQing them properly is extremely important, and this is unfortunately my main problem; I've done a few takes for my rhythm guitar, and I am just UNABLE to make it stand out nicely the way I want (I.E. Heavy and clear, yet not intrusive) without sucking up the much needed lower frequencies (I.E. Rolling off the lower shelf makes it sound like a trebly buzz). EQing things the right way is just so hard for me, especially with no spectrograph-reader-thingy in Reason.
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IMO you should keep the loose quantization, since having it off-beat like this adds quite a lot to the live-performance-feel, as if it were played by a half-drunk pianist, if you know what I mean.
but yes, either contact some live sax player on these forums, or find a half-decent saxophone patch. For the rest, the arrangement is slick, and the ending is awesome.
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Guess you might have a point there. Putfile works for me because it just opens and plays files directly in the browser, but I guess it works differently for people with different plugin configurations. Anyway, mirrored them
The Midi:
http://midishrine.com/midi/15343.mid
The Real Deal:
The Synthy Real Deal:
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Yes, I'm reposting this due to a lack of feedback, I definitely need some production guidelines, so I'd appreciate any and all feedback
Full-on Midi Arrangement
http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-Finished
Partial MP3 Arrangement with recorded guitars
http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-REAL-GUITAR
Longer Partial MP3 Arrangement with Synth Guitars
http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-Fake-Guitar
Enjoy
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Well, unfortunately, I can be pretty short about this one: The arrangement is basically a midi-rip, with maybe one added counter-melody (during the second half) that wasn't in the original.
Also, I miss any kind of drive or lower-end behind this; while the original was a classical piece, this synthy cover IMO needs some drums and a steady bassline, which would go a long way to make it your 'own' remix, and not just a midi-rip.
Finally, the whole mix sounds kind of dry, and some reverb would definitely go a long way filling in the now empty soundspace.
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HOLY SH*T ANOTHER UPDATE?!?!
http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-REAL-GUITAR
Not quite, so hold your horses. I've done a real quick recording for test purposes, and it has come out quite acceptable (at least to my ears), so I'm posting it for yet some more feedback.
It's just a small portion of the melodic part, and apart from the horrible overbending that starts at 0:48, I'm pretty content with the result..sooooooo, some feedback would be nice, guys
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Pretty much everything about the production has been said, so I guess I'll comment on the arrangement: unfortunately, though I like the guitar solo's, there hasn't been that much done to set this song apart from the source (except for durrrr the instrumentation).
What I'm getting at, is that I would love to hear you either expand on the constantly reused dun dun dunnn-melody, or maybe change the key at some point to give the melody a whole different ambiance, because at this point your just repeating the original melody a lot. ( which the source did as well, but that doesn't necessarily mean you should!)
Anyway, those were my 2 cents
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http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-Fake-Guitar
UPDATE!
I've made a quick attempt to synthesize some guitars, but I didn't really take the time to EQ them properly, so at times the soundscape becomes really chaotic, it was pretty much just to show how all instruments would sound together. In the end, it's going to be me playing. Actually, I might post what I have now without the guitars, since they're pretty much only muddying things up.
Edit: http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-No-Fake-Guitar
There we go!
Changes since last update:
- a LOT of attention went to the drums, especially their humanization: randomized velocities, multiple drum samples for 1 part to simulate different parts of the drum getting hit (for example; I've used 4 different snare samples: 1 for each stick, a rimshot, and a light tap for ghost notes)
- A huge part of the time I've spent on this mix went into EQing, EQing and EQing. Though it might not be very audible because of the lame guitars, I've made sure both kicks and the bass are clearly audible, as well as rolling off a lot of unused frequencies in the melodic instruments, and cutting off every annoying little ringing frequency.
Things still left to do:
- Still more than half of the mix hasn't been 'humanized', so that's one of the main 'to do's'
- Yes, recording the guitar parts, finding a suitable Amp setting, EQing the whole thingamajig, that's going to take a long time..
Anyway: Feeeeeeeeeeeedback me, Seymour!
By the way:
Toms aren't supposed to be hard-panned all the way from the left to right, right? Just asking, because to me it sounds kinda iffy in the faster fills.
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ah that did it, thanks a lot!
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Yes, it's me again to annoy you with trivial questions
So anyway, imagine I have this totally rad harpsichord lick, and I want it to stand out by having it swoop from left to right(or vice versa) over the course of 2 measures: Is there any way at all this can be achieved in Reason? It doesn't seem to be possible by right-clicking and selecting "edit automation" because it's grayed out. Am I missing something?
