Nubioso

Aright, so I think this is pretty much my final update. I've gone through the whole song and cleaned up all my fades, boosted vocal levels a bit as that was the primary complaint I've gotten. Fixed a couple things that I had messed up in there (I had my drum verb aux sending to another verb aux instead of my master channel, doh!) and various little things like that that just made the song unpleasant. So all in all, this should be my final mix right hyaw. I'm posting it for the absolute final complaints and critiques. At this point though, I've had a lot of comments and help and I've taken every one of them into consideration, so unless something is just ungodly out of place, this will probably be what I submit to judges. Thanks for listening and everyones help throughout this 2 month journey of mine.

yeah, I was about to say, even though it doesn't LOOK pretty (doesn't matter when we're all about sound right!?) the dust caps poked in shouldn't effect sound at all. Regardless of that though, they do look pretty beaten up which would beg the question how well they will actually perform. Most of it looks like aesthetic casualties, not so much something like a big tear in the speaker or something like that, but who knows...guess you won't until you get them jammin. Exactly. Monitors should have a flat response. What sounds "Good" is all subjective. Where in your room your computer is located, where these speakers will be, etc..etc.. will change the sound greatly.If you're like me, and the only place to have your computer is in a corner, then you're going to hear stuff VERY bassy as a result. Things to think about.

not bad at all man. I don't think the guitars really sound shitty personally. I would like to hear some room tone on the drums though. Right now they are just very dry and it makes it more obvious that it's individual samples. To add a little realism, room tone is needed.. The best I suppose you could do without actually having room mics on drums, is to just add a little reverb to them. and I mean TINY amount of reverb man, just enough to kind of make it sound like all the drum pieces are in the same room. Other than that, it's a good start. Another 2 years until it's done? =P

well, it's hard without knowing what kind of monitors they are and thus, not being able to know whether they are passive or active monitors. I'm just gonna guess based on the fact that there is simply wires coming out the back, that they are passive monitors, which would mean you'd need a power amp to get any sound to them. It'd go like this: 1/4" cable from soundcard to power amp, power amp to monitors. A lot of power amps (depending on the one you get) will have connections for bare wires like yours that have the little twist on clamp style, 1/4", XLR, or possibly even banana clips....it'd just depend on what one you got. So sorry to say, at the moment you wouldn't be able to just take it from your soundcard to those monitors. (Pretty sure anyway)

of course then you'll have the frustration of installing a new motherboard! That's never fun =P

Yes I do plan on submitting it. I went to the mIRC channel last night and had one judge listen to it, and he suggested I send it to another judge to check out (I'll leave them nameless) and both of them said if submitted they would have given it a YES with some very minor production issues that'd be easy to fix, so I definitely got some encouragement for that. I should be able to get this submitted within the end of the week and then 4 months from that point we'll see if it made it lol

Woot! Finally got the female vocals done! Still a thing or two I might have her re-record but other than that, this is pretty much the jist of it. I also re-wrote some of my rap lyrics, got rid of the repetitiveness of the chorus in the 2nd half. Also changed up the music arrangement, (mentioned in my previous post) Let me know what you guys think, this is basically on the brink of finished. Just gotta go through, clean up the song, make the fades, edit out breaths, minor adjustments to levels, things of that nature. Enjoy! Lyrics now on first page!

Honestly man when it comes to my mixes "Turn up the vocals" is a very viable opinion because I tend to push them back since I'm more of a music man and want to hear what's being played, opposed to a vocal man. Most of the vocals seem pretty out there to me, EXCEPT that vocoded part that you've mentioned. I totally realize that that part is a little hard to hear what's being said, I'll wind up putting the lyrics up when I actually have all of the vocals in (hopefully today) The ending will end like that for the most part, however, I've got another update that I haven't posted yet where I've changed the music up quite a bit in the end....took out a bassline chunk, re-wrote the bassline in an area, added some legato strings as well as pizzicatto and staccato strings during the dialogue for more build up, some cymbal hits, things like that. I DO believe I will be writing more lyrics instead of repeating the "Looking through the castle" bit at the end and that should smooth out some of the "what happens at the end!?" issues =P no way man, no matter how much someone makes music or how skilled they may be doesn't mean they are impervious to hearing imperfections or needing advice.

