Rozovian

(yawn, long post) Whoa, I had forgotten about this, but it didn't take long to remember. There's some nice new things I'm hearing, but it feels thematically repetitive. I know my current wip isn't any better in that sense, tho. -- Let's talk random details. The square wave or whatever the lead is... It's clear, which is good, but it's a little too clear, too simple. If you can write a good Slayer solo, it might sound better. Guitar panning: Do it once, pan it right. Do it over, pan it left. That will give it a stereo soundscape. If it's all midi, you should use different (but similar) samples for each side. I think the panjumping (in lack of better words) is cool, tho, but for most part, you should use double guitars. Some writing, like the nylon guitar stuff, is a little too simple and exposed. Adding a soft delay might help, but just adding notes to make it sound like more than one string would help. I mean, soft section guitar writing would, even with notes spaced apart, have some more playing. Little melodic snippets, two-three note thingies. A guitar player would be bored if he was told to play that. Use more strings, play slow arpeggiated chords, do something more. And add that soft delay. The EQ is better, and makes the track lose much of it's newby feel. In the end, tho, it's not really helping enough when the arrangement still needs work, and some instruments should be replaced or altered or get an effect or... something. We all know by now that the melody gets really repetitive. Changing chord structure, going from minor to major, it would make it easier to listen to. Changing the rhythm (which i noticed you had done towards the end) would also help. Here's an idea - mute the drums and play around with the writing. Mute the melody, rework the chords and stuff, and then apply the melody and make it fit. Then rewrite drums for that part. -- Overall, this is starting to sound like you're stuck. It's happened to me pretty often. My current wip (which I'm advertizing way too much in this post)... I worked on it in trackers, I worked on it in GarageBand, I've worked on it in Logic... It's been with me for years, I've done many different version of it over the years. Restarting, while frustrating, is sometimes a good thing, because you then have the opportunity to restructure it without having to make the old pieces fit. Hum the melody slower, hum it to new chords, hum it backwards... See what else you can do with it. Even if you're not gonna restart the remix, it can get you ideas for how to improve this version of it. But before you do anything, take a backup of your current version. It's always best to take backups before you make any big changes. -- In conclusion, I feel like this is getting old. You've gotten much better, the track has gotten better, but in the end, the repetition is killing the progress. You can keep working on it, in which case you need to cut it to pieces and stitch it back together in some new fashion, or you can restart it, or retire it and take a new source track. Sorry for the low amount of positive feedback. What are you gonna do now? (hint: take a backup first if you're doing either of the first two options)

lol @ "I'm absolutely not a big advocate of piracy!" (emphasis mine) back in my early days, I didn't have a problem with piracy, but since I'm now aiming for selling my works, working with music professionally, I prefer to have a legal copy of the software, not a pirate copy. Who knows what studio raids anti-pirate agencies are gonna do in the fuuuture... Remember the word piration?

Cool start, gets you right into the track. Anyway, I was listening while going on irc, and I hardly noticed the track ending. It needs a bigger finale. it went to bed of Knives, and I didn't realize it. Needs a bigger finale before ending. Then again, it's still pretty short, so you've got another challenge in making it at least a half minute longer without making it repetitive. Then there's production... which sounds good to me. More material, finale, and ending, and I'd probably YES you if I could. Unless you capitally screw up the yet unwritten part of it. We'll see.

The sound effects during the "whistle" section feel a bit too cheesy. Sure, it's happy hardcore, but still. They're less annoying now, but the ones in the latter half of the "shistle" section feel like they're clashing with the key of the rest of the track. Can you pitch them just enough to make them fit without screwing up with them too much? The "yippee" sound towards the end works much better - and THAT ONE NEEDS MORE VOLUME! Okay, that was unlike me. Allcaps? WT_? Distort the bass drum a little. Besides that, I've got no production issues to say. Skitcool låt. edit: Oh right, it's still a bit on the quiet side.

Weird effect on the vocals. Also, I'm not sure the J's are gonna like them. I don't remember OCR's take on using voice samples from the game, but the J's can answer that better themselves. Besides, those samples get both cheesy and repetitive. Unfortunately, they sound like something of a necessity. See if you can find some musical hook to use instead. The drums still need work. They feel a bit poorly matched. There's a really high-range ticking sound you use as a hihat towards the second half of the track. Doesn't work well, and the panning doesn't really work for it either. I think adding another hihat effect would even it out enough. You know the ending is cut off, so I don't have to point that out to you. I like the ending tho, it cuts down to bass, then suddenly rises again and dies out. That's a good ending for a track like this. I think the bass could use a little more volume, or just EQ'd to ahve a bit more bass. I think there's some frequency rivalry between the bass and another instrument alternating octaves, which is unfortunate. See if you can separate the tracks using EQ by dropping one's low range levels and raising the other's. It's also lacking in the high range. There's some resonance from the "lead" and some other instruments, but ultimately, the way to get a full sound up there is to use a hihat or a more clean hi-range instrument. I recommend hihat for this remix. But overall, it's pretty promising. there's those production issues to deal with, but this track has loads of potential, methinks. As much trouble I'm having getting a key change someplace good in my own wip, this track needs some kind of soundscape change. The section you added passed me by, but the track overall did feel less repetitive than before. I think it still needs a bigger change. Raising everything two semitone towards the end is the classic move, but doing it earlier might work better for this track. I said it before, I'll say it again: "It's not submittable yet, but it sounds interesting enough to be at some point in the near future. Good work!"

