Eino Keskitalo

I liked me some FFXII. Hope I have time to finish it some day.. Great soundtrack too, so if a project would form some day, I'd like to take part. --Eino

LETS DERAIL into classic Epic Megagames games. Traffic Department 2192 was indeed great. I played it with a friend, and we were much awed by the Darker and Edgier, gritty storyline of the shareware episode. It had some cool twists and turns, and the cliffhanger in the end of the first episode was rather gripping. Some very good music from the tinny-sounding Adlib too. All that made for some very fond gaming memories. One Must Fall 2097 us also something we played the hell out of. Many an hour was well spent in the vs mode. trying out the different options from the hidden menus on the way. The campaign mode took a lot of playing as well. I think it was possible to fight two-player fights with the robots tuned and set up in campaign in the practice mode. Not to mention you could fight with the Nova robot in vs mode that way. I'm pretty sure I also played the "normal" single player mode through with all the characters to see all their ending, though it can't have been on a very high difficulty. I've still enjoyed the game a lot on this millennium too, though it must have been a few years since I last played it. Talk about good music too! Gotta give props to DigiE for their remixes. --Eino

I'm not a staff member, but I'd say there's enough in the source to be a recognizable piece of music on its own. I mean, there's even a bit of melody halfway through! You may want to make sure some of the rhythms, such as the rhythm of the bassline, are directly referencing the track. Since it's a pretty generic one-chord riff, I think it should be exactly the same (at least for some part of the tune) to qualify as being from the source. (Again though, I'm not a judge or anything.) That said, listening to the source and your piece back-to-back, they certainly seem similar. I like how you interpreted the melody from the source into a very different sound. Ooh, and I like the way the bassline goes 00:42. That's pretty close to the original it seems, but a little bit more funky. Listening up to that point, I was thinking the track sounded pretty generic, but that bassline funkiness is definitely.. it just made me smile. I agree with Gario's crits though, it sounds a little empty/thin, and I'd like to hear a tiny little bit of something more going on in the track in general. A little more melodic/riff stuff added. Brainstormideasuggestion:: slow down the melody from the source 100% (so it's half as fast) and see if you can work out an additional melody/riff from that to include in the piece. All in all, this was fun to listen to! Hope you work on it a little more so it's even more fun. --Eino

I think it helps a bit. It's a wonderful sound so it's worth trying to work on it. I was actually thinking of mixing in more hiss to conceal the fades on the actual instrument. Crazy stuff probably. Ah, I should have realized that it's not a guitar. That's actually really well thought out. As is usual for your works. Did you change the sound in any way between the 2. and 3. update? Because it sounds so much better on these headphones than the ones that I was listening with earlier. I think that works better now. Might have gotten used to it, but it didn't stick out, just sounded good. I thought that worked brilliantly! Superbly energizing for the section, it sounded really exciting and made the surrounding parts more strong too. I'm really enjoying the whole tune now. Cool to see you working hard on this, good luck! --Eino

Hello Rexy (: The piano in the intro sounds great. The background.. string/thing sounds great too, it's unusual and I love it. Only thing is, that it seems to have a lot of noise to it. That is fine in itself I think, it adds to the sound that I like. The problem is that the noise fades in and out, which sounds awkward. If you can make the noise continue throughout even when the instrument isn't playing, it'll make it sound better. I think the noise fadein/out it's also audible in the little drumless bit around 03:05. I'm not very fond of the audio clips, but you want to keep them so that's fine. I'd maybe add a bit more of them, as a some sort of foreshadowing, so they don't come on suddenly. 01:01-01:24, a real acoustic guitar would sound so gorgeous there. What's there is passable, though. Gotta agree about the synth at 01:55, it sounds very dry and up front compared to the rest of the soundscape. Also, the synth line around 02:01-02:07 could vary the velocity a bit from note to note, it sounds a little stiff which kind of pulls it away, exposes it from the track. I like the sound, it itself fits very well to the track. It sounds great at 01:46-01:54. The background piano seems to have a slightly awkward chord at 03:35 and 03:42. It sticks out.. I guess it resolves, and it's an interesting chord/progression, but it kind of sounds unlike anything else in the track, and I felt it maybe conflicted with what the lead was doing. I don't have trouble with the structure or length in general. I thought the mood was consistent, and it felt like the same piece throughout. I *did* however feel that the piece went into "lengthy band jam" mode towards the end a bit. I felt like I enjoyed the soloing between 03:46-04:39, but the backing from drums and bass didn't carry the tune forwards. Not sure what to suggest. I did a second full listen-through, and I felt I got the structure better. Everything seems to continuously develop forwards, drums and bass included. I kind of do dislike the "slow jam" feel, and wish the drums and bass were a little more active during that section (without taking the focus from the lead too much, of course). The pace they're taking seems really appropriate from 04:49 onwards, especially when the more complex chord structure comes on. If the drums and bass were a little busier in the previous section, the "easing up" that would happen would probably be a noticeable, interesting transition. I hope that made sense. I really like the wobbly synth sound starting at 04:39. The outro mirrors the intro very well. --Eino

