timaeus222

Man, this sounds like it could really shine as a downtempo track rather than a dance track. For the most part, I thought everything before 1:22 was pretty cool. On to the rest, 'cause so far it seems quite good. The C64 arps really work in this. Ignoring the drums for now, will get to them later in this post. 1:22 - 1:54 has some rather bland sounds like jnWake suggested. The soundscape also sounds bare at 1:22 - 1:38, despite the reverb+delay. The bass at 1:38 - 1:54 also sounds a bit mechanical (wut, a mechanical synth bass? Yeah, I did mean it =P); maybe a filter LFO on it can add some motion to the timbre. I like the lead at 2:04. Get that level of expression in your bass! =) 2:05 sounds like a climax to me, just FYI. 2:25 - 2:36 sounds vaguely pop-like in the breakdown section style. Not that it's a bad thing. 3:02 - 3:12 could use some less rigid sequencing; maybe some syncopation can add interest. 3:32 - 3:48 does that well, IMO. (Notice the cut-out ending though) As for the drums, I think they could punch through more. To me, they sound most polished at 1:02 - 1:21 and 1:38 - 2:24. The ride also sounds kind of "unfitting" (it's kinda acoustic rather than electronic). Sounds good so far! It has potential to become really cool, so keep working on this!

I like 3:22 better now. I don't know if it's because I've gotten more appreciative of harmonies lately, but I don't think it sounds badly dissonant anymore.

Hm. I think you can heighten the creepiness of the sine wave by adding a little resonance and increasing the glide time a little. Might just be me, but I think having staccato strings at 2:08 - 2:20 would heighten the energy more for me. To me the strings feel kind of flat playing legato behind the sine wave. I also think the drums (kick+snare+hi hats) could be stronger. They get especially buried at 3:05 - 3:39 and undermine the intended energy there. Perhaps you wanted to stick to an orchestral instrument positioning, but this feels more electronic-orchestral than orchestral to me. Overall, I think the mixing could be cleaner in the midrange as well. I think the arrangement is great though. Interesting, not plodding, little unnecessary repetition, and great mood changes. Not too conservative.

Hm. Well, the girls in the Lorde cover didn't really show enthusiasm (unless it was purposeful to emphasize Puddles' role?). Part of enjoyment for me in a human performance are smiles and enthusiasm. Puddles was good though.

Yeah, I felt like RSE implemented a lot of substantially new stuff; contests (I miss those), secret bases, Acro Bike (Bike tricks! ), diving, etc. I think it was also a point where the music became substantially more interesting in arrangement. Whenever I listen to the RSE soundtrack these days, I hear a lot of cool chord progressions. Might even be one of my favorite Pokemon soundtracks thus far.

Well, yeah, but if it's registered with NI for Kontakt Player, then that's all fine and dandy and you can just use it for completely free on a free sampler—and this library isn't available for Player. Haven't had issues with a "DEMO" message in a good long while, but yeah, that was in the back of my mind. Been using Kontakt for about a year now, so it's not new info; just wanna make sure there isn't some other piece of information that was missing. If I don't know something with certainty, I try not to say it like I do. I'm no expert on Kontakt, but no newbie either. =P

Yes. Secret bases all the way. I loved those.

Strange. I just now got to downloading and trying it, and it works. I went through the Files menu and navigated to where it was, and I could load it. Maybe you went to the Libraries tab? It's not registered to run fully on Kontakt Player, and IIRC, it shows up there if it is. Might just be because it's for a full version of Kontakt, buuuuut it's still free. http://oi57.tinypic.com/4q615j.jpg

Sounds nice and full, man! The production hits it right in that there sweet spot. I do believe the low end was much improved since the last version too.

Here's a free Kontakt 3+ piano library that's actually pretty good. And it's free. Wait, I said that already. Did I mention it's free? Oh yeah, and this one too (second link).

I haven't gotten to that point. I thought this sax solo at 3:43 was really good.

No one mentioned these guys? ~ Jazz FusionJoshua Morse ~ Jazz Fusion (Neo-Soul Keys demos ~ Soul/Jazz) zircon: https://soundcloud.com/zircon-1/sunshower ~ Funk/Glitch Hop https://soundcloud.com/zircon-1/level-bounce ~ Jazzy Funkstep http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01849 ~ Jazz Fusion http://zirconstudios.bandcamp.com/track/fusion-master ~ Chiptune Jazz http://zirconstudios.bandcamp.com/track/morsecode ~ Disco Funk/Jazz

Happy birthday dude.

It's good, but there's a lot of copy+paste. 2:41 - 4:38 is pretty much the same as 1:06 - 2:41. You can even hear a click at 3:03. So this is really just 3:26 long to me.

This guy used my old Naruto remix in his cooking video. =P Nice geeky fun! Video: Remix: https://soundcloud.com/timaeus222/timaeus-naruto-main-theme Remix video: Not bad for 2 years ago, eh?

Just yes. I mean really, I don't see the point of that show other than to be annoying. I don't get how that should be making any money.

Sounds great. I think it needs a breakdown section though, just to add a greater sense of dynamics.

