Rozovian
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Posts posted by Rozovian
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I don't know about sports metaphors, but there's still time to swing some hoops with the pigskin. There's still tracks left to do and wips to finish. Come on ppl, don't let the other Mana projects finish before we do!
Stuff due October 25th. Old wips better be pretty much complete by then, and new one quite far along plz.
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You're not getting past your current skill level any time soon if you don't challenge yourself.
1. If you have a chord progression you wanna use, take the source melody and adapt it to the new chords. If you have an idea for a new take on the melody, write than and then find chords that fit. Doesn't matter which, it's the result that counts.
2. When it comes to fairly conservative mixes, using different chords results in a different mood without necessarily altering much else. Ekaj's take on Red Brinstar is one of my favorite mixes in this regard because of how the chords are altered, resulting in a very different mood. Likewise, Tyler Heath's take on Dragon Roost Island screws with both melody and chord progression, and the result has a very different feel than the original. Or, to toot my own horn, there's this.
While making it, it's a guideline for melodies. Whether or not you have the chords blocked out, the chords you choose will lead to a different harmony and thus a different mood.
3. Pick four chords. Use those.
If you wanna get a little more complicated, you can look at the notes used in the melody and pick chords that use those. You can write a bassline and figure out how you wanna modulate (change the chords of) that, as I did in my track linked above.
Music history has some typical progression to draw on for different genres and styles, you can look up chord progressions on wikipedia or google it for examples. Music theory can exmapl why some chord progressions work better than others and why they have different moods. Just read stuff, listen to stuff, and experiment and you'll get it.
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Wouldn't using CDBaby or Bandcamp or something make it a lot easier to release the album?
On a serious note: I'll echo ACO, just find the right audience for it. I'm guessing real drummers would be bothered by the fakeness of it, with the possible exception of those that can appreciate the writing behind the sound (if it's good writing). If it's done right, most ppl wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
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Hi and welcome to ocr.
You misunderstand the site and what kind of remixing we do here. We take _any_ video game music, write our own arrangement of it, produce it, and submit it by email for evaluation. if accepted, it gets posted by site staff. What you're suggesting seems more like a mixtape - which is not an arrangement.
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Hi and welcome to ocr, HW.
If you can boost your tracks after limiting them to 0dB and not have clipping, then you've probably got some other effect pulling down the level afterwards, or just forgotten to turn the output of the effect/channel to 0dB.
The loudest parts of a mix are the transient attacks of drums and other percussive instruments, so they're the ones first to get clipped. Few ppl will notice those being hard clipped, altho there are other tricks to reducing transient levels.
After that, your loudest instruments, probably bass, kick, snare, and lead are likely to clip when their peaks coincide (interference). This is noticeable, and should be avoided. You can side-chain a compressor on the bass to duck under the kick (kick hits, bass ducks), which should yield a little more room and won't be noticed if the compressor is quick enough.
The remaining peaks, whether transients or interference, can be done away with using a limiter, just make sure it only cuts peaks, not half the waveform or something.
The rest of it is just regular mixing. Get rid of frequencies the instruments don't need, as Graves and Kristina already said. Use compressors to get things louder between loud peaks. Learn the toolbox. The professional mixers do. They have good tools, but they also know how to use them, and could probably do something close to the same level with the tools you have.
And yeah, you can't make it go over 0dB, that's the digital maximum. Dunno if you know computer graphics, but it's like computer colors that go from 0 to 255. You can't making it brighter than 100% white. That's how digital audio works.
TL;DR: To answer your question: no.
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Mac user, so no Chipamp for me. I use an older thing, Game Music Box, which is nice and simple and doesn't try too hard to have everything. I haven't collected that many chiptunes, I've only really got a nes and a snes collection, but that's where most of my sources are from. I have some arcade emulator on one of my machines, but don't remember which. GMB doesn't seem to work in Lion, so I use Audio Overload there.