This is a damn kick-ass track. With all the fun of the musical style, this actually has kind of a dark ting to it. Really good instrumentation. The guitar is very juicy, I love the use of the slide here. There's one spot in the guitar track that doesn't sound quite as confidently played as it should - 0:55-1:02 - but that's a really minor nitpick in a great guitar track with just the right sound for the piece - I guess I somewhat disagree with Taucer there. The slide does sound really great though. The violin sounds pretty good too. --Eino

Thanks! I'm glad to hear this. Do check out my other wips too, the links are in my signature, if you feel so inclined. --Eino

You know, you can also *buy it* from 3D Realms. The Halloween costume sounds awesome. Word Rescue! We played the hell out of it with my sister. It must have actually been somewhat useful for learning English vocabulary. Other favourite Apogee games of mine were the first three Keens, especially the sw episode, played so much of that. And Jumpan Lives! which was pulled for copyright reasons. edit: Oh right, Raptor: The Call of Shadows as well. Played the SW version quite a bit back in the day, and finally bought it last year from GOG.com. It feels kinda good to finally be able to buy these games, it was practically impossible to do so in my childhood/teens. --Eino

Kyle's got PM (not here, on KNGI) --Eino

Part of the PCReMix initiative. Resubmitted after tiny bit of filter automation changes to one particular lead, here's the MP3 and the Renoise project file. --- Ok, just tiny tiny tweaks. A candidate for resub here. Going to send this back to panel soon, so get those final comments in! (: --- Pretty close to resubbing. Newest wip here * extended middle part * lotsa other small tweaks Concerns: how's the bass (too much bass?), how's the "mastering" (clipping/pumping/discomfort?), how does the extended middle work? --Eino --- previously: So they're trying to make me do a resub, they said NO, NO, NO Decision thread here (very supportive, that's always nice!) I got a good, diverse list of crits that I've mostly addressed: * leads/support clashing, which is hopefully addressed up to the final 3/4 part * layered the lone crash cymbal with more * eased on the reverb a bit * worked on the bass end of mixing (the end was super muddy) * simplified the overly busy drumming in the end of the middle section (though the toms are still too busy) I also overall finetuned the mixing, and I hope I'm not draining the life out of it. Liontamer also criticized the lead sounds for being simple, though Nutritious said it fits in genre context. I might spice them up a bit, but not too much. I still want to use these oldschool trackermusic samples you know. (: Vig also criticized too much screwing with the tempo, which alongside his "overbusy beat" crit is making me consider extending the middle section with a bit of four-to-the-floor beat. Here's a current WIP Soo, I'll look at the toms at the end of the middle section, then work on the mixing for the outro, and then perhaps see if I can come up with an extension to the middle part. Stay tuned! --- previous: So I finished minimizing the hum, and adding some slight pan/width stuff to the end part. Then when I listened to the mixdown, I realized that the intro sounded louder than the beginning of the middle part. I turned the leads down especially. Then that made me realize some of the leads were really loud in the middle part. Tuned those down. Then the hihat and snare started sounding like they were too loud.. Fixed that (and turned down the ride down a little too) and I'm done now. Let's see if I manage to write the submission e-mail before falling asleep. Final version Renoise project file if there's anyone with Renoise & interest. Thanks for all the great feedback! --older: Well, I did a quick fix that I'll review later. There's a slight bass freq boost to bassdrum, lofi timpani and bass. For the overcrowded part, the following kept the lead sound ok: I panned the leads a bit more & differently, and layered one of the leads with the same notes, octave down (and tweaked levels). I think that's a quick fix that helps. Final candidate 3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b7iim851vfrjpa5/eino_keskitalo-sadevakio-fc3-20121003.mp3 --- olldd: Final candidate 2: here Applied a little reverb and eq changes and tweaked levels according to mod feedback <3; some other slight tweaks, such as additional panning of instruments, which should help to separate them a little better. The levels changes seemed to make the track sound better.. since I also got a little more headroom (I think) I pushed the limiter on the master channel for a little more loudness. Sounds ok to me - when I try to side-by-side compare them, it makes it sound like the channels that were toned down are as loud as before, and the rest of the thing came up a bit. The sense of space is actually much nicer as a result. --- olderrr: Final candidate 