Edit: It does seem to be possible to edit the automation of the big 14:2 mixer, but not the 6:2 one, which is what I need, can I solve this in any way?
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Well, since I'm no synth man myself, I can't tell you much about a decent kind of synth bass patch. What I DO suggest, is trying to use some dark-sounding pads instead of the full-blown bassline-chord-sound you have going on, while not as prominent as what you have now, I'm sure the combination of a non-distorted bass to play the root/bass note of the chords and some dark ambient pads will prove a much more effective combination for what you're aiming for.
I do share your love for daft punk, however despite their music being absolutely awesome, I'm not entirely sure how the judges would react to a similar arrangement, which is why I suggested expanding a bit on it. The point with daft punk is that (If I'm not mistaken), while repeating the same sample over and over (Crescendolls), they manage to emphasize their drums a lot, and drive the song on. If that is what you're aiming for, you should definitely pay attention to sequencing an amazing drum track.
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Ah yes, I enjoy it a lot now! It seems pretty good now in terms of both arrangement and production, though I don't consider myself to be the one to say " This is OCremix quality", since I've never gotten accepted myself
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I'm sorry, but your URL doesn't seem to work, I'm really curious about your mix though (check out mine a few threads below) Bloody Tears seems pretty darn popular lately
Edit: http://puffberries.nrgservers.net/The%20Green%20Tentacle/Red%20Eyed%20Repose.mp3 This seems to be the proper link
0:00- 0:30 okay, decent enough intro, you might want to add some more tension by using some 4/4 crotchet bass-drum stomping (thump thump thump thump), always works nicely, and maybe just before the transition a a really fast snare fill
0:30-1:00 HOLY SH*T what's that sound! The low-end distorted humming is incredibly annoying, and takes up frequency space you should be using for your bass-drum, young man! Unfortunately, melodically or rhythmically, I can't make out much happening, you should definitely add some counter-melodies, since you're basically re-hashing the first thirty seconds with a slow beat and an annoying hum.
1:00-2:00 Okay, break time, we get some new pseudo-clean-guitar melodies here, which is nice, if it WEREN'T for that hum. In the later part I can hear some pretty interesting melodic things happening, so you should hold on to those. Also, the phattening of the drums for the transition is nicely done.
2:00-2:35 AH yes, the main melody, can't remember how often I've heard that now, even the hum seems a bit less annoying now. Nice to see how your song picks up pace here.
2:35-2:50 HALLELUJAH, NO HUM, okay I think you got the point, I'll shut up about the hum now.
2:50 - End basically a re-hash of the previous few sections, it would actually be nice to see you change the chord scheme, as it would add a lot of interest.
As a general note, I'd suggest you LOSE the 'acoustic' drum kit, since it sounds just bland and boring ( not only on the production level), and whip out some phat breakbeats, since IMO they would fit this just perfectly (Or at least use techno/trance-like drum samples, even a standard thump thump thump beat would fit this song quite well).
Also, did I mention the distorted hum that's probably supposed to be the bass? Get rid of it please.
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Edit: *Insert Emo Rant*
http://media.putfile.com/Bloody-Tears-Arrangement-MP3
While I've managed to SORT of balance the bass and the bass-drums (both are audible, and at the same time too!), the bass-drum has a more low-end thud, as opposed to the characteristic thumpy attack I'd prefer, and the bass, even though the font used is a picked bass, doesn't have enough high-end to make the pick attack audible, and while I've tried to EQ both, it didn't really work ( Did I mention I suck at production?).
Edit: *Insert more Emo Ranting*
Anyway, enough with the ranting, tell me how I can improve this mofo (mostly in terms of production, I'm pretty darn proud of the arrangement actually).
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Oh geez, Me = stupid, and I should've thought of that earlier. =(
Anyway, thanks a lot for the help!
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Sure, but I've kinda lost the link to the forum, so you'll have to redirect me ^^'
Piano solo remixes from Chrono Trigger
in Post Your Game ReMixes!
Posted
No gripes with the arrangement at all, but your mixes seem to be kind of drowning in reverb. It's almost as if I'm hearing the piano playing from an adjacent room, rather than having the feeling of being up close and personal. Also, some EQ would go a long way to make these mixes REALLY sound top-notch.