Okay, so this is the right track... Sounds like the bass or something is pushing the master compression. Drop a few dB off the compression gain, or (more arduous) off all tracks. The piano feels a bit pushed into the background, needs a little more volume, some of the time it feels like its high range was cut off or EQ'd down a bit. Bass and drums could lose a little of their volume, especially the bass. EQ it (moderately) to have more mid low frequencies instead. I might drop the release level or add a gate to it too, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Worth trying, tho. Overall, the mix process I detailed above applies to this wip too, tho I hear there's some mix already done. Revisit it, see what you can improve. Separate, mix, and mix them together. The first piano note sounds like a kalimba, which is kind'a cool. Despite the cool delay, the piano is pretty weak. If you can, play some backing rhythm on the kalimba-like sample. Some added harmonies, left hand piano writing, would be nice. I recommend doing that on a separate piano track, so you have more control. Use it sparingly, but do use it. The intro is long. And while it contains some nice little notes and effects, it could have more. Reverse piano playing the melody or some harmonies that sound similar enough. Overall, it's essentially the melody, verbatim with some new left hand writing in some places, over an original dnb-ish track. I dunno if I'd YES it, but you know the source better than I do, so you know how much source there really is. Uh, the ending sounds a bit cut off, too fast fade-out. It's a good ending, it's closure for the track, but it's not given the room it should have. Don't fade, just listen to when the release and reverb and delay and everything is done, cut the track there. In other words, let it die out on its own before ending the track. But it's not bad. I'd see what else I could scrap from the source, and try to add it somewhere. I'd also drop levels on bass, and EQ it a little to have more bass, more punch. I hope this helps. Good work so far, good luck with it.

SW, BWS... you're a bit off topic. So now, about the serious feedback (which I prefer): I can try dropping the bpm a bit, see how that sounds, but I kind'a like the frantic feel of 109 bpm (114 later) which it's at atm. Vocals might feel malplaced, but I can see how a choir sounds. Was considering adding an organ, so I'll be adding some harmonic content anyway. Let's see if gets the right cathedral-ish feel. I recall having used choir in a way earlier version (before the current version count). As for the drums, the Contra remix doesn't quite have the right frantic feel. The samples are better than mine, or are at least better processed, but I don't think they'd work with the style I want for this. It's a good example, so I'll be listening more to it to get the drums mixed better. Thanks for the _serious_ feedback. btw, finlandssvensk.

No quality loss. Without the screwed-on adapter, it should (theoretically) be higher quality (not significantly, not an audible difference). So just out of curiosity, why do you think the smaller plug gets you lower quality?

Grudge, grunge, whatever. I get the idea. Thanks guys. Snap, which version did you hear? v4, v3, v1? I'd understand if you felt v1 was minimalist, but I'm at v4 now. Could you elaborate on what you mean with "really bad execution"? What's the "really" part?

Decision. I gotta say, I agree with the judges on a lot. This isn't my style, but let's see what I can say about it... That's something I really agree with. Also, Larry's right about the arrangement, the piano is kind'a dull at times, needs some more life and depth. If you'd add some piano midrange, and EQ the whole thing a bit. Something I noticed during my Super Metroid WiP is that if you mute some tracks and try to get the rest to sound good, you'll get the mix better. I recommend dropping out the drums and the bass and mixing the rest, then unmute the bass and drop its volume by a lot and bring it up until it all sounds balanced. Then mute everything but the drums, then mix and EQ those to sound balanced. Then see how it all works together. (it's best to save a backup before doing any drastic changes) I also gotta agree about the drum samples. The loops are fine, but the one-shots are cheap. there's a few splashes (crashes) at the end that are really weak. Anyway, this is a cool track. While I'm no fan of the style, I do hear that this isn't bad. Re-read and analyse what the J's said, and fix what you understand and/or agree with. Since you did get a YES, you've got pretty good chances on getting this on OCR. While the bar might have gone up a little since late 2006, I think the proper production is gonna get this a YES without any major arrangement changes. Good remix, dude.