1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g0yy0qbaa698gb9/eino_keskitalo-sadevakio-fc1-20120927.mp3 Several small adjustments. Tweaked bass mixing especially; tried to punch a hole into the lofi-timpani for the bass drum, also tweaked bass EQ to make room for bass drum, also tweaked the high EQ of the bass drum, and levels. Boosted the overall mix about 1db. Adjusted some background pads and stuff. Changed the drums in the "loud snare" section a little (snare/tom interplay). I'm hopefully done, but am concerned: mixing overall overall eq are the leads solid enough --- old: Latest version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f0ojndwqqijxi0o/eino_keskitalo-sadevakio-20120917.mp3 Just some mixing tweaks. The bass levels, especially the massive lofi kettle drum probably need some attention. My todo/feedback wanted below still applies. Not sure if I should try to make the mix louder or if this suffices. I'm also less sure if the sounds are good enough (I seek to pass the panel with this). I also came up with a title: "Sadevakio" is Finnish for something like "The Rain Constant", trying to make some sort of a wordplay how it's always raining in cyberpunk settings. --- old: WIP Part of the PCReMix initiative. I started this one way back in PRC199, a very popular round. I've since extended the structure and spent hours and hours tuning the arrangement, mixing and effect automation in Renoise. For sounds, I grabbed Mazedude's Zombie's Ate My Tracker, he has the .IT file available on the American Album site. Thanks for that! Many of the samples are actually 8-bit samples from various old school modules, which I took as a challenge to make them sound good. Not sure if I'll do such a challenge again. I hope I managed. I like the resulting tracker aesthetic, hope it works to other ears as well. Source usage: The main riff from the source is used practically throughout, altered to 3/4 in the intro and outro, and transposed lower in the middle 4/4 part. The melody at in the source is used from 1:40 onwards pretty much to the end. Also the figure at in the source is used here and there, usually at an end of a part or some other transition/breakpoint (for example at 00:35, 01:58 and 02:18.. that might be all the cases actually).I couldn't hear the main riff in the source, so I used the MIDI provided for the compo. It actually has the riff a fifth lower than it should be. Big thanks to Gario for pointing this out during the competition. I was slow to react to the intel though, and had already extended the melody and written countermelodies.. and correcting the riff messed them up. So, I decided to add a part (the intro) with correct pitch and consider the "wrong" pitch a personalisation of the source, if an unintended one. And now that I listen to the source, I probably heard the 0:31 bit wrong too. Oh well. Feedback wanted: I have a few tweaks in mind, but this is pretty close to a final mix. I haven't mastered this thing yet (just a bit of hard limiting to make it a little louder). I'd mostly like comments for mixing (headphones, so the bass is probably too loud), and if you hear anything funny or awkward going on in the writing, or if the sounds sound plain/boring at any point despite trying to process the hell out of them. Or anything else you might want to point out. A shout-out to DjMokram for having already provided supportive feedback. <3 Also thanks to all the commenters from PRC199! --Eino

ZX Spectrum, instant bonus points. The source is indeed pretty cool. The quiet bits are way too quiet compared to the parts with the beat and the electric pianos. I really like the quiet bits. The middle break (from around 1:12) is a really, really nice mellow build-up. Actually, the rest of the song develops quite well right up to the end. The end is rather sudden, if that's supposed to be the end (I'm expecting you'll at least sound a chord in the end though). It could go on from that for quite a bit too. I'd say the drums and the pianos are definitely way loud in the mix. The drums, especially the snare sound pretty exposed, which I think, despite creative sequencing, makes it sound kind of mechanical if that makes sense. Evening out the levels should help with that. You're also not using the piano sounds after the first "loud" section. The later loud-ish section works better than the piano part, which might be partially because of the more even mixing. The later part seems to develop much more naturally, while the piano part kind of lacks flow and is "jagged" rhythmically. Could maybe use some work on the writing to get it flow better, although I don't have any specific ideas for that right now. I do like the 80s digital e-piano sound, it's quite fun. The intro is a good wash of synths too. Damn nice. --Eino

edit: I put my Deus Ex - UNATCO mix up on the WiP boards. Please take a listen! That sounds pretty awesome! The latest People's Remixing Competition has a source track from Jazz Jackrabbit 2. --Eino

