Rozovian
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Posts posted by Rozovian
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Remixers, we still want track notes and bios and things like that. We have some. From surprisingly few of you.
And if you're concerned that we might be mastering and including the wrong version of your track, get in touch asap, preferably with a wav of the track. Long-running, big projects managed by amateurs, sometimes have problems getting the right file in the right folder. So that has probably happened here at least once. 'Nuf said.
Next project I'm running will require wips and wavs and things to be properly marked with versions and dates and stuff. And all communication consolidated to one place/format. And a much smaller project. Like, three tracks total.
- zykO and Sagnewshreds
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Quick response, don't have my good headphones with me. I'll elaborate on the things I don't need another listen for, and get to the rest at another time.
The drum kit's panning is wide. That's usually how drum kits are panned, but it breaks any illusion of being in the same space as the orchestra when the hihat is coming from off to the side and other elements are coming from the center or somewhere else. A drumkit that is physically as wide as an orchestra is ridiculous, and this panning suggests that's what you've got in the track. I realize I phrased that crit poorly. Should have emphasized that it's about the stereo panning. If you have a stereo widener, see if it has the option to reduce stereo width. Don't overdo it. I recommend using headphones for this.
Speaking of headphones, the bass rumble is horrible on decent headphones. I don't mind a subtle low end presence, but it gets way too loud for my liking. I recommend you find a standard listening level that you use both for the main mixing work, and for listening to your reference tracks. The effects of the low end are often not obvious on low listening levels, so make sure the lows in your reference tracks sounds good on the level before settling on it.
And speaking of reference tracks, those will be useful for figuring out how loud, bright and prominent percussion elements et al. should be. I know it's difficult to recreate the sound of a different orchestra, especially if you don't have the same sample library (or the real orchestra and venue and recording setup...). Still, for the relative balance between instruments and reverb, between instruments themselves, and the frequency balance of each element, good reference tracks are very useful.
When it comes to the many small timestamps, I think those might stand out more on the aforementioned reference listening level on headphones. Some of them stand out a lot, others just enough to bother me. I can list exactly how each of them bother me, but for your own critical listening development, it might be better to listen to the track yourself, on headphones and with appropriate level, and try to identify what I've pointed to. Your call.
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On one hand, you do come off as a bit rude. I get that you don't mean to. I think it's because of the terse responses, and the seeming unwillingness to take the feedback and try to understand it. My own attitude to feedback is to try to understand everything, and to apply what you agree with. E.g. why did I list 2:31 in the timestamp list?
On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with asking for elaboration, clarification, specifics, further advice, and whatnot. It's easy to get caught up in our own understanding of something and to explain it in our own way. When we aren't being clear on something, do point it out. The goal is to give you good feedback. If we're not doing that, let us know.
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It's not about improving the original, it's about putting your own spin on the source. And there's a difference between that, and making something new _on top of_ a source. I'm just not sure where to draw that line. There's a fair amount of playing with the lead melody, so I think this is in the clear. Sorry to make a good portion of your feedback thread about this, YB.
Also, the ostinato is annoying. Not sure if that's on purpose.
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Oh great, six minutes. Why can't people just make it easy for evaluators (and judges) and make Protodomish 2-minute pieces?
eval:
There's some balance issues. Just before the slowdown, there's some really loud brass honks, before that, some bright and exposed percussion elements.
I don't mind the slowdown of the Lavender Town parts, but that rumbling noise is annoying. It's ok to be subtle, you know. It also eats a bit of headspace.
There's a few notes and parts that seem off, usually in loudness, but sometimes articulation or timing. You should look into those parts: 0:45, 1:00, 1:06, 1:19, 2:03, 2:21, 2:31, 2:44, 2:57, 3:05, 3:30, 3:46, 4:21, 4:39, 5:27, 5:46, 6:00, 6:04.
I'm not sure a traditionally panned rock kit fits into any illusion of an orchestra. You might want to put the rock kit in one place, rather than stretching as wide as the orchestra itself.
I'll let someone better versed in orchestral music complain about any orchestration problems. I think these samples could be made to sound better. The right reverb and reverb settings, the right panning, the right levels and eq... To me, it comes down to mixing, little things about loudness of notes, and I'm okay with just about everything else. Almost.
Pet peeve: sound effects. I'm not sure what the sound effects are supposed to do for the track. Haven't played any proper Pokémon in at least a decade, so I don't know remember what the sound effects mean in-game. Catching a pokémon? Here they don't fit the sound of the track, regardless of any meaning they might have to regular players (or those with better memory than I have). Imitating them with the orchestral sounds might work better. I'm not sure what to recommend. They stand out, that's for sure.