I've been sketching on a Red Canyon track for a while. It'll probably take a while before it's even on the WiP board, but at least it exists. There's a totally hilarious remix of Big Blue already on OCR, JJT did another. You should know these from the F-Zero page. Then there's Blind's F-Zero megamix, but I don't know where to find it atm. As for Metroid, there's a growing number of awesome Metroid remixes, this being a good example. The Metroid series is well represented, and there's more to come. By the way, which of the Maridia themes are you talking about?

Towards the end of wip2, I'm starting to hear some production issues with the track levels, the drums are louder than everything else. Bring down the drums _a little_, not much. I'm still enjoying this. Length is your biggest problem tho. You could go into a beat-orchestral-synthbass section next with a really punchy bass, that's just a suggestion, but the bass so far, while awesome, doesn't have a punch. Would be nice to have a section with more punch in the bass, not just the drums. But overall, this is one of the tracks I'm really looking forward to seeing how it develops. I think one of the problems you'll run into is direction, but you've fortunately employed a style that's very varied, so changing stuff later on shouldn't that big a problem, technically. Too cool.

What's with all the swedes coming to ocr? Anyway, with the exception of the bass drum, everything is kind'a quiet. Dunno if it's standard for the genre, but I'd recommend trying to make it louder. Limiter on the master or just more compression on the bass drum to give you the headroom. Oh right, tracker... If you can add effects, do it. If not, edit the bass drum so it doesn't peak as far, and apply overdrive or something to the sample to get more loudness without actually making it louder. The snare/clap is kind'a sharp, so it's a bit painful on headphones. The keyboard section in the middle has some really weird panning effect that's also a bit painful on headphones. The sound effects get a little annoying, I think there's just too many of them. Lose a few, lose the repetition in them, and I don't think I'll have any problem with them. That's my technical remarks. Arrangement is fun, elaborate, I like it. It sounds like there's enough source in it. If the volume wouldn't be so low, I think I'd YES this if I were a judge. But I'm not. Arrangement is great, production is good. It is a bit mechanical, but I don't have a problem with that in this genre. Overall, impressive and would probably end up on OCR after a few fixes and a few months of submission quee. Tror jag.

Intro strings... distorted? Cool, but they kind'a sound like bad midi guitar sometimes, like poorly processed midi strings at others, imo. Fading in the effect might work. Once the track gets started, it's just good. It gets a little repetitive, consider recording a solo over one of the repeated sections, even a simple slow one might be enough, and I don't think that's the time for a crazy solo anyway. Towards the latter half, it's more varied, but there's still some repetition you can cut out. I recommend either cutting on varying it more. The break followed by another heavy section could need a bigger punch for the intro, a crash might work. Speaking of crashes, why aren't tehre any big crashes in the last section? The fade-out, while functional, feels a bit like a cop-out from not having come up with a more organic ending. I can sympathize, I have a WiP without an ending. Consider adding a solo that you fade out slower than the rest of the tracks. Consider adding some higher range melody, regardless of fade. Could be a guitar solo, but just as well a piano, synth, bell, organ, ukulele, anything that give this the feel of having an ending and not just ending because you ran out of material, which is how it feels right now, sorry man. But overall, this is way more impressive than I thought it'd be from the ending demo I heard on #ocrwip. I couldn't spot any production issues, but I'm no production expert. This is impressive, it's good, it's gonna be interesting to see how this fares with the judges.

Boz, thanks man - but it IS getting better. BWS, I know what you mean. The break is meant to be something of a breather where you know it's not over, but nothing's happening, like the friggin space dragon is just watching, waiting for you to let your guard down. That was, at least, the plan, at some point. And for the metroidiness, that was my intension all along. I could have turned it into swing, ska, electronic bluegrass, attempted orchestral grandeur, but felt the source deserved a good remix. With the exception of this boss tune in virt's Super Metroid magnum opus, I haven't heard a good remix of it. Not on vgmix, not here, not in Prime or on the Brawl website... So I wanted one that's bigger and badder than the original without losing the time signature, the intensity, the mayhem... It's still missing an end, tho. Hoboka, yours sounds like a midi rip, but there's a couple of really cool synths there. -- Anyway, quick update, NEW WiP. I've already gotten some feedbakc on this version, but I'll give everyone the chance to express themselves about it. Things left to do: -ending -key change somewhere -possibly changing the soundscaping for more variety -possibly using an organ -something I don't remember atm, help me! Post # 400!!

I would have to listen to this really closely to be able to find flaws and stuff. My production ear can't find anything to say... Or wait, there a flute in the middle that's a little too soft. Raising the level a bit or shoving it an octave up might work work. Actually, the instrument in the following soft section sounds both like brass and strings, so whatever it is, make up your mind. But overall, I've got little constructive criticism to come with, it's beautiful. The synth effects towards the end might be a bit out of place, but they're well incorporated, so I can't even rant about those. It's good. A few tweaks from great. I'll shut up now.