That would be cool. I'm just not sure if I can make something for the round. I'll let you know if I have anything & no one else has taken the offer meanwhile (which they should feel free to do)! --Eino

Damn, I hope he finishes it eventually. --Eino

That sounded good. Congrats on getting the album done! --Eino

Much more serious than the source, I can say! Still a lot of fun. I love how at 02:55 the next part just LANDS on top of you. I can't offer much in the way of productive crits other than it seems to clip a bit at places, namely around 1:20-1:25, 3:00-3:30 and in the very final crescendo. And mayyyybe I'd use a little more big/wet reverb. Especially the beginning sounds a little dry. But I have no clue about working on an orchestral mix, so take that as you will. --Eino

Overall the tune is pleasant and light. It also reminds me of some of Rexy's work, especially on the Tales project album. That's a good thing. The intro is really nice, but it transitions to the rest of the tune awkwardly. The intro has a really happy major feel, and the rest of the track is more mysterious. This is a fine combination, but the 00:42-00:51 bit which sounds decidedly minor sticks out, especially the oboe note around 00:42-00:43 sounds very out of line. Structurally, that part feels like its stalling the song from properly starting. You could simply cut it and get into the meat of the track sooner. I'd suggest trying to cut from 00:40 to 00:50 or so, with a little lead-in fill. The main melodic hook is great right after the intro (this is what's there right now, but it detours in to the "minor" section after). The writing is good in general. It's a bit unfocused. The solo piano end sounds kind of random for instance, there's lots of notes but not really a memorable hook or something like that I wish the piece left me with. I kind of feel the parts are sometimes needlessly busy elsewhere in the mix too, but it's not a huge issue all in all. The ending does irk me tough. The bass, in the most of the track, is pretty static and a little overpowering. The exception is the intro. You could use rests in the rest of the song too. There are neat little variations in the bassline throughout the song, no mistake about that - and it doesn't need to go all over the place. Placing a few rests in the writing and mixing it a little lower where it is its loudest would help a lot. The oboe could perhaps use a little bit of rests, staccato, rhythmical activity here and there. It probably helps it feel less "fake" and makes for good variation. I think the bass being overpowering and the awkward structure towards the beginning are the main issues. My favourite part is the middle "breather" section, the piece eases into it incredibly well. It's like it slips into it without you really noticing it at first. This adds to the mysterious quality of the track. --Eino

Melbu, not a bad idea at all. Relatedly, it's on my mind to pick an old DOS soundtrack if I ever win a PRC round again. But that would require me to win it of course. Mazedude, thanks for stopping by for encouragement! I'll be adding that UNATCO remix in the initiative soon. --Eino

Cool stuff! Congrats on getting so far so fast. The fundraiser wasn't there when I last visited OCR yesterday, and now it's already way over the $15k goal. I'll be pledging on or around Friday, not sure if I can afford the physical copy - or if there are any left by then! --Eino

