Calum

I majorly dig this. The B section/chorus of cube of gelatinous proportions was real good!

I like it! Fits perfectly. It's easy to lose quality with 'retro' sounds, but i think you've got the right balance between quality and nostalgic sounds. Keep up the good work.

I really like it! Especially the intro. The first two seconds (before the atonality prevails) sounds really stravinskian to me and I got really excited. ANYWAY, it's hard to judge on such a short clip - i want to hear more! I got a sort of clunky feeling (tempo-wise) from some of the sequencing... perhaps it could be helped by some percussion. I'm not saying quantise everything and lock it into strict tempo BUUUT some accented parts so that we can really feel the specific rhythms. Anyway, it's really good I want to hear more! Battaglia Allegro no.1 is good with me! I think your worries about length of sections etc. will be easier to answer once you've done more of it so we can get a sense of the bigger picture. Keep it up though.

To be honest, the original sounds more retro/jazz than your remix. By reducing the harmonic language to a 3-ish chord progression (the chords you use sound like open fifths at times or just triads - whereas in the original the chords are more extended and specific jazz chords) and so it has lost its character to me! The accompaniment is washed in so much reverb as well that it's hard to hear the harmony clearly. You experimented with harmony in the very introduction with the E. Piano but you left it there. I found the whole mix kind of meandering. I liked the synth/guitar solos. But again it's all on one level and that might have to do to with your drums which are fairly repetitive as well. Consider going half-time at some point or double time or taken them out or just the kick or any of these. So to conclude: mix up drums + I WOULD retain a closer chord progression to the original (you don't have to) + lay off the reverb on the chords + get a larger sense of structure in the piece which can be articulated by the drums and other instrumental changes. It's good but there are a lot of things that set the original a way ahead - right now I have little reason to listen to yours over the original. I'm too tired to be nice BUT take all of that constructively please

far too kiiind. I wanna work for nintendo now! Haha, thanks Syllix.

Agree with brandon on all accounts: It's awesome, panning could help, loud snare, personalisation would be nice. So far it's instrumentation and a little bit of accompanying guitar rhythms that's really changed here. But with an intro, outro, possibly solo that's definitely enough room to stick some personal touch in. Looking forward to hearing a new version!

http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen/chiptune-cues YEP! I bunch of chiptune cues. Not for anything in particular but just a little exercise - a really fun one though!

I can (and will) offer arrangement but no performance that is any better than an awful lot of people already here

and me! Happy birthday to the both of us.

Congrats dude! Looking forward to hearing 'em. If any of those 7 somehow don't materialise....

Sounds nice however the guitar sounds like a harpsichord and i think this has to do with the way you're playing it. Those quick turns sound too pianistic! On a guitar those kind of hammer-on pull-off bits sound completely different. If you have a guitar try it out or have a listen to some. I think velocity is one of the key things in making it sound more guitar-y as well as sorting the timing out a bit. Anyway this is very nice, i've not heard of the book before but that guitar sound stuck out as being un-guitar'y because of the way you have played it.

Pretty interesting arrangement! I dig the accordion big time! The guitar chords seemed a little out of time in the beginning and were messing with the rhythms when the drums came in. Wasn't expecting that guitar solo! Right now i'm not sure I definitely feel like the DnB/Bossa hybrid is 100% working for me HOWEVER that doesn't mean it doesn't. Keep at it, this is sounding pretty awesome so far. Love it.

I found some of the interpretations a little too slow-paced. I felt like we should have moved on from the keys + vibes + brush drums intro far quicker. I feel like the song is just a little bit to slow tempo wise. Could definitely do with some variation. I find the instrumental texture not really to my liking - the vibes cover up the intricacies of the harmony in the keys. It's a good interpretation and it's sounding pretty good but I got a little bored and felt it was just a little slow.

I have to agree! I suppose I was trying to get as much variety as I could within the concept. I also toyed with the idea that it was a plane going through a storm and the end section is the moment it exits the storm through the clouds... with that narrative it kinda works BUUUT, then i'd have to tell everyone that. Anyway, thanks for listening

http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen/frantic-flight Hi guys, I just made this for a competition over at TIGsource forums. The rule this week was "one note bass-lines". It was pretty challenging but I found that by giving the bass such a prominent rhythmic role I managed to maintain interest throughout. This was a really fun piece. Hope you enjoy listening to it.