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I wouldn't say there's no oomph at all, it works quite well actually. I would expect a louder crash or a bit of a pause just before hitting, but it works fine as-is, imo.
eval:
Yeah, it's got issues with frequency overlap muddying up the track's mids. There's also part of the arpeggio where the middle (the one most repeated) cuts through better than the others, making it stand out a bit too much, so it sounds like that's a set of random off-beat 8th notes.
I'm not a fan of the higher-pitch lead. It's too simple. It's not expressive enough, doesn't do anything interesting with the melody either. Either of those things would help make the track more interesting. At 1:42 I'm distracted from the melody that enters because there are so many other things bleeping around in roughly the same frequency range. You could clean that up with different mixing, different sound design, or different writing. And I think you'll have to do at least one of those.
There's a lot of panning going on around that part, too. It's a little annoying, but if the panned track was softer, it shouldn't be a problem.
The ending is abrupt. You just stop playing new notes. There are many ways to end a track, but justing stopping like this is not one of them. Rarely, anyway. It often works to end the track on the first chord in the chord sequence. In this case, minor scale, you could end on i, III, or possibly VI (first chord, which is minor, or third of sixth chords, which are major). I would recommend the first.
Other parts of the track similarly end with instruments just dropping out. That's something worth looking into. As is repetition. I don't think this is too repetitive for ocr, but I think it's needlessly repetitive regardless. You can do a lot to vary up a track, like having an alternate set of chords for some of the repetitions, an alternate take on the melody for some of its loops, even just a change in the articulation of the lead can change things up enough.
You've got pretty good drums and nice buildups, and the overall structure of the track works well. You've still got a bit of work left to do on this track before I think it would pass the panel, but you're off to a good start, with all the important elements in place. Nice work. Keep at it.
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Them tags, yo.
Quick comment: Cool, but I think your low end needs work. The bass drum doesn't seem like the right fit, and the bass muddies up the whole track. The drums overall lack drive, and I think it's because of poor interplay between the bass drum and the bass. I'd try replacing the bass drum, possibly with a processed acoustic kick, and tweak the bass to be tighter, with a faster envelope and possibly side-chained to the bass drum. I'd also try to EQ them both so they leave space in the frequency range for any overlap.
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Welcome to ocr!
I'm skeptical as to this passing the panel. The sounds are raw and exposed, the 0:57 transition comes in quite abruptly, there's imo an overreliance on that simple synth introduced at 0:10, and I'm not sure what to make of the dubstep bass and the drum rhythms. I think this track contains all the elements necessary for a really cool track, but it could use some mixing work and some more thought put into when each part enters, what it does, and why. We'll see what the panel thinks of it.
It might also interest you to know that the source you've used was a remix itself, the original being from Super Metroid. It's the remixer's prerogative to decide which source to attribute a mix to, but it's usually good to know if the same source has been used in other games. Sometimes those other games' versions do something different with them, something that might inspire you.
In any case, welcome to ocr, good luck with the panel, cool remix, and feel free to post here for feedback, criticism, advice, if you need it.
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Let me rewrite your first post:
What I really dont understand is how some people will always mention how a piece sound poorly mixed. Yes, bad mixing can sound unfocused or flat. But even when the song is really good, people still comment on how it doesnt sound "mixed well". But what yall need to understand is most people cant mix a song really well, or have access to really good listening equipment or a good effects library. If try to make everything "well mixed" by hand, it will take hours and hours and hold up song writing. The only way to fix this is by buying a flat-response studio monitor, and have at least 2 years of audio engineering under your belt, but most people starting out dont have that skill.
I mean, if you listen to some songs made by Nintendo, you'll see they have the same problems as most other music made on a computer. And no one cares about that. I think we shouldnt focus to much on mixing instruments as long as the music is not repetitive.
The same could be said about any aspect of music. Yes, it's nice if the song is good. Yes, people don't always care about the sequencing or mixing or whatever. But no, that doesn't mean it's not a problem, or that we shouldn't point it out and encourage people to solve it. Especially when that's the purpose of the post-your-music boards. You post there for feedback. If the feedback says your music is mechanical to the point where it bothers your listeners, then you should do something about it, right?
I know it's a bit of a slog sometimes to learn and improve, especially if you already think your music is pretty good. Same for music that you hear good things in, and don't hear those bad things people are talking about. It sounds like a non-issue, because it doesn't matter to you. But as you get better at this stuff, it will matter to you. I don't listen to my first remixes on the site, because I hear so much wrong with them. I'm sitting on half a dozen otherwise finished mixes because there are small annoying things I'm not happy with, thing I know will bother me later if I don't deal with them somehow.
I don't think the music needs to be realistic, but it needs to have an illusion of performance. My basses are often just quantized to a groove. That's enough illusion of performance for them, most of the time. But that's in mostly electronic music. Other sounds need other levels of performance illusion. That illusion of performance provides groove, dynamics, emotion beyond what the notes themselves provide. And that's important.
