Rozovian

Summary from the FAQ: as long as you do NOT make any profit AND you credit both OC ReMix and the artists for each track used, the answer is YES. If your video is monetized, being sold in any context, or you're generating revenue from ads, the answer is NO. In those instances we recommend getting individual permission from each artist. Terms of Use here. Can't say about the companies.

Tracklist updated, and We are now _7_ tracks from having an all-blue tracklist (the flute jingle thing doesn't count), and we have no more red tracks (again, flutey no county). Guys, you kick ass. 7!

...and I'm back from all my xmas/newyears stuff. To do: - Crit/mark tracks. I have a few. - Send our audio preview stuff to our artists. Yes, plural. - Finish Frenzy. Work begins on Monday. Spent my vacation alternating between Sweden and Vice City. Should have bought my own 3g modem thingy.

Was listening to a playlist with all of ocr on it, and this one came up after Joren's Simian Soirée on the DKC2 album. Perfect combo.

0.02 Some questions took a few steps forth and back to figure out.

REAPER isn't actually free, but the demo is only limited by an annoying message when you start it, there are no missing features or anything. And it's dirt cheap. Mixcraft should get a mention for being equivalent to Apple's entry-level DAW, GarageBand, and its full version is 150 bucks. If you're serious about music and can handle the probably higher learning curve right away, getting a more advanced DAW from the start is probably better, even if it's one of their cheaper versions, but from what I can tell, Mixcraft is a pretty good place to start.

If you got Kontakt via Komplete, I would recommend using Battery for your drums instead. It's a lot easier, altho it doesn't have all the morphing options and scripting and stuff that Kontakt libraries can have. Acoustic kits, use Kontakt, route stuff to different outs. Non-acoustic kits, or kits that doesn't need the realism and finer details of the fancy libraries, go with Battery. The out-routing is so much easier there, as is sample layering and other stuff useful in designing the drum sound. Because I loop drums a little too much, I like having snare and kick on one midi track routed to one drum instrument, and hats and other things on another, going to another drum instrument. Even then, I separate drum and kick, crashes and hats. If there are other elements, like toms, more cymbals, reverse crash; I usually give those a separate tracks as well, depending on their needs. I actually use Superior Drummer, Addictive Drums (albeit just the demo for now), Battery, Kontakt, and Logic's own Ultrabeat as my drum samplers, depending on the kits I wanna use. There's also DrumSpillage and a fun little CamelAudio freebie drum machine I got from Computer Music or something that I also use occasionally, obviously depending on style. I usually don't have all my drums on the same track anyway, but when I do, I usually route them to different channels. The best way to deal with this stuff is probably to just get used to setting up a multi-out on your drums so it's not a matter of figuring it out half way through the mix every time. Build presets with this routing already there. When I do work with a single drum track, I usually just put some soft compression on the track and do subtle eq things to the kit, like finding the fundamental of the kick and snare and boosting those, and if there are big balance issues I can't get around with EQ alone, a multiband compressor can provide some additional control. If I'm concerned about having a clean drum sound, I might set up a low pass filtered bus signal for side chain compression of other tracks to get the drums out more without messing with their sound. If not, I can go with overdrive on the main channel to grit up the drums. Then there's reverb, which I might wanna process separately as well. I might end up with three different buses from this single drum track. You can probably figure out ways to work with these options and find more options as well. There's some thoughts on the topic.

Don't make a big deal out of what you do, just do stuff. First you'll sound bad, then you'll sound either weird or generic depending on whether you try to sound different or not, and then, some times after that, you'll begin to have a style. It's not something you'll recognize yourself, you'll just think it's how everyone does it. That's because your influences sometimes do it, so you think it's just how it's always done. And that becomes a part of your musical palette, just like chords and scales, and squares, boosts and cuts... For example, you might have influences that use reverse crashes and other reverse effects a lot. You'll just think that's how to signal a change in the track. Someone else might just write a drum fill, coming from influences with drum fills. Others don't signal their changes, they just expect ppl to keep count of the measures and follow a pattern common to the music they listen to. This applies to everything. Arrangement, chord progressions and texture, rhythm, bassline, sound design, compression, everything. You know you have a style when ppl that listen to a lot of music, good and bad, newby and pro; say "yeah this sounds like you". Maybe they can identify the elements that make up your style, components of the style. Certain intervals you like to use in melodies, how the bassline changes with the chords, your choice of chord variants, some amount of shuffle to your performance, your usual go-to instruments... whatever. I spent a fair amount of years trying out styles. They all count as my style, I based them all on previous tracks I had made, often using the same sounds and the same structure to the arrangement. I remember my dance style and my rock/electronic style. I spent a fair amount of years just experimenting. Making up silly restrictions and trying to work within those. use only three monophonic instruments? Make my own synth patches for everything including drums? Only use fm synths, except for drums? Use a four-note source? Play everything with the computer keyboard? Pick an odd time sig? Yeah, I've done that and more. You learn a lot form that, it forces you to try new things, things that you can incorporate into what you normally do... and that might become part of your own style eventually. And yes I know, experimenting and setting up silly self-imposed challenges is my go-to answer for a lot of stuff, but it's worked for me. I think. I have a style, don't I?

