timaeus222

Welp, probably the first and main thing that would give this a NO would be the fake FL Slayer guitar. >.< Other things: - Levels are wonky (bass is too loud, piano is too quiet, can't hear the drums). - Everything is dry. No reverb that I can hear. - It's clipping (no limiter). - Piano is mechanical. - Drums seem independent of the other instruments. The first thing you could do to improve this is to simply put on a limiter on the master track in the mixer. That would probably make this sound pumping due to loudness based on how you have Fruity Limiter for free, but it's a step forward. It'll also help to listen to music that uses guitars and pianos. You probably already do that, but do it more intently. Guitars don't play lifeless, loud notes like that, and pianos aren't played stiffly like a robot would do it. I know you're just starting, but everyone starts somewhere.

He was joking. That's who he is. A kidder.

I read it. Many of them happen to be taken over by their opinions. They can have their opinions, but generalizing about OCR and pretending their opinions are fact... not cool. There comes a point when opinions are just opinions.

Yeah, it was looking fuzzy there, but that's really the only reason why I pointed that out. (And pixel-centric just means the characters in the font are made with lines of one pixel thickness.)

Nice intro. The strings sound static, though, as their volumes stay relatively level, and whenever they stop playing, it's an abrupt silence. i.e. 0:23 and 0:33. I think if the kick had some transient shaping to tighten the timbre, it would help a bit more with the repetition, but it's really not that big of a deal. The lead at 1:20 seems to have a fairly high amount of reverb, and it sounds distant. It could be dismissed as stylistic choice, but I think it can be a bit more upfront since it's a lead. Also not a big deal. Probably the issue you could start focusing on is the breakdown section at 3:07. It goes on for a minute, so it's a nice long time that can be polished up for maximum effect. I'm finding the piano's higher notes to be noticeably mechanical in the velocities and note timing, and like before, the strings have a static volume. Their volume could be automated to add swells for realism. The sounds chosen have some clashes, especially at 4:47 and on. The piano gets buried behind the sidechained supersaw, so the saw is either too loud or it has frequencies that can be notched to make room for the frequencies of the piano that would bring out its desirable characteristics. Overall, the progression for this is less repetitive than a lot of trance music out there. It can be less repetitive, but it doesn't bother me that much, at least. The production has some room for improvement but is not bad right now. The piano and strings need some humanization like mentioned above, and some EQ to clear up some muddiness and clashing would really help. Good job so far.

I'd actually identify 3:20 - 4:00 as the most problematic section right now due to some sequencing realism, and other than that this is great.

It's private right now.

This sounds pretty good, though I found the first minute plodding due to the repetitive bells on the right speaker. Nice dynamics, but this gets pretty loud. At 2:44, the bells make that apparent. Some of the treble above 16000Hz gets cut off from pushing the 0dB ceiling too hard. At 3:47, it's probably clipping. Are you using a soft clipper? Even though you won't get overcompression from those, you'll definitely get clipping if you boost too loudly. Soft knee limiters are similar but you don't get clipping quite as easily with those. ...and I'm not sure the electric guitar at the end actually fits in an orchestra. Other than that, great start.

Songs are, by definition, something that is sung. Composition is not restricted to vocal music only.

Thanks! xD So, this sounds like some chillout downtempo, which means fine-tuning the drum pattern writing and the bass would really help keep the arrangement flowing. Currently, the drums sound loop-like aside from a few fills. Not only that, but I couldn't find many cymbals. Also, since repetition plays a big part in enjoying a track of this genre, subtle changes in other aspects could help, if only to transition in between sections, such as snare rolls, synth arpeggio lines, descending bass lines, etc. It's partly my opinion, but I think the snare could have some of the lows filtered out to make this sound lighter. The harmonies and chord progressions sound like something to relax to. This is a good adaptation of the original in a new genre, though there are some arpeggios and fluorishes in the that can be added in here. Nice work so far.

Haha, he's actually really funny.

I kinda do the same thing, but I just hum the bass line for the heck of it.

