Flexstyle

I think I have that same PSU in my rig. It replaced an under-juiced Antec unit, and it's been amazing thus far. Highly recommended, as Rosewill tends make some good stuff, being Newegg's house brand.

I'll go ahead and sign up for this round. Attn: novices, you'll do best with me if you use FL Studio. (also, talk at me a lot--I may not always answer, but I read everything, and try to give meaningful feedback whenever I have time)

I've installed the app. Add me or something, I guess?

I am royally pissed that the bank isn't ready yet. I wanted to have my team ready for MAGfest, dammit!

Oh c'mon, you didn't use duct tape? That's not a true kludge job.

I listened to this like five times on Soundcloud. Great stuff!

To me, this is a fantastic example of what a track can sound like after multiple revisions with input from a lot of people. As one of the folks who helped Corey out a lot with this track, I've heard it go through many different iterations. It started off with a lot of production and pacing problems, but Corey took all the feedback to heart and really put in the work on this one. I think all this hard work really shows. The production is very clean at this point, and the song never drags on to me, even though it's a bit repetitive in its source usage. Clearly uses source throughout most of it, too. Folks, take notice--this is how you you elaborate on a sparse source without getting boring. You take the source, and play through it, and then do it again with variation, and then change up filtering and sounds, and cool stuff like that. Add some sound effects here, some scratching there. Change the backing track as it goes on. There's always something new and cool to hear, even if it's the same basic notes. This is also a neat exercise in having a 4-on-the-floor track without a completely in-your-face kick drum. I mean, it's there, but it's not very deep and it's not smacking you in the head every time it hits. Usually that just means it's a wimpy kick, but this track manages to pull it off to where it actually sounds like it belongs, due to how well the rest of the percussion meshes with the track as well, and how well everything is mixed together spectrum-wise. It's a very unique-sounding electronica track, and I think it's a worthy addition to the front page. I'm proud to give this one a.... YES

Aha, this song! Hello, fellow One Hour Conquistador! Man, I wish I'd been able to actually get all three of my songs done--since we cut off after round 8, I didn't get to go that third time for round 9. ANYWAYS enough about me. I already know I love this song, but now I gotta actually put on my jooj-hat and give it a thorough, critical listening-to. Here goes. Alright, done listening. Still freakin' love this tune. I agree that the source usage is on the sparse side, but I can definitely tell it's a Ground Man remix. The bassline is always there, and there's plenty of melody line usage for me. Production-wise, my only problem is that it does get a bit crowded in the upper range, especially since the whole thing could stand to be just a bit less treble-y. Obviously, the piano sample isn't great, but I think it's appropriate to overlook that in this case. Love the attention paid to the snare and other percussion details--having seen the project file first-hand, I'm still amazed that this was pulled off with just the FL defaults. Let's see this get some front-page action! YES

Uh, yeah, there's not a whole lot I can say about this one that hasn't been said, but it's sweet. Even though it's conservative, it doesn't reek of "cover" to me by any stretch of the imagination. Plenty of personalizing to my ears. The production is very clean; every element has its place in the mix, and the parts are tight without being mechanical. While I'm not a huge fan of the hi-hat samples, that's a very minor nitpick. Enough talk, let's get this on the front page! YES

At the risk of having to drop out partway through due to school load, sign me up! I haven't participated in an OCR compo for a while, so I'd like to get back into it.

If that is so, then y u no feature DJ event? Got a few OC ReMixers featured there, yo! (Friday, 11:59 PM, main stage)

Wow, that was fantastic. I could nitpick but this song honestly really blew me away when I heard it. It's laden with source, so no worries there. I really love the guitar work in here--worthy of any '80s rock ballad "Best-Of" compilation. The chippy synths in the mix just add some fantastic character. Love the tempo changes and all that. I have no problems with the mastering--a bit loud, but fits with the album, as stated. The drums, too, aren't the strongest samples ever, yet they still work really well with the song. Yeah, let's get this one posted! YES

