Magnetic Ether

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Posts posted by Magnetic Ether

  3. Posted · Report reply

    I'm late to the party, but I wanted to give this a shot so I spent a few hours on it this afternoon.

    https://app.box.com/s/qw5e9p2fabpaoc8nhl71

    Some things worked out better than others I think. It was my first time mixing vocals into a finished track so that was interesting. It took a while to work with all the backing vocals, but I think I was able to fit them in decently in the end.

    I'm not too happy with the drums. Those cymbals were especially difficult to work with.

    I hadn't listened to the original mix for a couple of weeks before I started and I hadn't listened to any of the versions posted here (so it's kind of funny that I did basically the same thing Gar did to the intro). Listening to them now, the biggest thing that stands out for me is how much brighter the original is in comparison to mine.

    Definitely feel similar to Gar in regards to loss of energy in my mix. Especially during the sax solo, I don't know how you were able to make those guitar chords so full and present...

    Anyway, thanks for this opportunity Brandon! Was interesting to tackle someone else's work for once instead of mixing and arranging at the same time.

  4. Posted · Report reply

    I got my CD in yesterday and I can see why he needed $3,000 crowdfunding. The end product is NICE. I can't stand death metal and this CD fucking OWNS. :D

    One question, I did a modal, intentionally off-key synth solo on Track 7, but I think my imagination is playing tricks on me because it sounds to me like it's not aligned correctly or playing on time with the rest of the track. If true, that was my fault, but is anyone else hearing that?

    It sounds good to me. Loved it when I heard it the first time :D.

  12. Posted · Report reply

    Admittedly, the blueprints and track list is quite a lot to swallow (and that's the abbreviated version, we've got even more to discuss in private as we assemble the project team :shock: ), but we are aiming for a grandiose approach, so we feel like most of it is self-explanatory.

    Please let us know what isn't clear or how we can possibly help simplify it any more.

    I talked about this with Manga Man a while ago, but I still think that there needs to be a stronger initial concept for what you guys want lyrically from each song. The notes that you have are good, but it's still difficult to figure out what exactly needs to happen story-wise in each track. I'm convinced that having a little piece of plot linked to each track ("This track needs to start here and end here") will help prospective writers a lot and make the overall album a lot more cohesive.

  14. Posted · Edited by Kuolema · Report reply

    Thanks The Rex.

    Can somebody give us a quick lesson about the keys and key changes' date=' obviously we still not doing something right. Thx![/quote']

    Ill give it a shot.

    First of all, you should learn what major and minor scales are if you don't already know. You don't have to memorize each one - you can use references while working, but you should understand what each kind of scale sounds like. Then, you should take a look at each source and figure out which notes it uses. A melody that uses all white notes is either in C major or A minor, a melody with all white notes except for an f# is either in G major or E minor, etc. If you need to, these are easy to look up online once you know which notes are being used. Additionally, the majority of tracks start on the note that corresponds to their scale, so that can be helpful too.

    Some tracks use accidentals (notes that are not part of the scale that's being used), so if this is the case for one of your sources, you might have to identify which notes those are. For instance, if a piece uses three notes that are each a semitone apart, you know that one of the them is an accidental because neither of the basic scales has that. Basically, If every other note fits into a major or minor scale except for a couple here and there, then you can ignore them for the moment. Just make sure that you exhaust the possibility of it being in a different key first!

    Once you've written out each source and determined which key each one is in just drag all the notes from one of them until they match the other. If you're still not sure, just listen to it. If it sounds off it probably is.

    There's more to it than this, different scales and modes and all that, but hopefully this will be sufficient for this competition and will allow you to learn more about it as you gain experience. Stick to the basics for now and eventually you'll start to understand the rest.

    Also, someone else might be able to give better advice, these are just some suggestions for trying to quickly determine keys.

    Edit: as for key changes, STAY AWAY until you've got this other stuff down :-D.

  17. Posted · Report reply

    I know exactly what you mean. I haven't been at this very long, but I already have quite a few mixes where I really like the general arrangement, but I don't yet have the chops to get them up to OCR standards. Once I finally get something passed, I want to go back over a bunch of my old stuff to see how I feel about it.

    Of course, this probably describes everyone still aiming for that ReMixer Profile badge.

    My guess is this describes anyone who does music, period.

  20. Posted · Report reply

    I've been composing since I was like 10 or something, lol. Not very well of course, but I would always sit down at the piano and make something up rather than play what I was supposed to. Or, like Angel, just hum melodies and make things up in my brain.

    I imagine that having that drive to create from a young age has helped me in some way when I started to really take composing/arranging seriously. At the very least, it made me realize that I was more happy writing my own stuff than playing things that other people have written.

  24. Posted · Report reply

    Just a note for all the mastering newbies, it is possible to have clipping in your track even if you put a limiter on the master. No, the sound level will never go above whatever you set the ceiling to, however it's still possible to clip a signal before it gets to the master track, in which case you will still be able to hear clipping. Really you need to make sure that none of the individual tracks are clipping before they get to the master, as well as any incoming signal if you are recording live instruments.