I found it really interesting to see the composers of individual tracks and the track names in GMB and AO. Dunno if the nes collection had any metadata, but the snes one did. I could see your database being used for tracks without that kind of metadata, or just for finding all tracks by specific composers (a composer-based ocr album, anyone?).
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Lyrics are done (left the old post in the first post for reference). PM me your contact info, be it email, skype, aim, whatever, and we'll talk. Mark came up with some cool melodies for it, I'll send you what we've got once I know where to.
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Already started a potential aocc mix.
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Hi and welcome to ocr.
The feedback board is for one track only (albums are exceptions), so pick one track you want feedback on and we'll focus on that. That way you won't have to deal with ppl listening to different tracks and contradicting each other eg "the drums are too loud" "no they're too soft". (and don't clog up the board with a dozen threads for individual tracks, either. it's happened.)
If you're just starting out, we've got some reading material for you. zircon's remixing compendium is a good read, and I have my (albeit in-progress) remixing guide linked in my sig.
Using midis is a great place to start familiarizing yourself with making music, especially the mixing/production side of it, but it can be limiting to have so many complete tracks. At some point in your learning process, try taking only the important melodies from a midi and write the rest of it yourself. That way you'll learn to write your own rhythms and chords and stuff.
When it comes to production, the main two tools are level (aka volume) and frequencies (adjusted with equalizer, aka EQ). Figure out which tracks should be loud and which ones can be soft. Use EQ to separate tracks with eq and to cut out frequencies they don't need (eg low frequencies from mid/high-range instruments). Details in your assigned reading material.
From a quick listen, albeit on laptop speakers; it seems you need to get your ears in gear. Listen critically to your tracks to figure out what's wrong with them, and start changing that. For example, your SkyDeck track has really loud crashes and a really high and soft bass. Start finding specific flaws and learn to fix and avoid them.
This stuff isn't easy, but it's really rewarding when you notice you've improved and your music starts to sound good. Again, welcome to ocr. Good luck and have fun.
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Yup, impulse responses are for convolution reverbs (or any convolution effect). You send a supershort burst, an impulse, through a room or equipment and record the resulting sound (eg a reverb). You then play that response for every sample in your audio (sample as in sample rate, not sample as in sampler instrument), and the result is as if your instruments were played exactly where the impulse came from.
Because the loudest part of the IR is the impulse, you get the direct, dry sound from that, and the rest is reverb. The benefit of this is that is typically ends up being more realistic than algorithmic reverbs. The downside is that it takes a bit of computing power to play that sample (even if only the amplitude varies), and you only have as many positions/variations of a room as you have impulse responses from it unless you start mixing in additional IRs, which might screw with the realism. Still, it's a step up from the algorithmic technology, you just need good IRs for it to be worth using.
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Drums are soft compared to the rest of the instrumentation. They sound strong enough on my louder listening volume (I have two that I use and know how stuff sounds on), but the rest of the sound get too loud then. I'd lower the rest rather than screw with the drums, tho soft layering and subtle sidechaining and other tricks can also be used. Just find the right balance between drums and the rest and it should be fine. To my ears, at least.
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Ahem, well if I may be so bold to ask, whatever happened to:
Unless of course some WAVs matter more than others.
I officially have no idea what you're talking about.
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Finally a review!
Mixing seems a little overdone, it feels a bit forced. Easing up on compression might help, tho I'd start with softening lead levels a little. Bass might be a touch too loud as well. Clap and reverse crashes are quite loud as well. Once those are all a notch softer, the compression wouldn't be as hard anymore anyway, so you might not need to adjust that if you just drop levels slightly.
It still hinges on the panel's view of the source usage. I hear the source as pointed out in the first post, most of it at least. To me it feels fine, but I've had similar stuff rejected. My guess is a yes, with some discussion as to whether or not the original/inspired writing on top of the source backing is kosher. Hard to say.
Groovy stuff, regardless.
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PRODUCTION
- Drums have no energy - possibly
- Mixing is muddy (eg. too many sounds in the same range) - feels like the low end could be a tad cleaner, and some foreground-background separation wouldn't hurt. Just don't overdo it.
