theshaggyfreak

Same for me and bass. or maybe ukulele. heh

I'm afraid of DEEEEZ nutz!

I got in my listens and votes. Here's a few thoughts I'd like to note. ladyWildfire - I felt like the lead synth at the beginning (and end) had too much bite for my taste. Cute tune and fun lyrics! I dig it. halc - I felt the hard hard panning of the vocals was a bit distracting. Another really fun song, though! Sir_Nuts - That had quite a nice 80s feel to it. I would have like to had a bit more clarity in the vocoded vocals. Sometimes I feel like there was too much going on in a few places. For me, the charm of music like this is in its simplicity. Awesome production! Ivan Hakstok - The guitar sound leaps out a bit too much for my taste. I’d lave liked it a bit farther back in the mix. It got better as the track went on, though. Nice guitar work! Amphibious - Funky! Sometimes that bass line sticks out a bit too much. Otherwise, it’s a pretty awesome song! SuperiorX - Almost reminds me a little of a Hall and Oates song which isn’t a bad thing. The tinkling piano thing seemed a little out of place for me and overcomplicated things. Another cool funky piece! Solid production! jnWake - Sometimes I feel like the bass line was too busy. I would have fathered the 16th notes act more like fills at the phrase endings. I would dial it back a little. Yet another cool funky tune! Good show!

It's not only a volume issue with the piano. The two keyboard instruments are occupying somewhat the same space sonically. You may need to EQ things a bit to carve out some room.

I just wanted to thank those that voted and offered kind words about my remix. While I know that Mr. Flexstyle will topple me, you guys give me the confidence to keep at it. That's the really awesome thing about this community.

I think he's referring to this one: https://soundcloud.com/theshaggyfreak/sazhafreyasazh-sazh-vs-freya-1 I do like the jazzy stuff.

I have to say that I really enjoyed remixing the stuff from Sonic Lost World for the SZRC. I arbitrarily picked the source music for my remix and had fun with it despite having never played the game. I did specifically want to do something that was from a recent game, though. So, I picked something from Sonic Lost World. I think that maybe we should have more remix competitions where the rules state that you have to use something from a game that was made in the past three years. It would sure give OCR some fresh source material that hasn't been over used. Stepping out of your element to create a remix is a good thing!

The best thing to do as a beginner is to stick with a set of plugins for a while. You'll eventually get comfortable enough with them to decide if they'll work for you or if you need to move on to something else.

http://www.meldaproduction.com/plugins/product.php?id=MFreeEffectsBundle For those who haven't checked out the free plugins that Melda offers, it's actually a really nice package. It includes a tool box of 23 VSTs. They are more or less the bread and butter type plugins that everyone uses but I feel that they they're much better than what's included in a number of DAWs out there. You can also pay $66 to unlock some really nice features that make this set worth looking into. As nice as these plugins are, I feel that Melda more than deserves my money so that they can develop more free software. While there are other free VST packages out there like the one from Blue Cat, the Melda package really gives you the bang for your buck (free or otherwise). Even the GUIs are really nice and I like that you can customize the look of them somewhat. Anyway, I just thought I'd throw this out there since didn't see any posts about it when I searched through the forum.

Does it work properly if you have the key signature set?

Hah! The M1 has a pretty iconic sound and was used in SO many hit records of the day.

Tuberz - I’m not a huge fan of the fade in. I would maybe make it shorter or remove it. Guitar tone is a bit on the muddy side. The one keyboard part panning back and forth…I’d limit the use of panning somewhat. I felt it was distracting. Was the crackling near the end intentional? Nice composition and nice guitar work, though! Sterling Ortiz - Some nice ideas but I can tell that this is pretty much a WIP. Keep working on it! Garpocalypse - I really like the guitar sound! Reminds me a bit of The Police. The piece definitely has an 80s feel to it. Some of the keyboard parts could have even come from a Korg M1 or a DX7. Very nice! DusK - Some of the string sounds could use more humanization. Nice composition! TheGuitahHeroe - Nice straight up electronic type piece. It could do with less pumping but that’s just a matter of taste. Good composition! Eino - I think I would have liked to hear a bit less mud in the one guitar tone. I really like the lose feel of the song. Be careful of the machine gunning snare sound. If you need better drum sounds, the Sennheiser DrumMic’a is free and is pretty decent. Good show! Therex - Got the dub step thing going on. Not my thing but I felt it fairly was well implemented. Could use more variation. Polish it up! BrothaDom - The vocals really are too dry for my taste and could use more oomph. Needs more emotion! Work at it! Flexstyle - Great composition! Very nice and polished! urdailywater - Nice jam. I think I might have gone with a different drum sound, though. I can’t pinpoint why but it just seems out of place to me. BlackPanther - Very smooth. I really like the feel of it. It just needs to be expanded on! Phonetic Hero - Good groove! Very polished sound! Funky fresh! Chernabogue - The drums that are out wide sound a bit weird in this piece. I would put them a bit farther back in the mix and maybe more centered. There’s some weird pumping going on which isn’t something I really want to hear in a piece like this. Nice composition, though! Arceace - I feel like I should be doing aerobics with this for some reason. One, two, three, four! Kick! Kick! Very cool piece!

