Rozovian

If you have any instrument skills, sauronman, think about those. I heard the first half of your two latter works, they're very newby. You've got a lot to learn. Here's some things you should learn and some ideas on how: Use Google and Wikipedia. I'm still using a lot of what I learned in music class in 3rd and 4th grade. Look for the basics, like chords and scales, stuff like that. Don't read too far, or you'll get confused. Just read until you learn something, then try that out. Then go back to reading. Get MIDIs from somewhere, import and have a look. Look at chords, what chords work with what keys in the melody, stuff like that. Read DarkeSword's Four Man Combo to how to give your works fullness. And once you've come some way, come back and we'll help you further.

The rhythmic bass in the beginning feels a bit out of place, and it's pretty boring anyway. I'd look for a deeper, darker, more fitting bass, and make it play something more interesting. There's also a lot of room for a second meloody to play when the lead pauses. The choppy middle sounds more intentional now. Speed change is still a bit too sudden, and it gets way too fast. It's like you don't take the Dark Mountain section seriously, it's just a fun thing you threw in to mix it up. Slower, subtle, serious, and it'd be awesome. 3:35 Bass seems to disagree with itself, weird key. Needs work. Good fixes, still fixes to do. Doing great, man.

It sounds a bit newby, cheap conversion from 3/4 to 4 on the floor. You could make it much more interesting. The chords and the bass are also a bit newby sounding. The pad could use some filter, a tremolo or something to make it more interesting, the bass could use a rhythm that's fits better with the rhythm of the lead which is pretty boring - so start with making the lead more interesting, then make the bass fit. The switch to rock drums towards the end... Good idea if you have good rock drums or have processed whatever you got in a good way. Whatever your case is, the execution feels... lame, in lack of a better word. While on the topic of drums, bass drum is okay, snare feels out of place, crash was weak, and some of the time you haven't got any hihats or anything to level out the soundscape here. Then there's the lack of interpretation. You need more interpretation besides fitting the melody into what's otherwise a pretty original track. More source incorporated into it, and more variation. Don't get all the criticisms wrong, some filter techniques and the overall content makes it sound like you've got the skills to make this great. Good luck with it.

This would be really cool with much more aggressive drums. More punch! As for source, it's there, the melody, and with your own spin. I think it needs to be fuller, see what stuff you can draw from the background of the source. Yeah, it's an interesting start. Could be awesome.

With the exception of the very sharp F's and S's, the new vocals are great. Dunno if I prefer clean vocals, but this is cool. A little more rhythm or sound difference between verse and chorus would be good, tho. The chorus is also a bit quiet compared to the vocoded verse, it gets a little buried in the music when it's not as sharp. Try shifting up the pitch an octave on yet another voice track, let it play kind'a quietly, just to add some higher tones in the background. It's an idea, see if it works. The music seems a little cutoff, it could use some more high frequencies, or less mids. Try EQing the master track a bit, see if it sounds better. Subtle changes, nothing drastic. This is great, tho.

I really like the sound. The bass sound is great. The drums feel a bit poorly panned, the stereo soundscape overall is a bit... unbalanced. But the sound is good, albeit a little empty towards the end. If you're going for a relaxing, laid-back kind of sound, you should soften a lot of the rhythmic stuff,they're a bit too sharp. If you're going for something sharper, you should sharpen some of the softer bits, give the track more drive. Personally, I think this would be a great laid-back track. Then, the source... If this is the last hours, it's a little hard to hear. I recognize the source in the pads in the intro, but nothing beyond that. I think you need more source. I've working with this source myself, I know there are melodies to be drawn from it. Find yourself a lead melody from source. Overall, it's a good start. Has a great sound, and great potential.

Good interview. Good questions, good answers. Good remix, presumably. Downloading now.

Zelda's Lullaby has been remixed a bit. It is iconic. Was interesting to hear your take on it. The first version sounds like there's a second lead playing the first a few notes behind. The intro to the second version was much cleaner than that of the first, imo. Version 2 also sounds less sampled, there was some noises in the flute sample that I kept hearing in version 1. Overall, I prefer #2. Especially when the horns come in at the end. So I suggest #2, but there's stuff in #1 that you could import and use in the final version. Can't really help provide much more feedback than that, it's way beyond my orchestral skills. Would be great to have you on the Seiken Densetsu 3 project. Interested?

All right, the track is yours for now. I'm gonna want to hear an early wip to tell if you're heading in the direction the rest of the project is. PM me your plans and ideas for it if you don't have a wip yet.

