Eino Keskitalo

This is pretty cool. I get a space shooter kind of a vibe. It's also making our 19 months old daughter dance. (: I like the unusual percussion, nice touch. Cool that you're arranging a classic PC game soundtrack too! --Eino

Thanks sggod89! I put the low pass on the square lead, and it didn't seem to hurt, at least. What to do you mean by horns btw, the saw lead? Should I low pass them as well? New WIP: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o534cpxz6f...2020120726.mp3 In addition to square lead, 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

I'll vouch for this one. --Eino

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wkc8uppxe9do6s1/keskitalo-clockwork_groove-20120725.mp3 Textures added. Just started trying out stuff with the idea of adding little synth loop sort of thing to the background (kind of drawing inspiration from Brian Eno on David Bowie's "Heroes") and it turned out to be lots of fun. To me it seems it changed the piece quite a bit, but it was good to take that leap. The intro, while better, probably needs something to be done with the volume levels/fadeins, maybe. Also the main lead probably needs mixing tweaks, it's kind of overpowering/uneven. Turned down the bass a bit and I think that was good. Comments reaaaally appreciated. --Eino

Great thread! Lots of interesting insights. I'm not afraid of writing my crappy music. It's fun. Maybe I'm in denial though, and mistake fear for boredom. I've also finally noticed that when I'm making something and it seems crap at the time, it surprisingly often sounds a lot better the next day. So these days I just keep going instead of giving up. I'm also learning to not be afraid of editing anything I already wrote (I just keep a backup copy/a muted track of the previous version in case I want to go back). --Eino

https://www.dropbox.com/s/15lm1nfpuvddror/keskitalo-clockwork_groove-20120724.mp3 More tweaks to the sound & mixing. I really should do that texture-adding that has been suggested so many times. --Eino

Pretty cool chill-out vibe. The MP3 compression seems to be hurting the sound unless I'm hearing things. The beat is pretty heavy in the intro, I thought its introduction to the piece could be more gradual. I do like the stop-start-stop feel you have with the beat throughout the song. --Eino

Cool track. Very good progressions and build-ups, wind-dows throughout. The judges seemed to make note of the mechanical sequencing, but I thought it added to the enjoyment, especially in the beginning. --Eino

Good stuff! Indeed a pretty good arrangement. I enjoyed the instrumentation as well. The mix sounded a little.. constrained. Like the space the music was happening in was a bit too small. I also thought that the ending was a bit abrupt. Like it only built up to a certain level, and then just ended. Regardless, the piece was enjoyable to listen to, and also, importantly, it had unique character to it. --Eino

I love the sound. It's a little scratchy, which contributes to a sort of an intimate feel. Kind of a chamber music/acoustic session thing. The low strings and some other stuff do sound larger, but do not detract from the mood. I really liked the shift midway in tempo and mood and enjoyed the free/floating rhythm of the piece in general. --Eino

Super nice and super chill. The length definitely adds to the strength of the track. Hearing this made me grab all the other mv tracks from OCR right now. --Eino

Really nice work! The arrangement has a great forward drive I think, it's exciting to listen to. The integration of the different themes is indeed well done, very natural. I'm not very familiar with the source, and it seems seamless to me. The sequencing maybe sounded.. both a little off-rhythm and mechanical at the same time. It's well above the bar for my tastes though. The piano and harp runs at the end were the parts where the mechanical feel hurt the track most, the wind-down at the end was the weakest part of the track overall. I also felt it wasn't as well written as the previous sections (though the mechanical feel might have contributed to this perception). It was still all right though, and I enjoyed the overall structure of the piece, the longish wind-down included. Good stuff all in all! --Eino

I kinda wish people submitted their pieces even if they were dissatisfied with them, I know I certainly do --Eino

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