timaeus222

Uh... this is not a remix, dude, so it *does* go in original music. Anyways... Not really my type of dubstep track. I actually , just not this one. The bass is quite grating and abrasive with its high resonance setting, and the mixing overall is rather loud.

I hear what you mean at 2:04 - 2:30, but personally I liked the lack of rests at 2:14 - 2:30 because it felt like a buildup. In my opinion, I would consider making the lead sound at 2:04 - 2:14 more lively with perhaps a few portamentos, a more delayed vibrato (slower attack), or even small arpeggiated fills/scales. Maybe at 2:04 - 2:30, it *might* be that the leads are slightly too loud. Perhaps try lowering their volume or velocity so that the background harp and synth arp (lol, harp arp), respectively, can be heard. I hear the note at about 1:47.5-ish, and though it's there, I'm not quite as bothered by it. Maybe because it's kind of quiet. The interval sounds like a clashing 2nd, I think.

Okay, something really bothers me in the beginning. There's some sort of upfront radio static until 0:49, and it gets a bit grating after maybe 10 seconds, so I skipped to 0:51. It just sounds like a live recording mistake to me. Another issue is that this is very loud almost everywhere, essentially clipping. Are you using a limiter or a soft clipper (limiters are less prone to clipping, as you could tell from the names)? The bass is narrow at 0:50, though that's not as large of a problem. Some other things that are larger issues: - The resonant white noise sweep at 0:59 is definitely clipping, and just too loud. I'm cringing. >.< - The piano at 1:12 is locked to a quantized grid, and sounds mechanical. Needs more rhythmic randomness (without sounding sloppy) and sensible velocity variation to make it sound more realistic, especially with all the organic instruments in this electronic/organic hybrid. Might not be as noticeable if it's the first time you've heard this type of critique. This might help you to hear the difference (read the description, too). - The low strings at 1:16 add substantial muddiness to the reverb amount, and clutters the low-mids frequencies, making things unclear. Also might not be too noticeable if no one's told you this before. - The kick at 1:29 is too loud and boomy, and muddying things up a little more. Somewhat hard to notice but it's there. The main issue for me here is that it's loud though, not that it's bassy (even though it technically has bass frequencies). - 1:52 is too loud, and again, clipping, so I skipped to 3:03, where it was quieter. This is an overall problem, and as you can tell, it makes it unlistenable. - The piano afterwards is OK, though it can have more interesting chordal undertones. It's just a melodic line of one voice (monophony), without a left hand part. Perhaps it could work as-is if there was a pad underneath to fill in the soundscape, or if the notes were not so quantized. So, I'm not sure I get the focus of this piece. Are you trying to win the loudness war or write a remix you like? The mixing choices you made gives some sort of notion of "epic", just from the sound choices, but the clipping, loud bass, mechanical piano, and overall loud mixing are just too off-putting. Sorry, but that's how I'm hearing it. Somebody had to tell you eventually.

Gotta love British rap! The execution was excellent. The production sounded purposeful; Bekah comes in more upfront than DiGi each time, but each time it works. I guess my only real crit is that maybe Bekah's vocals could have had a little more reverb on them.

Hey guys, is anyone who is/was using Firefox 31.0 getting random hanging (freezing but not crashing)? I chose to downgrade to 26.0 to try to fix it, as when it happened, I had to shut down my computer the abnormal way each time (pushing the power button). I'm using Windows 7 64-bit. EDIT: Okay, somehow it happened when I tried using Google Chrome. Maybe it's not Firefox? I scanned already and I didn't find any viruses... EDIT2: Oh yeah, and perhaps it has something to do with the power outage where I live, which occurred 3 days ago. My computer got shut down 3 times in a row in 10 seconds. No kidding. Everything was fine before that. ---------------- 4 hours later: I just did multiple restarts and system startup diagnoses. Things seem to be going alright now. I'm still using Firefox 26.0, but websites are loading faster than they were before, even when I force a cache refresh with Ctrl+F5. Seems to be a good sign.

Yes, and it mostly involves the contributions to creating a new context to a melody, adding your own harmonies, changing up rhythms, or other ways of modifying what you are remixing. A compressor and limiter are *almost* the same. Compressors are made to amplify and/or control the tonal qualities of a sound, keeping them from having excessively large volume differences/variations (+/- 10dB oscillations would be huge). Sometimes they are used to keep a big pumping bass from pulsing in and out too much, sometimes they are used to make drums sound stronger, and so on. Limiters are designed by default to be on the Master channel in a Mixer, and its job is to prevent sound coming from every instrument playing from going over the optimal listening limit as a whole (0 decibels). So then, the primary difference between them is just their purpose or their role. A limiter should not kill the dynamic range of instruments (in a bad way), whereas compressors are supposed to do that (but in a good way instead) in order to achieve a higher level of loudness than is typically possible without them. More detail: http://www.ovnilab.com/articles/limiter.shtml I like the http://soundonsound.com/ tutorials. They might be a little advanced though, so maybe bookmark it or something.

Ah, yeah. I guess I was a little distracted or something at the time, but yeah, the pulse wave with the delay.

