Rozovian

Did not do the research. Really didn't. neblix, stop making broad statements that are completely wrong. I second this. We can only tell you what we use and don't, and why. We don't know what'll suit your workflow and style. That's what demos are for.

If you can play guitar, a guitar will be useful. If you can play keyboards, keyboards will be useful. If you can play bagpipes, bagpipes will be useful, and for any of this, microphones and audio interfaces are also useful. "Superior" virtual instruments are either sold separately for a few hundred per instrument, or in packages for over a thousand bucks. And of course, you'll need hard drive space to store them, upper memory to load them into, and processing power to use them. And a compatible music program. Same with the effects required to process them "superiorly", except the memory part. Then there's stuff like a well-built recording room, interference-free electrical wiring, real orchestra/band/choir. These things don't fit in my room, so I decided against getting them. But everything you need to do decent music can be found for free or cheap enough for most ppl to manage.

Hard to get a grip on the rhythm at the beginning. One of the bass notes seems like it's a semi-tone off, and it gets kind'a annoying when it's repeated. Bass drum is a bit weak, bass is a little loud. The whole track seems a little slow. An increase of 2 bpm could make a huge difference. Bring out the choir more during the emptier parts. Nice track. Not gonna look up the source, but I think it's got potential. You've got a decent arrangement, nice dynamics... Good luck.

Hi and welcome. Here's the introduction thread. I recommend you post something here, so you get an idea of where you are in regards to ocremix' standards. Not everything gets accepted to the site, but you can post any vgm remix in this forum for feedback by other remixers and listeners.

That's a pretty massive low end, both the bass drum and the bass are crazy loud. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't really fit the soft sound the rest of the instrumentation seems to be going for. There's also some compression problems resulting from them, You'd do well to bring down both of them, bass drum 5 dB, bass drum maybe up to 10 dB. Not kidding. If it gets too weak, just turn it back up until it's ok. At current levels tho, they're pushing the compression threshold and screwing with overall track volume. Transition at 1:12 is a bit too abrupt. Electric guitar is too fake, the acoustic one isn't good but I'm not as concerned about that one. perhaps some cool organic synths would be better. Some percussive filtered thing for the acoustic, some nice, sustained/slowly decaying thing for the electric. Just a suggestion. There's a few places where the electric sounded more real, albeit poorly performed and/or recorded. It's not gonna work like that. You've got a cool groove going, and some nice melodies, but they don't really sit right with each other. Some additional rhythmic elements to tie them together is a possible solution, changing the rhythm of the melodies to fit the groove better is another. I'm not very familiar with source, and am too lazy to look it up. The melody 4 minutes in is clearly source tho. This is a cool arrangement, but it's a bit of work until the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Some of the parts need some touching up, too. Keep it up, Halo needs more remixes, and this could make a great remix.

We're teaching newbs that synthesizer=keyboard? No.

If you have both mac and win, GarageBand is a nice place to start. You should already have it, it's easily expanded with free Audio Unit components, and your GB projects can be loaded in its big brother Logic when the limitations start to hit you. On windows, Mixcraft is a good beginner's program pretty much like GB, and like GB it will likely limit you later on. It doesn't have a compatible big brother last time I checked. Most remixers use FL Studio, which is Windows only. They all have their individual strengths and weaknesses, and are usually suited for different workflows. Cubase is cross platform, but will likely take a while to get into. Reason is more of an instrument than a DAW (digital audio workstation), but some remixers use it as their primary tool and make some decent mixes, Willrock's one of them. Other software ppl here use include Ableton Live, Sonar, Reaper, Pro Tools, and probably Digital Performer. Check out more opinions about music software in this thread. And welcome to ocr.

*Sibelius Here's Cubase's midi editors, including a score editor.

They're iirc both Native Instruments' sampler formats, used in the Kontakt sampler. In other words, you need Kontakt or a compatible sampler to play them. Ignoring the nks/nki, you could just load up the samples the nks/nki file uses in another sampler. There are some converters you could try, too, dunno how useful they are. If you don't have the budget to get Kontakt, you could have a look at cheaper/free alternatives, like using free soundfonts and vsti. It won't get you the same quality but you can still get your remixes good enough to be posted on this site. It's been done. Google can help you more. Welcome to ocr.

