Rozovian
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Posts posted by Rozovian
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Remember that mod review are for tracks to be submitted? Would you submit this?
ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION
- Too conservative - sticks too close to the source
PRODUCTION
- Too loud - the breathy flute lead is
- Low-quality samples - nah, but they're raw and exposed
- Mixing is muddy (eg. too many sounds in the same range) - it's too minimalistic for this to be a problem... which in itself is a problem
PERFORMANCE (live recorded audio/MIDI parts)
- Timing not tight enough
STRUCTURE
- Lacks coherence overall (no "flow")
- Not enough changes in sounds (eg. static texture, not dynamic enough)
- Too repetitive
Easy no. Sorry wolfie. Practice and study more.
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A reminder:
- sign the consent form if you haven't already
- write a few lines about your mix, the source, the game, whatever
- get us your artist bio, preferably no too long
- you rock
- keiiii, you too: bio, notes on the big pics
- we want your wavs
- sub your tracks to ocr
Also, if you're interested in a track, start working on it, let us know in this thread, send me something so I know you're not heading in the wrong direction... we've only got a handful of tracks left before this behemoth is done.
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Is anyone waiting for feedback? I feel like I'm stretched out over a whole lot of different mediums and means of communication, and my attempts to consolidate contact to my email seem to have only added to the confusion.
In other words. I'm an organizational mess. Who needs something from me at this point?
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I'm still interested, and still busy with sd3, tho with just 13 tracks left to finish, we're looking pretty good... I might have some time to join this, soon. Just saying you've got reinforcements on the way.
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A wise friend said "we are all works in progress."
What pretentious poser would say something like that?
I don't like how I run out of ideas half way through a track. I've started thousands of tracks, finished very few. Usually because whatever I started was a single idea, and I couldn't come up with some compatible ones to continue the track with when i could just as well make a new track for my new ideas... the ones that only add to the single-idea wip archive.
I should learn to do more with chords. Stacking random notes from a scale to form some nice chord is easy. Breaking scales... not easy.
And not taking my own advice. I also hate how I often don't not... do... that.
My exact words were "everyone is a work in progress".
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The problem with the arrangement is the verbatim melody, backing rhythms, and overall progression - which is too conservative. Keeping any or all of these is a legitimate arrangement choice, but keeping all three easily makes it too conservative for ocr.
I did it again. Good sounds sounding terrible != bad sounds. If you're confident that the sounds are good, you can focus on the mixing instead. If any of my crits about the sounds makes sense, do check it out, eg check that the bass isn't tuned wrong or that some pitch bend or something screws with it. A tuner plugin is pretty useful for this.
If you didn't actually do any mixing, the sound problems make sense. Use EQ (parametric or graphic) to separate tracks from each other by designating a part of the frequency range as belonging to the lead and carving a few dB from that range in the other tracks. LIkewise for the other tracks, so each instrument has its own space in the frequency range. Don't pick these ranges arbitrarily, see/listen for where each instrument sounds the best.
Use reverb to push things further into the background. If you need leads and other foreground instruments to have reverb, give them a longer pre-delay or use a delay effect and a little bit of reverb. Not every instrument can sit on the front of the stage, and not every song should be played in a big empty echo-y warehouse. A rule of thumb for reverb - if you notice it, it's a little too much. Not true in all situations, but good to keep in mind when you're starting out with this stuff.
Go into the instruments themselves to adjust some of the settings of the sound. I use an Addictive Drums demo from time to time, it's got a lot of options for shaping the sound. Whatever you need to change about a track, start with the instrument and the midi data. I this case, you have too long notes, either because of reverb or because of something in the samples. Remove the reverb, see if they're still too long. If so, shorten them in the instrument.
Still, track levels is the most important part of mixing. It's redundant to use an effect to change track levels when there's a convenient fader for that. Start with a couple of important instruments, mute everything else. Balance those two instruments. Bring in a third, balance it to the two. Bring in another one, etc.. This is how I did it back when I was learning mixing. It's faster to just listen and "know" what to do, but that takes practice.
Go read everything you can on mixing, whether it's how to make electric guitars fit in, how to mix backing vocals into a track, what reverbs to use for what genres, whatever. Each thing you learn helps you build a better understanding of mixing as a process and an art, even if you don't actually use those specific things. I've had lots of use of my attempts to learn synthesis, mostly when I mix, especially when I eq. Knowing how to create sound means I know what sound is and can better work with it. Learn stuff. Use stuff. Make stuff.