So, guttural/gritty bass/baritone? (I'm not volunteering though)

This wasn't directed towards your samples, but free samples in general in the first sentence. The second sentence was a very general statement, and could apply to anyone. The third sentence was expressing my personal opinion (which was obvious from the "IMO"), but that comment about the harp was a suggested particular sampled instrument for you. So nah, I'm not saying that it sounded like you were using soundfonts, but I am saying that I very much like the quality of FluidR3's harp because it already has strong treble content to let it pierce through a thick mix. A regular harp, as I've found, can come through mixes less often for me than FluidR3's harp because specific harmonics present in FluidR3's harp are more present than in the harps in orchestral libraries I've heard. It's not about sample quality that you start with, it's about how you process those samples to make them sound realistic and better than they were before. Applying tasteful reverb, EQing carefully, sequencing meticulously, and adding automation to humanize expression/volume/articulations is pretty important, whether you're using high OR low quality samples. Elevate low quality samples with production tricks, and although it won't sound as good as well-sequenced orchestra libraries, it'll sound good for a soundfont-heavy piece, specifically---in context. If you were rejected based on sample "quality", it's not factual that your sample quality was literally not high. In actuality, the perception of your sample quality was that it was not high. Literal high quality libraries sequenced and reverbed in an average way may actually sound like general MIDI soundfonts that haven't been touched up well enough in terms of humanization and reverb sometimes, depending on the comparative tonal qualities of each instrument between a particular library and a particular soundfont. As usual though, it's case-by-case. The OCR judges are not inconsistent. tl;dr: It's quite possible to write low "quality" music using literal high quality sounds. Putting it to the extremes, dry mechanical $1000 libraries might actually sound objectively worse in their realism than well-reverbed humanized soundfonts simply because the soundfonts would then sound more realistic due to the proper reverb and the proper humanization tricks. Literal higher quality does not equal more realism/believability. Yeeep, I did just say that. By the way, the cross-fades comparison has some difference, but not much. There's a difference in the reverb, expansiveness, panning, and other stereo image aspects, but it's not quite a fair comparison. Soundfonts need more effort in humanization to match up to adequately sequenced sample libraries (which is another general statement, not applying directly to you). Right now, the mixing sounds pretty good, and it's better than before, though I feel like the acoustic drum kit sounds out of place in an orchestra. Just an opinion though. Also, Theophany has some great points.

One of the important abilities you should have is to simply know how to identify what key you're in. You don't even have to say what the key is---you could just internalize the feel of the key, and try to write melodic content in that key. When you internalize a key, you have a general idea of what fits and what doesn't. Within some confines of tonal centers, it may help you stick to writing things that don't sound awkward (a bunch of completely random accidentals in a row, for example. Meaningful accidentals may work).

I use NastyDLA MKII and Density MKIII the most. Other than that, FerricTDS is a dynamic compressor, and TesslaPro MKII is a saturator. These last two do seem pretty subtle, but I'll have to work with FerricTDS some more later.

Yeah, JPG "added" a weird tint (the blue is the most noticeable) and some fuzziness earlier. Looks better now; try taking the smoothing off the bottom text. It's a pixel-centric font, so leaving the pixel rendering raw should give it the rendering quality of the big Pokemon-font text up above. If you're not sure what pixel-centric means (it's just a description I made up), it's like the URL on the graphic in my signature below.

Variety of Sound makes some great free stuff too, and I use it, but that's just adding more plugins to the mix.

Oh yeah, this remix. Fun stuff. I wasn't really bothered by the harmonica at all.

Personally, I would have liked more progressive elements to keep the flow going and to liven up the dynamics, and a stronger ending would have helped. 1:26,1:34, and similar spots had some sort of cut-out cymbal for some reason. Also, the accompaniment has more treble than the leads. Other than that, this is pretty good.

Gotcha; At the same time though, that post was meant as a piece of info for everyone.

Oh, I'm not saying I expect you to do it well, I just know it's an available feature. All I'm suggesting is that you know the visual aid aspect exists. Everyone learns at their own rate, but I love that feature.

[SIZE=3]#include <iostream> #include <string> using namespace std; int main(){ [/SIZE][SIZE=3] char hbdArray[] = "Happy Birthday, CHz!"; cout << hbd[/SIZE][SIZE=3][SIZE=3]Array[/SIZE] << endl; }[/SIZE]

The sustains sound flat. They need some automation to "swell" the volumes and emulate a human's tendency to constantly vary the volume at which they play. Harmonies help the depth of the sound, but they also add the need to vary the note start timings. The more harmonies you add, the more stiffness can be an issue. Reverb helps, but using only reverb in hopes of "hiding" the mechanical parts is like covering up the problem. It's like saying you solved a math problem in the wrong way and got the right answer, then assumed that getting the right answer means you did the work correctly, when instead you may have made a mistake and one mistake covered up the other.

I'll have something longer for you soon (about 2 minutes' worth)! It's sounding really cool! I had it done up to there about two months ago, but I didn't want to seem like I worked too quickly! I just love the fact that this is my first full-on cinematic track.