Here's the thing--I think this is a fine arrangement, and very creative. I love an oddball arrangement, and the glitched-out flavor really catches my ear. Crunchy tones are sweet, and that's some really detailed chopping in there--I dig! However, I'd be very cautious about the way this is mastered. It doesn't need to be that loud, especially in the beginning and a couple other spots. Plus, there are some frequencies at times that just are too much, going beyond artistic choice into the realm of "pain." I'd pass this if those harsh frequencies got tamed via either turning down those instruments in the mix, or maybe just doing some careful EQing on the master bus, and if some volume automation was applied on the master, post-limiter, to keep it from being so VERY LOUD at points (beginning and end come to mind). That way you can keep the crunchy tone, yet avoid blowing everyone's ears out with the super-high average db number. (leaving space for post-fix vote, hopefully)

This is probably the best EFP album yet. Highly recommended! Not sure if I have a favorite track, but the Bearcraft and Rchetype tracks really caught my ear.

Patience, bro! We're only touching frikkin' MAY'S tracks right now. Don't worry, we're chewing through as fast as we can.

Yup! While Image-Line's stuff is top-notch, it doesn't really cover the full spectrum. Plus, the benefit of having the items in Komplete is that they're much more mainstream plugins, so you'll be able to find third-party soundsets for them much more easily. For the money, FL Producer + Komplete 9 is a much better investment than the FL + All Plugins bundle. Kontakt (one of the included plugins in Komplete) by itself is one of the best investments you'll ever make as a digital musician.

Image-Line makes great plugins, but that's a lot of money for a beginner to spend on a plugin pack. For a starter pack that gets you a much more varied set of sounds, I'd recommend Komplete 9 instead, if you still want to spend some money. Get the Producer Edition of FL along with this for about the same price, really. If you'd rather not spend a ton of money, then I'd say just grab the Producer edition of FL and then look around for some great freebie plugins and sounds--there's plenty out there, so you don't really need to spend all that money if you're just starting.

My biggest beef with this track is that there's NOT ENOUGH OF IT GHRAGLKHSJDFLSKDHSLGKJF etc. Would love to hear this concept fleshed out even more, adding more themes and lengthening into a full-on epic at some point. Yeah, it's clearly sequenced, but at the same time it's obvious you put a lot of care into the sequencing. It's well-mixed, so no complaints there. The source is clearly discernable, so no complaints there either. I think, if you were to revisit this track, that it could benefit with a little bit more TLC on that kick drum, as Chimp said. I think it could also use some beefier "boom-verb" sounds, but that's a personal thing. Basically, it feels like it belongs in a movie with giant mechanisms/organisms and lots of property damage. I love this track, and it's obviously deserving of front-page placement. YES

Yeah, we'll consider basically any game, as long as the soundtrack is unique to the game (i.e. not using licensed songs).

Larry hit the nail on the head when he said that the samples were a bit weak individually, yet they come together to make something very nice. This mix would definitely have been better served by different drums, different piano sample, and maybe some other stuff, but the arrangement is undeniably catchy. Honestly, I could rip into it, but why bother? It's definitely a good clean mix, a very nice arrangement, and the whole thing just works. That's something I can definitely get behind! YES

Oh man, I feel like this one is super-close. I love the arrangement, for the most part, and I like the compressed feel, personally. I like the tone you're using, and I like those little synth bits in the background. I'm still thinking resub on this one, though. Why is that? It's mainly because of one simple thing: drum realism. The sequencing, while pretty well done in terms of velocity writing, is still clearly locked to the grid. Get this humanized a bit, and it'll have the loose, gritty feel that the guitars are giving off so nicely. I'd also recommend not just sticking to 16th notes for some of your snare rolls--get some 32nd note ghosts in there or something, as a real drummer would get bored playing that slowly really quickly. Finally, drums-wise, there are spots where your drummer is playing with three hands at once--crash cymbal, snare, and hi-hat. Gotta fix that. I'd also love to see something a bit more exciting than the fade-out ending, cos it felt an awful lot like a cop-out to me. Maybe do a drum build-up to ending with a bang or something, I dunno. Anyways. Get those drums straightened out and I'm ready to sign off on this one! NO (resubmit, please!)