Just some notes on my remix, Smooth as Ice... I'm trying to do more jazzy styled stuff. It's a genre I really enjoy and feel that there could be more jazzy VG remixes in general. I tried to make it sound as natural as possible with only using (mostly) the instruments that come with Kontakt in Komplete. If I had more time, I would have hunted down some folks to record the parts with real instruments. Its' a bit difficult to do that in such a short period of time but I think I'll eventually have that done. When I'm writing jazzy pieces like this, I generally pick what instruments I'm using beforehand and stick with them. I really do try and imagine it being played by a live group of musicians. Here's the set of instruments I used in case you can't pick them all out: Alto sax, tenor sax, clav, vibes, drum kit, bass, and guitar. The guitar is probably the worst offender of not sounding natural. I could have probably recorded this myself but lacked the time to do so. I'm hoping to have XPRTnovice eventually do the sax parts and I'll be doing the bass parts. I attempted to keep things tight but loose if you get my meaning. I think I more or less achieved that but it still needs work. I think I could have a bit more variation in there too. I think a lot of that would come with it having more real instruments rather than sample libraries. Flexstyle, I took a listen to your remix and am quite impressed! While it's not exactly the style of music I like, the production is very good! Having vocals with it certainly does trump my song.

Okay, mine is in. I'm fairly happy with it and think I made a strong effort.

With 'big' productions of any sort, there's often more people behind the scenes than you realize. It's just rare that anyone ever comes right out and admits it. Read any biography by a studio engineer and you'll come to understand that pretty quickly. So, Mamoru Samuragochi coming out like this isn't that big of a deal to me. Getting paid to do something doesn't always mean you get credit for it. Things shouldn't be that way but they are.

All is going well on my end and I have a decent amount done. So far, I'm definitely having fun with it.

Thanks all!

*shrug* I admit I'm not the best at describing how I feel about a particular song. I often use words in my own 'unique' way...which doesn't make it right. Oh, well.

Well, I felt that it had one complete idea to it. That's what I meant by cohesive. Tuberz song seemed a bit too 'epic' for my taste.

I have the special edition already on pre-order. I'm definitely looking forward to this one.

You'll often hear people talk about doing Parallel Compression but you can do that with EQ, etc. If you do a Google search on Parallel Compression, you'll find a lot of stuff about it. That concept can work in a lot of various situations and it's quite popular with vocals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_compression

Wildfire - Great vibe! I would have liked to hear the vocals brought to the front a bit more. Some parallel mixing might help that. Otherwise, great track! Jason Covenant - Short and sweet. I really don't have too much to nitpick on this one other than it could have been developed a bit more. Halc - Nice production and collaboration. While rap is not one of my favorite things, I can appreciate what you put together here. Disambiguity - It's a good start but definitely needs more development. Sir_NutS - Nice tune! I think my only complaint is that I would have liked to hear a bit more clarity in vocals. It was just a tad bit on the muddy side for me. DJ Max - The song has a very interesting evolution to it. Sometimes I feel like it evolves too much, though. Otherwise, great piece!. Xenonetix - Too many sounds seem to be occupying the same sonic space. EQ could fix that. Some sounds really jump out of the mix and need a bit of taming. Nice composition, though! Ivan - Nice production! My biggest compliant is the wub wub sound that comes in around 2:50. It sounds out of place and sticks out like a sore thumb. Ryan - Nice song and very cohesive. It does the job! It could use one or two more sounds in it, though. Amphibious - I love the jazz elements! That gets two thumbs up in my book. The little vocal bit around 3:00 is cool but I think it was a bit too dry. Cash - Nice composition albeit is a bit on the sparse side. Some sounds pop out of the mix a bit too much and could use some taming. SuperiorX - Good production. Nice composition. The scratching type sounds jump a bit too far out of the mix for my taste, though. Trism - Too much pumping going on with compression for my taste. The sound that spreads out to the far left and right at the beginning is harsh and a bit painful sounding. Good composition, though! jnWake - The lead guitar sits a bit too much in the same sonic space as the rhythm guitar. I'd have like to hear it come forward a bit more. Nice guitar work, though! The panning of the hat near the half way point seemed a bit weird to me. Good tune!

Both songs had great production and I enjoyed listening to them quite a bit. I ended up choosing Eino, though, since his song felt a bit more cohesive to my ears. I felt that Tuberz choice of a wide instrumentation and song length made things feel a little scatter brained. Both songs are amazing, though, and each mixer should be proud of their work!

The odds are not in my favor but I will do my best to bring it. Tomorrow I plan on listening to last weeks mixes as well as begin work on my own.

My favorite text-to-speech is done with an old TI/99. I actually have one with a speech side cart just for this purpose: