Rozovian

Well, the strings are lagging behind. Changing sample start, shortening the attack, or just moving them back a little so they play earlier should solve it. The first two might not be possible in your sampler, idunno. Then there's dynamics, which you need more of. Imagine how a real orchestra would play - what parts would be loud, what parts would be soft. Your percussion needs to be louder, and your bass drum doesn't actually need that much low frequencies. Do more comparisons to other tracks with a similar sound. Keep at it, you're learning.

Cool stuff, as usual. Dude, you should be a posted remixer so you can put your stuff in Community instead of here. Gather your tracks in albums and release there... when you're allowed.

Most of the sounds aren't great, and the whole thing seems to have been done by snes samples with some effects. The mixing and sound design needs a lot of work. Whether you're going for a "real" sound with synth elements or a chippy overall sound, the mixing needs to be better. Compare to well mixed tracks (of either sound) and you should be able to tell. The originals aren't The arrangement is a bit overly conservative at 1:11-1:26 and 1:45-2:08. You seem to follow the progression of the original a little too much, taking the most liberties with the source's A-part and not that much with the others. What you do is pretty cool, especially the first minute. But the sound is the bigger problem here. Compare to well mixed tracks, figure out what's different and try to sound alike. Hihat levels, bass depth, background instrument levels, that stuff.

Yeah post it. We can't tell what you mean by harsh, so it's difficult to offer a good solution. Some possible solutions are, as hedgog already suggested, to reduce the high frequencies with and equalizer. You could also use reverb to push it back a bit, or the sampler's filter to make the softening respond to the note pitch some. There could also be specific frequencies that are harsh, and those would probably need some specific EQ-ing to get rid of. If the flute is created by a synth (as in, not in a sampler/sampled/recorded/real/audio file(s) etc) you could screw with the synth patch to find and reduce whatever's making it harsh. And making it quieter might also be a good idea. There's the possibility that the harshness comes from it just being too loud. If the whole mix is too loud, there could be clipping... which is harsh. If the flute is the only thin too loud, any frequencies that would otherwise just blend in might just be too loud in comparison to the rest of the mix. Or it could just be a bad sound, and you can't tell yet. Post it.

I've tried remixing sources from games I've played, whether they were obscure rented things, favorites of mine, indie titles I wanna call attention to, or whatever; but when it comes to games I won't remix, I guess there's just one game: FFVII. It's already been done. I'd say the same of CT, but I've actually played that one, and like it and the soundtrack. I'm in no hurry to remix it tho, when there's stuff like Pilotwings, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, FreeSpace 2, Plants vs. Zombies, Halo 3: ODST, and a lot of others I've been trying to make something cohesive and complete out of. Beyond those, I'd say I'd rather do under-remixed games than over-remixed games, I'd rather do games that weren't on the SNES generation. And for the time being, I don't think I'll do games that aren't eligible for being posted here, like Loom.

It gets silly when you've got a portrait in horizontal orientation, or a landscape in vertical. Horizontal and vertical would be a lot better. But it's not like they foresaw internet image searches when this became standard.

Get some generated fractals, rotate them 90°. Or just crop a huge image. Silly how the vertical picture orientation is called portrait. iirc anyway.

Okay....

Mac makes things easy for you, and comes with GarageBand so you can start making music right away. GarageBand isn't the most advanced music software and doesn't come with a huge array of realistic instruments, but it's a great place to start, and nothing's stopping you from advancing to other, more advanced DAWs, including Logic which can open GB projects so you can continue working with the same sounds and stuff. It all hinges on whether you can find a decent mac for under a grand, thatis.

Awesomeness, welcome back. if you really need to know, you should perhaps consider another track, cuz we're not sure. Last year's playthrough was interrupted by my hard drive crash, and I haven't heard it yet in the more recent one. I'd assume it's at some point... when they're leaving the Mana Holyland... maybe? Could be ending/credits/epilogue, considering its placement on the rsn, but as it wasn't on the OSV seikens didn't have any info. Anyone know for sure? btw ppl, the video plans are going slow. We have a track we wanna release (asap) before the rest of it, but we were thinking we should have a video preview to go with it. We need someone with sd3 footage and video skills. Video skills are, by comparison, fairly common, but ppl with footage aren't. ppl who play the game, get in touch with me asap, let's talk footage.

I might be interested in buying a bunch of your sampled stuff if I didn't have to buy them all separately. Need to load up my paypal first, which I'm trying to avoid doing (to avoid spending money on stuff ), before I could buy anything... Just suggesting you could put them all in a $50 or something collection. Just a thought. You spelled kontakt wrong btw in the percussive tension bulletpoint thingy.

