Rozovian

Did you fix anything else? Lead loudness didn't bother me, lead filter did. It _is_ loud tho, wonder why I didn't notice that. a good reminder that I can't run the wip board myself.

Okay, I should remember this source. We'll see. Weird key stuff going on, some of it good, some just weird. Not digging the first HF melody synth. Diggin' the second. A lot of stuff I don't remember/recognize. Might need more source, unless it's just a memory problem. Production sounds okay, tho the compression is pretty obvious. A multiband compressor might clean that up. What the something was the 2:30 transition? Fairy Fountain is verbatim. it works nice, but it would be cool to hear some change in it. if not the backing key then the melody. I think source/interpretation is the biggest problem here. Production is pretty high, but unless the genre makes the audible compression okay it's not going past the Js in that state. There's some crits. Good luck.

No soruce link, no source comment. Drums feel a bit weird, you might want to have them come in later, let the low pad introduce the electronic elements first. There's also a bit of a click or pop when they come in. Might be the low pad or something else making the noise, but something does it, and it's not pretty. Noise at 1:06, not good. Turns into fast dance after a while, but I'm not feeling the bass then. Needs more bass, I can only hear it towards the end of the bar when rises a bit. Either make it louder or EQ it to punch through a bit more. Overall, it's a bit shrill. Drop the master highs a bit on the offending instruments such as the strings pad. The vocoded vocals are pretty cool, and it's nice that its not just the same four lines or the same way. The track might feeel a bit shizofrenic from the changes, but it works. You might want to use the dance drums in the intro to tie it together to the main body of the track more. Putting the piano at the very end might also tie things together a bit more. You know, I don't remember your earlier works well, but I don't think they were this good, so you've improved (unless my memory is screwing with me). Good work, buddy, but it needs _more_ good work. Keep at it.

Not gonna get into much critiquing because this is the old version, and I don't know the source (and am too lazy to look it up). Still, it's pretty, so it's worth the work. Dunno how much you've changed it much from the source, but the way it's written here is beautiful, sounds a little russian/east european at times, and that's a compliment. Good luck.

Yup, it's clipping and it still sounds like a midi sound upgrade. With drums. I think you should start a new project where you write parts of the source track from memory and put them together in a new way. Read this essay by DarkeSword about how to get a balanced remix. Read zircon's production tutorials (guides&tutorials forum). Might seem like we're coming down hard on you, but OCR is about rearrangements, and this isn't one. Even without making the progression much different from its source there's still a lot you can do. Work on your writing. Listen to remixes and compare them to their respective sources and see how the remixers have changed them. Listen to the writing, the sample/synth choices, the overall mood, etc. Learn from them. Play with your program. Experiment. See what you learn. I wish you luck, kaveri.

With volumes Jovian means velocities, the individual note strengths. Dude, you don't know high-range and low-range? lol, read up on it. Google is your friend. And Google knows stuff. You should go to Google. Google can help. (note: there are tutorials on the site that you might find useful - links in this post). For someone that doesn't seem to know squat about the technical stuff, you've at least done a good job in personalizing the source. The source is clearly identifiable, but you've changd the bass, rhythms, something not all care to do. Kudos on that. I think you'd do best atm to read up on those technicalities, find music in similar style and learn from them. A lot of the fakey-ness comes from you not seemingly knowing what to do with your samples (the lack of velocity work gives it away). Read up on stuff like that. I'd rather give advice like this than rip your piece apart and complain about stuff. There's not much point in telling you to filter your leads or use an amp sim on clean samples until you actually know what all that is. read up on stuff, and experiment. Then come back and show how you've improved. Good luck.

Bells are pretty. I've heard the rest so much that I'm getting tired of it. No offense. The synths are a bit uninteresting, not just because I've heard them before . I suggest you take a backup and then start screwing with some random presets to see what sounds work. I reset a lot of synths in one of my works in progress, and the rest was surprisingly interesting. I recommend it. Just don't touch the bells or the background thing that's filtering up and down. Circa 2:00, eastern feel. Works wonderfully. Nice melody writing, you're getting better at that stuff. backing rhythm around 2:45 could need some minor tweaks to match the lead there. It's grand climax is messy and cluttered. There's too many instruments, and they're not supporting each other as they should. Also, the pad get pretty shrill, you might want to rethink the octave you put it in, as well as its cutoff. Nice stuff at the end. Definitely an improvement. So, drums next. Make sure to vary the rhythm without making it shizofrenic (shizofrenic might suit a track, but not this one imo). And humanize velocities. Those snare rolls you've got here are pretty mechanical, if you use anything like them on the new drums, make sure to keep velocities human...ish...-ized. Good luck.