STRUCTURE
- Too repetitive - parts feel like they repeat in the arrangement
- Abrupt ending - It's not cut off, but it feels like there's a piece missing in between the ending three notes and the preceding bit
First minute feels a bit aimless, but not terribly so.
Drums feel really weak on my softer listening volume. It's not like the style calls for booming big drums, but they could be a little stronger, kick and snare at least. Actually, the whole track feels a little soft. On my higher listening volume, I find the drums to sound fine, but the rest of the instrumentation is a bit too loud by comparison. If you up the drums slightly, you should be all right. Might be worth looking through the instrumentation for ways to let the drums through a bit more, eq or sidechaining or something, just don't overdo it.
There's some mid/high resonances that bother me in much of the track, dunno where exactly it is, but it's like it's an excessive eq boost somewhere in the mids/highs. Could be my ears, but you should know your eq well enough to find this yourself if it's not just in my head.
Not sure how the simple sound design will fly on the panel, but it's a cohesive enough and clearly deliberate sound design for my liking. Could be a little more dynamic, softer parts be overall softer rather than just dropping out the occasional instrument, but I don't think it's a dealbreaker.
I dunno Castlevania sources well enough to know which is which without looking them up, and I can't tell where one begins and where another ends but can clearly identify them being there. Cool.
Might be a bit conservative in that a lot seems drawn straight from source, might be seen as a medley of source parts if it's to jarring to ppl that know the sources better, but I think it's in the clear.As for the arrangement, it works ok, but it feels a bit repetitive. The recurring parts aren't that different from each other, making this just repetition with variation rather than a distinct new appearance of a previously used part. I'd fix it by screwing with the dynamics of the preceding parts, and maybe the underlying chords, but how you solve it is up to you.
At this point, I think I'd give it a resub. Lots of small issues, but no big red warning flags.
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Bumped with update. I need to stop playing CK2 and make more music. This just needs vocals, and stuff adjusted to fit the vocals.
Vocalists?
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Gah, I end up with the last post of the page again. Oh well...
I put the finishing touches (I think) on one of my mixes, and turned it blue. Anyone else care to do the same this weekend?
Also, anyone who can do art (you can be colorblind, but you must be able to sketch), get in touch. We gotta work around a little snag in getting material for the video preview (which is not the same as the trailer), so we need more art, and we want it quick and sketchy. Feel free to pm me contact info for any artists you know that might be willing to help.
(somebody quote the art stuff in the first post of next page plz, I don't wanna double post just to do that.)
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Sorry, no review yet. Bumping this for the other mods (or for myself, but still don't have time for a rev) so it doesn't get forgotten.
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Sorry there's no review yet. Bumping this for the other mods (or for myself, but still don't have time for a rev) so it doesn't get forgotten.
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Very informative post, Snap, but real music pros only use Scream Tracker.
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Short answer: Reaper. Unless you have any specific workflow preferences none of us know about, get Reaper. Then get instruments. Then get practicing. Then stop being bad at this stuff. Then make good music.
You won't be able to make metal without:
1) drums, which will take a lot to record, cost time and money to get virtually, and take ages to do for free.
2) guitar, which is still quite an investment of time and money to do virtually, but takes time to learn and money to get recording gear too. If you don't already play guitar, this will be the hardest part of making metal.
The more electronic styles, still dark and heavy, are easier on the stuff you need, but you'll still have to spend a fair amount of time getting the right sounds and learning to write and mix it.
You're, as you said, new to this, so you ought to know before you start that this isn't learning a four chord song on guitar - this takes years... and when you look back and see how much music you've made, much of which is enjoyable, you know it's worth it.
TL;DR: Get Reaper. Practice. Improve.
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It was bound to happen sooner or later; if not SE then some other game company would respond to ppl making money using their ip, even if that money is going to ocr. Multi-ip albums like BadAss would be especially sensitive to this kind of action, but with SE we're dealing with a substantial number of tracks and albums, a significant portion of ocr. Dunno much more about the deal than what Meteo's posted, but I'm not surprised. Also, I didn't have any moneys on my paypal for this earlier. OCR +$50.