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4246f874kgd7pkd/eino_keskitalo-motion_sickness-20150809-resubfc2.mp3?dl=0 Some improvements! Sending this off soon. --- Resub final candidate 1 cut out the weird section towards the end a bit more melodic now beefed up the snare sample --- Working on a resub based on the panel feedback. Done a bunch of smoothing out the mix, plus a bunch of work on the structure. Not quite sure if it's quite there yet. Some sanity checking of background elements and harmony also left. WIP 2015/03/23 ----- edit: submitted final candidate 6 Tried to make the overall mix a little less noisy: turned snares, hihat & crash down just a little, EQ'd the saw lead - additionally, adjusted lead balance a little more so it's more even across the piece. Now to write the submission letter! Thanks once again to everyone for the feedback! Fun fact: the project file is smaller than the MP3. <><><><><> old: <><><><><> final candidate 5 - unbusied competing leads in the final few bars --- older: ----- Final candidate 4 (dl) - soundcloud An update based on Timaeus' excellent feedback. tweaked the levels so that the main lead would stand out each part (a little seems to go a long way) tried to parallel compress the bass drum, maybe a bit more interesting now some other little details tried a bit of that crosspanning, but it's probably pretty inaudible boosted the limiter on the master channel by 1.5db (getting bad ideas at this stage?) ----------- old: ------------ Final candidate 3 An update based on Gario's excellent feedback. tweaked some lead & pad sounds to balance the EQ better pitched a couple of the snare sounds a bit higher made some leads follow the source more closely added a bg melody from source tweaked the bass sound for additional life/stereo/detail other small tweaks confusing convoluted source breakdown: What's used from the source: the two slightly different note sequences: 0:51-1:05 "half-time" 0:00-0:07 "fast"; the variation/ending at 0:05 is only referenced once at a bg melody. 0:29-0:36 background stuttering melody-ish support bleep 0:22-0:29 bassy line Source usage in the piece: The bass line - the rhythm is offset to be off-beat: half-time: 0:24-0:53, 1:10-1:23, 1:58-2:01, 2:05-2:09 based on half-time with chord change: 2:01-2:05, 2:09-2:12 mix of fast/halftime: 0:53-1:08, 2:14-2:41 Square lead: 0:53-1:05, 2:13-2:43 half time, the steady rhythm broken up 1:26-1:56 half time The filtered saw lead at 1:48-1:56 based on the bassy line at 0:22-0:29. Support stutter (from 0:29-0:36 in the source): build-up: 0:09-0:11, 0:13-0:15, 0:17-0:18 meat of the usage: 0:20-0:38 0:40-0:46, 0:48-0:53 2:22-2:30 sparse usage (often buried): 1:00, 1:03-1:04 1:34, 1:38, 1:49, 1:53 2:06, 2:09 2:32, 2:36, 2:40-2:43 Other support stuff: * "ticking" square 1:08-1:10, 1:25-1:26, 1:41-1:58, 2:00-2:01, 2:03-2:05, 2:07-2:09, 2:11-2:12, 2:19-2:21, 2:43-2:48 (from source 0:00-?) * bg square lead 1:19-1:21 (fast, part at ?) * bg square lead 1:23-1:24 (fast, part at )) ---- old -------- Final candidate 2 * faded the beginning in better & cut the too long delay tail at the end edit: Some source breakdown. Source use starts at 0:25. The basic building block from the source is the figure that plays at . I've offset it a bit relative to the beat, and used it as the bassline. The blop-blip that starts at 00:39 and evolves to a more proper melody at 0:54 is also based on that figure. The faster figure that plays in the background at 1:26 (and elsewhere) is also based on this figure, and in spirit to the faster figure that plays at the very start of the source (but I think just the first four notes are the same). I think that's all I've used from the source, there's lots of cool material that I skipped/replaced. The bassline plays throughout and much of the melodic material is derived from the same figure. The riff that plays in the breakdown starting at 1:27 is the same thing as the bassline, only now placed on the beat, instead of offbeat like the bassline. Final candidate 1 changes: * more attention to mixing the leads * added a subtle pad and fx'd percussion to fill things out --Eino -- old: WIP: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o534cpxz6flqry1/motion%20sickness%2020120726.mp3 As per sggod89's suggestion, cut put a low pass on the square lead. Maybe should do the same on (most of) the saw too.. I also adjusted the background hums, and put a little reverb on the bass line. All in all pretty small tweaks in the update. I should mix/master this properly and mark it Finished. So I should start learning about proper mixing mastering. (: I do notice that the waveform gets a lot louder in the end where there's tons of leads going all over the place, so that'd probably need some special (levels, eq?) attention. --Eino -- old: WIP: https://www.dropbox.com/s/llhr2cxj3g67cog/motion%20sickness%2020120707.mp3 This is a tweaked version of my PRC220 entry. (In case you have heard that version, I've tweaked the structure a little and improved mixing). Arrangement-wise I've taken the basic 8-note melody/figure and based the bassline on it (I've "shifted" it to the offbeat, rhythmically) and built from there. The title is a bitter one, I would love to play Portal 2 (co-op!!!), but I get motion sickness from the game. I don't have any big ideas how to develop this further, I'm thinking I'll just need to mix/master this properly. I'm aiming to get this posted on OCR. I appreciate any comments on the track in general the recognizability of the source if the sounds sound good enough if there's anything (too) strange going on with the melodies (which are a maybe little wild at times) if the structure feels like a complete piece Thanks in advance & hope you enjoy --Eino

Pretty nice turnout, I don't have time to enter, but I hope I can give the tracks a listen and give a vote. --Eino

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b2o1p8cquxrqvt8/clockwork%20groove%2020120707.mp3 Comments from last time pretty good, and I actually can and should still apply them. I've tweaked the sound since last time and felt like I'd post this for some more comments. I do have things in mind to work on this, but not sure when I will, so I'll put this here for the time being. --Eino