Rozovian

Stupid two-job situation.... I just sent out an email to those of you whose email addresses I've got. If you didn't get it, but should, lemme know. Also, I prefer ppl let me know if they quit the project rather than just leave without saying anything. It sucks to guess if someone's interested but has irl stuff, or if they lost interest, or something else happened. if you left without saying goodbye, say it now. If you didn't realize you left and wanna come back - do it.. I know I'm terrible at keeping in touch, so I don't blame you for thinking this whole thing is stagnating again - BUT IT'S NOT GO LOOK AT THE BLUE TRACKS WE'RE ALMOST THERE GUYS ALLCAPS LOOKS LIKE SCREAMING BACK TO WRITING AND MIXING AND STUFF!!i! Reminder: Oct 25th wips/wavs plz or else..

Props on the idea, Darke. Hm...

I came here knowing the tools but not how to really use them right. Spent a year on the feedback board and #ocrwip, got posted a little over a year after I joined. Now I oughta learn how to make my drums better in sound, writing, and mixing; I've also gotta learn how to have more direction to my arrangements, not to mention learning to do well in a few more styles or genres.

Excepting adaptive music and all the cpu work and implementation involved in that, of course. Adaptive music requires a different approach than linear music, and this approach probably eschews longer melodies in favor of more easily crossfaded soundscapes and rhythms.

The aforementioned Extra Credits episode. I don't agree that the decline is due to "better graphics, deeper plotlines, and more content". That would all be conducive to better music, really, and while music hasn't developed to the same extent as graphics, we've still seen loads and loads of improvements in sound and music. It's really just a shift in aesthetics (Extra Credits has an episode about aesthetics in graphics, too), where we've gone from the simplicity of chip music to music that support a more movie-like experience. Turn off sound and voice in Left 4 Dead and just listen to the music. It's an experience, and it's changing depending on what happens in the game. I mean, it's not like real orchestras can't play melodic stuff, or that adaptive music systems can't use melodic content. it's just that for most games, the experience doesn't call for strong melodies. Whether a more movie-like experience is a good thing or not is another matter, tho. But we've got tons of great indie games (that tend not to offer movie-like experiences) that give melodies a far greater emphasis. Aquaria has one of my favorite soundtracks, and it's recent and rich in melodies. Then there's nostalgia and selective memory. How many games with terrible music do you remember? How many games do you remember because of the music? how many old games do you remember just because you've heard a remix or two? Palpable's Pilotwings remix fired up my memory for that particular source, and the same thing happens all the time with other songs you haven't heard in ages. So there's some of my thoughts. I could write for hours about this, so I'm gonna stop here before I've spent a day on a single post here.

When recruiting for a remix album, it's usually a good idea to already have some remixes done and/or some big enough names on board so it looks more like something that's actually gonna get done than something that some dude appearing out of nowhere thought up without any resources to back it up. We don't know you or your skill level, so we don't know if this is coming from a near-pro music person or a random 10-yearold, and we don't know if you've got pro-ish remixers on board or it's just you and your idea, so we've got no clue as to whether this is gonna go anywhere. Can you make music? If ppl think you can hold your own on a remix album with ocr folks, your project will look more feasible. That said, this thread is just fishing for interest. Give him a break, guys. Good luck.

It's soon 5 am so I'm not gonna go update the first post and do stuff now. Just saying I have wips waiting, for Weird Counterpoint among other tracks. Don't nobody new start mixing that one for the project just yet... Also, new wips by the 25th. And track writeups and bios and stuff. Check first post for the what we want list.

