Flexstyle
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Posts posted by Flexstyle
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I'm a graduate of the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences, an audio engineering school here in Arizona, so I'm semi-serious about being in the music industry in some capacity or another. Because it's such a flaky proposition, though, I'm currently going to college for a major in Management Information Systems, which is basically a one-degree-fits-all for either business management and/or info tech work. I have nearly as much experience with computers as I do music at this point (and I've been learning/practicing music/audio in some fashion or another for about 13 years at this point), and I'm currently "employable," as it were, in the IT field because of my helpdesk and freelance IT work. However, I've made enough money off of music (especially as a producer for singer/songwriters) up to this point to where I think I could get away with doing music full-time in some capacity or another at some point in the future.
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As the Facebook likes and album sales trickle in, the prize value slowly goes up! Although this might sound pathetic, I can happily say that the value has increased by $13 as of this morning. Want it to go higher? Buy some albums and invite friends to like my Artist page on Facebook!
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Went ahead and grabbed EWQLSO Platinum Plus for meself. Can't wait to use it!
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Score! Soundcloud has graciously donated some excellent prizes. Check the contest page for details!
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I maintain with a passion that ska should never have died the death it did back in the early '00s. Thanks to this song, I'm sure the genre still has some life left in it--I love it!
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RESULTS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED! http://flexstylemusic.com/wp/frostbite-contest-results/
Some of you may remember the previous remix contest I held a while back, which our own PrototypeRaptor ended up winning. I got about 50 entries, some of which were incredibly excellent, and I'm hoping to repeat that sort of success here, and perhaps even surpass it.
Here's the deal. I've got this brand-new song out, called Frostbite 2012. Of course, it's a self-remix of an older song from my Eye of the Storm album, entitled, of course, Frostbite. The new song is a wubble-heavy dubstep remix of the melodic/progressive trance original, and I've got a remix contest going on for this whole deal.
Rules, loop package, and details are HERE.
"But Flexstyle!" you say. "$50 is a pretty measly prize package, you Stingy McScrooge!" Yes, unfortunately, I don't have much money to give. I'm a college student, after all. However, I do pledge this--every dollar I get from album sales on my Bandcamp page between now and the contest deadline will go toward increasing the value of the prize package(s). In addition, in that same time span, for every five likes on my Facebook fan page, I'll add another dollar to the total value of the prize(s) I give out (up to $150 extra, "like" count starts at 317).
UPDATE: The folks at SoundCloud have graciously donated some fantastic prizes. Check the contest page for more info!
Do you have what it takes to conquer Frostbite?
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Done--hopefully I didn't throw too many variables into the written answers!
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For anyone that cares, the OST is fantastic. Well worth the download, as posted earlier.
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Not really looking for anything specific just want to download stuff I never played before. I already own the soundtracks to most popular games.
In that case, here are a bunch more soundtracks:
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Not quite the same genre you were requesting, but these are all brilliant:
Starcraft II soundtrack
Those are just a few of my very favorites right there. I can add a whole ton more, if needed.
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Not tuning in. Don't like ponies.
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I can't believe this thread hasn't been made yet, but today is the birthday of the illustrious Mrs. Aversa, formerly known as Pixietricks here on OCR. May the coming year be kind to you, Jill, and may you have many more excellent days such as this one!
zircon stealth edit:
Perfect timing to unveil Jill's new website!
After MANY revisions and reworks we've finally finished this. It's much cleaner, sleeker, faster and better-organized than her old site, not to mention actually updated with all her recent works, collaborations, photos and videos. So check it out!
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I approve of this thread.
http://soundcloud.com/flexstyle
I'm fairly active, usually posting once a week or so.
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I approve of this podcast.
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While good feedback is indeed what you'll receive with a mod review, have you checked the guidelines on using mod review? More specifically, do YOU feel that this track is submit-able to the judges panel? If not, you'll want to wait before marking it as mod review.
EDIT: I should not that I am mentioning this without having first listened to the track, so this post is in no way, shape, or form a reflection on what I think of the state of said track.
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Without going super in-depth, I'd say from a quick listen that you don't have much to worry about, mixing-wise. I could probably get picky with more time, but there certainly aren't any glaring flaws staring me in the face.
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<MODREVIEW>
As always, I’m not trying to come across as harsh or unkind in any way. However, I am going to give as specific of a review as I can.
First off, I really love that intro. Great little windup effects and the music box sound is really forboding.
…then the beat kicks in. Loudly and abruptly. Now, I understand that’s the effect you were going for, but you might do well to preclude it with a reversed cymbal (or white noise sweep) or something. Give people the idea that something actually is sneaking up on them, rather than hitting them over the head with a large skillet with no warning whatsoever.
