hewhoisiam

Okay, the name. I thought I was cleaver at the time... He Who Is I Am Just no punctuation. Once you know the words it isn't nearly as hard. If'n I could go back and change it, I might pick something a tad simpler. Sadly can't change the names on OCR... But there you have it. And now you know it, just no spaces and no caps. I lol'd On a note related to the track, going here: http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php might yield some ideas. I know I really want to play with CYGNUS. It's free and creates ambient noises. But they're much more space like, but it's got a lot of flexibility (so I'm told)

May be aiming high... But I want X-Japan... We'll see how it works out. EDIT: Woah, hah. It's now in 10/4. Yep, he's crazy. It'll be... ah. Something...

I've been ignoring this place for a while... prolly too long. Besides, I just got sixto ina box that I should really put to use... I'll see what I can hammer out.

Really quickly: The intro is nice, but it's kinda like a really nice highway with the bridge out at the end. Long straight road, not a cop around. Then you have to stop. It builds to a quiet when I want something to blow me away there. The sounds you have are neat, but the song feels thin in places, 1 or 2 instruments, tops. could use some more filler, pads or some such. This track has 3 or so ideas used about equally, and is far from the source, to me, it lacks coherence. It needs an overlying theme to bring all the ideas together. I'd try not to add any length if I could help it. It may just be me but the actual ice cap theme used here is much slower than everything else going on. Some original work to make it not so slow might help. I mean, heavy house sounds doing triplets and 16ths, then the snow cap is what dotted quarters and half/whole notes? Seems could use some blending help. Kinda in a hurry, so cutting this short. Good luck.

When you're adding a beat to something, it's actually moving away from an ambiance and towrds an actual song. If you like that groove, do something with it, add a bassline, do something fun I tend to think that almost nothing can loop an entire song and sound good. The drum groove is a nice touch, a new direction. But it can't just clip loop through the whole song. You're popping out an update here and a pretty quick pace, slow down, look at the critiques and decide if the changes you make are IMPROVING the song, or just making it different. I hear a lot of different tracks here, but not tons in the way of improvement. Use some of the fine examples of ambient tunes here on OCR to help you. This guy: http://ocremix.org/artist/4283/children-of-the-monkey-machine is a good one. Like I say, it's not really my style... http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01028/ Hope that helps.

I think some reverb on that first instrument might go a long way. Though I like the punch of having it short for the first few notes, so keep that and turn the mix up a touch later on. Love the breakdown at 0:40 but it sounds like there's some fuzz in this section that needs to be cleaned up. The more I listen to this, the more it seems like cleaner is the word that I'm looking for. I like the sounds you've got, but it also seems like a lot of them are coming with added fuzz that I talked about earlier. I don't know if it's distortion effect gone wrong or what. I do know you can add a very specific EQ to certain tracks to cut out fuzz in some cases, but that's really all I know about it. This kinda DnB thing screams power, I think the snare could use a boost, at least the driving notes (2&4 usually, though this is different in places) This might be preference, but that lead sound you have is so fat and loud that it's overpowering some of the more subtle pieces. I hesitate to bring it up, cause it's the oomph there, it's the real power in the track. Even then, I don't think it should be as powerful as it is. @1:50 I think some panning effects could go a long way to really make that synth shine. I pan and adjust volume usually, neat stuff for breaks. Hope this helps

The pads are an improvement, but they're going to need a lot of work. I see a much longer attack, and some distortion/funky effects on them going a long way. Also, for pure creepy, they could use some detune. Now, detuned in the synth is a lot different than wrong notes. A few wrong notes, transition notes, notes not on chords is one thing, this has got areas where the chords just feel wrong. (not much of an expert on this, sorry) Now it's time to add variation as well. Move the melody up and down octaves, move it to new instruments that are similar, but different enough to keep interest. Same goes with the chords, they need to change instruments or effects throughout this piece so it's not so static. Going to take a lot of work because of the nature of the beast, but this is a major improvement.

