timaeus222

I pretty much completely agree with Rexy. I'm finding the textures kinda sparse. In this, you have a bass, drums, a saw lead, and an organ, but that's pretty much all of the elements that have been used throughout (besides the 3o3 arp, which I hear as often quiet compared to the other instruments). The organ, for the octaves in which it plays, covers some high range, the bass covers some low range,and the kick and snare cover the remaining low range, while the midrange is left for the saw lead and the 3o3 arp. Since the 3o3 arp is substantially covered up by the bass and the saw lead feels thin in context, it's like your midrange is actually lacking, even though you actually have some theoretically midrange content in there. Overall, what I would suggest that you work on, besides the low-end EQing, drum writing, and cohesiveness as Rexy suggested, is the perception of whether or not an instrument contributed what you intended it to do in the midrange. If you want full midrange, it helps to have an idea of when it is full enough objectively, when it isn't, and when it's overly full. Perhaps you could try an experiment where you scoop the midrange on purpose to train your ears on the idea of "hollowness" in an audio frequency spectrum, so that you can avoid having that happening to a significant extent. Something else you could do is to purposefully boost the midrange and train your ears to dislike an excess of the midrange. The purpose of these two experiments is to simply get your brain going on a nice "middle" (not really in the exact middle, per se, just a balance) with regards to an excess and a deficiency of midrange. Midrange is essentially 500~4000Hz (covering low mids, mids, and upper mids). Loudness isn't as much of a concern to me because in my opinion and with what I've progressed through, an objective perception of loudness takes a long time to develop (it took me about 2 years), and sometimes you have to go through many different headphones/speakers before you get a sense of what's loud enough for you and for everyone. Different headphones and speakers have different impedances, which is essentially resistance to amplification. Voltage = Current*Impedance. The higher the impedance, the more voltage you need to amp the audio system to get it to a particular arbitrary volume, so generally speaking, the higher the input impedance, the lower the output is, relative to a "normal" volume. Since this "normal" volume is more or less relative to what you previously heard, that's why it may take going through different audio systems to find something you like enough that you stick with it. I would also recommend trying out several soft knee limiters and seeing if you like that better than a hard knee limiter. When I switched from Fruity Limiter to TLs-Pocket Limiter, that's when I felt I had more room in my dynamics. I wish you good luck on this!

I really liked the scales in this, and overall this was an overload of awesome.

Awesome! I really like this. Solid work, man! I actually hear the source in there after comparing, btw. Just for perspective, you'd need at least 84.5 seconds of overt source usage. Here's what I'm hearing, based on my own comparisons: 0:24.051 - 0:38.820 = Source Melody in bassline (0:07 - 0:14) + chippy arp playing blips from source (0:29 - 0:44) 0:38.820 - 0:53.590 = Source Melody in bassline (0:07 - 0:14) + chippy arp playing blips from source (0:29 - 0:44) + non-source octave lead 0:53.590 - 1:10.205 = Source Melody with stronger bassline (0:22 - 0:36) + Source Melody in lead with lower-pitched "bridging" notes between the actual source tune notes (0:07 - 0:14) [i think that could be fine] 1:10.205 - 1:26.823 = Source Melody in bassline (0:07 - 0:14) + solo (?) + chippy arp playing blips from source (0:29 - 0:44) 1:26.823 - 1:48.970 = Source (0:07 - 0:14) 1:48.970 - 1:56.539 = Source (0:07 - 0:14) [1:56.539 - 1:57.972 is too quiet to count, I think] 1:57.972 - 2:13.897 = Dominating Solo [quiet source usage, might not count] 2:13.897 - 2:21.282 = Source Melody with stronger bassline (0:22 - 0:36) + Source Melody in lead with lower-pitched "bridging" notes between the actual source tune notes (0:07 - 0:14) [i think that could be fine] 2:21.282 - 2:49.000 = Source Melody with stronger bassline (0:22 - 0:36) + Source Melody in lead with lower-pitched "bridging" notes between the actual source tune notes (0:07 - 0:14) [i think that could be fine] + interacting leads Overall, my personal tally is, not counting the solos (as in the worst case scenario): 110.973 seconds If I don't count the last portion with the interacting leads, with the assumption that they bury the source: 83.255 seconds So I think this could be borderline, but I think it'll fly.

Will this be able to be released by the intended April 21? This is an album I'm really looking forward to! =D

Maaaaaaaan, finally another Jazz Fusion remix on OCR! We'll never get enough of this, because it's so live-based and just demands so much harmonic skill to write. One of my favorites on this album already!