The ending to double dragon titles... uhhhh man. This is gonna be good!

I agree with everyone. Piano + Vocal samples are waaay louder than everything else. Piano also stands out as being a bit dry - could do with a bit of reverb/processing to place it in the mix - maybe it's mostly a volume thing though. Pretty cool source, i've never heard any of this stuff before! You've got a whole bunch of stuff to keep us interested throughout despite the fact that the material is quite repetitive. Although I do feel like the piece kinda goes nowhere in a way. There's no big structural definition in my mind. I'm not a huge fan of the end as well to be honest. I feel like the piano sounds a bit weak and exposed at the end and the drop-out thing felt a little clunky to me. I get that the outro was kinda winding down but i felt like a track with that much energy could have done with a powerful ending. That said, this was pretty awesome!

you just have to not think of it like a guitar! The strings are a 5th apart whereas the guitar is tuned in 4ths but a 5th up is a 4th down and vice versa so... they're backwards, kinda... Except it goes left to right = lowest to highest, in case you thought it was REEAALLY backwards! You play it how you play it! hahaha...

There's a whole lot of good stuff going on here. I'm only listening on laptop's internal speakers so can't comment on production too much. Seemed like at the start you didn't have much hi or low end in your synths so they sounded a bit lo-fi, not sure if that was your intention or not. The lead that comes in sounded good - a bit too loud over the synths + drums in the background though, imo. Everything felt fuller when you came in with that evolving/glitchy kinda keyboard accompaniment. I was liking it from here onwards - there were some really interesting harmonic things going on there changing around the melody - really enjoyed that. I guess it feels like some of the changes are a little random - like after that you cut everything out and then put an arpeggio of a set of different chords in and start up almost from the beginning again. I like what comes next but it didn't feel like a great transition for me. Sometimes the lead feels a little unaccompanied. Think about including more very background unobtrusive layers just to beef the song up. I was big fan of the final section, which i guess brought everything together again. Sounds very Uematsu (specially with some of those arps). This is really solid though - i must admit, the song (for me) gets better and better - the start seemed a bit weak and there seems parts which just aren't full enough. Good work though.

Wow that is long! haha, I won't be able to reply tonight but I'm reading it now and i'll give you as long a reply back! Anyway yeah, no worries about this! I've sent a whole bunch of e-mails just like this in my time and still do!

sure thing! send it my way!

Good stuff! Very helpful

When i heard schizophrenic and genre-hopping i was expecting a little more. Hahaha, I enjoy the changes in style but it in no way puts me off. This is just vanilla! I really enjoyed this anyway, really good stuff. I personally wasn't a fan of the final style that came in - that sort of "tik-tok"/"California girls" type riff... BUT that's your choice. I liked the solos over the top - could see a little break down there. Maybe i'm wrong but isn't there so many more sections to one-winged angel? Couldn't hurt to stick some of them in. At the moment it feels like variations on the first 20ish seconds of the track. I agree with the people who say it's a little cluttered and also that the orchestral elements are a bit reverby and not so punchy! Really enjoyed this track anyway and, I hope there's more to come.

Nice sax! Welcome on board! I LOVE SAX, I WANT TO COLLAB... haha, but not right now... too busy, must hold myself back... Anyway, depending on what DAW you're using the drums may be easier or harder to get into but once you do it's nothing but progress from there. My advice would be open up a drum setting and then play in the lowest range on your keyboard - C = kick drum, E = snare, Fsharp = closed hat - start playing around with that and trying to play beats you've heard in other songs. You can either play that in (you'll probably want to quantise it after) or (what i think most people would advise) draw in the notes on whatever piano roll system you have. Drawing in the notes can give you really precise control over what's happening and you can make really complex beats. It's just a case of experimenting and trying to recreate other beats best you can and taking it from there. General rule, kick on beats 1 and 3, snare on beats 2 and 4, hihats on 1 2 3 & 4. This is just a standard rock beat. Anyway it's all good - feel free to use this drum sample here but my advice is to start making your own beats asap not as an ownership thing but because of the freedom you'll have by having control over it. Anyway, there's not much more i can say - just wanna hear more!