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Flexstyle

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Everything posted by Flexstyle

  1. I think I side with the YES-ers on this one in that I do hear the sources being there in sufficient quantity. It's close--borderline, even--but it's obviously a remix of Sheldon at least, with Catfish being mostly a suggestion inside the mix. I'm not sold on the horns, strings, or the piano, but the fact that it's a very synthetic mix kinda allows them to get away with the un-realism. The piano, in particular, lends itself well to the more processed sound of an electronic cinematic piece. I don't take any issue with the mixing--it's clean and I can hear everything plenty fine. I especially dig the electronic percussion stabs, as they're well-placed and hit good and hard. This one was tough, and I had to think for a while, but I think I'll go with.... YES (borderline)
  2. So, I've gotten started on my second track...and this is gonna be GOOD. Get ready for possibly the funkiest, grooviest, head-bobbin'est, foot-tappin'est mix I've ever done.
  3. If you two were a band, this would be the demo version track that's released on the "Rarities and B-Sides" album. As in, it lacks the massive polish that the hit record had and the pure energy that the live performances give off, but the listener can still tell that there was something special in the first version as well. Yeah, the drums aren't as huge as they could be, but that adds to the charm in my opinion. The guitars? Also not massive, but instead they've got much more of a close, intimate feel that works nicely with the dry drums. I can almost smell the stale coffee in the small-room studio. The synthesizers and keys all sound like they came from one of those big all-in-one workstation keyboards that may not necessarily have all the best possible sounds, but it has a LOT to choose from--you know the ones--all the keyboardists drool over them, but then it turns out some freebie VSTs and a bit of studio magic can make something that's a bit better. Great "sketchpad" though, since everything's there. Could it be better? Sure! It could be freaking massive with maybe some more polish, better drum tracking/sequencing, some orchestral backing, and bits like that. Is it good enough for the site as-is? Absolutely. Basically what I'm saying is that I dig it, it's got a lot of character, and I think it's easily over the bar, equally in terms of arrangement, instrumentation, and production quality. YES
  4. I think for me, this is a case of a bunch of little things combining to push it in the wrong direction. I'm hearing a lot of crowding in the midrange, as that's where the meat of the bass lives, it's where the snare lives, and it's where most of the melodics live as well. This is exacerbated by the fact that the track is highly compressed, so everything kinda mushes together even more and becomes a bit fatiguing to hear after a while. I'm also not a fan of the drums, or rather the hat pattern repetitiveness. The hats are loud, they have little in the way of dynamics, and it sounds like the same 16th note pattern the entire time, punctuated only by a couple 32nd note fills once in a while. I do dig the arrangement, and I would love to see this on the front page, but at least one of these issues would have to be fixed for me to sign off: - Overcompression - Midrange crowding (piano + lead + snare + bass + hat + kick = mess) - Hat patterns Let's see this back soon! NO (resub!)
  5. Old McDonald had a farm E-mu E-mu oh! And on that farm he had a bird E-mu E-mu oh! With a Yes vote here and a No vote there Here a yes, there a no, everywhere a yes/no Old McDonald had a farm E-mu E-mu oh!
  6. I found one for Frozen Factory. EDIT: And is it just me, or does Eino's track kinda remind anyone else of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits?
  7. Just sent my mix in. Get ready for your feels to be punched by sappy '90s-esque vocal pop. Definitely gonna polish this one up with Jason after the compo is over!
  8. Best birthday thread ever. Thanks everyone! <3
  9. The bones of my arrangement are finished, and the drums are pretty much set in stone. Got a lot of instrumentation done, but need some variations done. Need to finish writing the bridge, but it's bare-bonesed, at least. Basically, I'm right where I expected to be right now. Jason Covenant is also working on contributing some vocals--the return of the Concrete Men is imminent, y'all!
  10. Pretty sure Bruno Mars was sponsored by Pepsi for the show, so even if he wasn't paid by the NFL, he assuredly got paid by someone.
  11. Started work tonight. I'm finally getting to break a soundset out of the ol' deep freeze (har har), as it's from a never-released WIP that happened back in the DKC3 days. I think I know exactly how I'm going to work these two sources together, and I'm super-excited!
  12. I'm starting to sense some of this: If we're going to post recommended modern OSTs, here are a few that I highly recommend as memorable: - Bastion - Starcraft II - Rayman Origins - Rayman Legends - Shatter - Shoot Many Robots Also I kinda made a soundtrack recently so maybe see what you think?
  13. Origins was spectacular, too, although I think a case could be made for Legends being the better soundtrack.
  14. Major titles may be declining in musical quality, but I don't think the same can be said for video game music as a whole. I mean, have you heard some of the stuff coming out of indie gaming these days?
  15. If you don't want to open up your computer (although I guarantee there's an iFixit guide somewhere), then this external Thunderbolt to SATA adapter might just do the trick.
  16. Hard to say what we think if you don't link, man!
  17. Careful when converting. Byte = 8 bits, not 10 bits. Makes a small difference, at least.
  18. MW, you might want to check the numbers in your comparison post. Pretty sure SATA3 is only 6 Gb/s, etc. So, Thunderbolt should be a 10 Gb/s connection, which is actually faster than SATA3. You should be able to run an SSD through Thunderbolt without much problem, if you really want to have an external drive. If you're going with a hard drive, Firewire 800 (which I'd assume your Mac has) would be plenty fast for that application. And sorry, I have to say from personal experience: my load times were cut by a factor of 10 (at minimum) once I switched from a 7200 RPM hard drive to my SSD for EWQLSO. I still stand by my recommendation for buying the biggest possible SSD you can find, and then making that your only drive in the Mac. So basically: 1. Buy as big of an SSD as you can. 2. Clone your current hard drive to this SSD, thereby making it your sole drive. CarbonCopyCloner makes this stupidly easy. 3. Copy the EastWest samples to the SSD. 4. Revel in blazing fast load times. Plus, keep in mind that EastWest will be doing a lot of disk streaming, since its libraries are just THAT huge. That's why they recommend the faster interface for their hard drive. The SSD will help a lot more with that, too. As far as limited lifetime on SSDs: you should be able to squeeze five years out of whichever one you get without much issue. With all the algorithms in place for cleanup, plus the fact that they do technically include much more storage than is quoted, you shouldn't have a problem at all. Or you could just build a custom Windows box with RAID0 and get tons of space and lots of speed for much less cost. There's that, too.
  19. Yeah, I've (a) gotten a lot better at singing and ( gotten a lot better at vocal mixing since I created this track. It's something like three years old at this point, if you can believe that. Still holds a special spot in my heart, though!
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