Drums themselves: The snare’s alright, but the kick could definitely do with a bit more punch. I’d look at around 70hz, perhaps, although that’s just off the top of my head without having looked at the song through a spectrum analyzer. It’s not the very deepest bass range, but close. Needz punches. Also…seriously, you’re using the default FPC kit? I’m sorry, but there are FAR better things out there than that piece of garbage. In fact, generally speaking, any default drum samples in FL aren’t worth using. I’d suggest finding some free breakbeats and then chopping the snot out of them. Amen breaks are my favorite tool for this sort of thing, and you’ll find plenty of that sort of thing easily. Sprinkle in some Roland 909 drums as well (the standard “techno open hat” sound you’ll hear everywhere) for good measure and you might be surprised at how much better it sounds.
Let’s move on to the bass: I can tell you your problem immediately, and that is that it’s far too harsh in the high-midrange. Let me guess—you’ve run a wobble synth or two through some distortion and various bits like that, right? See, here’s the problem—simple distortion does not a proper dubstep bass make. You’ll need to go through with a very strict EQ job and filter out anything pre-distortion that will cause harshness, then do the same thing after distortion. Then, in order to add that extra top end “bite,” I always like to run everything through a mild bitcrusher. Compress and EQ some more to taste.
The same kinda goes for some of your lead sounds—they’re buried in midrange muck. EQ the low end out entirely if possible using sharp EQ cuts, and maybe inject some pre-distortion EQ carefulness to smooth out the harshness as well.
I’m not going to comment much on the arrangement, aside from the fact that you’ve chosen some awkwardly dissonant source tunes. I realize that is indeed how the source goes, but you might try to soften the catastrophic dissonance with another source or something and just use the very “nastiest” parts sparingly. I’m speaking as someone who had a judge vote “NO” on one of my recent tracks (even though it did eventually pass the panel) because I used the dissonant portion of the source tune during a breakdown.
To summarize: You’ll need to de-harshify that bass while still keeping the brostep bassline sound intact—a tall order, I realize, but it CAN be done. Also, do yourself a huge favor and experiment with some new drum sounds. You’ll be amazed at what you’ve been missing!
</MODREVIEW>
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I haven't even listened to the song but I know I'll love it because of how large of a file it is.
'Course, the comments here are pretty encouraging, as well.
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Hey all, I've started dabbling in the world of VGM OST-creation, and this is a theme that'll be in an open-source game with a current working title of TremZ.
Just posting it here for anyone who'd care to listen to it. It's a finished product, and all I gotta do is wait for the game to actually be finished, haha. I may end up creating some more music for the project, but this is all we need for it right now.
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A bit of compression after drastically cutting the highs and lows helps, too, especially if the compressor has a saturation function of some sort. In FL Studio, I like to use the Fruity Multiband Compressor and bypass the low and high spectrums, compress the crap out of the midrange, and then add some slight distortion afterwards. Sounds deliciously lo-fi.
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<MODREVIEW>
CAVEAT: Nothing in this mod review is intended to insult or belittle you, but it may come across a wee bit harsh.
Righto, we’re right smack in my comfort zone right here, genre wise. I love the sources you’ve chosen, quite beautiful. Unfortunately, this mix has a lot of problems, so let’s go over those.
Let’s start with some major flaws:
1. The mix as a whole is very dry—there’s a distinct lack of delay and reverb, which are essential to creating the atmosphere needed for a trance/dance sort of track.
2. Most of the instrumentation in here is straight MIDI-ripping, or similar transposition technique. What I mean by that is everything is a little too close to the source. Elaborate a bit! Create an arpeggio out of a straight lead, add some fills, get creative.
3. The bassline is clashing with the kick, frequency-wise; do yourself a favor and find a new sound for the bassline, first, as that generic bass guitar really doesn’t fit, and then see about perhaps spicing up the actual bassline writing a bit.
4. The arrangement doesn’t give me anything to hang my hat on. Since this is a trancey mix, you’ll want to give it fairly obvious sections—a intro, a chorus, a breakdown, a climax, and then back to the chorus, all while keeping some sort of continuity as to instrument choices and melody lines without getting too repetitive. Tall order, I know—dance is an inherently repetitive genre, but you have to balance between repetitiveness and freshness.
5. Finally, you’ve gotta add some backing instrumentation. Be original if you must, but fill in the blanks between the lead sounds with some arpeggios, some little countermelodies, whatever.
Also, some other issues:
1. The crash is too loud, and could really do with some delay and reverb.
2. The kick is a bit muddy in the mid-low end of the frequency spectrum.
3. The snare is pretty weak, and needs some polishing in the low-mid (muddy) and high frequency areas (needs more bite to it).
4. Pads could stand to be sidechained. Not a requirement, but if you want to go for the sound of “today” (or even several years ago), you’ll need to do that.
5. Finally, you’ve GOTTA come up with something more creative than a simple fade-out at the end. I’m pretty sure that’s a judge pet peeve.
That should give you plenty to work on. Let me know if there’s anything confusing you—I’m here to help!
</MODREVIEW>
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<MODREVIEW>
Oooh boy, let’s see. First off, I’m not trying to be mean, at all, I promise—just trying to give the best feedback I can.
