timaeus222

I think the toms and kick are actually really good to begin with. Some transient shaping on the kick would help tame the subs tail, but other than that, those are some good samples.

Not sure the dubstep part really clicked IMO, but maybe it's just my personal bias against excessive use of bitcrush-y "yai" basses. Elements were generally distinct enough. Noticed the Cinematic Synthetic Drums drop. Guitars were a little bit hollow and the drums were a little mids-heavy, but not enough to really detract from this. The production is a little hot overall, like at 2:28, but it's Ivan's best mix thus far. You and your seven sources. Great job man. Keep on improving!

Hm... I dunno, the octave-playing seems really hard to do in real life. I just tried to do that at the rhythm and tempo you wrote it, and I feel like it would be way more sloppy if played live, especially at 0:56 - 0:57 and 1:00 - 1:01. I liked the change of dynamics after 1:26. Great chords near 2:00, and the rhythmic variations at 2:24 were slick. At 3:20, it makes me think there's not much reverb on the piano. Maybe a more auditorium-like reverb could add more live-ness to this. The ending was pretty snazzy. The only thing I would change about it is the last note at 4:23. Personally, I would have liked it to just fade out after the big scale up. Sounding great, man! Loved the personalization on this. Harmonies and rhythmic shifts were fantastic. Keep it up. If you want, I could master it for ya.

Yes, but only if it's not used excessively (up to judges' discretion) and not from something belonging to Square Enix.

Super birthday mode activate!

Haha, that's kind of how it was going with Esperado and I for like the first week. Finally getting something good going though and it's somehow working pretty well. And I think a short solo section would be basically a section solely composed by the star.

It's weird, because I know at least *I* PMed him my comments before Nov. 30.

So, how long is a "short solo section", in terms of percentages? 10~20% of the whole track?

Hip-Hop isn't within my realm of interests, but I will say that compared to other Hip-Hop, this does sound awesome, and it would sound awesome to those who do like it.

I've actually provided stems for my last two major compo entries. I submitted both of them already. I think that counts. Anyways, I'd support a compo with an emphasis on mixing. Production values seem less arbitrary than arrangement, to me. Sometimes people can perceive dynamics differently than what the remixer expected based on how their production conveys their arrangement, but if we just focus on production, it's a form of ear training for both the remixer and the person giving feedback. There are times when subjectivity gets in the way of true (objective-only) production critique, but that's something else that can be worked on too. Example conversation (this happened once, in some form or another):

If anything, I would try that first. Any tutorial zircon made has always been useful to me. I keep learning something from watching even his livestreams. Chimpazilla was kind of thinking about a mentor program for OCR in the future. So maybe.

Oh yeah, I hear the clicking from the contrabass. LASS is indeed awesome. I found 0:38 had a weird harmony when considering what chord it came after. I looked at what notes you actually wrote, and although it makes sense, it sounds off. I'm not sure, but maybe it's because you went from a major chord to a minor chord. If I were to write the chord for that section, I'd write a root position triad with an added fourth instead. That's all.

Personally, I interpreted the question as "how can I efficiently write music", rather than "how can I confidently write music without fear of it not being to my expectations". Inspiration does help, but if you're inspired and you are hindered by your workflow, for example, the inspiration just goes away before you can write out what you were thinking of. Therefore, with good workflow, the inspiration is more likely to be retained long enough for you to write it out.

I'm just wondering, why are there only director's and artist's comments for 5 tracks (OCA + 2 tracks)?

I agree, actually. I've learned to do chord progressions on the piano roll that I don't even know how to explain with music theory at all, yet I have that feeling when it sounds good.

Yeah, by the loudness, I don't mean it's really near 0dB, but I mean it feels a little overly pushed by the limiter. I'm unsure why, though.

Well, yeah. I already took AP English three years ago. I didn't say it *was* a MIDI from VGMusic, I just said it sounds like it could have been from there. I'd advise you to try keeping your personal opinions from restricting your open-mindedness. I'm just giving you some feedback, like you wanted.