I'm gonna do this from memory, since it's sd3. It took 'til 1:47 before i recognized it. I think you'll need more source earlier on. The sound starts off beepy and after a cutoff sweep becomes noisy instead. I like the arrangement and much of the processing, but it's a bit too dry for my taste. The lead/hook thing could use some weak high cut. Overall, I think it could be softer (not much tho), and you could make up for that by making the bass more dominating. It's there, but it could be more powerful. btw, how are you project tracks going?

The version with drums sounds awful, there's a shaker or something that's waaay too loud. The rest of the drums could be a bit louder than in the version with softer drums. Anyway, there's some key clashes wit the main melody (on the ghastly pad) and the rest. The trance thing should change along with the chords, not along wit what sounds good when it's solo. That seems to be your main problems. All your instruments sound good on their own, but they're not working together. All in all, it's not very consistant. The soundscape is a weird combination of sounds that you normally don't hear together. While that doesn't make it bad, the key clashes does. Try moving everything to really clear instruments to work on the arrangement, and them move them back. I'm talking piano, warm pad, square wave... Mostly piano. Sorry I'm not being very positive. Hope this helps and doesn't discourage you. Good luck with it.

Straight from midi? Not good. It sounds like midi. Whatever software you're using, it should be able to use soundfonts or some other better samples than general midi. Please, use them. Regardless of how pretty the arrangement would be, the sound is destroying it. There's Guides and stuff on the OCR forums, and then there's Google. Ask if you have a problem.

Drums feel really out of place in the build-up. Around 1:00, they start feeling more at home, the sliced drums don't mesh so well with the rest of the soundscape imo. It's interesting, sure, but not as enjoyable as it could be. Around 2:00, I've gotten tired of the sliced drums. I suggest letting them run free sometime between 1:00 and 2:00, as well as when they return closer to 3:00. The track feels a bit inconsistant. It's not really a beat, either, doesn't rpovide that much rhythm, it's just... drums. Enough about how the drums bother me. The rest of the track is beautiful, albeit repetitive. As long as it is, you could cut out a minute or two of repetition, and you wouldn't really lose much. You could add little details to it, subtle things, but I'd still advise you to drop some length. 4:20, just harp and whatever, it's pretty. Based on that, this has a good chance of getting on ocr, it just needs to be less repetitive. I can hear the trance-influence in the arrangement. Try to break free from the repetitive nature of it. I'm too lazy to comment on source usage, but I have a feeling it's relatively verbatim. You should know how close to source it is. If it's too close, change it. This really deserves a place on ocr. Great job, and good luck refining it.

It feels like it's being held back. The filter on the clap-like sound, the overall softness despite fairly powerful drums (unpowerfully processed). I like the arrangement, but I'd prefer if it'd be let loose. Almost a minute of this soft stuff and almsot throughout the feeling that it's soon gonna break out... Which it doesn't. You should either rework it so it feels like it's as tough as it gets while still being soft - or let it loose. Your call.

There' a few bits I miss from the older version, but this sounds more polished than those. The ending feels a bit out there tho. You should finish with the main source, imo, but i doesn't have to be more than a few beats, enough to know it's back where it started (sort of). Overall, having heard a number of versions of this, it's getting hard to provide feedback. So I'm gonna stop. Can't listen without remembering how stuff sounded in earlier versions, and missing those details. Still, I think this is an improvement. Bother people on #ocrwip with it. Good luck!

What I'm hearing isn't a lack of life, it's more a matter of poor processing. EQ, mixing, that stuff. Everything is a little too dark, and you seem to have trouble deciding what the listener should be listening to. My suggestion is to mute all but two instruments, then mix them so they sound good together, then unmute another instrument and mix those three, then unmute another one... Wash, rinse, and repeat. There's enough stuff going on in the background, imo, for this to have the life it needs. It just needs to be cleaned up, mixingwise. If you have time, you don't need a collaborator for that. I don't have the time to collab with you, but this feedback should come in handy regardless of who's gonna work with you on it. Not familiar with source and too lazy toi dig it up, but if it's a mix of ending themes from two games, you should be in the green, sourcewise. No promises, tho it doesn't sound medley-itic. Dunno how much of it is verbatim and how much is reworked, but it sounds good. Nice job, and good luck with it.

Starts off really interesting, tho I suggest applyinga really weak phaser or something on the background pad so it isn't just background noise. The heavy echo on one instrument and just plain ol' reverb on the piano doesn't work so well together, apply a weak echo to the piano as well. It's a bit minimalist and quite repetitive. Changing the bass according to the chord progression would spice it up a bit, as would bringing in a second pad, playing chords. The ending is a bit weak, in the sense that it just stops. First the melody, then the ticking, then the bass, then the pad fades out. Bringing the melody back in, just a snippet of it, when another instrument dies out might improve it, tho I suggest you experiment with coming up with better endings yourself. This is a pretty nice track. I'll let someone else comment on source usage. I have a feeling you could be more creative with the source, tho. With the proper treatment, this could find its way to OCR. But it's not ready yet. Good work so far.

