timaeus222

I miiiiiiight be able to come tonight. =)

Eh, if you want to keep the organ, you can, but it would just need more work to pass as a realistic organ IMO. Either way is fine: keep working on the organ realism, or swap it out for an easier instrument to work with. As for 1:04, yeah, considering that's how you heard it in the original, perhaps you could just wait a bit longer before putting it in, and maybe writing something original to develop a transition to tie in the two moods later. It's not like it's wrong to include that in the ReMix in general, but for me it felt out of place in that particular spot. You don't have to keep the structure of the source tune in a ReMix. This posted ReMix totally mangled the structure and it worked for OCR.

Yeah, of course your opinion matters. In fact, you can certainly decide what critiques you want to try addressing and what you would consider too minor to address. I'm just someone who picks things out for you to consider. Fair enough, though people who are just listening to the ReMix by itself without the video (like the judges) wouldn't know that unless you told them, and not everyone makes a video and its audio at the same time (or even a video for the audio). =P Actually, a lot of 'official' pop music videos are just lip-syncing and acted dancing with an overlayed, pre-recorded, mixed and mastered song.(and thanks for that compliment on the Castlevania ReMix! )

HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY! (9:17 PM PST) Keep up the super sick-TASTIC work you've been doing for the site, and keep on being awe-STOUNDING. High SIX! ... okay, maybe a high six wasn't as legendary as I thought it was gonna be. (Props and a billion virtual cookies if you get the reference before watching . Btw, they did do that again )

It's good that you're happy with it, but of course you'll feel that way for the most part, because you wrote this. When someone has critiques, it helps to put aside your attachment to your music and try to see why a critic hears it a certain way. They give critiques because they hear things that are off, and hopefully not because they just want to be mean. Sometimes the critiques are opinionated, sometimes they are just true to an extent that doesn't feel as apparent to others. The lead, for me, just stuck out and basically "coated my ear palette", similar to how something that's too spicy can coat your palette in a meal and distract you from the other flavors and textures. Everything in a room, literally everything, will reverberate to some extent. Depending on the room, you might not hear it as much, but it's there somewhere. Try clapping loudly, then pausing, in a closed room in complete silence and listening for what happens when you finish the clap. The reason why I say that is because even if you, as you said, like the way the dryness contrasts with the other reverbed parts, you can still add subtle reverb just so it'll fit in a little better, because sometimes you're using synthesized sound, which doesn't always have reverb built-in. It can be as subtle as something you barely notice in an A/B comparison with reverb/no reverb. With speakers, you don't hear such a small amount of reverb as sensitively because there's already the real room's reverberation. Yes, but I wouldn't think that right away (besides, my words were, "it just doesn't feel like there was much mixing at all in this", not "doesn't sound like there was any mixing at all"). Remember, *you* can see your project file, and *I* can't. You could have touched a lot of EQ bands and mixer faders, and it might have not really done anything substantial, but you could have touched only a few things and it might have done a lot. When I first started mixing and EQing and such, half the time I didn't know when what I was doing was actually doing something substantial. However, with production being more apparent, it's not my opinion that says that. Yeah, you could see it a different way than I do, but it's not necessarily because I'm a different person than you are, but because you have a different audio system than I do. When production is clear, yeah, I'll say it. If I hear some muddiness issues or something else, then I'll mention it. I'm not perfect, but I'll say what I hear the way I hear it. Remember that although you are a hardware kind of guy, this is a digital audio workstation kind of era, and with that comes higher expectations. I'm not trying to be harsh here, just realistic. With the tools that you can have at your disposal, you can get a good amount of clarity with most (logical) combinations of sounds, with a certain amount of attention to detail. For example, to me, the production is *really* apparent, since almost every sound is clear (sometimes the low strings can get a little muddy, but this guy is really busy and had to finish this in 8 hours). And if you want, there's a walkthrough of that ReMix, . Yeah, it can be hard to force yourself to interpret VGM more substantially. Maybe you have an attachment to an OST because it's your favorite game, or maybe you just want to give it a good homage and the first way you learned how to do it was exact transcription and you want to "stick to your roots". For OCR though, yeah, in terms of interpretation this is on the lesser side, but it's not in the realm of MIDI-exact transcription. This wouldn't get direct-rejected by email. The piano chords were a nice touch, for example, to change up the harmonic complexity. I did appreciate the layering you did, but sometimes it felt like you could have taken layers out as you put more in to change it up but not mud it up. It's fine to post VGM here as much as you like (within reason; I mean, try not to post a billion WIPs in an hour ), so don't feel afraid to put more. Being in the workshop, you kinda need thick skin. No problem. I think I started kind of like this too. Something that would help though is to not scrap everything you do, and just put it in a folder that you can go back to later and look at just for fun. Maybe you had an old idea that was really good but you didn't think so at the time you wrote it.

