timaeus222

I herd teh j00jes liek sync leeds, so I made dis ReMix.

At 0:09, there's some sort of abrasive fake guitar, and although it could be interesting, it's rather resonant and it hurts for the entire time it continues (FL Slayer?). Anyways, as this is, it doesn't sound too dubsteppish to me. I can't really classify it. I think the 808 snare gets a tad buried under everything else. This has potential for some cool harmonies though. Keep working on it!

Definitely recall this from the WIP forums. This was a pretty fun remix. I guess I would've liked a less sparse break from all that sub bass, but the wubs were nice and varied, and I actually think the drums were beefy enough. I do think though that the mix is bright enough, and that the cymbal is both more lofi than the rest of the mix and a touch too bright, but otherwise this is pretty solid. Oh yeah, isn't "fin" masculine? =P

Yeah! That's an old season of it, called Sasuke. Dude, that's awesome. xD

Nice, they kept in the cool items. Still able to break down doors and walk up mini ladder ramp things.

Have you guys tried some -esque stuff? Like ? You should try it if you get the chance.

OT: - Sounds unhappy and creepy to me.

Well, considering this is supposed to be Chillout, I think a few things don't work based on how they don't keep the mood. The PWM lead and the dance kick make it more energetic rather than keep things ambient-like. The lead is too abrasive, while the kick reminds too much of high-energy hip-hop. Perhaps the lead can work if you low pass it so that it sounds more distant, but I think the kick needs to be a different sample. Also, the sustained lead that plays with the tremolo pad is different, but sounds about as abrasive as the other lead, and again sounds not as ambient as the other instrumentation. The FM bell in the breakdown section might benefit from going up an octave, as it seems a bit atonal on this octave and might not seem like something to focus on. Other than that, it's a good take on the source. There are good ideas here, but the things that stick out just need to be pushed down a bit.

I love all the FM synths populating this excellent soundscape. The textures here are not abrasive, and quite accessible. You never know what's going to happen next, but it's still very much appreciable. Clem's arrangements are always so outgoing, and occasionally out there, but if you had never heard his style before, you'll remember it now!

Hola, Damage drums. =P I liked the little stereo field nuances in here from the sweeps, panning arps and such. Even with the Heavyocity stuff, it didn't feel quite like the drums were trying to be the star and cover the lower-quality samples up, so that's good. Neat irregular rhythms here and there, and an engaging arrangement that actually had a good sense of direction.

I decided to do a lil music video for this. =P

Not super happy, but it makes me happy hearing some cool chord progressions. It's also energetic. (1:07-long)EDIT: This too.

Yeah, that's definitely the key here. Your mistakes are much less accessible to people who don't write or mix music (producing is both combined, btw), or even people who just began for a few weeks. Sure, you can put your music up on newgrounds and soundcloud and all that, but just remember that if the person who gave you feedback is someone you don't know, you really can't be sure how objective they actually are, so I wouldn't take feedback on either of those two websites too seriously unless you know the person well enough to have a rough idea of where they are in the music producing process (and even that's hard enough). If someone says a vague comment, like "that sounds cool", "nice", "sounds neat", and so on, it's almost like cooking feedback that says such things as "this tastes delicious", "this has nice flavors", "I like it", and so on ("This is the best [meal name] I've ever had" is a bit of a step up IMO). Those kinds of comments are merely descriptors of how in awe they are. I found a cool definition of awe a few months back: So when someone says something like that, even if it's not nice, then just thank 'em and move on. Not much depth to think too much about there. Not to say that you shouldn't consider those people, though. If you satisfy them, then it tends to mean you have an arrangement that's easily likable or memorable.

Excellent arrangement. Keeps flowing well, despite the 6 minute length, and has no flaws to speak of. Keep it up!

How about TruePianos?

I used to think my old music was good. Now I know it's not, because these days I have a more objective perspective on my own music, even though I wrote it, since I'm a sound designer. I don't present my music arrogantly, but I don't think it's bad either. If I've worked on something a lot, then I'll mention that with more enthusiasm than something that took a few days to finish. I just polish my music until I'm happy with it. That's pretty much it.

I guess you could automate it if you wanted to fade out a song tail that didn't want to fade out properly. You could also use it as a temporary "emergency" volume adjuster if you somehow forgot you had a loud mix and opened an old project that was loud. Other than that, I don't really move it.

Well, it's like I always say. If you mix well, you don't need much on the master track. Yes, a limiter does push the highest peaks down, but then if that's the problem, just lower the volume of those loud instruments. If other notes from those instruments are not too loud, then lower the velocities of those loud notes. For some reason the solution you propose sounds like the "hard way out". Not using a limiter just makes it harder on you. You're telling me that you *know* there are loud notes. Well, then, you know what you need to address. Either way, if your limiter is supposedly killing your dynamics, then go on a hunt for a better limiter. http://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro-l-brickwall-limiter-plug-in http://hem.bredband.net/tbtaudio/archive/files/TLs-Pocket_Limiter_v1-2.zip

A little heavy on the bass. 2:19 gets really loud. 2:36 has a sudden volume drop. That's all.