Kick sounds a bit too acoustic, and the offbeat notes should be on the last beat, never the third (except for effect). It screws with the track's drive. Strings are too slow, need shorter attack. Might work in the bg if you'd phase them less. Right now they're sort'a jumping into the action while still being soft and muddying. 2 minutes until the second part of the source? And it didn't feel like it got old while just doing the first part. Great arranging. The whole track sounds a little muffled, you might want to give it more highs. Strings at 3:30 suffer the same problem as they did around 1:20. Too much phasing, not enough definition. Love the emotional landscape, the chords the track goes through. The Windfish remixes on the site don't have anything like this. They're nothing like this. This _needs_ to be on OCR, so make sure not to sub it too soon. Great, great work bro.

There's a bunch of hi-range noises, quite disturbing during the soft section around 0:30. Dunno if you're trying to pull a Skrypnyk with the noise, but either get rid of them or make them sound intentional. I doubt they are intentional, sounds more like a byproduct from one of the synths. Kick is a little weak, at least on my subpar headphones. If you'd cut out some of the lows form the bass drum... yes, I mean that. If you'd cut some of them, you could get the kick a little punchier, let the bass handle the low frequencies and the kick handle the beat. Take a backup before screwing with the EQ, and listen and make sure you don't cut too much of the lows. The funky things you did to the lead after 3:00 are great (I might want to collab with you next time I need a lead to do something weird), but the 3:30 lead sounds... like its filter is a little too closed. Yeah, I keep saying that. On a second listen, it's too closed earlier too, but it's less noticeable because the track still has enough drive there. Timing issues are now sounding intentional. You apparently work like me, if someone complains about something intentional, you make it... uh, worse, as in better. I like it. Those are the things that stand out to me. It's gotten pretty good. Run it by a judge, see where that takes you. Good luck. ...You need a better name for it.

I only know the sources from remixes, maybe some vague memories from friends' NESes, so this'll be a little loose on that. I did recognize stuff, and the repeated elements are probably soruce, so there seems to be enough. Can't tell how interpreted it is, tho. There's some weird phaser or flanger effect on some drums, very notable in the reverb on the snare and in the soft hihats. Could be a chorus setting on the reverb, but whatever it is it doesn't sound good. Drums could use a bit more energy, too. Guitars sound a little thin, should be doubled. Doubled, as in recording two near identical takes and hardpanning them opposite each other. Bass is pretty cool when it actually got through. A bit better compression (multiband!) on the end might bring it out more. It gets a bit old, tho. You might want to throw in some more varied textures or switch out a guitar for a synth for some iterations of the repeated bits. That'd also get rid of some of the apparent repetition in the writing. There was a weird little latino vibe somewhere towards the end. I liked how that snuck its way in. The actual ending was pretty cool too. Overall, I like the arrangement, but the production needs more work. Good luck.

Hm, I started writing in Reviews. K'. I would have NOed this for being too close to source. It's one of those strange moments when I'm glad I'm not a J. The personalizations are nice, and once I took the time to listen this through as something other than just random tracks playing when I'm doing something, it got stuck in my head. The rhythm keeps it going, keeping it from feeling as repetitive as it actually is. It's a source that's been remixed over and over, but this is a cool take on it, probably my favorite aggressive remix of the red brinstar music. Love the rewritten 6-note melodies, great stuff. I'm going on a run tomorrow. And this track is coming with me. As lazy as I am, that means the track's pretty powerful. Not to mention cool.

I remember this from the WIP board. And from the To be posted list for like... ages. Nice to finally see it posted, wtg. More swedes for the site. This getting me psyched to make a playlist of happy remixes. This is just unreasonably happy. Feels a bit empty, even with the pads, and the hats sound trashy, but hey, it puts a silly grin on my face, so those complaints weight little in comparison. ...also lol@judges saying it's a copy of Pacman's Cannon. I dig this.