And listen to everything. Find music that's well mixed, and figure out how your tracks differ. Learn to spot flaws in ppl's music, it'll help you spot flaws in your own.
Blah blah blah, this got long. I hope it helps.
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Note that just because they don't limit the demo doesn't mean you shouldn't pay for it. Anyway, that, like most DAWs, is a fairly basic set of tools. If you want more advanced stuff, you buy more tools - aka plugins.
You can also read the guide here, or any of the other getting started-type guides on the site.
Welcome to ocr.
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Argh, I should re-read my posts twice before re-checking that they're ok before posting.
You've got a really short-attack, short-release, full-sustain simple waveform playing while you also have some less simple synthesis going on with those bells, plus their effects. There's a bit of a disparity between them, which bothers me. I'd much rather have a slightly longer release, perhaps longer attack and lower sustain on the simpler instrument, probably some delay or reverb as well to make it fit better with the bells.
TL;DR: short-adsr waveforms *vs. delayed bells
Then there's some scale clashes. Clashes and/or awkward transitions to a different scale. No you don't have to stick to a single scale for the whole track. Yes, the scales kind'a have to work together if you're using more than one at any point.
Then there's the disparity between bass-heavy drums and the established delicate soundscape.
Scales, sounds, drums. There's disparities. It's not like you can't juxtapose things, it's just that the juxtaposition doesn't sound deliberate imo.
...is what I meant.
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This is the stuff that cool ppl like. I'm just posting to show I'm cool.
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Not familiar with the sources, but this is a sweet track. Seems more written than played tho, I hope you've improved the whole humanization aspect of your music since.
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I'd be careful with some of the resonances on the bells. Beyond that, nothing in the production bothered me. I'm a bit concerned that this is too much of a medley, but I can't say for sure either way. Another mod/judge opinion on this?
Nice sound, nice track. It's not gonna kick ppl in the face, and it's not gonna make ppl notice it for a lack of intensity. You're just gonna notice it was in yoru playlist when it ends and you go "oh, that was a nice groove/track that went by". And I like that.
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Make up your mind. I mean, first you have trouble deciding on the scale you're using, and even the basic sound (short-adsr waveforms or delayed bells)... and then the heavy drums come in. Dude!
Remind me of one of the sweetest tracks I've ever written, the mood and soundscaping are quite similar. In other words, this is a really sweet track once it starts to find itself around 1:09.
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Cool arrangement, nice fitting the sources together.
Some parts sound a bit empty (high lead and low backing often do that), and you could play more with the dynamics by changing up the hihats some more during the break parts (eg 2:52). Sound could use some work. Aside from being empty, it's pretty basic in how it's laid up. A designated lead, some backing, drums, bass. Some more interplay between backing and lead might make it feel less... idunno, newby?
I don't think you'd really lose anything by scrapping the sound entirely and starting from just the arrangement. You could play with giving all tracks (except drums) the same instrument just to see how they work together. The times when the lead stands out mostly because it's two octaves above everything else might not be the best written parts. Common newb mistake, and it's not like I didn't get my first mix posted despite stupid high leads. Just worth mentioning.
Starman fits in fine, tho it wouldn't hurt to signal that the chords are changing.
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Hi new guy, welcome to ocr.
Get us the remix separate from the source next time plz, and preferably as a downloadable so we can judge the quality of the file without having to consider any compression youtube does for the streaming.
Next time, click Edit, then Go Advanced to change thread prefix. Bump the thread when you do so we don't miss it. I'll merge this with the previous thread.
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Completely unknown source. That's cool.
it's also pretty short, which might make it difficult to remix.The remix sounds messy right off the bat, long notes blending into each other. And then a set of reverb-heavy drums come and make it worse. The harpsichord breaks through the drums well, unfortunately it sounds robotic. Then I notice the bass tuning seems off. And now we're ten seconds into the mix.
Intro, once through the source, then solo. The solo fits in well. End solo, begin another conservative take on the source, and a functional if clichéd ending. Feels like it ends a but abrupt, but that's probably because the lack of prior signaling that the track was approach an end. I've commented on a bunch of mixes lately that had the opposite problem with the endings, theirs just went on for too long as if they didn't know when to end or what to do at the end... you don't seem to know what to do with the rest of the mix.
