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Brian

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Everything posted by Brian

  1. Awesome! Only the ending was a bit of a joy kill when it ended abruptly, but it's a WIP anyways. Was hoping for more after that. Try to bring down the levels. It's clipping.
  2. I thought 2:11 was just harmonization because of its tempo. No wonder I couldn't recognize it. Plus the title screen sorta blended it together. At 5:29 even if you gave me the answer, I still couldn't recognize Aryll's theme, zelda's lullaby, and epilogue I only heard ocean theme and title screen (zelda II). Maybe it should be decluttered as you mentioned. Guess my guessing game turned out to be a feedback afterall lol.
  3. Ooh guessing game. I love guessing games. Aw you gave it away in your other post, but there's new content in this new version still. I hope you didn't add your own compositional melody in there because that will definitely throw me off as I'll spend hours just trying to find it. Hmm... Ok so that's 3 ? marks. I'll need to listen to the OST again. Coincidently I was going to use the game demo (which is similar to the ocean theme), aryll's theme, and outset island overlap in my medley, but I don't know if that's a good idea anymore since you beat me to it first before I did. Might as well ask, permission to use the aforementioned themes in my medley?
  4. The 7th is lowered in both dorian and aeolian. The only difference is the 6th so that's what you've been hearing (aeolian has a lowered 6th and dorian doesn't). Theoretically if you were to have forest mountain follow the chord progression of dark overworld in the beginning four measures (i,IV, i7,IV), then the melody in forest mountain would go something like this: C, C, C, F,F,F,C,C,C instead of the Eb. Right now this is considered dissonant since the chord progression is clashing or isn't matching with the 2 sources (not that it's a bad thing). The chord progression for forest mountain is i all the way for the first 4 measures. Off topic: I meant minor to maj7. The "A" in the sentence probably got you confused lol ("a" as in "a" song; singular). ei. The key starts out in Amin and later progresses to Fmaj7. In an Fmaj7 chord, the melody is centered around Amin while the bass is centered around F.
  5. forest mountain is aeolian and Dark Overworld is dorian. I dislike major as well lol. With today's pop music, a lot of them are written in major, and it gets so boring after awhile. But that's just me. A minor to Maj7 progression or vice versa are one of those type of progression that instills a lot of emotion imo.
  6. Before I comment, what source did you mix out of? Your computer speakers, surround system, headphones? What model or brand? They can affect your mixing by a wide scale. Mastering and production sucks doesn't it?
  7. I'm really good at medleys and I agree with hewhoisiam. I know many songs from Zelda so I'll comment on that only. Length (both the medley and the individual themes) is important so watch the time. The longer the theme, the higher the urge we want to fast forward if nothing surprising comes up within the next minute or so (this depends on the theme). Try to keep the entire medley to no more than 20 min. I hate to say this, but most people don't have time to sit at their computer and listen for over half an hour. Do not repeat themes over 2 times. Usually when you want to use a theme twice, the first time would be in the beginning, and the second time would be used again in the end to emphasize the medley's prominent theme. If not, then it should not be overused. In other words keep repetition low as possible! Don't stick with the same mood throughout the entire medley. A medley should be able to tell a story. Use Major, Minor, 7ths, or any other modes. As hewhoisiam said, you need to be able to piece together songs with the correct mood. An example is to go from "major" (Link is having a good time, everything is happy) -> minor (Sky grows dark, ganondorf appears and attacks) -> 7th (There is hope for Link and he's winning) -> major (ganondorf is defeated, and Link and Zelda live happily ever after). Transitions! There are two kinds of transitions: hard transition and soft transition. Soft transition is when you transition 2 songs in a single smooth flow, so that the listener still thinks it's still one song, but it's not. Hard transition is something you want to avoid as much as possible. The pausing and breaking technique used at an end of a phrase and onto the next gives it away telling the listener you couldn't form a good transition and decided to just "slap" it in. You do NOT want to do that. Surprise me! Find any songs you know that sound alike or would work well in a transition and put them together if you can. If you can overlap multiple sources that would be cool too. Arranging one song back to back with another for the entire duration of the medley is very very bad for a medley; this is an example of a hard transition. Most common songs use 2 phrases (8 measures long). In sheet music you usually see A, B, C, D marked above bars. This step is crucial in medleys. Avoid doing hundreds of phrases for one song. This is a rule of thumb if you want to create an interesting medley. ei. arrange phrase A in one song then phrase B in another song. In other words, don't try to arrange complete themes in every song in the medley. The fewer the better. If you don't, see point #1 above and you'll see why. Now for the comments! I'll use the above as a guideline. Length of medley: 12:14 Number of unique themes used: 5 (title screen (link to the past), Main theme, Ending theme (link to the past), Zelda's Theme, and Outset Island). You've accomplished too little in that time frame. Number of times main theme has repeated: 5. This includes the first 4 themes after the title screen and before the ending theme. Another is used again in the ending theme; even if it's original source, it still counts as repetition. Number of times Zelda's theme has repeated: 2. What's worse is they're next to each other. Number of times Outset Island has repeated: 2. Same point as above. Mood progression: all in key of major. You need progression. Number of hard transition: 3. at 5:00, 8:30, and 10:05. Number of soft transitions: none. You'll need to be able to put together similar songs that you recognize. It's like butter and bread goes well together. Right now there are no surprises in this song. It's too "predictable" and tbh I did fast forward to whatever was new. As for the number of phrases, you've actually arranged an entire theme for all the songs. I hope this guideline helps. I would demonstrate an example, but it's still WIP.