Anyways.
Let’s start with the drums. There’s only one pattern you really utilize throughout the entire song. Sure, you change it up a couple times with fills and whatnot, but the drums get REALLY boring. Also not helping your case is the fact that the pattern itself gets old after about the first two times through it—it’s very “busy,” meaning it’s got a lot going on in it (what with the breakbeat kicks and fill-esque hi-hats constantly going at it).
In fact, that’s part of what pulls this song down the most. In electronic music, you’d be surprised how much better a song is when you make it simpler, not more complex. You’ve got that busy bassline, those busy piano licks, and you’re still trying to fit in a lead melody. However, you’re not doing much with any of your riffs, and that makes the song very repetitive. I know the source itself is kinda repetitive, but you’re going to have to get past that with either super-clean production or some serious game-upping with the arrangement. I can skip to any point in the song on Soundcloud and it still sounds the same as where I was before. That’s not a good thing. It’s just the same mess the entire time.
Let’s move on into production—you’ve got a lot of things taking up space in the low-mid and the mid areas of the frequency spectrum. Your bass isn’t very deep, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since your kick has a lot of sub frequencies. However, it’s clashing with some of your other instruments. At about 1:18 or so, that secondary lead comes in, but it’s almost in the same exact frequency area as the bass is. All that together just creates a jumbled mess. In addition, your piano is taking up a lot of the same area as well.
Kick drum: It’s too long. What I mean by that is its bass frequencies are held for too long, and since you play a lot of fast fills with it, the low end gets cluttered by all those bass drum tails trying to find their space. The same kinda goes for your hi-hat sound. See if you can find a shorter one, preferably with less midrange sludge in it, and see if that helps.
The lead sound you’ve got playing the Ice Cap zone lead is messy, but not very inspiring. Elaboration: It also takes up some room in the midrange that maybe it could stand to let go of. Also, it sounds like a really fake electric guitar synth of some sort. I’d suggest playing around and seeing if you can’t get a better sound for your lead, and preferably one that doesn’t take up so much spectrum space.
Do you have some sort of compressor on the master track? The entire thing sounds squashed and muffled to some degree. Take that off and concentrate on getting the mix cleaned up before it ever hits a compressor (or a limiter).
I’m sorry, but this song is nowhere close to passing the panel, IMO. I suggest you take it back to the drawing board, since it’s got such a myriad of issues. Work on drum patterns and making them a little simpler, but with more variation over time. Watch for frequency clutter; a neat tip that I try to follow is ALWAYS cut off frequencies lower than about 120 hz if the instrument isn’t a kick or a bassline. Finally, expound on the source a bit more. Give it some life.
Please don’t get discouraged, and again—I promise I’m not trying to be mean, just honest.
</MODREVIEW>
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I'd argue that ALL music is derivative. You could probably get away with doing an incredibly similar "remix" and still have it become an original song in the mind of most listeners. Heck, most of the music here on OCR is only a game remix because we say it is!
Chord progressions, even melodies, can be super-close to something else; however, as long as you put your own spin on it, I'd wager you won't run into trouble.
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Just keep in mind that SSDs based on Flash Memory actually has a maximum write operation per memory cell, and once its maximum write number has been reached, the cell will fail.
I would not use an SSD for anything you update often, or write to frequently as more frequent use literally just speeds up the time the drive will fail.
All flash memory is only good for a certain number of write operations.
I would not use an SSD for an OS drive, as OSs download updates and are the primary drive for virtual memory/page filing as well as the main drive for writing/saving/copying files.
What use is an SSD if it's not the boot drive? Just mirror it to a regular mag-platter drive regularly for backup purposes. Besides, most new SSDs have a far lower failure rate than the early ones did.
EDIT: Also, I'm gonna +1 Newegg. If you say it's too expensive, you're looking at the wrong site, haha. Plus, they have some seriously excellent deals on a regular basis. Just subscribe to the newsletter.
Not The Taxi You Whistled For
in Post Your Game ReMixes!
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<MODREVIEW>
Oh man. I love this so much. Just a couple of minor nit-picks:
- The off-beat (and I don't mean tempo, I mean the position of the musical bar it plays in) harmonica/accordion/whateveritis sound that starts around 3:12 needs to be nudged so that it lines up a little nicer with the rest of the track, timing-wise.
- A little bit in the very ending sounds just a tad chaotic (too many musical ideas at once) and could be transitioned a bit better, around 3:34 or so.
Other than that, I got nothing. The mix is nice and rich, and for this genre you don't have to be perfect, IMO. Gotta keep some o' that down-home authenticity in there, which you've done very nicely. Also, absolutely love that "booty appreciation" whistle at the end, had me cracking up over here.
Really good work, and I want to see this on the homepage in the not-too-distant future. I personally think (aside from that timing issue I mentioned on my first bullet point) it's a winner as-is, but a couple more opinions won't hurt.
</MODREVIEW>