Do you know what a comb filter is? Got Reaktor? Build your own.

I was looking for a keyboard sound today. Went through a couple of videos and plugins before I figured out it was the #5 from a DX7. It was easy to find something suitable in FM8 once I knew it was from the classic FM synth. But that got me thinking... Someone with a better grasp of typical e-piano sounds (and keyboard skills) - do a video that quickly demos a bunch of classics. Wurlitzer, Rhodes, Clavinet, that DX7 patch... and whatever else there is that ppl _should_ know. Or you know one that's already out there, share plz.

Not gonna leave a long review/crit thing, not now anyway. Just wanted to say this has a great sound. Gonna sub? Gonna change anything?

The Tales Weaver source is pretty sweet, and then there's the CT WE'VE-HEARD-THIS-ALR... *ahem* oft-remixed source. Bass needs to be more human. You've got some really funky bass writing going on there, just needs more human character. Drastic velocity edits should do it, if the samples respond enough to that. Violin is a little loud. Drums need more punch. Piano feels a bit stiff. Choir and piano don't work together, separate them with eq. Actually, some eq separation of most of the instruments would do wonders for this track at this point, methinks. Cool track, nice dynamic arrangement. Nice work.

These samples will do for now. You won't make it sound real with them, but you can learn to mix with them. That said - learn to mix with them. Flute is _too_ upfront, and it sounds like it doesn't belong in the same soundscape as the more reverbed instruments. Give it some reverb, and reduce the reverb on the others a little. Drums are way back, and could use some more clarity. A rhythm instrument to cover the high range (hihat and shaker are the most common ones) would help. You're still basing it on removing notes, but this is a lot better. You're learning. The bass drum covers the low range, but some low notes on the piano or some other instrument could give you a richer sound. Doesn't have to be anything intricate, but something for the pianist's left hand to do. Imagine you have a pianist. The rhythm of the bass drum doesn't quite work during the main melody part (let's call it the A-part). In the B-part, it works okay. On a related note, the piano sticks to the same two chords playing the same thing over and over. It works during the A-part, but during the B-part the chords are different so the piano should be playing something that fits with those. WHile figuring out what the chords are, writing full chords tends to make it easier (just move up/down and adjust for major/minor chords), but that doesn't mean you can't use a similar arpeggio rhythm thing for the B part - once you've found the right notes for it.

Just so you know, you won't improve your mixing any faster with better headphones if you don't actively listen and compare. Better headphones means the sound isn't as biased by the headphones - which makes the listening better and you'll get a better idea of how it's supposed to sound, but if good headphones is all it takes, lots of ppl here would be making a lot better music. Then there's ppl who mix great stuff on crap speakers/headphones. It's the listening that's important. Get a pair of decent headphones that you're comfortable with. If you're gonna sit for hours with your ears in a pair of hi-tech earmuffs, make sure you're ok with having them on.

Banana, a remix doesn't have to sound like the original at all. The judges seem to think the arrangement is good (5/4 ftw), but the problem was with the production, so let's focus on that. Saves me the trouble of learning the source, being the only person in the world who doesn't have Angry Birds. I'm ok with the first 6 seconds, but the guitar really drags the whole thing down. Some vibrato might help, and varying the sound of the chugs (I'd image the first and/or third of every group of chugs would be a little louder). The chugs sound ok while in the background, but when exposed they need to sound more human. At 1:10 the guitar lead sounds more like a synth than like a guitarist. Do some air guitaring and try to figure out how it could sound more alive. Pitch bends, vibrato, and getting the guitar to wail tends to add a certain amount of performance to it, but the classic tools of timing, note length, and velocity shouldn't be overlooked. Leads in the following section are a bit too loud and drown out everything else. From 1:23 there seems to be some note clashes or just weird harmonies. The whole thing sounds rather soft, see if you can filter out excess lows from tracks that don't need them - that could give you some more headroom to work with. Use it to boost the drums a bit. Cool track, and it got you a couple of votes to RESUB (and any resub will afaik be fast-tracked to the panel, so less waiting). Good luck with it.