The rest has kind'a been covered, but I'm surprised nobody cried medley-itis. Source A, source B, source C. Needs better transitions, organic blending of the sources, a song structure more than a medley structure. Oh and when you've got a repetitive part that seems to hold the track back, use that for dynamics, let it build during its repetitions, let it build towards the part that follows. The sound is ok-ish, at least for now. Focus on the arrangement. It's easier to write when you don't have a thousand and one tracks and effects that clog up your computer's processing power and hog its memory.

The intro bell is ugly and loud. The rest sounds like it'll be a decent-sounding dance mix. Good sound choices, good rhythms, transitions, etc.. Distorted bass is probably too loud tho. Dunno tho source well enough, but if the square/pwm wave thing is verbatim and the only source you're using it's not interpreted enough. if there's more or if the melody's interpreted I can't tell. Whatever. It's a good start, keep it up.

Should be mixed louder and more clear. The reverb you're using on the piano isn't sounding right, it just makes the piano sound distant and poorly recorded. Longer reverb time and a more dry signal would make it more clear. Some eq separation would also improve it, you have a lot of tracks fighting for attention in the mids. Bass drum is probably the only thing that's loud enough, and its attack is probably screwing with your normalization level or something. Use a limiter to cut its loud transients and get it down to a more manageable level. Basically, clip its peaks with an effect to it's not messing up the volume for the whole track. Ending is too abrupt, like those strings don't have any reverb or anything. Some dynamic expression automation would improve the strings further. Mostly technical pointers here. Try to understand everything, and fix what you agree with. Source is there, at least the main melody from source. Arrangement sounds ok on a single listen and quick comparison to source, but don't take my word for it. Keep mixing, I hear you've got cool ideas.

Too loud and end s up being overcompressed to make everything fit. I love that really deep bass, and the overall sound has a cool lounge feel to it. Lead guitar is a cool idea but just doesn't sound clear and expressive enough. The pad and hihats are difficult to listen to because the other instrument keep pushing the compression ceiling, they sound like they could sound ok in a more balanced mix. Balance your mix! A minute of silence at the end? Source link?

Waay to loud. WAAY too loud. Arrangement is pretty cool, but the sound needs to be more balanced and controlled, it's currently overcompressed _and_ clipping.

Lead guitar sound is too loud, you've got some other level edits you need to do to balance things out more. Snare sounds too mundane for the soundscape imo. 1:48 tempo change is a bit jarring and comes without warning. Again, too loud lead, this time the organ. 2:50 breakdown is nice, but the melody there could be more humanized, sounds stiff. You've got a really loud resonant frequency in the outro, you should probably eq that one down. Overall, cool and unusual sound, but pretty repetitive arrangement. Some small technical fixes and it'd be worth submitting, but I dunno if you'd get it YESd.

http://ocremix.org/forums/member.php?u=34983 Review shoes!? Post was sort'a on topic, so, it could be a human spammer.

lol Anyway, it sounds too simple for ocr imo. Dunno how the original is, but my guess is that it's too conservative. 2:XX Okay, scratch that. It just has a really long intro, with too simple sounds. To me, it it could just as well start at 1:55. You should edit your title so it says metal. You'll attract the metal remixers that way, they'll be able to provide more accurate metal-related criticism. Guitars sounds ok to me, maybe some phasing issues, not sure if that's intentional but it's imo not a good idea to use. The non-guitar sounds need work. Drums need to be louder, or stronger, or something. The rest of the instrumentation is too simple. It works to have clean, simple, high bells for some of the track, but not for the entire track, and really not for 2 minutes of intro. leaving out the intro and weird pitched-down outro things leaves you with 1 minute of "body" for this remix. That's kind'a on the short side. You could spice up the intro with more interesting, more organic and dynamic sounds, shorten it a bit and get a 2 minute remix which if done right is ok for ocr. Whatever works for you. Good luck with it, and welcome to ocr.