I've been using a trackball for a while now, for gaming, music, everything. Got tired of Apple's silly mouse and the once nice but quickly clogged up scrollball, and picked up this as a replacement. Dunno if it's any better to get around tendonitis, but it's worth considering. Logitech also have a couple of other trackball options, where the ball isn't rolled with the thumb. Dunno if that's any better. So my suggestion is to look at trackballs. Dunno how well they get around the problems you're having with the mouse, but it works just as well as a regular mouse. Took me a week or so to get used to it, and now it feels a little weird to use a regular mouse.

*per se Guys, if he wants to work with someone that knows chipstuff, let someone that knows chipstuff work with him. Not everything needs a specific goal. Tho more specifics would probably help, DAX. You're new here and we know next to nothing about you. Stuff like your DAW, previous music, influences, goals for the collaboration... those things help ppl figure out whether they wanna work with you or not. You're very terse, and that's not encessarily working in your favor. Good luck tho.

I've stopped thinking in terms of inspiration and more in terms of ideas and discipline. Ideas - this is the concept, the thing that makes we want to write something, or the thing that I'm trying to write. Or it's just a silly challenge, like only using FM synths or remixing a four-note song. Discipline - this is the hard part. ideas are cheap. Just sitting down with the idea and writing stuff until I make something usable, whatever the idea, that's hard. Sometimes, this results in new ideas, sometimes it's just a whole lot of fluff trying to space out an idea or two. The sudden compulsion to sit down and make music comes and goes, usually when I'm nowhere near where I can actually do that. You can't rely on that.

If you want stuff in the style of CoD based on CoD, why don't you just listen to CoD? If you wanna point ppl to a style, go ahead; if you wanna point ppl to a soundtrack, go ahead; if you wanna suggest a particular style for a particular track, go ahead. It's just that I don't think I'm alone in thinking that making a rock cover of a rock song isn't nearly as interesting as a bluegrass, jazz or trance take on it - and this applies to any and all genres and styles. It's hard to top the original, and remixing in the same style means ppl will inevitably compare the two that way, so you might as well find something else to remix in that style, or do something else with the source. imo, anyway. Remember that the requests board doesn't come with any guarantee of your request being picked up. If you wanna remix it - just do it.

Logic's built-in instruments don't care about midi channel, but it's a bigger deal in midi files... for obvious reasons. If some program can't import the midi regions properly as separate tracks, it might just want to separate them by channel... or at least that shouldn't be too hard. If the type 0 issue doesn't get you anywhere, this might get your around the problem.

Guys? There were a couple of red tracks here. They're green now.

Isn't it more fun to listen and figure it out, collectively, together, like what xmas is about? Besides julmust, bad gifts and arguments about the meaning of christmas, I mean.

Noticed Whitescape has my usual vgm wip msg in the comment tag. If you're fixing stuff, add that to the list. Looking good, otherwise.

I removed the link and PMd it to Dyne. Dunno if he wants to keep tracks secret but if not, he can just re-post the link or something. Also welcome. Aalso nice track. I think it'll fit right in. This is an unofficial project, so standards aren't as strict as for regular ocr projects or the site itself. If you want, I can give you a more detailed critique of the track some time.

I've apparently been productive this week. Two tracks finished for this thing when I should be working on sd3 or something.

...and suddenly a red track changed color.

Within a week, if I have time to work on it and know the source well enough and get the core of the arrangement down in the first day. Otherwise they'll take years, most of that time spent sitting around, getting little edits and sound upgrades occasionally. I revived an older thing for AOCC this year. Took me most of autumn to just sit down and screw with the sound. Then I fixed up the arrangement is pretty much a day or so. In between work and stuff. To improve, figure out what you need to do and what's just added bonus if you have time to do it. A great way of doing this is to challenge your self to eg one-hour mixes. Whether you take part in the one-hour compo over at thasauce or not, giving yourself that arbitrary limitation forces you to get something done. For example, this thing was made in 40 minutes trying out REAPER with a couple of free synths. I've done other challenges as well, like a no-samples, custom synth patches only track. Challenges like that help you work and improve faster than just screwing around with stuff.