If I were you, I'd just decide whether I wanna do soft music, droney sound designs, or musical soundscaping. All of those could be called ambient, and all of those have been suggested in this thread under one name or another. So lemme clarify those, as I see them. The first is all about soft sounds, which means you can use low-velocity and/or high-reverb piano, little arpeggios and ostinatos, soft jazz drum loops and whatever filtered rhythmic things you feel like using. Basically, it's normal music, it's just really soft. Brushes, not drumsticks. It can be soft and clear, or padded and muffled, or any combination thereof. The second could just as well be random notes with the ethereal presets from almost any synth. It's slow evolving sound more than it's musical. As long as it's not obviously clashing, you could do almost anything here as long as there's no rhythm and no distinct notes. I mean, sure, you can throw in loops and stuff, but then you're combining it with the first. The third is a bit of a compromise between the two, but in its own direction. You could have little melodies that appear occasionally, sometimes intersect. You could have rhythm if you wanted. It could be the equivalent of a jazz band in which nobody could agree when the beat is. It's basically creating environmental sound design, except it's musical. Pad it if you want to, let it swell into thick soundscapes or thin, minimal melodic plucking. There's some thoughts that might give you some ideas. btw, reverb can be summed up into three parameters: how big it sounds, for how long it sounds, and how clear it sounds. Big is of course room size and/or reflection time. Long is basically just the release of the reverb sound, which shouldn't need much explaining. Clear is whether the resulting sound will sound like foreground or background stuff in the company of other sounds, and the dry-wet ratio is probably the most important here tho diffusion also comes into play. Other parameters would be filtering that just let you shape the sound, where lows add mud, mids add body, and high add space. There might be a chorus in your reverb that further muffles and smoothens the wet signal. But they too are just part of how clear it sounds. Size, time, clarity.

Flanger or phaser in stereo + aggressive low pass filter. For the underwater effect, add reverb and muffle everything.

Meteo's mostly right. A VST is a format for virtual instruments and effects (there are other formats, like RTAS and AU). Those instruments can be samplers (play audio files), synths (create sound from some math). Effects you should already know (changes the sound). A sample cd is a cd with audio files.

Your lows are a mess. Cut out the lows from all tracks that don't need them. That should also buy you some headroom for the compression problems you've currently got. Reduce the lows in your kick as well, it's pushing the whole track's compression levels. I hear the ear-hurt-ness WIll was talking about before, and it's still there. Reduce the amount of resonance in your synths. If they get too dark, open the filter a little or use a weaker filter type (typical strengths: 6, 12, 24 - all LP). Hihat rhythm is weird. The snare writing doesn't help, but it's not as much a problem. When you're using a lot of snare, drop the velocity on the additional ones to keep it from being too dominant. It's got a lot of reverb, which works for the single snares but not so much for the extra snares... at least at their current velocity. Your levels are all over the place. Intro is way softer than the main body of the track. btw, the intro opens kind'a in the middle of things, and seems to go on for too long, and is lacking highs. I would suggest throwing in a filtered, bright, soft percussion loop or something at 0:17 to balance out the mid-heavy synths. Your lead in the intro could use some more highs, so open its filter (instead of screwing with EQ to try to boost frequencies you've already filtered out). I'm not gonna get into the source stuff, I'm sure others have. Just giving you the production impressions of a fresh pair of ears.

It's cause he's russian isn't it?

Much better, intro to 0:47 works well, then we get a way too loud instrument coming in, one that doesn't sound quite as good as the rest of the sounds at that point. Careful with the bass, tho, it's got a bit too much lows, making it take up a lot of headroom, at least on the notes it shares with the bass drum. The iteration of the source at 1:13-1:27 feels a bit redundant, it's a single lap around the original and doesn't do anything interesting. It's also a bit too short to justify fitting it between two breaks like that. Make it matter, make it longer, make something more out of it, or figure out how to best get rid of it. The guitar sample feels really dry and artificial. There's a few different techniques to giving it a bit more body and life, but I'm not sure which would be most appropriate for what you guys wanna do with it. The piano from 1:38 could be pushed a little further back with some reverb and EQ (losing lows take away some of the proximity effect, and losing highs make things sound muffled and obscured... and reverb make everything sound more distant). I'm wondering what the stuff at 1:38-2:11 is. It sounds original, but I can imagine it being based on a slow take of Zelda's Lullaby. Still, it could be a little more clearly stated somewhere in the track that there's a second source used. The new instrument at 2:11 sounds good, but it might be a little too loud. AT 2:28, you've got almost all instruments in the track, it seems. Loop that part while separating the tracks with eq, reverb, and track levels. Don't do anything too drastic, as it's not that big an issue, but it still needs to be done in order for the track to sound a little cleaner. Working on the separation of tracks in a place like that lets you hear how it'll sound at the messiest part of the track. When it's passable, the other parts shouldn't be messy at all (and might even need some beefing up somewhere - new track with new settings or use automation for that). Using the 147* note timing in the 2:11 take on the melody works the best imo, so consider alluding to this later usage in earlier takes on the melody, as those 135s* can sound a bit stiff. * whatever you wanna call it. notes at position 1, position 4, and position 7, repeat after 8. 135 respectively. Changing the bass before the piano chord changes make for an interesting, syncopated feel, tho you should _generally_ try to support the chords with the bass and/or the other way around. Just a thought. I'd say some comparison listens should do the mixing and sound design some good, and then it's just some minor arrangement edits and a volume boost before this track is ready. Not sure I'd be ok with this being an ocremix, tho there's certainly parts of it that would fit in just fine. I'd have to think about that and come back with fresh ears, but I do think it has a shot at it, given the right edits. Nice work.