Sounds like something that'd fit well in a lot of old games (as in early nineties or older), with its limited set of samples, raw sound, limited polyphony and overall arrangement. Not ocr, tho.
The sounds are far from good. The drums and harpsichord are ok, but the rest of the instrumentation is terrible. Maybe some of it could be used if mixed right, but I think it'd be easier to just use better instruments.
The mixing is also not good. Every instrument encroaches on the space of other instruments, there's no foreground-background distinction, and sounds are just too loud for too long for a clear sound. Each of these can be solved by better use of eq, reverb, compression, and track levels.
There's stuff in here that you could use, like the truncated take on the source at 0:57 and the solo writing. Then there's much that you shouldn't use.
ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION
- Too conservative - sticks too close to the source
PRODUCTION
- Too loud
- Low-quality samples
- Unrealistic sequencing
- Mixing is muddy (eg. too many sounds in the same range)
STRUCTURE
- Not enough changes in sounds (eg. static texture, not dynamic enough)
- Too repetitive
- Too short
I doubt this would even make it to the judges' panel, and I have no doubt it'd get promptly rejected if it got that far. Listen to ocremixes and compare them to their sources to learn the arrangement and source-related criteria for getting posted. Likewise, improve your production skills through listening and comparing. Finding faults in other ppl's works makes it easier to hear the same faults in your own, then you jsut gotta learn to fix/avoid them.
Not a bad start to your stay on ocr.
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You're looking for a progressive house/trance pluck:
In nexus, there's a pluck called PL Combined Beauty that sounds reallllly close to this right out of the box...
http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/24010478/file.html
Some eq work and you'd definitely be close enough to fool whoever.
You can also find that sound in any number of Sylenth1 and Massive "Progressive House" packs.
Really close. We can has details for making our own?
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I like that sound. I want it too.
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I noticed the sound seems to either randomly detune the note, or use some slow vibrato effect or lfo->pitch. A clue to the sound, just not that useful compared to any filter stuff.
Yeah, it might not be Omnisphere and might be something simpler; Omnisphere is definitely a lot of peoples' go-to synth, and it's talked about all the time in church music circles. Failing any other ideas, I'd start by looking through its presets to see what's close, and go from there.You can exclude the Dance, Electronica and High-Energy patches from Synth Poly, I just went over those and found maybe four that sound even remotely similar in timbre:
propet xpad
juno tides
fat fizz face
bite and pluck
The patch browser is a bit clunky, but at least I can command-click to select multiple categories in a list. On Mac, obviously. Dunno what you've got.
Might work to look through the Keyboards category, or even pick a similar-ish pad and shorten that. If the soundsource's attack is too long, just set the sample start a little further in. Amp envelope first, tho.
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That's not what he means. He's looking for specifications on how to create that sound, not where in a legacy soundbank to look. You're also assuming virtual instruments all comply with GM standards for soundbanks.
I read that they're using the Alesis Micron for some synth sounds, which like its big brother should have a formant filter and a few other non-standard modules to build sounds from. The sound may well come from a single oscillator, just with a fair amount of modulations and effects. Can't say, tho.
I'm not as sure they're using Omnisphere, but there's plenty of presets to look through there, and it's probably the synth I'd use to try to create something suitable anyway.
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The closest I get is a waveform that lacks its 5th, 7th, 10th, and 12th harmonic, but it's far from the specifics. Not sure if that's the waveform they started with or if it's just a snapshot of it from the wave. The hard part is getting the modulations right, the filter, any interactions between multiple oscillators...
You could ask the guy who posted on their blog about their keyboard gear.
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Rozovian has a huge guide that's aimed at people who are just getting into the remixing scene. You're not going to learn what you need to learn just from reading but it's good to keep your mind active.
Can't seem to find where roz posted his guide...
Here, in R&C because I'm recruiting ppl to read, test, and evaluate it. It's a work in progress, but I think it's pretty comprehensive at this point. It's also written for ocr, so it covers a lot of ocr-relevant stuff that not many other guides and books do. I'm also a Logic user, btw.
I've got Dance Music Manual as well, it's a good resource tho it's obviously focused on dance genres. I think it's best when you know your toolbox and mostly just need some clarification on what the tools actually do and some pointers on dance genres. It's all greek before then, and once you're past that point you'll only find occasional useful tidbits in it.
No book or guide is a good substitute for experience, tho. Do stuff, get exp.
