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Here for the contest. BAM!

[Super Mario Land - Underground theme WIP]

Wow, thanks. That really helps. A lot. I'll have something new by tomorrow, hopefully!

[Super Mario Land - Underground theme WIP]

Wow, that's gonna take a while to figure out. I think I get what you are saying, but those wiki articles aren't going to help much; I can barely read music. Combine that with trying to come up with something using that scale... whoa. It'll be tough, but I can pull it off for sure.

[Super Mario Land - Underground theme WIP]

Alright, so a checklist of things to fix:

-Better samples, especially drums and guitar. Yeah, the new sample was nearly identical to the old one.

-More variety in the drums and synth. Also, I'll fix that weird overlap at the end. Drums, however, are definitely not my stongpoint. That'll take a while.

-Use the bassline from the source. Wow, I can't believe I didn't think to use that. I'll definitely fit it in. Thanks for bringing it up!

Also:

Use the non-standard key sig on some original sections,

Umm, I have no idea what this means. Might you put it in simpler terms?

[Super Mario Land - Underground theme WIP]

Sorry 'bout the double post, but Distant Nightmare v0.2 has been completed!

I god rid of MIDI entirely, using some soundfonts from DarkeSword's site and HammerSound. I think I'm addicted now. I also added reverb on nearly everything and changed up the sitar a bit. Finally, I completely revamped the panning; it was absolute crap before. I had done it by channel, not by instrument.

Of course, it's still not long enough, but I'll be working on another 30 seconds or so later tonight. In other news, I still don't completely like the guitar, and the drums need more variety, but what I have will do for the time being.

Download link: http://willhostforfood.com/dl.php?fileid=44362

[Super Mario Land - Underground theme WIP]

Thanks for that link, it should be really helpful. Also, those soundfonts will be compatible. I've found a plugin called "sfz". (Apparently it's pretty well-known around here, so I would imagine you know about it already.) I'll have an updated song tonight possibly!

It does need to be longer though.

[Super Mario Land - Underground theme WIP]

Thanks for the soundfont link. I've seen that one around before, but the problem is, I haven't a clue how to use soundfonts. Are they compatible with OpenMPT?

Now, on to some other stuff...

The midi guitar noise i hate it everytime i hear it

Sorry 'bout that, I need a better guitar sample. (I took a MIDI guitar sample and ran it through an amp VST.) Any clue where I can find one?

There's absolutely no bassline in this remix. This, obviously, needs to be fixed. There's also no reverb on anything.

Thanks a ton for pointing this out. Now that I think about it, I haven't put any bass in any of my songs. I'll have to work on that. Also, about the reverb, is that extremely important? I mean, it's no problem if it is, but I've never really noticed it in other songs. I'm sure I'd be able to pick it out if I was looking for it, though.

[Super Mario Land - Underground theme WIP]

Here's something I made and actually submitted, and later realized that there was no way it was going to be accepted. I've decided to call it a work-in-progress now.

Download: http://stuffindustries.googlepages.com/distantnightmare.mp3

I, personally, can see several problems with it right away:

-It's far too repetitive. There's a "background" loop that repeats through the entire song. I really need to rework that whole tune.

-It's somewhat abrasive. I think it sounds good, but I could easily see it getting annoying.

-There's too much MIDI. The only MIDI samples are the drums, but that's still too much.

Wow, I just critiqued my own music. That's really the main complaints I see coming up, but who knows? There could easily be more. What I really need is advice. As a fairly new composer, I am a bit unfamiliar with what resources are available, preferably for free. The main thing I need are quality samples. I've taken a look about the forum, and everything seems to be both paid and expensive. That aside, however, tips on better composition (or anything, really) would be great. I'm excited to see what this community has to say, and even more so to finish this mix and hopefully have the judges accept it.

[Am I able to remix?]

What brand/model? Yamaha, Casio, ...

My keyboard's a Casio CTK-531. The weird thing is that it doesn't have a full set of MIDI tones, apparently. It has 100 tones, including the "drum kit". Therefore, a whole lot of the tones listed in Anvil Studio are changed to other tones when they're played on the piano. When I play a MIDI file through Windows Media Player, though, they sound fine.

[Am I able to remix?]

I don't exactly like the samples that my keyboard has, so for the small bit of tinkering that I have been doing, I've been using what I would guess to be my computer's default MIDI samples. I really don't know exactly how all that works, though.

[Am I able to remix?]

Well... I'm not exactly sure if this is the right place to put this thread, but anyway, on to my question. I want to get into mixing, but the only music stuff I have is your typical, run-of-the-mill MIDI keyboard and Anvil Studio. Can I make good remixes with just this?