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Quick comment, not eval:
If we strip away the non-source stuff, there wouldn't be much left, and what would be left wouldn't be very interesting. I think this is a mix built out of adding things on top of the source, rather than changing and adapting the source to a new context. My guess is a no, but I haven't studied this approach in posted mixes to see if there are any, and what makes those mixes work and not others. I think I'd need to do that before I can eval this properly. And even then, my assessment might be that it wouldn't work on ocr. But it's difficult to say.
Also, creepy twisted friggin' voice clips. It's successfully creepy, for sure.
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Quick comment:
Piano and snare are both very loud, the piano seems to push the compressor a lot. And it's still rather mechanical sounding. Reading my post from before, it seems a few of those crits still apply, while others don't. Go over my crits from before and see what still applies. I'll give you an eval on your next update.
This is still / again marked for eval. If you don't get an eval in a couple of weeks after bumping+tagging, just PM an evaluator or two to remind us we've promised to evaluate stuff.
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This appears to have fallen between the cracks. Do you still want an eval of it?
Everyone, if you add an eval tag some time after the last post in a thread, you should also bump your track so it's easier for evaluators to find. It might be why we missed this one. Also, I suggest you name your thread something informative, usually the name of the game, possibly specific track, remix genre, or something along those lines. It's useful for listeners.
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eval
Overall, I like this. The synthscape is pretty. Not sure these drums and synths are the best combination, as it sounds like a plain ol' rock kit in an otherwise fully electronic track. The later, more electronic drums don't seem like the best combo either, whether due to mixing or just choice of samples. But that's your decision, your sound design. It's odd, but I don't think it's a problem.
Skryp's right about how sparse it is. I don't terribly mind, because it's great background music this way, but that doesn't mean it can't have things to follow when listening more closely. The source has a lead melody you can use, even if you chop it down to the most minimal take on it. There's a little bit of that around 3:10 for a bit, but there could be more. It doesn't have to be a lead in your track, but it would help with the sparse content if it was there at all.
I don't think it'd be rejected, but I know there's plenty of things, little things, that bother me. How the track just stops at 0:14 and 0:45. The aforementioned drum issue. How loud your lead is compared to everything else, especially considering how little it actually does in the track. How the bass coming in around 2 minutes in doesn't last very long in the track. Things like that.
Cool stuff.
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Dude, your track isn't mastered for the album. If its levels, frequency balance or other things about it aren't in line with all the other tracks, and/or if there's too little/too much silence at the end of the tracks in regards to the following track on the album, then it needs to be mastered. I don't think you seriously think mastering equals loudening, nor that loudening is the only thing mastering is about, so why suggest that?
Also, we had a thing in the first post about not sharing your tracks. Not cool, 2011 Brandon.
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I tried reading the thread, made it a few pages and then gave up. Screw it. I'll just add my two cents:
If it can be clearly shown how much money is being made, whence, and where it goes, and thus that there's no profit (as opposed to revenue) made from it, I'm cool with YT ads. Both on my remixes, and on any I listen to. I'd want to be notified of it first, though.
Regarding albums, I'd say director's prerogative. Makes things easier to manage. I'm cool with the sd3 project having ads on its remix vids. But not on the trailer, because it's essentially an ad itself. And I feel the same way about other albums' vids.
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AF, you make a good point. We'll just cancel and let the remixers release their tracks on their own. That'll be best for everyone.
Seriously though, I'm sorry it's taken this long. I wouldn't have taken over the project had I known how much work, how much difficulty it involved. I joined, way back when, to help out, but I ended up in charge. It's been a great learning process, but I would rather have learned this from someone else's mistakes than from my own. I know it's been frustrating to wait, especially when we've talked about how the big, ostensibly difficult parts have been done for years. I know. Don't you think it's been frustrating for us too? Especially when we know exactly how it's our fault that it's not released yet?
Life happens. We didn't give up on this despite its glacial pace and a general lack of interest from the community (with much appreciated exceptions). We (project and ocr staff) are looking at a specific date for release. We know we're being vague about specifics. This time we know how far from release we are. This time we have a deadline. This time it's real.
Your choice: be annoyed, or get hype.
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It's not good if it's boring, DMT.
I hoped I wouldn't agree, but it _is_ a little boring. The drums, the thick synths... it's the same intensity for most of the song. It could have more variation in dynamics. That comes from both the writing, the sound design, and the mix. For example, you can leave the rest the same and just take the drums to half-tempo. Or you can drop out the pads for a bit. You can filter out all the bass for a bit. You can have a big delay-y breakdown at some point. Or any combination of these and other variations. It keeps the track from getting boring when things happen in the dynamics. I don't think the track needs a tempo increase, but something as subtle as 1-2 BPM more can make a big difference in how the track feels. That's in case changes to the dynamics don't do enough.
