Rozovian

A DAW is a digital audio workstation, meaning it's a complete toolset containing sequencer, samplers/synths, and mixing tools. Reaper's sort'of free because it's fully functional without paying for it, and it's cheap to buy a non-professional license for it. The pros all started from somewhere too. Remix for fun, learn the tools, see what you can do. Fix the problems you can hear, and you'll improve fast. Even faster if you post your works here and let others pick them apart so you know what you need to fix. Also, play your works in a playtlist with "pro remixers", see how they compare.

ParagonX9's Double Dragon remix might work. I recently discovered it, been playing it a lot lately. For bass, take this remix by some n00b. Not saying it has drums enough, tho.

Program to compose music? You might want to have a look at Reaper a sort'of free DAW. Download it fully functional, no 30-day trial thing, no features missing. Then have a look through the free resources in out ReMixing forum... and google. Read about remixing. Learn to listen critically to music, listening for problems, and thinking about how your could solve them. Keyboard-only remixing probably won't get you far. You can work on your tracks, make 'em pretty good (like Vidilian's works), but I say you need a DAW to do ocremix-passable remixing.

No deadline set atm. Let me know which track you want, and show me a wip of it within a week or so. Might be a good idea to PM me about the style and genre and approach, etc. you're going for first. Speaking of which, there are people who would have failed most deadlines had we set (I mean enforced) any. We will be making their tracks available if these remixers fail to reply within... a month. Maybe. Couple of weeks. Depends on whether or not we like what we've heard. edit: ok, got it. It's yours. Don't worry too much about that old genre restriction thing. Just don't make it too artificial and glitchy sounding.

A little full of ourselves, aren't we? Snap, I remember your critique of my Ridley wip. You concisely, accurately and undiplomatically stated the execution was terrible. You offered no detailed crits, no specifics, none of that, meaning your critique was as useful as one of those "u sux"-type ones. I recall you being more helpful on #ocrwip, but knowing the general attitude towards HoboKa, I have a feeling your feedback could be summed up as another "u sux"-type comment. What irc log?

Like jigsaw puzzles. But not IKEA stuff. Also, I also had a 3rd party memory card for the cube, it still works fine.

Wow, Tindeck's really changed. And not for the better, too much junk on the download page. Anyway, lazy-ass reviewer, no source comment. Hah, nice transition. Was jsut about to say that nothing stood out as being weird, but that was weird. Oh, and now it got all synthy. lol But I don't mind any of that, I think it works well. Some of the soloing reminds me of that one Zool song I actually remember (and tried remixing some time ago). All good, imo, might be a bit excessive unless there's source in the soloing. Drums need moar powah. Go 80's with em, use too much reverb on the snare, I think it could work, there's a lot of 80's writing in this anyway. Nice work, bro. Enjoyable, unpredictable, good fun.

Yeah, this is essentially what ocr calls a "midi rip". Take midi, replace instruments, maybe add drums, and voilà! Needs more arranging. Also, it's thin, drums need to stand out more, it needs more bass, it needs a cleaner high frequency range, it could use different instrument choices. Like hewo already suggested, look to other remixes/other music for inspiration. Find some simple chord progression, bassline, concept to build your remix around. Work by writing source into an original arrangement, not taking a midi and trying to change it to be creative enough (much more complicated than writing your own arrangement from scratch). Don't take this the wrong way, we're not dissing your remix. We're just picky about how creative it is. Put it in a playlist with your favorite remixes, see how it compares. Good luck remixing.

Well, if you're planning to get on ocr some day, you should work on rearranging the song, not just switching out instruments and adding things. There's some clipping in here, which is when there's too much volume for the file to handle. This is easily solved by using a Limiter as the last effect ont he master channel. For a first posted remix, this isn't bad, tho. There's a lot you need to learn, but I'll let you work those out for yourself. Read stuff, like zircon's compendium for production, and put this song in a playlist with your favorite remixes, see how they compare. Listen critically, listen for things you can change in your works. Take backups. Don't give up. Good luck.

I want more bass, maybe a slight volume boost. The slow filter attack on the lead is pretty annoying. Besides that, not much to say. This is pretty cool, despite not really being my kind of music. Ending needs some tweaking, but some kind of sudden ending probably works. I can hear the source here. Good work, man.

Trance arrangement, weird samples for trance. Interesting idea, not very good execution. Needs more bass. Needs to have its backing cleaned up, it gets cluttery. There's also some clashing like the solo instrument at 1:50, it clashes when it plays with the rest. Interesting use of percussion. Interesting, but needs work. Good luck.

Bass is a little high, you could drop it an octave. Bass drum and snare could be a little stronger, bass drum sounds weak in the 3:30 area, could punch through better elsewhere too. I can hear the backing used and interpreted well in this, but like M W I want to hear the actual melody from source too. There's a bit too much repetition in this, but if you'd add a good lead on top of what you've got, playing the melody from source, I think the repeition wouldn't be a problem anymore. This was an enjoyable track. Didn't get too repetitive, didn't sound bad anywhere, had clear source connections... I don't think it's ready to be submitted, but it does sound like it could work on ocr. Great work, good luck working on it.