Oh wow, this thread already feels like it's in pretty good hands with Gario and Nutritious on the case... BUT SINCE IT'S LAGUNA! Bring out the hi-hats some! Give the kick some oomph. Louder 2 and 4 when you've got things going even with those ghost notes. The main Laguna theme has a nice drum riff that I kinda like, well, everywhere for effect. It might be neat if it came in somewhere. (me just wanting to hear it, that one) Thickening sound and sound design. My advice for these is to learn them the way I did. And my secret is just, uh. A search engine + youtube. I have learned things though, mostly from techno and the people here at OCR. Making a bland repeating better is done with cutoff filter automation. I found out how to do this and it was like Christmas for me. Most of my long winded posts can be boiled down to 'what do I suggest you automate, because that's what I want to hear...' (yes, that is my terrible secret) I do love texture in general. Some of the thinner sounds can be made better with some simple tricks. 1) If you have a simple synth that's using, like 2 saw waves? De tune them. One down, one up. Sometimes you can add some dissonance here too, for added effect. I more or less play with it till I like what I've got. 2) Sometimes more and quieter is a better sound than less and louder. If you play the note on C5, play it an octave off as well. C4. You can do some neat things with that as well, when/if/how you humanize them, you can have the higher or lower notes louder, they can come in slightly off time (1/64 note delay, etc) I do all this on the piano mode. Good stuff! Hope that helps.

Mmhokay, like night and day, I just came from a chiptunes track I was listening to... Into full on orchestral arrangement. Wow I have to get my bearings. Hold on... I can't find the example of this I want, so here's as close as I can get. It's good reference for some of the stuff I talk about: Where Never Lark Or Eagle Flew http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=o_duSlRjoog&feature=related For examples of dynamic contrast and PURE AWESOME! I'll never be convinced that Inchon doesn't take the cake: Okay, lets get into the OMG LONGEST thing I've written on OCR. Panning / location / mixing. With something like this, I would set up the sound scape 'about' the way it's done if you saw the people do it live. That's just location for panning the instruments. The way an orchestra is set up has an effect on the sound and dynamics and stuff like that. lmao! I was sitting here going... It needs... TIMPANI DRUMS! And right on cue, there they were. I'm going to make some suggestions percussively. The intro and some other places could use suspended cymbal rolls and wind chimes / tubular bells / triangle. I don't know how accurate of a sound you're going for, but in my experience there's 5-7 percussionists in a piece and no one sits, ever. I've played bits where I cover no less that 10 or so auxiliary parts. As far as drum drums go, like I said TIMPANI! <3 <3 <3 But I don't hear a concert bass drum to help out that snare. While the snare drum gets all the glory, it's the bass drum that holds things together, has to have perfect tempo, and has to memorize the part so they can look at the conductor the whole time. Also, the timpani can be brought down a notch in places if you have the bass drum to give it that extra UNF! That it needs. Now, to talk snare part. The snare isn't bad, but it could be better. Part of that is writing to remove repetition, and part is adding rolls, ruffs, flams. I picture extended closed rolls during bits in this, with gradual dynamic changes. Flam/Ruff/5Srolls are used in addition to accents to build to the accent. That's a lot of technical lingo, so I'll break it down a bit. Flam has a tiny grace note before the real note, so the effect sounds like a fuller main note. Ruff has 2 grace notes, and 5stroke has 4 (the 5th stroke is the actual hit) The grace note speed is basically a 32nd note. So if you have a Flam on 1, the grace note is 1 32nd note BEFORE that. Some drum programs have an option for sustained roll, that my be the case in yours, checks it out. Some of the high notes, loud accents that you have, especially in the brass, sound thing and too loud. What I mean is that they should sound like more instruments not played blaring out that note. It can be hard to get the balance right on this, but like uh. Okay. The string section, sounds like a section. The brass section, ditto. Then at 2:19 it's like a solo of that low brass (sounds like a bone to me) That bit is played louder than any bone player prolly could, so it should be 2 or 3 voices there with him. This is even more the case at 2:20 and 2:22. Solos are great, but few and far between. Instruments: I'd like to hear some flute and clarinet to give this some highs in places. I picture flute runs at 2:04 and weep thinking of how good they could sound there. Clarinets, along with saxophones, fill a range that you've got pretty well fleshed out in the form of of the string section you're using. It would be nice to have them, but I don't miss them like the flutes. In fact, you may have some saxes in there. It's also a balance / panning / parts thing to be able to pick out individual sounds. Dynamics/Length: They're good, but I want them perfect. For me, perfect usually comes down to more. More epic, more awesome, greater contrasts, stronger accents, shorter staccatos, etc. I'd like to her the intro extended a bit and start out whisper quiet. I'd like to hear the last 4 ish notes on the main pattern of the strings brought down a tad so that it really nails down the pattern when it repeats. At the end of the day, it's your show and that might not be what you want. But I see some strong dynamic contrasts added into this as a great way to expand the length and power of the song. I listen to some of the great tracks here on OCR and am in awe of how much space/quiet factors into epic/awesome just in the form of added contrast and breathing room to take things down a notch. This track for me has very much got the potential with very little work to be. Figure it's a 35 second intro 11 second outro, and the meat and tatters of the song is about 2:30. And... And I want it... If ever you've wanted a wall of text, there it is. Hope it helps. Watch, the next WIP I listen to will be chiptunes again and I'll have to forget all this and go back to the argument saw > square = neener neener neener