On a smaller scale, this means that the preview I've been planning is running short of video material. We have a lot of art, but much of it is incomplete and even then it's not the greatest fit for a long preview (better for a short trailer). I'm not quite sure how important visuals are in the preview, but it just feels lazy to do some basic pans over few of pics for a 5+ minute thing.
We'll either get that as a preview, or wait until we've got a few more artists. I have an idea for the preview graphics, I just need a handful of artists with a couple of hours (or so) of spare time they wanna give to the project. Thoughts welcome, here, pm, whatever. We'll see.
Ultimately, I don't think this changes much for the album, it just changes how we do some of the marketing/advertisement for it. Summer's over, work's started, I want tracks for my commute (and for the project).
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OCR folks' winter musics. So we all know where they are.
I kind'a wish the album could be ready a month or so ahead of time, for some ocr frontpage pimpage, and the months go by so fast... I mean, August is almost over already. Those of us who aim to make something might wanna start sketching and thinking about sources or whatever already, assuming Dyne doesn't have some specific direction for it this year, or if it clashes with some other winter-y project.
That said, it's way too early to start asking about it, certainly if you're not a remixer asking about whether you should make something for it (btw, answer: always yes).
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Anyone?
Apparently not.
Ian, there are music ppl who are also fans of WB's cartoons out there, but this is clearly not where they hang out. If I were you, I'd focus on the WB fandom (or cartoon animation fans in general) first and music communities second. Making music isn't a half-minute thing, it takes a while to figure out what to do with a source track, and then to get every instrument the way you want it and make them all play nice with each other takes a lot of time. That's time that many of us would rather put into vgm remixes for this community than into WB remixes. That's the time that doesn't end up as work or sleep or the mythical thing called life.
I don't see anything wrong with recruiting for a WB album here, but if this is the only place you're fishing, you're gonna get disappointed. Also, projects are not run in the R&C forum and an album that isn't vgm-related wouldn't get a thread in Projects, so you'd need to find somewhere else to run the project anyway. Likewise, your challenges seem more like competitions to me. That makes the R&C the wrong forum for it.
Finally, almost half the paragraphs in your post are about becoming a composer for WB. Dude.
In short: If nobody here bites, fish somewhere else.
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I started out not being that great at playing anything and not being able to record what little I could play, so I went electronic-y, which was fine as I listened to a lot of tracker stuff (which is, for obvious reasons, pretty electronic). I've since learned that electronic is a really broad term as genre goes, and to do what I want regardless of whether it's legit electronic music or not, or if it's electronic at all.
In other words:
Just make music you want to listen to.
'Never Forget' & 'Rain' Remix - Halo 3 & Halo 3 ODST (Xbox 360)
in Post Your Game ReMixes!
Posted
Glad you're taking on ODST as well, one of my fav soundtracks.
The beginning and end takes on the first part of Never Forget are pretty cool, the last bit has a bit of a The Wingless vibe to it, but the rest of the track is just a rehash of the sources, especially the ODST source. Transitions, even within the same source, are pretty abrupt, and while that might work int he OST, it doesn't work in your mix. The sources are also separate from each other, which can also be a problem.
The mix sounds a bit overcooked, and that's not what the oc in ocremix stands for.
It's like you've put all kinds of loudnening on the tracks, which only really wrecks the sound quality. The sounds themselves are pretty good, but the processing is a bit too much. If you have to trade in a few dB for a cleaner mix, do it.
Fix the mixing and save the best parts of the arrangement, and you'll have a great foundation for a new remix of Never Forget. If Another Rain can be worked into it more organically, that's great, but don't force it. There are other sources that might work better, if you need any.
ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION
- Too conservative - sticks too close to the source
PRODUCTION
~ Too loud - individual track processing, I think
~ Mixing is muddy (eg. too many sounds in the same range) - occasionally
STRUCTURE
- Lacks coherence overall (no "flow")