I like the general sound design. I'm a sucker for old synth sounds. The one exception might be the lead synth, which gets a little whiny at times. You could use a second lead for some parts, for variation.
Cool stuff.
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Welcome to ocremix.
It's hard to tell on laptop speakers, but the track sounds like it's mixed a bit too bright. Do some comparisons with good reference tracks, just to be safe. It's maybe a little too long. There's some repetition you could probably get rid of, just don't overdo it. And is it supposed to end at 4:50? I think you accidentally included that last bit.
Nice retro stuff. I'm digging it.
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Welcome to ocremix.
This is a lovely cover. I like how you handled both the delicate and soft feel of the first have as well as the rock ballad feel. I'm not familiar with the source, but there are moments in the cover that remind me of some tracks from the Mana series. You make me want to check out the game just for the soundtrack. Cool stuff.
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I like the new take on the lead melody.
Structurally, this seems to be composed of a handful of distinct elements: the intro bell, the minor key pads, the drums, the lead melody synth, the effect synths, the oboe-like thing, and the ending backing synth. For the most parts, these things all do the same thing whenever they're playing. That makes this feel like something pasted together rather than something written. Having more interplay between elements, eg that the backing synth goes stab-like and the drums follow the stab rhythm for the duration, or that the drums do more of a fill before the track transitions to the next part, eg the B part of the lead melody (or C part of the source?).
The sound design is generally sparse, but that could work. Quality isn't about having many track, but about using all the tracks well regardless of their number. I don't think you're doing that. Not yet anyway. In part because I hear some weird, clashing choices when it comes to key and scales. In part because of the interplay issue mentioned above. In part because the mix could use some balancing so the intro bell isn't so loud compared to everything else.
I don't really mind the previous version's delay in the intro. Maybe because I use it all the time, so I'm used to it. And I know the source. Slimy's not wrong, but there are solutions besides changing the delay timing. You could use some one-shot effects or an additional instrument to indicate the beat (without having an actual beat there). You could use two delay buses with different timings. And other options. You have many options. Figure out what suits your track the best.
This is from a quick listen on laptop speakers. I'm a sucker for a good metroid track, so I try to drop a line whenever there's one on the feedback board. This one sounds a bit like my early stuff. Keep working on it.
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Always fun to see someone playing the parts. The video and audio doesn't seem entirely synched, but that's not so important here.
I'm not a fan of the guitar tone. It's a bit whiny, and seems off-key sometimes. I like the industrial sound here, the combination of sounds and aesthetics from different genres. Well done.
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I think I could echo Chimpazilla's comments on your last remix here: nice orchestration, some issues being convincing with the instrumentation. More dynamics, some subtle EQ work to give things a bit more space in their own frequency range, and you should have a really nice remix on your hands. Cool stuff.
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Nothing since April? Wow. We ought to get this board in gear. Everyone comment on something that doesn't have many comment, pronto!
This might be a little overly EQd, a bit too in-your-face for something that's otherwise rather chill. I'm no fan of the choice of bass, but I've never quite liked that type of bass anyway, so it's not this track's problem, really. I'm a sucker for a nice 6/8 track. There's some really cool melodies and sound design elements in here. Cool stuff, dude.
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This could work as a downtempo big beat thing, or as something lighter and more chill. Right now it's its own thing, which is fine too, though I can't quite grasp the idea for it. Cool stuff.
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It's a nice track, and seems to work well in 3/4. For improvement, I'd look into the note velocities to make sure the tracks enter smoothly and that the entrance of a new part, be it strings or just piano bit, is nice and smooth (or nice and dramatic, where appropriate). This sounds more sequenced than performed. if performed, you might want to look into how responsive your piano instrument is to different velocities as well as not quantize it so aggressively. If sequenced, you might want to humanize it more (and I mean humanize, not just subtly randomize). Cool stuff, keep at it.
Wanna get started
in General Discussion
Posted
Basic music theory isn't the same thing as formal music theory. You can learn this stuff by messing around with the program, trying to recreate the music you like to listen to, following guides and tutorials, and through getting feedback on the music you make. "Music theory" sounds daunting and complicated to a lot of people. It's really just a system of explaining why some things sound good. If you can make something sound good, you know music theory. At least some of it.
Knowing how to play an instrument is 0% necessary. But it helps. It makes learning faster, it's useful for working out melodies and developing ideas, and it teaches you the capabilities and limitations of the instrument.
Get FL, or REAPER, or some other music software, and start messing around with it. Make notes, make sound, and see where that'll take you. We have some guides and other threads that can point you in the right direction when it comes to this stuff, too. Welcome to ocr.