Okay, as far as ambiant sounds go, this isn't bad at the beginning. Though I would lose the drum (and as a drummer that hurts to say) It's not really fitting because it comes in on a very predictable time/note and that's just how it's gotta be. I could see a really need thing being to get some pad sounds and play the melody through them in addition to what you have leading. Remember, the ambiance is there more or less to fill the space, you'll want to tone it down when you have the main thing we're listening to coming in. Length and work: This is 4 minutes long, and only really about 30 seconds of lament. It's pretty repetitive and at that length, it can't get by on atmosphere alone. It's going to take a lot in the way of original material. I'm not a fan of ambiance, so I don't really know where to tell you to go if that's what you want to pursue. I just don't see the genre in general with much interest. I love some of the things that can be done to really expand and change a sound scape. But just... more. Also, you're not getting much feedback likely because this is so simple there isn't much to say about it, very simple, 4 maybe 5 tracks total, not much variation. I do still hope this helps.

The piano on this thing is the real highlight for me. Lots of fun. But good enough that it makes the accompaniment stick out somewhat. This will be fun, trying to talk EQ and mastering (my personal weakness!) with partly broken headphones. But I'll give it a try. The whole of this mix needs some filling. Lows with a touch more kick and punch, especially at those builds, highs that pop out a little bit more. That should help the sound to be more where you want it. Then. Needs some reverb and echo in places. One that pops out at me is you have an instrument playing a sort of 'plucked' thing in the first few seconds that would kill for some echo. The pads at 0:39 seem thin to me, this could be fixed by just thickening that chord, or some reverb, or both. There's some others, but you get the idea. The drums around 2:21 are going to be played with lots of flams and bass drums by a real drummer. This song is pretty dynamic, so to make up for the quiet bits being quiet, the punch needs to be terrifyingly loud and amazing. A real drummer hits bass, low tom, mid tom, or low snare. To get the effect of just loud on those accented places. This section feels kinda weak in that area. at 2:33 though, it's pretty spot on with what I'd expect. I'd like to hear more pop on the snare accents (I picture rim shots myself) and a bass drum that just has more power, but otherwise, not bad. You play some ride cymbals over there also, I picture a ride bell giving a better sound. hope this helps

I figure since I'm back in town I can hit this track, again. Disclaimer: The left ear in these headphones has 'given out' they're surround cans, but it's only missing the center speaker over there. So it kinda sounds thin and it's hard to think in EQ/panning/mastering . Okay, the hi-hats are screaming to me as a drummer with the whole only 2 and 4 thing! They say 'MAKE HIM DO SOME BRUSH WORK HERE' It's a jazz thing, but it will really help the sound to be filled in, soft and subtle while still giving a track like this some body. Brush work is a labor of love for jazz drummers, You do count and keep time, but you have a lot of freedom to play with sweeps and taps, and taps on the cymbals. Also, some brush work will really help highlight some tempo changes. In the 'closer to finished' department, some echo effects where you're changing the mix rate and delay rate on echos will really help parts that are coming out and going in. The thing is, you have to do the automation individually for each track you want the effect, and a mix AND delay amount. This is going to be different for each DAW and whatnot so I'm not sure how it'll work for you. There isn't really an introduction to this track, making the whole thing kinda samie. It's all about the same volume and texture, and while unique, can't hold my interest for the full length of time. Consider just adding space to the intro. Space can do wonderful things to something like this. Along those lines, we were talking about automation, a thinner, 'more space' intro would prolly need a bit stronger reverb. Something in the middle with the same effect might also work well. You've basically taken a long source and only used a tiny bit, so it needs some pizazz. @1:26 I kinda think the violin is harsh there. My first thought is a slower attack on that bad boy. I like the sound, just tone down the atk a bit. Maybe consider holding out that note slightly longer and putting a volume envelope on it to fade it out. Hope that helps

Holy crap?! I got an honorable mention? *insert disclaimer last used here* Anyways, onto 'the stuff' A minimalist intro like you seem to be going for could really use some echo/reverb effects, to nail down that you're ONLY using a few instruments and whatnot. I don't know how it is in your DAW, but mine uses envelopes and such to adjust certain aspects of a sound. IE. Filters, mix levels, etc. My first thought is what you have is a very good intro. It's a lot of intro like material. In fact, too much in the way of length, but not in the way of ideas. You could turn this into a killer intro if you sped up a couple of transition/ideas to fit the sound scape. However, the last praise is also the fault of this track, I always feel like it's building to something, something that never arrives. It's very neat intro ideas, but something needs to be fleshed out, into a main idea. Something needs the power and focus of this track to really make it shine. That's up to you. Focus on something you like about the original track, and expand on that. Make it something fun, and appropriate to listen to. Really play with an idea that you want to say. 'HEY YOU! LISTEN TO THIS! Hope this helps.