All normalizing does is boost the volume of the piece until the loudest peak is at 0dB. It's nothing complicated. What you happen to be doing now is one "solution" that you think is solving all your problems, but really, it's covering them up. Think of it this way: you're doing a math problem, and you did the wrong work to get the right answer, and you figure that the wrong work is then correct (which it isn't, as for example, one step was mathematically incorrect, and another mathematically incorrect step gave you the correct answer by accident). A similar, musical way to say it is that you're writing music louder than 0dB, then using a compressor on the master track and doing volume edits while the compressor is still on; therefore, your edits don't actually correspond to the results you are getting unless you consider what the compressor did. So, I actually wouldn't normalize it at all. It essentially limits your flexibility. Besides, you can still have a spike in your song and it wouldn't normalize properly. Why don't you just use a limiter? That's what most producers use on their music anyways. If you want a "best" volume, as you call it, then it's more helpful to your learning if you use your ears to find a good volume. The "best" volume is definitely not always at 0dB.

Maybe if you wanted to test it, you could try using a spectroscope (like smexoscope) and looking at what happens when you do the compression with the built-in EQ turned on, on a pure sine wave or a pure square wave with the Sustain all the way up on the ADSR envelope. That way, you're testing it on a completely flat sound. If it looks a little different after applying the EQ, then it works without the side chain feature.

This is actually not mastered that loudly since the mixing is so murky. The less treble you perceive, the quieter something usually seems. Think about when you stood outside a room trying to hear music inside the room playing at a normal volume with the door already closed. Sounds dull, right? Something like this at 0:48 is much louder, so this ReMix wasn't mastered with the goal of being loud, and you don't have to flip tables over loudness.

Yep, that's precisely what the "secret" is. If you carefully select matching sounds that are balanced and EQ'd such that you can hear many of them, you essentially create a piece with good depth perception---in other words, when you listen closely, you can hear more detail if you focus on particular instruments. In two words, Layering and Fullness. Also, while I was writing my ReMix for the Vampire Variations II album, I had found that, like you had, just boosting audio past 0dB a bit does not sound quite the same as mixing to 0dB and then applying well-executed compression to bring it past 0dB a bit (of course, presuming a brickwall limiter is already there). Quoting myself: Just a sidenote, but I'm 100% sure that SnappleMan has mentioned the attenuation bit before, as I remember posting to tell him that it was an awesome post.

Alright then. Not everyone hears things the same way I do. I mean, I thought those seemed quite different in loudness, but ah well. I'll try choosing more drastic examples. How about these pairs? Try imprinting the loudness that you perceive, and holding onto that, replaying a little of it before hearing the other piece. Perhaps hearing the quieter piece will make it seem more drastic. I used to find volume increases to be more noticeable than volume decreases (now they're similar for me, so either direction is pretty much an equal change perception). https://soundcloud.com/zircon-1/level-bounce @ 0:49 being louder than https://soundcloud.com/chimpazilla/cloudhopping-yoshi-touch-go-by @ 0:29 This is a loudness difference from compression on the master track. @ 2:28 being louder than @ 3:19This is a loudness difference also from compression on the master track, but additionally from drum sample choice. https://soundcloud.com/isworks/celestia-terrarium-naked-by @ 0:21 being louder than http://omnipsyence.bandcamp.com/track/fall-in-free-fall-mix-ft-tera-catallo @ 0:03 This is a loudness difference from layering, and it's meant to show that even though "Terrarium" doesn't have explicit drums, it is fuller (and thus louder) than the "Fall In" ReMix, which does have drums. There's not much physics that needs to be incorporated here. It can be explained like so: Think of a "what if" situation, where there are no limiters on any two songs or pieces you compare. The one that would clip more is louder. That's pretty much it. How capable your limiter is to brickwall is what helps you to get to a higher loudness (but at the same time, boosting too loudly will "squash" the mix and automatically attenuate the highest treble frequencies very slightly... until the limiter's tolerance is reached. Then it'll just clip). Also, when you say hearing something by itself with no comparison gives little indication of loudness, it's technically true, but the length of time between comparisons doesn't have to be quite as recently as, say, a day or an hour. I hear differences in loudness based on comparing everything I've heard to the loudest song or piece I have ever heard, ever. To be specific, I find zircon's Level Bounce to be the loudest piece I will ever comfortably listen to, and when I hear other pieces, my ears will naturally tell me that it's louder or quieter. Maybe it's just something with my photographic memory that helps, but that's how it works with me.

It may just be a personal taste thing, but I think there should be less of the low-mids picking sound on the guitar. It somehow feels mechanical with those in, and it's also clashing with the pad later on. Also, I agree that the clap currently doesn't fit. It can, though, with some work. I think the drum patterns with two claps in a row disrupt the ambient vibe. If you try lowering the dry signal of the clap and slightly increasing the reverb predelay to make it sound more distant, that should help. Try listening to this one.