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(not a full mod rev, just adding to what WIll said)
Yeah, too loud, which means you can safely ease up on the compression and not worry about it getting too soft. I think the drums could be a little louder in the mix, so if you bring things down on in the output phase you can raise the drums a little. That should make them stand out a little better.
I like it.
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Now that I'm here, let's get an official voice on this stuff:
I have a question. If you have a source and remix, is it hard to understand where is the original/interpritated/changed/whateva stuff? Those breakdowns are killing your own opinion, which make you to take remixer's view as your own. Just imo.Plus, if you can't hear the source, then remix isn't a remix or you are lazy.
It's mostly for those times when we're dealing with a source we've never heard before, or one that's significantly altered or otherwise liberally remixed. It helps to have the source pointed out to us, nobody says we must read and agree with the artist's source breakdown.
The judges sometimes have trouble with this, too.
And DusK is right, covers are fine, just don't make mark it mod review. That's not what mod review is for.
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Anyway, I wanted to ask something:
How do you guys feel the remix board works right now? Are the mod reviews accurate and to your satisfaction? Are ppl getting you good feedback, or are they rude and unhelpful? Do you have any ideas on how to improve the remix board? How would you do things if you were in charge?
Or the TL;DR question:
How's the remix board doing?
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Man the intro is loud. It loses energy when the guitar comes in. I don't think that makes sense, dynamically.
Source is ok. I know this mostly from older ocremixes. It's conservative, but I don't think it's too much so.
There's some nice 80s stuff in here, the intro and break/midpart have some really 80s sounds in there. Never a bad thing.
Kick might be a bit too low-heavy for this soundscape. Some of that fake brass could be less loud, it gets pretty annoying towards the end of the track.
The long guitar notes seem to pad the track out a bit too much. Dunno if that's a big deal here, but if nothing else, it's worth keeping in mind for future mixes. You lose some dynamics and impact from not letting up before drum notes. Some creative side-chaining might help, tho you shouldn't make it really noticeable imo. There's parts, like the ending, where it makes sense to have a thicker, less dynamic soundscape, but in other parts it might be worth doing some creative compressing. just know that in this case, not doing it is better than overdoing it.
PERFORMANCE (live recorded audio/MIDI parts)
- Timing not tight enough - there's some melodies in the first part that could be tighter
So close to avoiding the checklist. _SO_ close.
Short and sweet, not much else to say. Dunno how your subbed version was, but this seems to be above the bar. Nice work, Li.
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Nice bass.
Starts off kind'a simple/weak/weird, but not intolerably so. The delay is a bit strong on that first instrument, but that's a nitpick. That first melody is too loud when it makes its appearance at 2:50, tho. The lack of definition in the kick applies. It could have more highs or mids, some more click to it.
There's some amount of noticeable compression, but I don't know how much is tolerable in dubstep. Reducing regular compression/side-chaining and using a multiband compressor on the output should alleviate the compression issue, but it'll likely take some work to set it up to not screw with the frequency balance... but you're lacking mids a bit, so screwing with the frequency balance might actually be a good thing. Just take a backup before you do anything drastic so you can go back.
I keep hearing source bits all over the place. For most of the track, I'd say source usage is fine, tho for some reason I can't place that first melody. it's like a variant of the UP A-part ostinato, shifted by a note and otherwise altered a bit as well, but... I'm not quite convinced. Still, I'd say this is ok, source-wise. Had to check for myself, amb, I'm a mod, I'd be remiss if I didn't.
There's a few transitions that seem a bit awkward. While there's some aimlessness throughout the track the whole thing seems to just run out of ideas at 2:38 and then kind'a just go on without really knowing what to do until almost a minute later when it starts dropping tracks out. A more thought-out ending is one of the bigger improvements you could do to this track imo.
PRODUCTION
- Overcompressed (pumping/no dynamics)
STRUCTURE
- Lacks coherence overall (no "flow") - some parts, some transitions, weak ending
Production isn't far from the acceptance bar, and the arrangement doesn't need much to pass, imo anyway. Almost avoided the entire checklist, too. Nice work.
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Nothing wrong with that, but if you're not gonna sub it, don't make it mod review. This goes for everyone.
(I'm changing this to finished.)
LoZ: WW - Molgera
in ReMix Requests
Posted
It's a tricky source. Not to work with, but difficult to do something different with without losing what made the original so cool. I've tried. Apparently, I don't have a version online. Yet.