Great energy throughout, and nice solos!

Rock done with style.

I can't say I had gotten around to listening to Hard Times yet, but I just have, and damn, it really does sound like Ice Cap Zone. xD

Just for perspective, the For Everlasting Peace album had a month's work put into its songs, IIRC.

Whoops, that's not *quite* what I meant, but I see that I was a bit unclear. I was thinking of pretty much the same thing, except the snare roll was moved back to lead into the first ping pong delay cymbal. I'm not on my good headphones yet, but I think this is an improvement on the compression! =)

Best place to form a band.

I think the lyrics brought it over the top, man! Great job! (I actually voted for ya. ;D)

I thought the mixing was really good, so keep it up.

I'm not sure about recording the entire screen and leaving it at that, and while I could try doing that to start with and edit later, I've tried it before; I'd do it if I had more RAM, but ultimately my screen recorder would add too much lag if I recorded my whole screen. In fact, last time I tried it, my FPS went down from ~45 to about ~10. So I'd opt for moving my mouse more slowly. You'll just sit around for longer. =P

By rigid, I just meant that most or all of the notes play at pretty much the same rhythm; it's like when you sing in unison, except it's with rhythm. I did like this as a whole, just to be clear. This has lots of potential, so I hope you keep working on it no matter how it turns out in the queue.

Yeah, this is achieving a much clearer balance between the leads! Really the only concern I have left is that part near the end at 2:36 - 2:41, where some leads are actually fighting for attention; if you focus on that part, there are two or three leads going on at the same time, and at least for me, it gets hard to follow what they're doing. It does seem to go into that "motion sickness" idea that came up earlier, but maybe simplifying one (or two) of those parts with more extended notes (e.g. half vs. quarter notes) could put more focus on the melody with the most notes. This is actually a neat remix, and despite its repetition, it personally keeps my attention to the end. Great job! =)

Yeah, it did kind of feel a little empty at times, but I'm sure you'll fill it out when it's done.

I hope this gets done, man, because I actually really liked it. Jazz Fusion is very fun to listen to when it's all polished and stuff, so I think this'll be a hit. =)

That grungy bass line is so good. It creates a rather "let's get down to business" atmosphere, and it pairs so well with those unison bends on the guitar.

The piano sounds strange to me. Not because of the distortion; that's fine. I think the decay on it is rather short, so it sounds very staccato the whole time, so I'm not hearing much dynamic contrast created when shifting to the clean tone. I don't think the lead guitar tone sounds harsh, but it sounds thin since it's missing some mids. At 1:16 though, there's a small resonance at about 11000Hz coming from the distortion according to my spectral analyzer, so it could be toned down by either EQing it down or perhaps lowering the distortion a little bit. It kind of rings on at 1:12, so you can more easily hear where the resonance is by listening there rather than in the middle of the track. I think the hi hats and cymbals could use a bit more reverb to sit in the mix. The hi hats also have a bit of an overboost at about 14000Hz, and though the double pedal kick's a little overdone, I think it's fine. Pretty good cover, man. I don't think there are really many issues with the production. The drums don't need to be flawless, IMO, unless you want them to be.

I'm a bit confused by the awkwardly wide kick, as I'm used to kicks being centered. It's kind of covering up the wide guitar chugs. Also, based on the mixing of the kick, the snare could match the punchiness with some transient shaping to bring it closer and give it some more glue, if you want to take this further. The reference track actually has a punchier snare based on what I'm hearing. At 1:01, the clean guitar tone has quite a bit of low mids, so it sounded a bit imbalanced at that volume before the electric lead came in later. Other than that, nice cover. Maybe developing the arrangement some more could add some additional nuance and acquire even more interest.

I think the snare could have some transient shaping and low end to give it more thwap. Right now it sounds thin compared to the kick. Some very slight reverb could help the guitar to sound more roomy in sections where it's exposed. EX: 1:27. Also, I think the decay on the strums there could be tighter because those rapid chugs sound blurry. Other than that, I think it sounds good. I don't really have any issues with the bass or guitars, or even the cymbal tones.

#1, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9 for sure are possible in other DAWs.

Platinum is not useless, and neither is Silver, if you have experience designing reverbs. If you can tweak reverbs so that those versions will sound good in any context, then they will.

I think it'll be okay if the studio is primarily against the middle of the back wall. The slanted ceiling may blur the early reflections a bit on the far left and right ends. Also, based on the room angle, there may be very slightly inconsistent reverberations (think of reflections inside a rectangular prism on its face versus a cube on its vertex, if they start essentially horizontally. This is only a theory though).