...no link, unless explicitly stated in the submission mail, because OCR can't go around handing out links to ppl's private hosts (those that use their own private hosts), and some people don't want their rejected remixes to circulate the net when they've just been given some feedback on how to improve it (aka the decisions). See this thread. I know I wouldn't want one of my unfinished remix touring the net and making me infamous for some lame production problem that wuld ahve been easily fixed after the Js' would have pointed it out. OCR is what it is because OCR has got its standards. There's Thasauce.net that does a less extensive "quality control" so that obvious flaws, non-remixes, stuff like that are filtered out, and vgmix didn't filter the remixes at all (when the site was working properly). OCR is looking for complete, arranged, and well produced remixes, and the Js filter out those that don't meet the standard. You don't have to like it, but if you have a look at some random remixes posted on youtube, you'll find that there are a lot of lazy, trivial, and flawed works there. OCR has this WIP board and judges that'll critique people's remixes SO THAT THEY CAN BE IMPROVED. I mean, what do you prefer: unfinished or finished works? Rants don't belong in the WIP forum, tho. Keep 'em in Community or wherever.

Too cool, another reason to get a 360. WTG Anso!

Mostly yes, but not when you've got an update and no comments. Source is there, but aside from the style change, it might be a little close to source. Someone who knows the source from before or has the time to listen through a few times could probably give you a better answer. I think it's in the green, but you might want to check with a judge on irc just to be safe. Around 2:00 you've got the melodies buried under the badass saw thing. Drums suffer... actually the rest of the track suffers from how the drums push the compression. Get those levels more balanced. 3:45 melody sounds a little too exposed that panned and undisturbed by the other instruments. Pan it less, and it might fit better, or you could put something else panned opposite. Actually, you should check with a judge about the whole track. Might be a bit too minimalist, might not have sufficient interpretation. I dunno the standards well enough to tell.

Crash in the intro could be louder. Early snares seems to have a lot of low range, see what you can cut from them without screwing too much with the overall sound. Open the filter more on your lead. Automated or not, it needs to be more open. The drums seem like they're missing something, something's off with them. Dunna how much you've heard on #ocrwip about it, someone may have pointed it out already. I know something's off with them, but don't know exactly what. Piano should be louder in the middle of the track, at least for its first iteration there. Really cool effects after 3:00. Some of them repeat, so you might want to spread those out more. There's some timing issues at 3:43 and :53, probably a result of the slicing or pitch shifting or whatever you were doing there. It only keeps getting better. It'll soon be time to ask the Js for feedback... and once they're having trouble finding things to crits, submitting it.

Might be because it's been a year and a half since there was any activity in this thread.

This is nothing compared to the response to other suggestions I've had... And nothing compared to my response to the implications of the wip checklist. I've got some stuff written, but I'll refrain from posting it. I'd rather go without the direct help of others on this than deal with more of the sarcastic (I hope) flak this idea has already met. One thing, tho: a) ...that beginners can't find, so they ask a question in their noobish threads. see above. and below. Worth repeating. Emphasis mine.

Is it here?

You can, once you show me you can.

C-Disc aka Community Discussion aka Community. Very hidden. Very secret.

This track would have been awesome with better low brass. Sorry man, it's just... ouch. Loved the music box sound, or whatever that was, certainly adds Pirates flavor to it, as if the rhythms and the source melody weren't enough. Good stuff, bro.

Without turning this into the checklist debate, let me remind you that the wip board isn't the same thing as the Js' panel, and short of having judges or judge-level reviewers on the wip board we're not gonna have judge-level feedback, and no amount of checklist usage is gonna change people's critical hearing skills. Besides, you got 3 RESUB votes, and now you know what the Js think. I'd say that's a pretty good outcome. Now, improve it and resub. Also, feel free to provide ample critiquing for the unnoticed wips. I've been hanging out on the wip board a while now, and my production ears have improved significantly. I'm not on a professional level yet, but I've learned a lot. So would you.

Was more meaning something that can be linked to easily whenever someone has one of those oft-repeated questions. Something that could contain more than just the answer, so there's not a dozen more questions right away. "Okay so I downloaded FL demo. How do I make music with it?"

I think this is the best place to post it, so the ReMixing forum regulars can't miss it. I've noticed a lot of newbs wondering "how do I remix", "what do I need", "is there any free 'remixing software'", "how can I make midi sound like sixto" etc. Some of the tutorials might be hard to find, and none of them actually seem to actually list software alternatives. Another common issue is that noise that come when you plug a guitar straight into your computer's soundcard. I was thinking that we'd put together a list of those common questions, and the answers that have been provided in threads... just put together a remixing FAQ or newb's introduction to remixing, something like that. Thoughts?