Not gonna listen to three sources. Too lazy. Maybe later. Intro synth need longer release. Pan modulation on the backing... works better when it's not alone like that. The drums could use some more processing, but I think those sample can work. I don't like them much, tho. They're a bit unevenly processed, too, you've got loud snares at 1:35, but the snares then get buried in the soundscapes for the rest of the track. Needs to be more balanced with the other sounds. Sounds like it's you compression that's screwing with it. Less compression on master, more compression on the individual tracks. The track, overall, is a little quiet. Needs to have the tracks balanced, then some master compression to boost it a few dB. Read up on mixing and especially compression, and try to listen for those weird volume jumps in your track, there's a few around 3:40 that you can trey listening for. Avoid having those. As for the writing, I think it's passable. The tracks would need to be better mixed, some might benefit from some faint reverb, others from EQ, but overall, I don't have a problem wit the writing. Dunno if it's interpretive enough, or if there's enough source, but I'd venture a guess that there's no shortage of source here. This sounds promising. Good luck with it.

What's with the piano panning? Also it could use a soft delay effect before the reverb, to fill out the sound more. It's also really shrill, at least the louder notes, could use some mild cuts to its high range, and/or a really soft pad in the background. Nice start, tho.

No source link, no source comment. I suspect it's a little too close to source, but can't tell without listening to source. Quite simple sounding, especially the drums. Brass needs to be more powerful, some nice synth brass might work better. The mallet-like synth is cool, the bass is ok. At 1:15 you have a bell lead too loud, and a backing instrument that just turns into noise and background carpeting. Needs some mixing, and I'd replace that backing thing to something else. 1:30 fills sound like they're written ok, but the samples are terrible. Intro, and the 2:00 interlude, and ending are all too simple sounding. Piano needs more processing: reverb and some EQ to make it stand out more. The stuff after 2:00 is jsut a repeat of the stuff before. Not interesting. Needs something new, something different enough. I recommend a change to the chord progression, bassline, as well as a new lead on top of what you've got. There's some crits for you to work on. Good luck with this.

Not a fan of the drum samples. Too much reverb, not enough punch. The repetition of the track hurts it too. Would be nice to have another lead, could be another piano, it needs a melody to cut through better. The piano needs some left-hand writing to sound good. The choir could have more interesting writing instead of just following the root of the chords. Strings could be more interesting too. Overall, there's nothing bad about it... it's just not interesting enough. Source is there, but it could use some more creative writing, like a lead melody derived from some piece of the source. Good luck with it.

Yeah, modern music is loud, sometimes ridculously so, but to call poor production "dynamics" doesn't work. Dynamics isn't just about physical sound, it's also about how it's perceived. You can get dynamics at 0dB, and something sometimes peaking at 0dB sometimes at 10dB can be terribly soft and quiet sounding. Multiband compression on master, followed by limiter to kill clipping. That's my advice. Getting them louder than that is difficult.

They can be read here. Nice work btw, with the remix. It's made my bus rides to and from school tolerable.

Cool. But yeah, watch the sound effects, don't make 'em clip... if necessary, find other samples for 'em.

That would be clipping. The audio signal generated is too loud for the computer to write, so it just writes the max value on everything that goes over the max value, resulting in what's called clipping. You can't make the file physically louder beyond that point, so you have to mix them to give the illusion of being loud. Make the soft parts louder (compression), mix the right frequencies louder (EQ, multiband compression), just avoid pushing it beyond the file's physical max level (using a limiter). After that, maximizers, maximizers/energizers, and side chaining becomes relevant. But that's more complicated

Don't know how well midi guitars and tone-reading interfaces work, so can't recommend it. Better to learn the basics of keyboard playing and/or the basics of operating the computer mouse. Not sure how possible it is to get a decent sounding piano performance from a guitar-like interface. A lot of remixing is based around actual recordings, especially by the better artists (Sixto Sounds, pixietricks, Game Over, Harmony). Get a keyboard, or use the mouse. Use the guitar to record guitar. That's my advice.

The word pwnsome seems fitting.

Got no idea what kind of drum sound you want other than what I could get form your description, but if it's big empty room sound you want, apply reverb, a lot of it. Lots of 80s music had a lot of reverb especially on their snares. btw, this kind of topic would probably do better here, and will probably be moved there anyway.,

Yep Abadoss, it is. And Alex, we'll talk tracks on msn.

Bmup. Yes, bmup. Tracklist slightly updated. Also, we'll soon be cutting remixers from the project if we don't hear from you. I've already started. Expect to see the list of available tracks grow... tho I personally hope it shrinks.