Okay, I considered free soundfdonts. No. Logic's synths are way better. Just compare the ES2 with any soundfont or free vst out there. I've gotten some great feedback on #ocrwip, which I'll be working on incorporating. Thanks for the feedback so far, fellas.

It sounds a bit cheap. It's a majestic arrangement, but some samples are just making it sound cheap. It's still pretty, and doesn't have the same synthy feel it had earlier, so it's better. However, I think the samples might get you a NO or a RESUBMIT if you submit it. I heard source in this, someone more familiar with the source could probably give you a better answer as to whether or not there's enough source, and if it's interpretive enough, but I think it's ok on the source vs interpretation ratio. There's a few sections that sound a bit newby tho, partly because of the samples, but it could be countered by altering the arrangement slightly. For example, 2:00, when the snare comes it, sounds cheesy. The ending is also a bit sudden. Fortunately, the repeated hits doesn't make it a fatal flaw, but it's still pretty abrupt. Give the listeners a bit more warning that something gonna happen. But overall, it sounds good. The arrangement is great, imho, and I'm not hearing any of my production alarms ringing. I think there's still things to do before it's submittable, but since you've only worked on it a few days, it makes sense that it's not as polished as it could be. Don't rush it.

It's awesome. technically, I don't think the J's are gonna have any big problems with this, once the real vocals are done. I'd be surprised if this gets rejected for any production issues. I think "Nobody can do, the things that you do to me" makes a bit more sense and sounds better, at least to me. Overall, the lyrics work very well with the track. I've got nothing useful to say anymore, just that I like it.

I have a list of tracks I'm wanting to remix, the Molgera track being one of them since long before you brought it up. However, this isn't helping. The threads become less about the tracks and more about you. You're not getting results that way. As for the side note, this isn't flaming. Flaming is when you're getting personal attacks meant to insult you. This is constructive criticism. Being persistant without being annoying is how you get results. Do you want the tracks remixed? Stop bumping and become a more constructive part of the community by reviewing ReMixes, WiPs, providing links to source instead of just listing tracks you like and bumping your post before it's even half way down the page. Seriously man, do you think this is helping you get your favourites remixed?

A haiku just for you: Why so many posts? Dude, it's kind'a annoying. At least stop bumping.

Cutoff knob on the synth settings. Don't turn it down too much. Adding an EQ and dropping the high range a dB or two might work too.

Aww... I remember using GB's guitars. They're nice, but they don't sound real. Work on emulating a real guitar sound by making some notes longer, some louder, some shorter, some softer. It's also suffering from the length problemk your other wup suffers from. It could have ended at 4:18, but no. Still, cutting out repetition would improve this a lot. I can't comment on the production details without headphones, but from the speakers I'm hearing it on, it sounds newby. not bad, not good, just newby. Unrefined. Take a backup before doing any big changes tho, it's nice to save your old versions, and in case you screw something up, you haven't lost anything you can't copy-paste back. It's a good start, but you've got some way to go before you should submit anything. Welcome to these forums, hang around here to learn.

A machine-gun snare roll, overall quiet, repetitive, a bit genre-jumping, and overall poor mixing. That's the bad news. Good news is, it's interesting and doesn't feel as long as it actually is. Cutting some length out (a minute or two) would kill repetition and length, and you wouldn't have to worry about the file size. You need a limiter, altho using GB's preset multipressor might even it out enough. Leave the genre-jumping to those that have a bit more experience with different genres and focus on whichever you think you'll do a better job at. The source lends itself well to a mellow aquatic piece, but whatever you feel you want to do, do that. Just don't try to do everything at once. As for mixing, the crashes that come in after 4 mins... drop levels on those A LOT. Seriously. Then just listen to the trsack, over and over, and decide what insturments are the most important at any time, and drop the levels on the others. GB can automate track volume and pan, learn to use those (the volume automation at least). Most importantly, learn to listen. This is a nice track, and it reminds me of my GB days. I've actually got an aquatic original track made in GB on my host. Maybe you can learn something from it, altho it's from before my current skills. Good luck

It's pretty. It sounds a bit synthy in the middle, long chords and not much melody in those parts are the likely cause for that. Try adding a melody on top of the chords, whether it's bass or higher range instruments, a melody would be good. Grab something from source and play it at half speed, that qualifies as source and will give you the melodic content those sections need. Samples are nice. The arrangement needs more work, would be good to do some level fixes now, when adding stuff, so you don't have to enter the final production headache with unmixed material. Haven't got my headphones with me, so I can't comment on the production details. Overall, this sounds good, but I'm not familiar with source, so I can't comment on whether or not this is interpretive enough.