timaeus222

I thought your track was quite cool! You have to finish it, for whatever purpose.

It seems like the lead guitar was recorded entirely in mono. It's quite narrow all throughout the entire track. There's also some noticeable clipping at 0:46, 1:01, 1:03, 1:06, and 1:09. Watch your peaks. Other than that, good cover.

It's not something I'd expect someone to just *poof* learn in a few days, but something to keep in mind in the long run. It helps to listen to music you're interested in more closely, analyzing the overall structure, transitions, and how the song progresses while also maintaining your interest. That way, you can learn more about what people do and see how you can incorporate that into your own music. Since you want me to be even more specific, here's an example analysis with terms that are generally universal (and particular terms are defined or said in parentheses): https://joshuamorse.bandcamp.com/track/you-got-me The intro is calm (with an electric piano), then uses a (distorted bitcrushed) sound effect to lead into a (jazzy) slow jam at 0:21. Begins song. At 0:29, the drums drop out except for the kick, which has some syncopated (off-the-beat) rhythm that works with the lead sound to lead into a section featuring that same lead sound. First slow jam section. At 0:48, all the drums drop out except for the leadin toms and the kick, then the electric piano plays a larger, more syncopated role to make this section sound fuller than the previous. This has louder dynamics than the previous section because it sounds fuller. At 1:05, the drums drop out while the bass and the lead work together to lead into a breakdown section with no drums except for a kick and/or a (distorted bitcrushed) clap. This is a reprieve to the previous two slow jam sections. At 1:28, a big tom roll leads from the breakdown section into a fuller section. Back to the slow jam sections. At 1:45, the drums drop out except for the kick, which has some syncopated (off-the-beat) rhythm that works with the lead sound to lead into a section similar to 0:48 - 1:05. This has louder dynamics than the previous section because it sounds fuller. At 2:04, the bass and the lead work together to lead into a new breakdown section featuring the bass. This is a show-off section, for fun with the bass. At 2:34, the bass does a slide up and down to lead into the next section, which is a solo based on 0:29 - 0:48. Another show-off section for fun with the lead. 3:13 becomes an outtro with a fade-out. Ending. Overall: Intro -> A -> A' -> B -> A -> A" -> C -> A with solo -> A' without leads as Outtro You don't have to do this explicitly, but thinking about it as you listen to something may help you catch onto how songs are arranged, and that should address most of the dynamics.

Sounds like a substantial upgrade. 4 GHz is much faster than 2.01 GHz and 24 GB RAM is fantastic. I felt a significant difference going from 1.7 to 2.2 GHz, so I'd say go for an upgrade, but I think Flexstyle would know more about the specifics. Yes. In fact, putting aside the bias I have for Zebra2 being awesome, I strongly believe it's one of the most flexible modular synthesizers out there, and honestly, it's capable of so many things. FM E. Pianos, many types of synth basses, atonal bells, many types of synth leads, arps, sound effects (pretty nitty gritty detail-based though), drums (difficult), pads, etc.Regardless, I've found that sometimes synthesizers were made even better than their hardware counterparts, and Zebra was one example. Not only does that save room for your studio, but it's much less complicated to "wire up" to your computer (because there are no wires!). Ultimately it's more effective to just have actual drum samples rather than try to download someone's synthesized drums from a soundbank. You can import samples into your DAW and write with those, and it's more RAM-conservative than having a synthesizer open with synthesized drum patches. I'm fairly certain drum samples are close to a few hundred KB each or smaller, even though they're WAVs.

I think Darke means the required vocal talent of the people you seek out, but the details about the album idea are pretty important too. i.e. Are they aware of the qualities they convey while they sing (sibilances, fricatives, loss of breath in the middle of a phrase, smooth eliding, breathing in loudly, etc.)? Is their pitch tight enough? Can they read sheet music or do they sing by ear (collaboration ability)? Do they know basic music theory (communication between you and them)? Can they improvise or do they have to think about basic music theory to write out a part (workflow)? Do they have good recording equipment? A good, well-treated recording environment/studio? Do they have the time to contribute?

Dynamic means primarily: - evolving, progressive, substantial development, revisits previous sections where practical (i.e. introducing new things throughout the whole extent may be too much to handle as a listener the first time through), climactic vs. anticlimactic, volumetric curve (crescendo/descrescendo, terraced volumes, overall flatness, etc.) - Not same-y throughout in textures, notes, and mood; overly repetitive (depends on genre); nor flat in its perceived energy

Depending on the number of tracks, I may want to master this. =)

Well, by the mechanical/robotic instrumentation and the sparseness of the soundscape, nah, but this isn't unpleasant to listen to. If you were to rework this for OCR, it would mean: - A more dynamic re-interpretation of the source. This is too conservative. - Fixing up the sequencing so that it sounds real, not "blocky" (all same-y velocities), and meaningful (i.e. not variation for the sake of variation, but for more interesting melodic contour). This is the case for the entire track. 1:26 - 1:30, 1:35 - 1:39, 1:44 - 1:48, and 1:52 - 1:57 are the most evident, in case you wanted time stamps for the robotic sequencing. - Varying the drums more and making them seem less "autopilot" and more of a participating part. The drums are too independent of the other instruments (i.e. it doesn't work with the other instruments. It's like they're playing by themselves), and too repetitive. - More variation in the notes to add a sense of progression so that each part of the song doesn't sound quite the same as a previous part. This contributes to the repetition. - More cohesive instrumentation; it kind of works now, but seems awkward at times, in my opinion. The production is relatively good in context and you can hear everything clearly, but all that would change if you adjust anything here. That's part of the challenge; interpret the source well and mix the result well. It seems simple but it'll take a few years to learn. Good luck. In case you were wondering, hip hop and rap remixes on OCR are not unheard of. Here are a few. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01600/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02820/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02821/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02822/

We've got about 40 tracks, I think. =o

Sure. How many tracks are we planning? All of them, or just the ones that we remixers are proud of?

