Flexstyle

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.

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.

<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>

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.

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. Soundcloud link Project forums 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.

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.

<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>

<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>

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.

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.

At the current SSD price points, you're really best off spending your money on an SSD big enough for your boot material (OS, important programs, etc.) and going with a decently-fast hard drive for everything else. I'll slip in and add to the OP that I value my sound card very highly. ASIO4ALL is great, but it doesn't beat having a dedicated sound card (with dedicated drivers and non-CPU-driven audio processing). Plus, I get far higher recording quality, which is important because I tend to record vocals, guitars, and other sorts of things on a regular basis.

I have no idea if the Concrete Men will end up being able to do an entry into this final round or not. Schedules aren't lining up for us. This is what happens when there's a month-long break in between rounds, haha. Durn MAGfest, interruptin' stuff an' bein' too far away for me to go to this year....

I noticed they've got my Eye of the Storm album up there, too. I give that album away for free/pay-what-you-want. People regularly buy it for a solid $5-10, not the measly $1.53 they're charging for it. I mean seriously, at least charge what it's worth.

CAVEAT: I may sound harsh, but I mean nothing but the best and I’m trying to help. <MODREVIEW> Right, here’s my problem—your sound on this one isn’t all that full. The arrangement is quite conservative, but that might not be a huge problem; let’s address fullness, mixing, and the like—I’ll let someone else deal with arrangement issues. First, that kick drum is pretty weak. If you’re gonna go rawk/metuhl, you’re gonna want a strong, punchy kick, probably with some “clicky” bits in there for the high end. I suspect some compression on the drums in general may help, especially if you can compress each part of the kit (i.e. kick, snare, overheads, hi/lo toms, etc.). Drums can make or break a track like this, and the weak ones here don’t help your case. Compression will, however, help said case. While we’re on the subject of drums, I’d also like to mention that the actual programming of them is a bit unrealistic, as well. Go through your sequences and make sure a human could (and would) play them. Remember, a drummer only has two hands and two feet! Things like playing a crash at the same time as a hi-hat, playing a hyperactive fill, anything like that should be watched for. Voicing issues—that is, making sure velocities are varied (and realistic) enough for the genre would help your case. Guitars: They’re not quite as thick as I’d like to hear, especially the rhythm guitars. Are you recording multiple takes and then layering those takes left and right? It’s hard for me to tell. A bit of compression might do wonders for these, as well. Perhaps even some cutting of the midrange EQ before you compress ‘em. Finally, that bass guitar or whatever you’re using sounds like something from the Sega Genesis, IMO. Sequenced, I’d assume? Everything sounds so flat and uninspiring with it. You can get away with sequenced bass guitar, but you’re going to need to find a better version of said bass. Unfortunately, I haven’t got any idea where to find something really good aside from maybe one of Impact Soundworks’ libraries, which require Kontakt. EQ-wise, you wanna take out the low-mid and simply boost the lows—that way, the kick and the bass occupy slightly different levels of the bass spectrum. I dig the song, I do. It’s just not OCR-quality, IMO, especially with the mixing issues and drum sequencing wonkiness. Hope you can improve the issues I’ve listed here and make this a truly worthy mix! </MODREVIEW>

Oh, come on, I'm not a famous remixers! I'd have to, y'know, actually be famous first.

I listened to this project non-stop on my drive from Mission Viejo, CA to Glendale, AZ (five hours). Hadn't quite finished the bonus disc by the time I pulled into my driveway, and I only skipped a couple of the bonus songs. That's how good this project is.

I'm gonna have to add another game--Starcraft II. I have the soundtrack in my car right now and it is FREAKING AMAZING. Probably one of my very favorite soundtracks of all time. Gonna throw in another vote for Deus Ex: Human Revolution (such a good game, the music is quite good, playing through it right now) and Rayman Origins (which I have never played, being a PC-only gamer, but I've listened to lots of it on YouTube). And, as an added bonus, I'd like to throw in our own zircon's work on the . I've played this through on repeat several times as well.

Wow, totally did not realize this was OCR00005. It's been one of my favorites for a long time, ever since I downloaded the "complete" torrent back when there were about 1800 or so mixes on the site. Without having listened to the source, this is the sort of thing I wouldn't mind hearing on the site even today, as long as a bit of production polish was applied. Pretty much nails the "'90s Techno" sound, which, while cheesy, is something I totally have a soft spot for, since I grew up loving that sorta thing. Props to Instant Remedy for creating such a long-lived ReMix!

I don't actually have access to those forums right now, haha. Since I'm a super-late, just-barely-official add-on to the project 'n all that.

I'm actually first and foremost a production specialist--meaning, I'll be (hopefully) able to give detailed feedback on every aspect of mixing, no matter the genre. I've been somewhat active over the last week or two, and as soon as this nutty weekend is over (I'm doing tech work for a local music festival for two days), I'm gonna get my butt in gear and throw lots of detailed criticism at y'all!

I'm pretty much done with Eiko's theme right now. Just adding some finishing touches on the mixdown.

This is exactly my view. I wouldn't make the music if I didn't enjoy the finished product! I'm trying to please myself first, and then anyone who likes my music is a bonus listener.

True story: the night before this got posted, I was listening to it in my car, wondering if PR had submitted it. Guess this answers my question, haha.

I'd suggest that this track may not quite be ready for mod review, and you might want to try and get some more opinions from folks before you mark it as such. Also, make sure you include a link to your source (even if it's just a MIDI somewhere) so we have something to go off of. Check this post for a bit more info on the mod review process. A couple of quick things, though--your kick drum seems to be panned to the right, which is really annoying and very contrary to "proper" trance structure (keep kick and bass centered). Also, your supersaws are drenched in some kind of reverb that makes them seem muddy, and by that I mean you should probably cut back on the reverb, as well as possibly cut out some midrange frequencies from the supersaw. Let's see about a couple more revisions before mod review, eh?

<MODREVIEW> Oh dear, you actually want me to mod review this? I’m having a really hard time nitpicking anything here. Drums are nice and punchy, I really dig the arrangement, the guitars are all shining through in their appropriate spots very nicely, and my metal face is in full gear. Let’s see, I’m gonna dig a little deep here, but here’s what I’ve got for you: - Drums could stand perhaps just a touch more velocity variation, as a lot of hits sound the same very close together. Kinda depends on the kit you’re using, really. - Some of the guitar chugs could use tightening, timing-wise (especially at the beginning of the song and at about 0:55 or so) - Uh…needs moar killer studio chops? Honestly, I got nothing else for you. I’d recommend you sub this, personally. I’m also going to stick it in my car, because metalface and car goes together quite nicely. </MODREVIEW>