Let's see--there's obviously a lot of source here, and I can definitely see the direction you've gone with it. While I think the repetition would work just fine on a dancefloor--indeed, that seems to be what you've aimed for with the long intro--I don't think it quite works for the purposes of an OC ReMix. Basically, I'll just pile on to what the other judges have already mentioned--that lack of variation during long stretches of the song is what's holding this thing back. I personally would have liked to see some percussion more percussive changeups as the song progressed, too, as that tends to add flavor. As it stands, it's a sweet track, with above-average production and some great ideas--I especially like the sample you grabbed (was that from the cartoon?) with Joker and Harley. Great way to prepare us for the transition between themes. However, it's just too repetitive to make it onto the front page. Personally, I think that even something like a radio edit might do the trick, since we are working with some repetitive source material in the first place. If this does end up getting NO'd more than YES'd, I'd hope we see this one back soon! NO (Resubmit)

Oh, it's a Strader remix? NO RESUB ETC. Actually, I'm digging the time signature conversion. The instrumentation is full, and I can hear the source throughout for the most part. Nice and clean production, I'm digging it. I do have a few nitpicks: 1. Slightly unrealistic drums - sometimes multiple parts of the kit are playing at once that might necessitate more than two hands, namely during some of the tom fills that somehow keep the hats going as well. 2. Tuning and sequencing/performing issues on a couple parts, mainly the flutes - there are some spots where a wind instrument is a bit out of tune by a few cents, and of course it's clear that a lot of the wind work is sampled. Kinda fitting, though, I think, what with the source's lead instrument being the sampled flute as well. In any case, I can hear plenty of source, the production is pristine, and the nitpicks I have aren't enough to really hurt this one. YES

Ooh, trance! This is one of my favorite genres, so I'm always happy to hear more of it. There's a lot to like here. I think I can feel the type of atmosphere you're going for, with the etherial pads and the piano 'n such. I like that little arp that comes in during the breakdown, adds some cool flavor. Here's my thing: I think this arrangement could be a LOT better if you were to take better care of the genre itself. Let me explain. Trance is a genre that relies on the flow of the song. Abrupt stops don't really do it any favors, and a well-placed buildup will do wonders for a song. Every element needs to follow the flow of the song that has been created, otherwise the energy level suffers. A few things in this arrangement that go against this ethos, to me, include the bassline and some of your drum fills, as well as your abrupt re-entry into the song from the breakdown. First off, the tempo could stand to be changed a bit. With the tempo you're at--I'd guess high 140s to low 150s, without actually tapping it out--you're dealing with the kick covering a large portion of each beat. What I mean by that is that the decay of the kick drum covers more than half a beat, which automatically creates problems for anything that's trying to be in that same frequency range. It's not necessarily something that needs to be changed, but try experimenting with different tempos and see if that helps a bit. The bassline is a bit thin, although that's somewhat necessitated by the super-thick kick drum. If you were to change up the patterns so that the kick complements the kick drum, rather than trying to be its own rhythmic element at the same time--sort of a call and response thing--that would help the flow of the song a lot. Even adding some sidechain to the bassline would really help. Thickening it up, yet allowing it to live in harmony with that kick drum, would give this song a lot more body and character, I think. Your breakdown is pretty abrupt, with not so much as a snare roll to signify that something's coming. Same thing goes for the entry from the breakdown into the rest of the song--even though you've got a soft sound effect going in there, it's the kind of effect that would signal for more breakdown (to my ears, at least), rather than adding the kick drum and the rest of the elements in there. More sound effects would help your case, adding atmosphere, as well as maybe a secondary lead that mirrors the melody that the pad is already carrying. During the last portion of the song, you really haven't given us much variation on your original ideas. At least give me some amped up percussion--busier hats or something, make it sound like it's a true climax of a trance piece! Doing a bit of variation on the themes would help, too. I do hear the countermelody you've put in there, but it occupies the same frequency spectrum as everything else, making everything become a bit messy in that high-midrange EQ spectrum. In summary, here's what NEEDS to be fixed: - Kick drum is too hot, creating distortion at parts (especially during kick rolls). - Give me more variation or something during the end, allowing it to stand by itself as a final part of the song. The rest of the advice is yours to take or leave, but I think this piece will become something spectacular if you take the time to give it the detailing it deserves. NO, please resubmit!

ocr's reckoning