I like the little changes you made (drum fills, hi hat sequencing [possibly], ending piano, etc.). I still find the key change to the ending piano kind of awkward, but it's not a big deal. Yeah, this sounds good, man.

That crackling may be sound latency. Are you using a super old computer or a very RAM-costly soundcard?

Tibetn Bowl.sf2 is cool for whoever wants to do an ethnic remix. So far I've found Dulcimer.sf2, Nylon Guitar.sf2, Piccolo.sf2, Santoor.sf2, Tibetn Bowl.sf2, and Vibraphone.sf2 to be good with reverb.

This sounds better than before. I think the piano could use some minor tweaks in the velocities to widen the dynamic range a bit more. For example, at 3:20, the half-step trill could have the second note be lower in velocity. In general the notes written are good, but those minor tweaks could help them be more expressive. The drums seem a bit distant, but that's okay. The snare and toms could come through a little more though, to give more impact in the heavier sections for more dynamic contrast. i.e. 2:28 - 3:04. It seems like sometimes you wanted it louder and it didn't get loud enough. Overall, this was enjoyable, but more rhythmic and harmonic variations to the piano part and more velocity humanization would do this more justice. I get what you're going for in certain parts, but the mixing and some of the velocity work just doesn't convey that fully yet, IMO.

Hm, Piccolo.sf2 isn't too bad. If you treat it with some fitting reverb and automate the volume, it can sound like this: https://app.box.com/s/5g2trgj4jvk9ebo09daj You can tell it's fake from the lack of round robins and articulations, but it's not quite as noticeable as the dry one, eh? The things you can do with soundfonts...

Weird scenario here, but I just found this website that is hosting this HUGE list of free, downloadable soundfonts. I wonder if people here can test them on their own time and pick out what they like, 'cause I haven't tried any of these before, and neither have many people here. http://beats.codenamehippie.com/samples/SoundFrontz/

That was an awesome review. Gosh, I wish every one was like that.

Yeah, I did mean the modern ones that we don't consider good aren't necessarily going to be good if forced to a limited sound palette. They could be good, though, if they actually are musically adept.

The problem with that is that then the composer would have to rewrite much of what they just wrote in order to adapt to the new instrumentation. I think it may be easier just to write with the intended instruments and just think about the musicality they want to incorporate and do it carefully. It's not that writing with restricted timbres forces creativity; it only emphasizes it. Anyone can write a track with various C64/Genesis/NES/etc timbres that just isn't good--it takes musical skill to write a nuanced one. Also, forcing that might actually limit composers' creativities. How would we know if they are actually musically talented, or if they are just inspired by special instrument timbres that they love? What if those inspiring timbres were chiptunes? What if they weren't? If they were stripped of inspiring sounds, they'd really have to work hard to make something good. For all we know, bad modern composers may just be coincidentally born cursed with oodles of writer's block err day without inspiration to guide them, and earlier composers were just that good.

I sang for 6 years in regular choir in middle school through high school, and in jazz choir for a year. I've gotten and seen people lectured on breath control and pitch quite a bit, so we're in good hands so far! ;D

You know, you could just PM someone instead of stating the statistics and how you seem to be getting ignored. Ultimately, we want to help you, but not if we don't know who you are.

I think it's well-explained. Looks good to me!

I actually agree with the "catchiness" in that it seems to be a popular opinion, but I would call that mostly an effect of effective melodic contour. Instrumentation of course also plays a role, but I think that role is smaller than that of the melodic contour because if it wasn't, no one who hated chiptunes would like soundtracks for Genesis, NES, GBC, etc. Older soundtracks had less resources than modern soundtracks, so there was more emphasis on arrangement back then than now. The lower the quality of the instruments, the better the arrangement has to be to make up for that, so composers for those older games composed more carefully such that the melodies were memorable, able to be reinterpreted in many ways, and simplistic yet completely fitting. Therefore, if a person says they "can't remix a source tune" (e.g. "don't think they can") because "it's too good", assuming the VGM in question is well-mixed, they're either 1) not confident they can deconstruct it, 2) not actually able to deconstruct it well enough to satisfy their needs, 3) it's actually too complex for anyone to deconstruct, 4) the arrangement is so specific to the instrumentation that it just wouldn't sound right in other instrumentation without a bunch of reworking of parts, or 5) they like it too much to do anything with it. I think possibility 4 is the most common objectively and possibility 5 is most common on the surface if surveying people, but those are just educated guesses. However, that means there's at least one person out there who can, so it wouldn't be out of the question to try remixing whatever source tune you're thinking of, as long as you feel "right" doing it. In other words, the textural complexity isn't unlimited, and all VGM is able to be remixed by someone who has gotten comfortable enough with remixing in the particular style that comes to their mind. For example, I would consider this a "fully-fledged, imagined piece", and I would never have thought of remixing it (as in it never came to mind until recently) until I somehow got the inspiration to start at one point, but right now I'm pretty far into writing a remix incorporating that, this, and (and I'm definitely going to finish it! ). I consider it difficult to deconstruct the chords in the first track (possibility 2) and a select few parts of the bass line in the second track (possibility 2) because you just have to be able to hear harmonies with relative certainty to examine those two in detail. Fact is, I really loved all three tracks opinion-wise as well as production-wise, so I guess I don't fit possibility 5.

I'm not biased against them, and I think they're pretty solid in context.

This is a beast of a remix. =D