The disclaimer: I am drinking and reviewing things. Insert my standard disclaimer + drinking here. Also, I'll be doing a lot of these. Okay, in the beginning of this, I get the gerudo theme pretty heavy, but slow. It's too slow to work for me. It needs something to make it fun and interesting. As of now, it just drags. It's neat the sounds you've got, and the echo is trying to make up for the slow. but until the thing picks up, it's just too slow. It' needs fast+slow moments to make up for how slow the thing goes. IMHO. After things pick up the rhythm guitar is trying to keep things together with that 16th patern, but it isn't enough. The track as a whole still suffers from the slow speed. A track like this imo needs lots in the way of tempo changes and 1/2 time to 2x time changes. It's just a hard thing to balance. Length is an issue, but I'm sure the WIP has something to do with that. Instrumentation and levels sound pretty good imo. Just needs those production changes. Hope this helps. -H

Oh nice, I don't know how I missed this the first time 'round. Anyways, source would be nice. Not sure what I'm listening to. This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwaTdxHU4l8 My first thought is MOAR! at 1:55, I just want some length. *Insert mandatory commend about the 'ending wtf* here* I'm not sure about the high accompaniment part that comes in at 1:00, it's so high it's hard to hear and what does come across is a little harsh. It seems to me like a thicker sound brought down a bit might work better. Since that's the same sound from the beginning, it might need to change there too. Not sure. As far as length goes, because I asked for it, it's gotta be something either new or a different take of what you've got. IMO what you have is borderline too repetitive, so adding just more of the same puts it just over the edge. One of the things I like hearing (That I admittedly don't understand) is key changes. I'm okay in one key, and seeing the song go through different chords. Then a key changes and I go cross-eyed. Another idea that comes to mind is using half time breaks and such, the main idea in this track is pretty short at this speed, so it might sound good played at half speed. This is pretty dependent on the source usually. After hunting down the source, this may be a bit on the conservative side, so don't be afraid to play with it! 1:24-1:43 is pretty repetitive, too much so for my taste. I picture things maybe moving up or down an octave there? I don't know. That's an idea that looks good written out my I have no idea how it would sound. I just know that it's too repetitive there for me. (of course, for the purpose of review I've had the thing on loop for like 15 mins. So...) hope this helps

The first half of this, the bass is pretty much right from source, I raised one note and lowered one note; the second half I wrote a new bass line. I kinda want to change it in the first half, but I couldn't get anything that I liked that sounded right with the original source (first half or so after the intro is very conservative) As far as repeating the patern and not getting boring. The thing I did with this is put in track automation envelope into the synth. In this case, the 'cutoff' of the filters. They look like lines that follow the notes, but depending on where you draw them, they 'turn' the cutoff knob and cut off part of the sound. Neat stuff! I just learned how to do it, so I'm actually abusing it slightly. (XD upon careful review, I went 'that name looks famaliar...' I now figure you prolly already knew that, but I'll leave this in case anyone else might learn from it) Also. <3 comments & opinions! Especially in regard to structure and progression. *hint hint wink wink* Thanks!

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kENEx5bwLow Cause people might not know it. Not so much a remix as a cover, like you said. If you're looking to get this up to OCR standards, it's going to need a lot in the way of interpretation and writing to make it something new. The instrument choice isn't far off from the original either, which isn't helping the case. This is one of those early WIPs that there's just not much to talk about, because there isn't much done from just importing a midi into a DAW and changing some instrumentation. Play with the parts you like from the original that inspire you, listen to mixes that you like and emulate what they do. Play with it and improve on it. Production is very very quiet. Nothing pops out at me through the track. The entire mix could do with some volume and other changes to highlight and bring out some main ideas. The sort of slow, meandering drum thing you have going in this is just not working for me. It's almost painfully slow. Throughout the entire mix, the energy for a drum 'break' like this just isn't there. Though that leaves room for improvement and expansion in that area for sure: If you like that driving metal THUD THUD THUD on quarters sound, play with it and speed it up, or play with it some other way to incorporate that style in a faster tempo where it sounds like it works. I could really see the slow pace of this leading up to a faster tempo that could work with that. hope that helps

UPDATED 7 26 2010: Mastering attempt, broken and I'm not sure why... I think jacking with the EQ, jacked with uh. All everything. NINJAEDIT: I had the mids dragged down in the EQ, for Ihavenoidea why. Anyways, this is betterishbroken, instead of ohgodmakeitstop broken.