  8. Go with whatever genre that suits you best. Orchestral and EDM (Trance) for me. Listen to other's work for inspiration. Let your brain, thoughts, ideas do the remixing so you get an idea of how you want your remix to sound. That's what remixing is all about. Transcribe the song first. When remixing from a source, the melody (or as long as it resembles the original source) is very important followed by chord progression (you can always modify it to your liking). This part requires ear training, but there are helpful sites that offer this. For me, I've been arranging for 3 years so I can tell some chord relationships. Understanding chord progressions will allow you to use more than 1 source and be able to overlap them, or modify them. In trance music, the Pads, Arps, and Gats heavily relies on chords so chord progression comes in handy. Humans can perceive chord relationships subconsciously believe it or not so that's where I got my ear training. The rest is technical such as how to use DAW, what sort of equipment you need, what soundfonts, samples, vst's are best, etc. It also involves money. I don't have much advice here since I'm new to the scene as well. Hence why this forum exists.
  9. How would you master a trance genre? I'm really not good with mastering or using effects (yes, I'm a newbie at it). I'm good at arranging though. tips? Or should I just give someone the source file and they tweak and master it for me?
  10. Thanks for the tips. Ok I gotta admit, I was going to master towards the end, but seeing how that sounds bad, I should deal with it as early as possible. Feedback is the best way to improve your mix, but having a real person with you in the studio is better since you get real time feedback. Zircon, I envy you lol. I thought I was the only one who was insane, at least to other people, when I was looking at headphones that costs hundreds of dollars, which I saw as normal (audiophiles see 3-4 figure price tags as normal for mere headphones while average consumers see it as outrageous). Beyerdynamic makes good headphones, so as AKG and sennheiser. I hope you're using a headphone amplifier to drive your Dt880's? Ok back on topic... My room is fairly large, has few furnitures, and non-boxed shape. However, it creates a slight reverb, which would be a problem if using monitors or speakers. I don't have the budget to buy acoustic dampening materials, and it's too much work. I'll go with headphones. However there is a disadvantage when using headphones. It's because everything is crammed into your head where the left channel is entirely focused in the left ear and the right channel is entirely focused in your right ear. The drivers in this instance is much closer to your ears than loudspeakers. This is where hard panning may give you headaches whereas playing them from speakers won't since they'll blend, known as "crossover." Overall, Headphones won't translate to speakers very well. Any solution to this? I've heard about software/hardware that simulates speakers. It's also great if you use different systems for playback ranging from all types of audio playback equipment. That's a rule of thumb.
  11. Mastering is a crucial step in mixing, and it is usually the most difficult part to do given the limitations of your system. Something that sounds good on your system may sound bad on other systems so this nullifies "what you hear is what you get." Not all of us here can afford studio headphones and monitors for mixing and mastering. What do you guys use? Consumer headphones, computer speakers, home theater system, hi-fi speakers, monitors, studio headphones? Any tips on what kind of monitors I should buy? Then there is the "psychological effect", at least what I call it. It's when you, the remixer, can hear what goes on in your mix, when in actuality it's just your brain creating false information giving you the illusion that it "sounds good". Basically you've gotten too used to the way it sounds (since you have the power to mute tracks and check them individually) in which by playing it over and over, you've become accustomed to it. Have you ever agreed with your remix, took a break, come back a couple hours later, disagreed with your remix, and decided to change it because it didn't sound good the second time? The only suggestion I have is to take breaks, but even breaks alone won't help overall imo. Something that may sound perfect to you, may not sound perfect to others. And there really is no "perfect" mastering. So how do you guys master?
  12. I've changed my mind. It sounds too congested with another melody. It sounds good enough by itself accompanied by pads, chords, and what not. Thanks for your help though. This medley is going to be the biggest medley ever covering almost every LoZ games there are. Including the underrated games like 4 swords adventure. I would like to listen to fast tempo trance to get an idea. Know any great remixes? Kumikyoku nico nico douga was great
  13. Requesting ideas for my LoZ medley. Choose any songs that are dark (minor key signature), would sound great in a medley, and would work with fast tempo trance (about 160-170bpm).
  14. I'm doing a trance medley. This'll take many months to complete. The mastering part in the end will be the main problem since I need to invest into monitor loudspeakers.
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