kainvinosec

God's Birth (after doing so much work to it I figure it warranted a name change) made it into the "To Be Judged" category. Thank you all for helping me out with it so much. Here's hoping it get's accepted eh? QA: The drums were all sequenced with Anvil Studio and are MIDI. There isn't any way (that I know of) to change how they sound when hit repititiously. As far as the solo goes it is supposed to represent chaos. In other words it is supposed to sound like absolute pandemonium. Let me explain... The person I did this arrangement for has a way of coming up with his own visualizations when he listens to music. I kept that in mind while I was doing my arrangement. At first I wanted him to envision the battle that this music was originally written for and how it starts out with Sephiroth and the feeling of 'oh sh*t' when you first see him in his bizarro form. Then the music kicks in and the fight starts and its pretty evenly matched. Just jamming out to the music, jamming out in battle. Then it switches to the main Sephiroth part towards the center which would represent Sephiroth beating the crap out of Cloud and crew. After a bit of impending doom, I wanted him to imagine our heroes just charging in and basically going for a desperation attack (to borrow a term from FFVI) which leaves both ends fighting for their lives. The rhythm section here is playing an instrumental allusion to One Winged Angel so the solo represents the heroes just going bloody nuts on him. Then of course Sephiroth comes out stronger and the battle resumes as it was in the beginning but overall its just Sephiroth finishing them off as the outro cues up and Cloud loses the last of his HP. - Gameover. Its kind of an odd visualization, but my friend rather enjoyed it when he heard it and he totally got it. So, that was worth the remix in and of itself. Honestly after listening to it I just thought I'd try to post it up here because he and I both really enjoy listening to a lot of the songs on this site so I thought it might be neat if his suggestion and my ideas made it up. I've learned a lot from the people in this forum, but whether it is declined or accepted I won't be doing anymore work to it. I consider it to be finished now, but I guarantee you that my future projects will all be a bit higher quality thanks to everyone here and who knows... Maybe I'll end up doing some more remixes in the future? This one certainly proved educational enough to warrant another try... Thanks everyone.

Okay, so I spent some time on the individual tracks. Here's what I did... 1. Raised the highs on the snare + toms + cymbals very slightly (they're on the same track, it'd take forever to just raise the highs on the cymbals). 2. Lowered the volume and the highs on the bass drum. 3. Lowered the lows on the rhythm and lead guitars. 4. Raised the lows slightly on the bass guitar. 5. Added a brightening lead line over top of the 'sephiroth' section in the middle to even out the volume levels before and after the guitar solo section. I'm hoping that will clear some things up. I also (for time's sake) omitted the piano intro and outro. I'll add them back in once I have the final version. Now I have two new versions. The first is this new mix, but mastered the same way the second version was. www.embracingfate.com/vinosec/ortusdeus3.mp3 The second is this new mix, but mastered with the compressor in T-Racks. www.embracingfate.com/vinosec/ortusdeus4.mp3 Please compare 2 and 3 to see what changes I've made in the mix (and if I need to make anymore). And check 4 to see if I achieved my target volume level without any problems? The reason I'm looking for help on this is because I'm about to start a professional project and when it comes time for the mastering I want to make sure that I give the guy the best quality available to me. Y'know? Plus, I'd really like to be up on this site somewhere... Thanks for your help everyone. I really appreciate it.

Thanks Tensei! Unfortunately that didn't help too much. Best advice in the thread though. So I did what I could with it... I did another master of it. The problem is that when I reduce the compression as much as you guys are implying I need to the volume levels are just significantly too low. Its mastered with nothing going above -1 decibel. Light compression. The volume level doesn't even come close to what it was before though, which for professional reasons is exactly where I need the volume to be. Perhaps you could give another listen and tell me if there is any way to boost the volume beyond digital zero with massive compression without losing quality? I listened to your song too btw. Very nice, but its volume was literally the same as mine. Any ideas? www.embracingfate.com/vinosec/ortusdeus2.mp3

Its just heavily compressed though. I mean when I listen to it I can't hear any distortion and there are no peaks that go above digital zero (compressed to .3db below). As far as the programs I'm using; Adobe Audition for recording all live instruments (except the drums, they are midi sequenced in Anvil Studio and their colors changed with Synthfont), Wavepad for editing and T-Racks for mastering. Listen to any of the Black Mages tracks from the Advent Children OST (Those Who Fight Further, Chase On The Highway, etc. etc.) and tell me what the difference is?

Its not really a work-in-progress so much as it was just rejected for something I don't understand. Apparently there is too much clipping and distortion? Which, aside from what's supposed to be there I don't hear any problems, but maybe I'm missing something. Thought I would see if anyone could listen and let me know what might have got it rejected? Thanks www.embracingfate.com/vinosec/ortusdeus.mp3