Bluelighter has been greenlighted. Sorry, had to say that. The kick could have been a little more present, and 3:58 felt like an ending to me, but pretty nice overall. Inviting mood and fun arrangement.

Yeah, there's all these 'mastering' videos on youtube, and I just skip past them. Honestly, if there's something up with a piece's EQ or anything, then I would go back to the individual tracks and adjust those, rather than try to do edits on the master channel to compensate for what's off. For me, I just get the mixing (disregarding the master channel) to where I'm happy about it, and then I don't need much on the master channel.

I guess I would have liked it to go somewhere more than primarily trance/dance, but that aside, good production, energy, and groove.

Yeah, that I hear. Clash at the Mountains is one I haven't heard more than a few times.

seems private.

Yeah, mastering is more than just putting stuff on the master channel. It involves stuff such as checking EQ on many audio systems for consistencies, checking loudness consistencies between tracks on an album, track flow on an album, etc. I would also call simply using the master channel "finalizing", because you're really just finishing up the track with those master channel edits. As for me, I finalize with just a steep high pass at 28Hz, a steep low pass at ~19000Hz, a soft knee limiter with a 72.4% knee, and sometimes a little parallel compression.

Ooh, phaser harp. Dunno if that's even been done before. At 0:20, it's a small thing, but maybe you could widen the soundscape a little bit more. At 0:31, it's about good on the stereo field IMO. To me, the lead at 1:02 is a little too upfront; maybe try EQing down the low-mids a bit. Nice and nuanced tones overall. Perhaps at 1:53, you could try delaying the vibrato until a little bit later in the note sustain, for some variation in the vibrato predictability, but that's not a big deal. Nice change-up at 2:14. The key change works. Also my opinion, but at 2:34, considering the harp being there, maybe that arp could be pushed a little further back for some dynamic contrast (with reverb dry mix, or EQ). Maybe you could even automate the dry mix up from a low value to make it seem like it's moving towards you from far away? Otherwise, this is a great update. Finish it up!

The FluidR3 soundfont has some orchestral auxiliary percussion, which includes an anvil.

Impact Soundworks: Impact Steel - Kontakt 4 or above

I'm using Firefox 31.0 on Windows 7, and I also have no display issues of any sort.

Just my opinion, but if he/she's just starting, a competition would be too big a leap (prereq: able to compose, but composition is still something that is challenging). This I would recommend.I would start by learning independently. I don't know of many in-depth guides for just writing music in general besides that one, but I would try listening more attentively to music you like, and trying to identify what's going on. That might give you an idea of how you can create a cohesive piece of work. Then you might want to start getting acquainted with your DAW, learning what each plugin type is supposed to do, and trying it out to get the context. In the process you might also want to write something short to hear the plugins in action. It doesn't have to be a long piece. Perhaps you could start writing 1-minute-long pieces or so.

Oh yeah, that's a good one. And Typer Shark is another that comes to mind.

Something in the intro kinda bothers me though. It's some sort of... bell-like drone? It gets rather loud at its peak levels (0:07, 0:09, 0:12, etc.). Also, this is a small thing, but at 0:45, there's something bassy and thumpy, probably bongo-like, that's panned rather far right; to me it could fit more sensibly in the center or near the center, but that's just my opinion. Yeah, the guitar is a little better. Still has issues though with the round robins, but is otherwise alright. I would still find it an issue concerning OCR standards, but as a casual listen it would be fine. As for the E. Piano, maybe you can try jRhodes3? That's one that I think is really good, and comparable to commercial samples such as Neo Soul Keys. The one right now occasionally has a loud note here and there (1:59, 2:09, etc.), and objectively the tone is pretty good, but I thought maybe you'd like an alternative with lots of velocity layers. The piano is less exposed now in the timestamps where I heard it sound mechanical. Perhaps you can try out these piano soundfonts I picked out and see which one fits this remix (though "Piano 4" and "Piano Jazz" are rather loud; you could scoop out some of that ~190Hz and ~330Hz to help some of these soundfonts). "Steinway 2" and "Steinway 4" are rather good.

Hehe, I don't really get how this sounds like zircon. These drums feel like his typical 80's style. This is *good* in many, many ways, but IMO, it just sounds like Will's usual awesome self.

Rayman, Mario, Pokemon, Super Hang-On. Or y'know, anything but Cooking Mama.

inb4 latest talkback title = No hate

Okay, so first things first: I'm listening at 85% volume, and that's about where I would consider this particular track at a good volume, so perhaps try lowering the overall volume by 15%? I found the supersaws fading in to be a little cheesy, and perhaps a little odd, IMO. The dubstep wobbles aren't too resonant here, so that's good. The strings though, as before, are a little more mechanical than I'd like, despite this being electronic. Perhaps trying to find a live violin player to collab with might help. Perhaps TeraCMusic? The part with the violin reminds me of . The piano isn't as exposed so I don't find that a problem.Btw, FL Slayer is totally in here. Any chance you could put a more realistic guitar in there? Sounds good overall.

I'll check this out soon!