Okay, so things *are* sounding better. Something that still kinda bothers me though is that the snare now sounds noise-wave-like. Could just be me, but I'd like it to have a different sample for the tail. Perhaps some transient shaping might help, where you'd increase the sustain of the sample manually. It depends on the sample, but then you don't have to pick a sample that already has a tail to get a tail. If you are short on samples you like with that kind of description, you get limited on your choices for layering. In general, I think the production sounds good now though. The arrangement, I think, feels kind of cookie-cutter. The buildups resemble 'traditional' EDM buildups. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I thought I'd let you know. The flow of the arrangement seems to just be: something -> buildup -> main -> buildup -> something -> breakdown -> buildup -> main -> buildup -> something. That's a lot of buildups. (3:05 is a copy+paste of 1:17.) Overall, the loudness of things stay kind of consistent, and the buildups don't really feel like they're crescendoing. It could be the low end. I feel like the dynamics of this stay relatively constant as a result. Nothing sticks out to me as a climax except for 1:58, sort of. These may give you inspiration: https://soundcloud.com/isworks/shreddage-2-nuclear-dubstep-by https://soundcloud.com/kruai/stars-like-fireflies/s-f6z7z

When I abandoned it, as you say, no, I didn't really hate it; I just literally forgot about it, then came back to it, seeing some good and some "eh", though a little more good than "eh", and that's why I chose *that* as my example of something I still don't feel that 'embarrassed' about these days. Although I *am* someone who takes the time to polish something up as much as it takes to satisfy my desires, I try not to go so far as to do something for hours only to not get anywhere; I do take breaks! However, I don't think I'll lose the satisfaction I get from getting something big done in my music, even if it involved meticulous processes. The journey through that reveals to me what skill was developed further from that experience (though I don't dwell on the skill in particular, but the elevation of my overall understanding of musical enjoyment), and there has yet to be a moment where I regretted trying that hard. I'm not super technical when it comes to writing music, or even formulaic, actually. These days I just write what pops into my mind. In other words, I go with the flow. ...And just for perspective, I don't actually make and use all brand new sounds for each song---that would be ridiculous. I do occasionally make and/or use a few that I haven't used before just to change up the atmosphere from my past works, though. Or, perhaps, there's just that one sound that exactly matches what I imagine, and I just really want to use it, but I'd never used it before, and it feels new to others. I think this is a good discussion, by the way.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. True. Others who aren't as particular as you in production will see more potential in arrangement and vice versa. However, there are some cases, at least for me, where I truly don't see potential in what was written. For example, I had a pretty bad MegaMan Zero 3 remix (which I'm not gonna share ) that was clipping, phase-y, not written with a real DAW but just an audio editor, and just plain awful, and I'm not afraid to admit that. All I learned from that was to start using DAWs. Sure. I had this neat arrangement of a Golden Sun track in which I still see potential for expansion due to the chord progression and the glitching effect 'scheme', but I strongly feel that I should just completely re-attempt it if I were to work off of the original arrangement and rearrange it, simply because the arrangement was specifically tailored to those particular samples, EQ, reverb, etc.

Hm. Could you elaborate on why, then? I'm not sure why you'd be opposed to a need for self-improvement centered around personal bias around your own music. I personally love having motivation to improve my own works, as long as it's not obsessive to the point where you take too long to finish something. Did you mean that if you're dismissing something that you strongly believe you were bad at in the past due to that sense of improvement, you're losing a chance of developing that further, and that that limits your creativity to the path you chose?

So you're saying that from personal bias and the insight you have into your own music, you see your own improvements more so than others have? If so, that's technically a good thing. However, "overexposure" to your own stuff distorting perception sounds like a bad thing the way you said it. Maybe it's just the wording, but I think it's great once you can tell that your old stuff was terrible, because we were all terrible when we wrote our very firsts. Then that just means you've gotten more objective, not only towards other people's writing, which is easier, but towards your own stuff, which is harder.

I'd say there's too much sub bass content relative to actual bass content. You really can't hear sub bass that well, so you need a real bass to hold down the fort. What's happening is that you have a sub bass sustaining under a rather thin wobble until 1:58. What I would suggest working towards is thickening the wobble and rolling off the subs a little bit to compensate for the louder 60~120Hz. At 1:58, the notes just sound kinda dissonant in a weird way. It feels like two different keys to me. The kick is pretty good, but maybe the snare could be less smacking/clap-like and more thwapping/tight/snappy. I think clap-like is fine though if it feels stronger. To me, the mastering feels too loud though. Not in the sense that it's literally too loud, but in that it's kinda overcompressed.

Yeah. i.e. the opposite of purposeful dedication. ^ However, ^ This 'effort' could drop over time as you improve, as then you'd be stagnating if you're writing at a consistent level even though you probably could have learned more in a year or two. It's like how Aristotle says it's your fault if you didn't improve your morals as you grew up. =P

Drum & Bass is generally higher than 160 BPM, so... Born From the Ashes ~ Apex 2014 Album ~ Me The End ~ Identity Sequence ~ zircon Chaos Nightmare ~ OC ReMix ~ PrototypeRaptor The Search for Ambrosia ~ OC ReMix / Deus Ex Album ~ zircon + Jillian Aversa Blast Beatdown ~ OC ReMix / DKC3 Album ~ zircon + tefnek