You could change up the bass writing a lot if you have a penchant for jazzy groovy bass writing. If you don't, some basic rhythmic variations on it would be an improvement. Just don't change all of it to that, use it as a way of building the track. Maybe start with a basic rhythm and let it grow into something advanced. Or start with short notes, save the long ones for the "big" parts. idunno, it's up to you. Soundwise, it's improved. Not gonna look up the old version, but from what I remember it's an improvement. Can't say exactly in what areas, but it feels a lot better. Could still use some variation in the sound, bringing in some new instruments, switching parts around, or just moving the melody up an octave or something sometimes would give it a little more variation. I'm personally not fond of voice clips so whatever those things were I'm gonna complain about them. I don't like them. there. Could also use a more clear dynamic emphasis on the important parts and de-emphasized softer parts. Your outro part felt like it was just stuck on the same level as before, not closing the track. The rest of the track could probably use some cues as to where the track is, dynamically and in its progression, but that part stood out to me. I know I do meandering tracks so hearing others' meander doesn't usually bother me, but this one is either too long or too meandering. Felt like it went on for too long before the half-tempo breakdown part, and the part that follows should be bigger, the grand finale, the climax of the track, and it jsut feels like yet another iteration of the main part. That's some thoughts that come to mind when listening. Understand everything, fix what you agree with.

Mixed really soft. If it's clipping you're afraid of, get a decent limiter, output as wav/aif, then normalize in Audacity or something, then convert to mp3. Not familiar with the source, and I'm not gonna google Byrne to find it. Too lazy for that. Kind'a stiff sequencing and simplistic piano writing. Really stiff guitar or whatever that is. Needs more dynamics, human touches, stuff like that. Also, the guitar and piano easily blend into each other, some subtle panning and eq separation might help with that. Also, what's with the screaming in the intro? Doesn't really set the tone for the track well. It's probably a good start (or a midi rip, idunno), but take these crits and make it better. That way you'll get better, and that way everything will be better.

The sounds themselves seem passable (most of them), but the overall sound isn't. Lead melody played on a really simple synth sound, with all this other cool distorted stuff stuff going on... I'm not seeing how it could work with that pairing. Some of your sound choices are a bit puzzling, like the 1:06 noise thing and the 1:14 bass thing. Also it's too conservative, and kind'a random. There's no real sense of progression, not much of a forward momentum or drive, seems more like a medley of different versions of the same thing not really leading anywhere. Seems like you sampled the original and changed the timing, plus did some slicing towards the end. You'd probably have to get the melody on a different instrument, something more appropriate for the rest of the track if you're aiming on getting it posted on ocr. The timing of the delays throw off my sense of rhythm during the pauses (the intro sounds terrible when I'm not counting beats with my foot). Not sure the instruments fit together rhythmically much at all. There's other points where the effects, be they delays, reverbs or whatever, make the whole thing muddy. 0:19, altho part of the intro, is the best example of an out-of-control delay effect muddying up the lows. So no, not good enough for ocremix, but I hope this gives you some idea of what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. There's lots of cool ideas in here, but you'd need to build around the source instead of just injecting it into the different parts - that way you'll get a more directed arrangement. You've got some cool ideas (and some ideas that are... let's use the word "funny"), you just gotta structure the track better and avoid some mixing pitfalls. Keep it up.

Okay now, how about we ignore superjoe for a while and comment on the remix instead?

I'd advice against it too, but not until you've learned to work with chords. If you've got a real instrument, use that. Learn these chords, then start using other chords and learn which ones work, and in what context they work. Been doing that teaching myself piano the past few months, I've learned a lot about modulating that way. If you don't play for real, just use random notes in your sequencer, see which ones sound good together. Study the suggestions you get from the generator, but learn to work independent of it.

Yeah it applies. Why wouldn't it? No hurry, tho the sooner the better. As long as we get them before the album is released, it's cool. Doesn't have to be long and detailed, it's not a resume, just some info on who the project's contributors are. A word of warning: if we don't get a bio and stuff from you we'll just make crap up. -- Also, updated the list on the first post. Tooka track down, put two more up. I know, it looks as if we're progressing in the wrong direction (which technically is regressing), but it's just a couple of my own tracks that I can finish if nobody else completes their remixes of the tracks first. That said, ppl, finish your tracks. Still lots of tracks sitting on the threshold and should just lean forward a little. My tracklist looks silly with so many tracks in an _almost_ finished state.

No crying! Make music instead. Unless crying helps.

First post in this thread. Read it.