It's a bit dull, and has some bad samples. There's a tom fill that's just awful. The end is rather empty sounding, tho I suspect you're not done with the arrangement yet. The drums should have more weight (drop their EQ a bit everywhere but 100-200Hz). It's kind'a messy. I recommend working on a chord progression and applying that to it all, especially the 0:48 section. Just looping the background doesn't sound good. The transition from that section to the next (the ending (atm)) ain't good enither. Too abrupt. Nah man, I've heard better from you. I like the sounds used here, tho. Some tweaks (EQ separation, chord progression) could make this so much better. Good luck man.

Yay, this is my kind of electronic music. Ambient and atmospheric. Great bass, good melodies. Took until near the end until I heard the main melody, but I don't mind. And there is midrange, there's a pad as well as a soft beepy melody most of the time. But they're seriously overshadowed by the bass (not that I mind). However, this is confusing. The frequency balance, the very repetitive nature, and the lack of re-interpretation of source (imo it's more of an adaptation than a rearrangement), and the ambient nature of the track really put the submission standards in a different light. This probably isn't the place to discuss it, tho. I like it regardless.

Depends on how you do it. I know Fishy had a multisource idea, we'll see if it'll stay that way. Do a quick wip of it and show me, and I'll tell you if it counts as both.

Option 1: Right-click them, and copy-paste. Option 2: Drag n' drop. Option 3: This thread Option 4: Megadave's suggestions.

First thing I noticed: too much reverb on the... clap-snap-ish percussion things, whatever they're called. Snare could use a little more volume, the snare-like sound you're using a hihat could use less. A few slightly lo-fi stuff, doesn't mesh well with the higher quality of the rest of the track, see if you can swap them for something else. The slicing is cool, but you should make it sound more intentional. It sounds like the file got corrupted somehow. It kills the coolness of the effect. Tempo change is a bit too soon... and quite a bit too far, imo, tho you could fix that by going back to "normal" tempo soon after the tempo boost. Dark Mountain section is a bit empty sounding too, it could use some more stuff, consider using low strings or choir chords (not too low). There's certainly enough source, tho you should work on making it more your own, like with the dark mountain theme towards the end. We've heard this source a few times,and regardless of how cool it is, it's getting old. Before the slicing, you've got lots of room for variations on the theme. Not because you'd get rejected, but because it's a little boring to someone who's heard all the Darkworld remixes on ocr. That being said, this does have a great sound. I want to hear this completed, and I think it has a good chance of getting on OCR. It does need work before it's there, but you know that. So, good luck working on it, great job so far.

Way too much bass. Bring down the bass, and slowly raise it 'til it sounds good. It's also very front-and-center, some slight panning, maybe a bit of reverb might help you with that. The arrangement isn't bad, but I think you could still do a lot more to make it interesting, such as double-tempo drums, a more aggressive section, and much lighter section, a guitar solo or a different bass solo, something to mix it up more. Need I tell you the guitar sample sounds terrible? It's better to raise it an octave and then use a pitchshifter-like effect to bring it down rather than to work with pitched down samples. Best would be if you could record it instead, but I've heard better non-real guitars than this. If you have a cleaner guitar sound, use that with a distortion effect or amp simulation. The least you can do is apply some distortion to the current guitar. It's also a bit lacking, harmonically. The guitar could cover that, either with more harmonic sequencing, or with a fatter sound to cover the frequency range. I gotta disagree with Eino about the bass sequencing tho. It's too loud, but the sequencing doesn't strike me as unrealistic.

I'd like to hear this with a cleaner sound, I really like the feel and the arrangement. It feels a bit schizofrenic at times, with fairly raw strings atop crazy filtered synths. There's source enough, methinks, but this particular source has been sued over and over because it's fairly easy to adapt and/or recognize. Your take on it is interesting, but I'd like to hear it more refined, cleaner and with more of the later melody from the source. I heard a snippet of it towards the end, but there could be more. Anyway, I like this. I've heard, and have worked on this source enough to make it feel bland and dull, and this is a fresh take on it. Cool, just needs some fixes and tweaks, and some more of the latter parts of the source.

Not gonna give you much feedback, just my thoughts on it. The Derrit got you a lot of valid and good feedback which I (to the extent I bothered to read) agree with. There's enough bass in this. There's not enough drums, there's not enough kick. Then there's a whole lot of melodic stuff fighting for my attention, which is kind'a annoying. It sounds like bass and snare... and lots of melodies.