Well not here... idunno

It was always a publicity thing. Just getting Zimmer on it was for publicity. Getting new girl to sing means we should all love how it's reaching out to regular ppl, how it's a game for us gamer folks... which would be good publicity. Maybe a mod should splice this part of the debate off to a separate thread, cuz I think it's something worth discussing. The most sensible thing for the ppl in charge is to pay this girl what she deserves for the work. Dunno how the contest terms are worded, but it might be that the thousand bucks are for winning the contest and there's further payment for actually recording the real thing later. I reckon there could be quite a backlash if other parts of the net make Jimmy's point as well. I wouldn't mind getting my name on a title like that, tho if I get paid breadcrumbs for something worth gold, I wouldn't be happy. Can she get the money for winning the contest and then refuse to record without proper payment?

Cop-out answers. How do the pros do it, what are your observations?

I played a shareware game, liked the music, asked the dude who made the game how to extract it from the game (no music folder, all in the app), he pointed me to modarchive, where I found mod files, which made me think I could make music with the computer, which made me get a tracker, which let me make sucky music, which pushed me to pick up a better tracker, which let me make better music, which prepared me for working with GarageBand on my dad's laptop until I got my own laptop for which I later got Logic and some Jam Packs and then an upgraded verison of Logic and then some additional instruments and a better computer and a midi keyboard and made loads and loads of music so that almost 10 years and 1700+ project files later I've learned a thing or two which I to a grat extent attribute to the ocr feedback boards and the opportunity to critique ppl's remixes which taught me to listen critically to my own which has helped me improve tremendously and above the standards bar for ocr which felt pretty good at the time tho now I'd like to go back and redo some of the tracks because some of my reasoning at the time, not to mention sound design and mixing, really weren't that great but in the grand scheme of things it was a stepping stone, a step in the right direction in which I hope I'm still heading so I can actually start making some dough out of my music making such as my upcoming album which I really need to start finishing the writing for so it'll ever get finished and I can point to that and say "I did that, do you need anything like that?" to ppl who might need my kind of music and therefor might hire me to do the music, which is something I've kind'a wanted to do for quite a while now, and despite getting my feet wet here or there I haven't really done anything that I'm happy enough with to put on a resume or demo tape or anything, but I'm guessing that'll come eventually, tho a few years later I'll think it's terrible which is something I'll attribute to improved self-critique which is somethiung I think everyone should work on here as ocr is a great palce to do just that in that there's both a couple of subforums for ppl's works and an extensive collection of high-quality works to compare those mixes to so you know what passes for good around here. *breath* And I picked up guitar after a short try-out on a synth, played in a little band with my friends which taught me a lot about how instruments interact in a band setting and later also picked up bass and am currently doing a lot on the aforementioned keyboard in order to become more effective at using that in making music which should save time when writing as well as add a far more emotive human touch than my sequencing can despite numerous attempts to humanize manually which is something that just doesn't beat the real thing tho you can get pretty close if you know what you're doing... A little hyper, tonight, maybe?

Okay so, dunno if segment is the right word but it gets the idea across. Parts? Sections? Sequences? Anyway, SMB's Overworld - which you all know - has whatisit 3 segments to it. Pop songs typically have verse, chorus, and bridge, so also three. Some sd3 tracks have 3 that repeat, then a fourth. Some tracks just kind'a fade from one part to another so it's difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. So... How many do you need for a varied arrangement, should we count slight changes like one verse with minor chords and one with major, does length factor into this, should intros count, is it varied enough by just doing variations on the same thing, etc.? I'm asking partly because I've kind'a hit a wall in my writing for my original album, and am thinking about changing my method to writing B and C (and D and E and so on) parts to my tracks instead to stretching whatever parts I've got and seeing to what kind of writing that takes me. tl;dr: How many different parts of a song does the song need?

Yeah well, that works too.