I never said it should be overdramatic, just more realistic. You don't have to actually post an update, but I think getting into making this more realistic can be good practice.

As a cover, it sounds good. Orchestra could use more expression and automated swells for realism, but otherwise, good job.

First of all, this is pretty loud. Could be turned down about 2~4dB, even though it's dance music. 0:50 organ sounds fake. 0:56 lead gets a little grating in the treble. 1:04 sounds like a new mood (minor --> major --> minor for 6 seconds). Yeah, it's early, but this could use more dynamics as it goes on. Not much of an intro at the moment; it just starts.

I think this sounds good aside from the issues you mentioned. Personally I didn't think 3:02 was jarring.

Yeah, the intro pad sounds a little off because of YouTube, but if you render with the audio settings at a really high value (24-bit 48kHz should do it; when I do that, I get no quality difference even while watching the video at 240p or even 144p), it should be fine. Sounds pretty good, though the overhead drums seem a little bit far back in the mix (not a big deal). The kick could have less click at ~4000Hz and more bass at 40~80Hz, since it feels a little plastic-like for me as is. 1:01 sounds off to me harmonically on a few of the dissonant chords. It feels like it clashes in the "augmented+diminished-chord-at-the-same-time" kind of way. The lead guitar feels dry, and for me this section doesn't quite feel like a dropoff from the fuller sections. Having the kick being so loud here though isn't helping IMO, if it's supposed to be lower energy. 1:39 sounds like a breakdown section followed by a buildup since the lead guitars are distant, but the kick is pretty upfront, so for me it doesn't quite feel like the type of energy that might have been intended. So overall if you just tame that kick click and make the arrangement dynamics more evident, it'd be in a pretty nice spot. Right now the breakdown section and buildup don't really feel like that to me; they're more like breakdown/rock-on and buildup/rock-on hybrids.

Hm. I thought the synth lead at 0:11 and so on was substantially drier than the piano. It's just too upfront for me. Needs more reverb and a very slight volume drop (0.4~0.8dB). At 0:34, the bass could have had a slightly lower cutoff to make the piano sound less lofi when it's really just more distant than the bass. The mixing later on sounds pretty cramped IMO, and I think it can have some notch EQ and scooping EQ on backing parts to let the leading and percussive parts breathe more and come through more cleanly. A general rule of thumb I follow is that if I can hear every note or feel every harmony, the mixing is on good grounds. Much of the instruments you are using have substantial amounts of unfiltered treble, and the chiptune drums aren't really coming through. Sidechain the kick to the bass, and it should do a little bit to help. Also, the repeated leitmotif doesn't change that much. For OCR, you'd need more interpretation for a pass. Much of this sounds just like a looped exact transcription of the melody with some development to the layers. Overall, I think this sounds too much like a cover. Arrangement needs more personalization with more differences in the melodic contour and rhythm and less repetition. Production should be more apparent (it just doesn't feel like there was much mixing at all in this, just nice sound selection that just happens to fit decently without mixing).

Haha, actually, my first piano VST that I liked was physically modeled.

Fun fact: The only compressor I used was the butt-ugly-sounding Fruity Compressor. Oh yeah, and the title is a reference to somethin'. I'm glad you guys were OK with the source being in much of the bass. xD

For that kind of thing I just try to listen for the variation in tone at lower and higher velocities. Usually the better the dynamics, the better the library. It takes a really good dynamic demo though to show that.

There is most definitely a similarity between this and "Dirty Mix", but I like this a lot better because it's more complex. I very much liked the creativity in this. The glitch flow actually worked here for the most part. The only off-putting thing for me was that a few resonances weren't tamed completely on the more distorted FM sounds, or the bells (2:44 - 3:45, for example), and it gets a little grating in those spots. My favorite part was 1:55 - 2:43. Btw, anyone notice the BRASS? =O

When I said "in case it poofed into an alternate dimension", I didn't think it'd kinda actually happen. o.o; Glad it's working out! No inconvenience here.

Texturally this sounds very sparse. Yeah, the kick is too loud, but most of the drums sound like FL defaults. Try muting the kick for a moment and hearing how it sounds without it. The kick is probably about 4 dB too loud.

I'm trying so hard NOT to buy it. But I failed.

I think I like Terminate and Free the most. Kinda wish the album was available somewhere with longer previews though. That way I can hear more of a progression within each song.

Sounds pretty polished! Every time I hear your music, it sounds like you (seems like a weird thing to say, but you get what I mean). My only small gripe is that sometimes part of an arrangement feels out of place, but other than that, continue making music and keep it up!

YES. It took a long time, but I finally remember what this website was called. There's this website that documents video game musical similarities, and I think it'd be useful for OCR staff when it comes to NO Overrides. http://www.flyingomelette.com/oddities/musicalsim.html

Looks good. Reminds me of the artwork on the NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming OCR Album.