Compressor trouble when the kicks come in around 0:44. The busier the gets, the more I hear. If you're unsure of what you're doing, using a multiband compressor instead of a regular one on the master would make the compression less blatant. If you'd rather use a regular one, drop the whole thing a dB or two. it's fairly loud right now, and will has more to gain in dynamics than it loses in loudness. Occasional sounds stand out a little too much, like the 0:09 delayed percussive noise burst thing or the outro instrument. I suggest you listen through for things that stand out a little too much, and drop them slightly. _SLIGHTLY_. The overall mix is pretty good, there's just the nitpicky stuff left. Outro beeps feels a bit arbitary. Could just be that the simple synth is too loud, loops for too long, or that the whole track doesn't feel like it concludes clearly enough. idunno, you could go for a book-ends kind of end where you bring in the sustained sound from the intro to accompany the beeps to signal that it's at its end rather than at a break or something. Making the preceding part feel more like an ending would also help, but there's lots of ways to do that and I don't know which would fit your track the best. Using some of the harmonies of the Tower Stage 2 source might work. Hard to judge source usage when I'm not familiar with the sources and would rather not spend an evening looping those two (or four) sources, but from a few listens, it seems it's familiar. A haphazard guess - it's good enough, but that's something you would know better than I would - being more familiar with the sources and knowing what you've done with them. Arrangement works all right, but it could conclude better. At least drop the levels on the last instrument to keep it from being louder than your track finale. Nice work, good luck with it. As for the thread title thingy, go to edit, then go advanced. There you should be able to change it.

Just moving or removing notes is boring, newby, and lazy. That's what I'm getting at. (yes, it can be done well, but most of the time, this is what newbs do and they tend not to do it well ) There's loads of way of altering a melody. You can repeat parts of it, change the rhythm, change the chord (change some of the notes to different notes and it'll imply a different chord), you can play it in a different scale/mode, you can cut it up into smaller melodies and give them to different instruments, you can play it slower or faster, you can shift the whole thing forward or back (so it doesn't begin where it normally would, thus skewing the rhythm)... It's not easy to get into how you can change a melody - and a lot of the time, ppl think you HAVE TO change the melody A LOT - but it can be done subtly. For example... The 10th and 11th, and/or the 15th-16th notes could be moved down a step or two. This will change the melody, but it'll do that while keeping it recognizable yet changing the mood. Depending on how you wanna change the mood, see what notes you can move while the keeping the melody recognizable and still making it what you want it to feel like. And/or, you can use the first 6 notes and just move them around. I could play those normally, then wait for as long, then play them again except the first (and 4th) note would be a step or two lower, thus changing the mood. There's two suggestions for you to consider for learning what you can do with a melody. I'm not saying these are the only ways to remix, and I'm not saying you must do this. I'm saying that's how I would do it. Dunno if that means anything to you, but if I were you, I'd try it out, see what I can learn.

In this case, it's when the song just works, when all the instruments sound good together and the thing just keeps inspiring you. It's happened on a handful of tracks. It can lead to the arrangements becoming meandering, tho.

The Tracker's Handbook suggests you never repeat a pattern exactly. It's usually better to write similar material and use that for transitions, intro, outro, bridge, stuff like that. Stretching a short song is a lot of work (unless you find the groove - and then it's hard to not keep extending it). That said, depending on style and stuff, repetition isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Unless you're gonna have it played live, monophonic single-instrument mixes (with or without ambient sound and rhythm stuff in the background) tends not to do well - and they'd have to be good in arrangement, performance and production anyway. So while the first few notes were pointing in your desired direction of a little older and more mature, the rest of the arrangement was basically a redo of the melody with some notes moved or removed. Look up how ppl have arranged tracks before, the Zelda series has lots of simple melodies that have been remixed here, many more than once. You could analyze my own OoT mix to see what can be done with with a simple melody or two. Tyler Heath's take on Dragon Roost Island is another great example of how you can change a melody. Those are just the two that come to mind atm. Note that they've both got loads more instruments. You don't need dozens of instruments, but it helps to have a few. Depending on how you prefer writing, backing chords is one way of doing it. Strings or a warm pad could do that. You could also have backing melodies on softer and more distanced melodic instruments. If you know how chords work, try to imply chords with the backing melodies, just don't let them take center stage a lot of the time. It also helps to follow the rhythm of the main melody, but to not have as many notes - this makes it more chord-like and won't distract form the lead. Beyond being more deliberate in what you do to the melody and how you use it, and using additional instrumentation (usually good to reference the source in those as well), work on your production. Right now it seems you have a bunch of notes with little regard to how they would be performed if performed by a human. Note length and note velocity are the two easiest and most obvious things to start changing in order to get the part more emotive. Too complicated? It isn't once you get into it. Basically - nice idea, nice start, then you do a newb mistake. Scratch the mistake and do that part over. Keep at it. You'll get it.

If you want help, you gotta let ppl know more. All I get from this is that you have some remixes, need help, and live around Seattle. What do you have? What do you need? <-most important questions Is it an album-type project or a single remix, or something in between? What genre/sound/style is it? <-other important questions What game(s)? <-the question that might get you the most attention.

Disc 2 is looking quite blue. Guys, we could finish this before the end of the year. And yes, I promised previews. They're... coming. Lazy/busy struck. I still think it's summer.