Well, I finally got some audio for my collab, so I can start finishing that up and then... not do more collabs unless we can do them quicker. No hate, Moz. But that means I'll start fill up the tracklist with my own mixes... which is about time, right? So get your own done so I'm not doing yours just because you've been sitting on your wavs. Also, sign the consent thingy so that's all done. And send me some track writeup stuff. Read the stuff in the first post about what we want from you, and comply. COMPLYYY. Also, my birthday is coming up in about a month. Guess what I want. hint: something I tend to mention a lot in this thread. another hint: your project track WAVs!!

I laugh at your new twist. There's good stuff in here, but it also feels very conservative despite the adaptation and the many additions. The first adapted version feel forced, and does so until around 0:31 when the instrumentation changes. While a bright piano certainly has its uses, I don't think the 0:14-0:30 stuff works. It's basically change through addition or subtraction of elements, which tends to feel stiff and lazy. A more creative way to get to the base of the track would do the track a lot of good. Drums could use some variation, which can be difficult when you're doing a 4 on the floor beat. You could bring in the other layers of percussion earlier (maybe filtered), as that tends to add a sense of momentum in the track. Drop some of them back out in the break and then start bringing them back for the main melody part nearing the end (the big finale or final chorus part or whatever). From 1:28 and on, the tracks works a lot better. The lead synth gets a little too loud, and the piano could possibly use a little more volume. It does feel a bit same-y when the backing follows the same chord structure and a simple rhythm. Some changes to both of those, at least the former, would do this track a lot of good, especially in conjunction with the old ones. You can do a lot with a chord progression by repeating it with a single chord changes... much like the source does after the first 8 chords (the actual change is on chord 13 and on). To hear what I mean, try a C6/E (E in the bass, GAC as the chord notes) as the fourth chord (so D, Em, F, C6/E). That should give you some idea of what you can do with the chords. Note that when you rewrite chords, you should check to see that they still support the melody - which the A in the chord does (the C and bass E to a lesser extent). For further variation, especially in the track's sense of momentum, consider changing the rhythm of the bass. The bass is noticeably repetitive, and this hurts the track. You could make it more intense, or less, depending on what you need where. I would suggest keeping what you have as the more intense rhythm and figuring out where the bass could be less intense. This is pacing, and a thought-out, deliberately less intense section can do wonders for later sections that are more intense. Beyond just the rhythm, altering the bass writing can do a lot, too. If the bass plays DGFG instead of DEFE you get a quite different feel. If it makes sense to you to swap it out somewhere, try it out. As long as the bass supports the chords and melody, you shouldn't have a problem. Can't listen to the production without digging out my headphones, which I'm too lazy to do tonight, but the lack of transitions and the simple rhythm make it sound newby. Whether it's a drum fill or melody (2:10 is doing it right), or some textural fx whoosh fade filter thingy, those things give the listener some idea of what to expect. As for the rhythm, the aforementioned layering of percussion stuff and bass writing edits should help with that. It's a cool track, but it can be better. A lot of the sound design works really well, and from listening on low volume on speakers, I'd say the production only needs a bit of tweaking (can't say what without listening properly). Compare to similar, well-mixed tracks and you should hear the most obvious differences. Too much/too little lows, too loud/soft hihat, too close/too far backing, etc.. You're doing quite well. Now do better.

(stop thinking of spaceballs, stop thinking of spaceballs...) Beautiful track. I suggest you just automate the reverb mic track volume some, to get more headroom for the impact of the close mic. You could also raise the volume some, overall. Just don't overdo it, it's a piano track after all.

Your mixing and sound design needs work. For example, your first sound's echoes work well, but the sound itself is stiff and raw. The other tracks have similar problems. The track doesn't really "click" until the bass comes in, the drums and intro bells don't seem to belong to the same track - one being clear and up-close and the other reverb-y and distant. It's an effect that _can_ work, but both tracks would need some work on their sound design to sound better on their own before they can contrast each other well. So basically, sound design and mixing needs the most work.

The best way to learn it, as Fishy already alluded to, is to create one of your own. I've screwed with FM a bit in Reaktor, and it's really a lot quicker to learn that way than by reading and screwing on invisibly connected knobs in an unfamiliar interface.

Learn to listen critically so you can tell when stuff sounds wrong. We have a feedback board for you to practice on. Really, being able to tell when something isn't right with a mix is gonna be one of the most useful production skills you can have, but you're probably deaf to it when you're starting out. Learn it.