You're going to be a mastering pro before you even own the software. Glad that distortion helped, I've been using both on a synth I'm trying to make nasty, but there's mastering in my future there. I gotta EQ stuff and figure out what's clipping. Stupid...Filter...Automations... Now, that being said, I'm not the person you want to ask about mastering. I don't hear anything wrong with it, but my last WIP is clipping and I don't really know, eh, howtofix/whereitis so some research is also in my future. But bottom line, get a mastering dood to take a look at this. Anyways, right. New stuff. WOOT! Guitar sounds! Though I may have tainted your non-distortion purity with my peer pressure to put it on everything. I gets yelled at a lot for that. But I like it! Nicely done with the highs, still there and powerful, but not as grating. I really got nothin left XD nice mix.

I didn't have anything major with it. When there's minor stuff, I pick nits. I usually give some sort of warning disclaimer on my posts The better it is, the harder it is to critique. Ambiance isn't bad, I just didn't (and tbh, you shouldn't notice it much) see much. I've gone sections in doing stuff and gone... 'why does this sound so empty?!' Turns out I forget to carry my pads over... Not sure how FL works vst in, but these distortion mods may help you if you wanna play with the guitar, if not, is good now. http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2753.html EDIT: Ah, here's the other one I used recently: http://tda.tention.org/index.php?cat=tdae&dest=dt424

Neat mix, reminds me of brainsick metal. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00569/ The composition and actual writing sound good. I'd kinda like to hear some pad-ish sounds in places to help fill out the sound maybe? I dunno. Some of the highs (2:48, the very beginning) kinda hurt. You might be able to put a filter on there and take out some of the harshness. It's a neat guitar part, Might put some distortion on it to help distinguish it from the synths, It's up to you. Sounds good as is. Props for a first mix, I've been at this a while and I can't get anything composed near this good.

No replies? Mmhokay, lets see here. They heavy cymbal crashes are sorta overpowering, at the very beginning, drowning out the melody there. @ 1:01 I'm not sure what's going on with the guitar here, but it's, uh, stuttery. Then the synth is at 1:25. Which is very odd. If it's an effect, it's very much too extreme for my taste. Yeah, you gotta fix the above thing. It's like nails on a chalkboard to me, I can't listen to anything else in this without focusing on that Then I'll have a go at this.

Download links are good, but something like tindeck is better. Check it out, is free. Secondly, you'll wanna put a source with your posts, so that we can get famaliar with the sause n' see what's changed/needs to, etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSfrH69-eIY The problem I'm hearing now is that this sounds pretty right on with a MIDI, or the original. Changed instruments, but not much improvisation. Another along those lines is that it tends to get old quickly. It is a catchy riff, but the track is way too repetitive. Consider using something like half time in places, especally with a theme this fast The mix seems to be missing low sounds until 1:42 where they come in with no subtlety whatsoever. But man, it's like night and day, there and gone, something is missing or overpowering. I'm not sure the sound you're going for, but the guitar as is, is, crazyness. Very fast (not humanly possible fast in the intro8O), very mechanical sounding also. Much of the instrumentation is, in that sense lacking. Work from the start, listen to the track and decide the bits you like and wanna expand on, then use that direction to help ya put thought to sound. Listen to how other people do things here on OCR and stuff, the radio. Get something you want and latch onto it, take it with you and make it work. Good luck

UPDATED 7 25 2010: Track: Dug this out and did stuff. Still playing with the whole sound design thing. Changed the lead again. Better? Worse? It was smoother, then I added distortion effects to it. Still not sure what/where this clipping is, so lemme know on that. Track times where it is really help, thx

Meh, source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZc0qrEzwiw I've got mixed feelings on the beginning of this. Part of me likes that it just jumps right into the meat and tatters of the song. And part of me wants some sort of introduction and beginning. As far as the latest rendition goes, I think the bass could use some more body and attack. It's there, but it's subtle, and subtle bass just isn't in the hard rock vocabulary. The first breakdown (thing isn't letting me download at the moment for some reason, okay it's at 1:04) Is almost too slow. Needs some 16th notes on the hats to keep up the energy, imho. There are other things too that can help a breakdown like that. Flams and accents on snares and bases, etc. I'm going to point out that it's dirty, even though it may be stylized that way, just because it's buzzy in the mids. You could clean it up a bit, but mastering isn't really my forte, so I'm not sure how you'd do it and maintain that dirty sound you're wanting. Hope that helps.