Hmm, nice man, sounds like you changed some things. You changed the strings in the beginning right? Or just really tweaked with the settings, nice....also the lead that comes in about halfway through the song, I like the additional filter effects you've added to it. I think the song is really bumping now dude, the few new subtle and nuances you've added to it really helped to improve the dynamics and overall interest of the song. (You're gonna hate me!!) But I still think the bass is too loud. Except instead of a huge paragraph of "try this" i'm simply gonna say drop the volume down 1.5 - 2db. If it's say...85 in reason, try 80 or so, very small amount is needed. That's just me, but other than that man, :thumbs up: solid piece dude!

This weekend damnit, I WILL record those female vocals!! Wish me luck on achieving that, I keep telling my girl "We're recording today" she says "ok" and somehow it just doesn't get done.. BAH!

Once again, super...yeah, you can remix a song in MIDI with some pretty amazing results, but the fact remains, has there ever been someone who submitted a .midi file and it got approved as an "official OCR Remix"....there's thousands of songs here, and of course I haven't heard them all, so I could very well be wrong in that aspect, but an (albeit impressive) remix in MIDI that you linked from VGmusic doesn't mean crap, because it's not the standards to what this website rely on. Anywho, I've heard, what's his name...(Halt right?) That said the original poster was a very talented pianist, so it shouldn't be that far beyond the realm of his abilities to write some original composition that goes along with the original theme. You're absolutely right, because as you said, whatever each person has on their computer is going to determine what that midi file sounds like. If I import any generic midi file into reason and change the instruments into better samples, bam, it sounds better even though you've really done nothing. My main point was, it DOES have to do with it's quality if a person submits a MIDI file and says this is their final product because sounds will differ from computer to computer, if played in a generic player like winamp or windows media player, or whatever the mac equivelant of these players are, it's going to use basic 8-bit sounding MIDI samples that are well below the quality of what's accepted here. (And even though you apparently hate this fact), most people are coming here because they find it to be a community of skilled musicians, composers, remixers, artists, etc..etc.. whatever you want to say, and want to also try to rise to that same level of expectaction. It's a stepping stone of achievement if you will, not that this website is the end all of what is to be considered "Good music" or "good remixing capabilities." Used as a tool, this website is still a good measurement of a persons skills and what a (fairly large population) considers to be good production, composition, and arrangement abilities. Sorry, I can be bad at articulating my point...I'm one of those people that something can make sense in my head, but I can't properly describe what I'm actually trying to say. Neblixsaber should be able to attest to that (pretty much <--- hehe, just a joke I'm kidding) If I exported one of my songs that use a lot of MIDI in it, then listened to the MIDI file afterwards, I'd say to myself, Whoa! I must have exported the wrong thing, because this sounds nothing like my song.....and in this case, the sounds of the mp3 and the MIDI file are almost identicle with the exception of panning and things like that which is indicative that the original quality was low and based off of generic MIDI samples. There should be a drastic difference between what the MIDI sounds like and what the mp3 sounds like, and in THIS particular case, there is not...the mp3 still sounds like a MIDI file and I am basing my "Aaand I consider myself to be right" on THIS particular occassion. Like Sinewav said, yeah sure, you can remix a song in MIDI, but my usage of "A REMIX" is based on the standards of THIS website as to what THEY will accept as a "REMIX. I mean hell, I didn't even say "THIS SOUNDS TERRIBLE" like he apparently got from someone else, so at least I'm not the harshest bastard on here. I don't know if that makes any sense to you guys, but regardless, my balls are still intact.

Hmmm. ya know, I just use the general De-esser that comes in protools default digidesign sweet plug-ins to tell you the truth. Since 99% of my songs don't ever have vocals on them, it's never been a big problem for me. Although I can't suggest a particular "good" de-esser, I can tell you how to kind of, make one yourself, using a compressor and EQ. 1. Make a duplicate of your vocal track. 2. Put a compressor on your ORIGINAL vocal track 3. Put an EQ on the DUPLICATE vocal track 4. On the DUPLICATE vocal track, find the frequency that's making those "S" sounds stick out, probably around 7.9kHz - 8.4kHz and bump those frequencies making them stick out even more on the duplicate track. (Make sure you use a high Q setting, making the band that you're rasing, a fairly narrow band to really hone in on those sibilant S sounds) 5. Take the output of your DUPLICATE track and have it go into the "Sidechain input" of the compressor that is on your ORIGINAL vocal track. This way, you won't hear the output of that duplicate track with it's now bumped up overly S sounds...what you've now done is whenever the song plays and comes to those S sounds, the duplicate track will cause the compressor to compress on the main track during those sibilant times, thus effectively creating a de-esser, and of course you'd just move around the frequency on your EQ to find out the best spot to compress. I hope I explained that right, it's been a really long time since I've even done a technique like that, that I hope I just got the point across accurately. If you don't want to go through all that trouble, I'm sure you can just do a google search and find some decent free ones. lol, that made me laugh, and yeah I can only imagine how that went. "Ehhh, so mom....got any panty hose you don't need?"

Aww, dang man, that sucks. Oh well, it's all about the sound anyway, you don't need to see the visualization =P Just listen to it. I was just mainly referring to the timpani with the orkestor comment, I wouldn't have guessed that the strings sample wasn't from reason originally though, but hell, a lot of string samples sound really similar anyway.Anywho, I know it's frustrating man, but you'll get it.

Aww, no way man, there's really not that much wrong with it. Maybe 4 or 5 things? You're in good shape. I treat it like this, if I didn't like the song, I wouldn't be commenting on it and wanting it to succeed in the first place. You said yourself, there are plenty of people wanting feedback on their shit, but I don't comment on every single one. You're so close to getting this accepted, it'll happen. The sample itself is fine, and I don't have a problem with it, I use reason too, and I've used those strings. You've got a nice dramatic build up with the use of the (I believe) orkestor sound banks timpani drum swells and individual drum hits. To add to that dynamic, and just kind of...smooth over the inhuman nature of synths, adding a little less attack makes those strings come in just a tad bit more naturally and give a more orchestral feel instead of seeming like individual samples retriggered. Hmm, I guess I should have also asked, how many dB's is it compressing at those settings? (Again this is advice I'm saying simply to try out and experiment with, Not that this is the answer) Try using an 8:1 ratio, which is still a pretty agressive ratio, with an attack of 25-30ms attack, that will bring out the attack of your kick, making it heard better, yet control the "woofy" sound of it that can muffle everything else. Try to get around 3 up to 6dB of compression, experiment and see what sounds best to you. I know this is a lot of advice, but as I always say, this is simply my opinion, and I'm offering my personal view on techniques that may help your song out. All you have to lose is a few minutes trying these different settings and see whether or not you like it better.

Thanks! =P If only I didn't have to hold the cord to my headphones in my mouth so it won't cut out. The connection is starting to screw up It's like....$30 for a new cable too!Blackpanther - Definitely think it's better, now that the bass has been brought back a little bit. Personally, I still think the kick is too much. Maybe lowering it by 1.5 to 2db might help that. It's a pretty powerful kick you got in there, and it's really noticeable at at the 1:06-1:07 part where all there is is the kick and the scratchy synth. Since the synth is so thin and distant sounding during that part, the kick just seems too much in my face. When everything comes back in at 1:18 and you've brought more lows back into that synth it sounds thicker and isn't quite as overwhelmed. I think I agree with rozovian about adjusting the attack on those beginning strings just a tad to try and smooth out the beginning of each note and make it seem less computer-ish. Not a whole lot, just bring the attack a tiny bit and it should help quite a bit. Also, this is just my opinion, and totally disregard it at will, but maybe try and remove 120-150Hz in your kick by maybe 2-3dB with a Q of like.....10 (this is based on you using reasons EQ's, a Q of 10 will make a pretty narrow cut which is what I think it needs) There's just something in that kick that's bugging my ears. Dunno, try it out, listen to it, see for yourself if you like it better. Also, I'm curious to know what kind of compression you might have on it. I know I know, I'm focusing a lot on your bass and kick, but personally, I think your song is pretty good and those are just the two biggest problems with it, and if those are fixed everything else should fall into place better.

hmm, I don't know if I'm hearing something everyone else isn't...because the vocals aren't just a "little" overpowering...the piano is basically non existant and sounds super far away in the background. Piano needs to be brought WAY up. Don't know your recording set up, but if you have the chance, a stereo recorded piano panned left and right respectively with the vocals in the middle is an awesome way to go for such a recording. The voice recording is nice and indeed is a pleasant singing voice.

I stand by the fact I'm right. Great...he uses sonar...and it can import and export midi...super...I know this already....it's a good program for sure. Still doesn't change the fact that I don't think you can ever submit a MIDI file and it'll be approved as a remix...and considering he exported a midi file originally, and then just exported it as an mp3, meant that he had a bare-bones midi file to begin with...and I was right in the fact that listening from the midi to mp3 doesn't show a lot of change....so again I was right. The thing that YOU'RE right about, is that you're not the best remixer here...clearly, since you apparently don't have one under your belt ( and yes, neither do I, but hell I haven't even claimed to be a remixer yet like yourself)....even if you were, what that has to do with "I can tell you he's using sonar" is beyond me. So all in all, while I don't doubt your experience with balls, you have failed to bust these. Anyway....to the original poster. A decent way to start out remixing is to do what you're doing in the sense of...get the original piece of music, check how it's structured, arrangement, notes, etc..etc..and try to build more off that than simply throwing in a drum beat. Definitely practice getting a sweet groove down like you're doing because a really dynamic and awesome drumbeat can definitely make a piece more exciting. You've dabbled in putting in some of your own original notes, awesome! That's exactly what you need to do, but you need to do more of it...instead of writing a quick bar right before we're thrown right back into the original theme..... as for your question "Am I supposed to write my own song or what?" Ehh, well kind of, but not really.... It's like taking the recipe for a cupcake or something. You can use the same ingredients to make something completely different, while retaining the similarity to a cupcake if that makes any sense =P Just go listen to some super mario remixes. Check out "Monstrous Turtles" by Zircon which was my personal inspiration for this website. http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01558/ While no one expects you to achieve that level overnight, I'm just showing you how, you can still recognize the main theme he's covering, but there's a lot of his own originality in there as well. again, good luck!

Well...as I saw this thread I thought to myself...."Anything, originally uploaded as a .midi file then converted over to an mp3 can't be a remix" aaaand I pretty much consider myself to be right. This isn't really a remix. You've added a techno beat below the very well known mario theme song and that's about it. I mean...I hear the small original parts like at 1:40 and at the end, but a few notes in an otherwise almost copy of the theme song isn't going to be counted as a remix. Pretty much sounds like you just imported the original mp3 theme song and sprinkled a few things over it. Sorry man, and I'm not trying to sound like an asshole or to discourage you from trying to remix things, but you've got a long way to go before you get into the area of acceptable remixes. Like I said, I'm not telling you to stop......what's that famous saying, a journey of a thousand miles starts with just one step....so start walkin but yeah, if I uploaded my first beats and showed you my beats today (many years later) you'd see where I'm coming from...my first ones were CRRAAAAP, so don't worry about it man. Practice and the skills will come with time.

It's all good man, vocals still aren't mine forte. I'm mainly a music man, where as some people are lyric people...I don't even hear lyrics in songs half the time, I just hear the tone of the voice. One thing to try when recording your vocals is to tilt the mic from the side, above, or below you. If it's below...tilt the mic so that it still points to your mouth, but is below your wind path so you don't get those plosives, same for if you have the mic hanging above you, or tilted to the side. Many people might now scream at me "EHH, ITS OFF AXIS" but the point is, the mic is pointing directly at the source of the sound without being in the way of the wind, so it really isn't off acis. Alternatively you could invest in a popfilter....or better yet....steal some of your moms panty hose, make a circle out of a coat hanger and cover that shiz with said panty hose =P, works just as good. Hell, even a pencil in the middle of the microphone can break up a little bit of the air, same reason the AKG D112 has a big line through the middle. Good luck!