If the Js say the arrangement is fine I won't comment on that at all, instead focus on their crits. Doesn't sound dry and thin. Might have gone a bit overboard with reverb now. Robotic? There's elements of that still. It's dynamic, but there's a lot of robotic hitting as contrasted with a more human playing. Thats the problem with quantizing things, unless you have Cubase's unfairly convenient control over how much it's quantized. Compression? Feels like it could hit harder during the loud parts, so there's definitely a sense of being held back. Could be other factors, like the samples used. At the same time, there's something about it that sounds a little distorted during the loudest parts, like there's too much limiting. See if you can undistort it. Maybe you could separate the pianos more so they won't compete for both left and right channels. Another trick would be to look at the extent that each piano needs low frequencies and filter those out from the pianos that don't need them. It's not much, but every bit helps. just don't overdo it. Cool stuff. PRODUCTION ~ Too quiet - not much, and it doesn't sit right with the compression concern ~ Unrealistic sequencing - hitting vs. playing - Overcompressed (pumping/no dynamics) - that distortion thing - Mixing is muddy (eg. too many sounds in the same range) - pianos could be more separate

Hihat and snare should trade levels. it gets pathetic around 2:27 when the snare should drive the track some, instead we get a some crash noise covering most of the sound behind the guitar. The drums are way behind the guitar here, do some comparisons with eg Sixto's tracks for reference. Sort out your track levels. I have no idea what that bass is supposed to sound like, but it doesn't. Longer decay, longer notes, new sample, whatever. The rest of the sound design seems to work. Nice amount of energy in the arrangement and guitar. Sounds like a remix of a Mega Man track more than a Sonic track, which is pretty cool. I'd class this as an interpretive cover. It's on the conservative end of things, but I don't think it's too conservative. Overall, this seems to be mostly mixing tweaks away from being postable, assuming it's not too conservative. ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION ~ Too conservative - sticks too close to the source - it's a possibility PRODUCTION - Too quiet - most things, not the guitar; should fix itself once the mixing is right - Drums have no energy - _some_ drums have no energy - Mixing is muddy (eg. too many sounds in the same range) - can't hear the synths behind the guitar STRUCTURE ~ Not enough changes in sounds (eg. static texture, not dynamic enough) - adds to the repetition concern ~ Too repetitive - possible

Sound design is very 90's. That's cool. Production, unfortunately, is too. It sounds a bit like the stuff that showed up in electronic pop music in the early 90's. You need more modern production techniques to get on ocr, imo. That's not particularly hard, tho, some eq and reverb to separate tracks more and it should be in a good place. Piano feels a bit stiff. I like the sample-y feel of it, and I don't mind the stiffness during the more intense parts of the mix, but when it has a more exposed part (like at 2:43), it just stands out as mechanical. It's fairly conservative, but I think it's different enough. I like how it sounds like it comes from a shorter and less repetitive source, but the source is way worse than the mix in this regard. I don't mind the repetition in the mix. Drums could have more fills and a few more variations, even if they're subtle. The bass also. You've got a cool groove, but don't be afraid to develop a few variations of it, and use those variations to control the intensity of each part of the track - as you have with the 1:46-2:13 part. Ending doesn't work. At least give us a delay tail and a bit more silence at the end or something. Production update and humanization during human parts and it could make it to the site. Good luck. PRODUCTION - Unrealistic sequencing - not always a problem, but it's there - Mixing is muddy (eg. too many sounds in the same range) - not horribly so, just 90's so STRUCTURE ~ Not enough changes in sounds (eg. static texture, not dynamic enough) - could be more varied ~ Too repetitive - not a huge deal, but i bet the judges would comment on the drums and bass ~ Abrupt ending - it's not cut off but it does end poorly

Reviewing reviews... so much whining.

I decided to test my own thing here. The result. Sounds a lot like my late GarageBand-early Logic stuff, so it should work just fine for anyone getting started with this stuff. This is after about 40 minutes of screwing around in REAPER, and probably the first time I've actually mixed something in it, hence the quality. REAPER and its own effects, FreeAlpha, TAL-Elek7ro II, and a touch of Aradaz Maximizer, output monitored with RND Inspector.