The source for the first part is Oath to order - Call of the four giants. I put a link in my first post if you want to check it out. As for the boredom of the second half....yeah, I've got a new mix where I'm trying to make the music behind the rap more dynamic, I haven't uploaded it yet, because I don't feel it's a big enough update to justify having people critique it. I think the second half I was going for more of a "modern rap" style with a repeating heavily dubbed chorus and the first half was more "underground rap" or something....dunno man, I've never rapped on anything before to tell you the truth lol. I might just wind up changing the ending lyrics to something original opposed to repeating the chorus. Who knows!

yeah, I read the judges responses after writing mine: One judge blatantly said the bass, but they are all taking about needing clarity, high-end, and balance...which I can assure you can all be remedied through cleaning up and turning down the bass and kick a tad. Don't try and push more high-end into the cymbals and everything else....removing bass frequencies will bring the high-end back into the mix. So yeah, like I said, even though one judge blatantly told you the bass should be turned down, they are all talking about balance and high-end being needed for clarity and I guarantee you it's that muffling bass and kick competing with each other that is killing your balance and clarity. Good luck man! Those judges are definitely tough, I honestly don't think my zelda song will wind up making it, after reading how scrupulous they can be. But hey, at least you got a resub and not a flat out no! =D

Right off the bat I'm gonna say the first thing that I notice is the same thing I find to be a problem in my mixes. Overwhelming kick and bass. Overall, the whole thing is pretty muddy. I'm on AKG K-240 studio headphones so they don't produce as much bass as some good studio monitors and it still sounds REALLY overly bassy. So no doubt anyone who puts it on some good speakers that can actually replicate 20Hz - 20kHz it just must sound really bassy. Your kick should come down in volume a little. As it is, it's like i'm getting kicked in the face and everything else gets pushed back. When you've got your kick too high, you have a tend to push your bass up too much to try and compensate and hear both. (Using the universal 'you' here, not literally YOU =P) Depending on the song and everything, you can actually remove more bass from a kick drum than you'd think. The kick is, get a nice boost at around the 80Hz region in the kick, get rid of some of the boxiness in the 250-500Hz region, and if you need more attack then you can give SLIGHT nudges in the 1-2KhZ region. You could probably hi-pass the kick up to 30-35Hz, because really you want the bass to sit nicely below the kick. Even the bass, I would roll up to 30Hz, because the main musical range is 50Hz to around 16Khz, as far as what speakers can replicate and what the general public can hear. A good idea for the bass is small boosts around the 60Hz range, and the kick being at the 80Hz range. That way, they'll both have the bass, but the full roundness comes from the bass itself, where more of the attack and thump to keep the beat still comes from the kick. More attack to the bass could be brought out in the 800-900Mhz range. It's a solid beat, and overall a good remix, think you've got a good song here, but my guess, is that that overbearing kick and bass is what contributed to them not liking the production. A trick to try and learn how to balance your kick and bass (for me atleast) is to turn your volume down really low. You should be able to just barely hear the bass and kick still at a volume lower than what you'd normally listen to it at. If I turn your song down really low you still hear that bass quite prominately. Anywho, hope that helps man! And of course as, always, this is just my opinion

The introductory vocals that come in at :22 or :23 or whatever seem to loud IMO, compared to the level of everything I had been listening too, same thing for when they come back in at :50 seconds mark. Those main vocals just seem too loud. Also, when you say "monkeys all over the place" in the beginning, you've got a major plosive on the "p" in place that should be adjusted. If you can't get rid of it simply by removing bass in EQ, another trick is to simply volume adjust the "P" which lasts for all of a quarter of a second. I'm not 100% sure, but it sounds like I'm hearing clipping in the 1:00 - 1:05 mark, just some faint crackling and popping. Overall sounds good, the things that I've mentioned should be easy to fix. 1. Adjust levels 2. Fix a couple of plosives on your "P" 3. Watch for clipping 4. Watch out for your "S" sounds like in space and place, might want to get a de-esser in there for that. Main thing are those levels though, throughout the whole thing I feel like I gotta keep adjusting my levels because some parts I want to hear more clear, then the vocals will come in and blast me away. My guess is a combination of auto-tune and vocoding, or simply just vocoding. Auto-tune is what generally gives that more "sharp edged" note changes in voices that has now become a part of about 99% of todays hip-hop and pop songs popularized by cher of all people =P Just my guess though