What are you talking about? When did I talk about the government? You sure you recognize what MIDI means? This sounds like any old MIDI from vgmusic.com. It's rigid, and it sounds like there were extra notes to "create" delay to compensate for no delay effect. Just because something's "SPC" doesn't mean it doesn't resemble MIDI extremely closely, which this does.

What I do is sequence in just a simple four-on-the-floor kick pattern as a metronome, detect the approximate tempo, locate the first four measures of the song (not the first four bars in FL, the first four measures in the song's writing itself), and make sure that that lines up with the first four bars in FL and every significant transient lines up with the start of each bar. Sometimes using "Fit To Tempo" doesn't work for me.

Hm... This is kinda synth rock-ish. Kinda reminds of Skyrim. The mixing sounds fine up until about a minute in and you reach the rock part. I'm not finding the kick to come through all that much. The snare is kinda okay, and the toms are good, but I'm finding the cymbals to be centered and cluttering the stereo image. It's also tough to distinctly hear the piano and the guitar. The rhythm guitar and lead guitar are distant, the rhythm guitar tone sounds thin (high passed too high above 200Hz or so), and the lead guitar and piano fight for stereo space. This all seems to be overcompressed as well, and as a result this doesn't sound as loud as it implies.

First things first, LOUD. Gotta lower the volume of everything by about 1~2dB. It's pumping in the overcompressed way. Like two years ago, I actually still don't like the sub bass up until 0:39. It's so exposed that once I accidentally focus on it, it gets grating. Some sort of evolving bassy pad would evoke much more interest than a simple sustained sine wave. If the sound design is full, you don't need a layer of low end to fill that gap. Might as well design a sound that works in the first place rather than plop something bassy in to superficially do the job. At 1:00, there's quite a bit of reverb on the snare. I understand you want that effect, but it would help to noise gate the snare after the reverb in the chain to make sure it has reverb but the reverb doesn't interfere so much with the treble in the track. I'm not sure I really "get" the panning LFO on the lead at 1:06. It's okay in context, but in reality it's occupying a lot of stereo space and not really leaving a lot of room for any other elements. Its treble needs to be tamed as well with notch EQ so that you can at least hear the other elements more clearly. Also, I find the new hi hat layer at 1:21 to be quite distracting. They feel like they belong in a different genre. Your main drums make this sound like a swing-rhythm bass-heavy track, while the hi hats say straight trance. A swing rhythm playing at the same time as a straight rhythm throws me off. At 1:43, the builddown implies a breakdown section, but instead you continue the arrangement as before. It disrupts the pacing and I think it feels out of place. 3:24 has those same hi hats as before, but here, when juxtaposed with the plucky synth arp, it's even more evident that it feels rhythmically off. The arrangement, although repetitive, I suppose is borderline in that regard. I believe that that combined with the production issues would give this either a NO (borderline) or NO (resubmit).

Strictly on the arrangement, it actually sounds just like a direct MIDI rip to me. It sounds like you replaced instruments in a MIDI file and fixed up any weird notes. If you were to remix for OCR submission, what would happen here is that it would get rejected by email before it gets to the judges panel at all, as direct MIDI rips aren't allowed for copyright infringement issues. Going into the remixing scene in a serious way for the first time, it's fine to start off using MIDIs, but if you want to catch people's attention, it really helps to personalize your remix with your own arrangement contributions and do much more than a few alterations here and there. You can surely still honor the original without sticking to it note-by-note. It's not like an original VGM is always perfect by any means. Any OST can be reinterpreted if you really try.

Not to burst your bubble or anything, but the video/audio quality probably isn't going to convince those people. It SEEMS good to me, but to them... I dunno.

The arrangement seems pretty solid, with just a few iffy spots. The drums are more or less on autopilot with kinda subtle changes in the kick rhythm, mostly. More snare variation would really help lessen the repetition. I also agree with Kanohi about 2:00 being abrupt. Tying the two sections together with a more gradual dynamic curve would really help making it more cohesive. 1:02 - 1:59 is repeated verbatim at 2:41 - 3:38 aside from very minor drum variations. I strongly believe that adding more distinction between those two sections would make the arrangement less of one that coasts on one good section copy-pasted and more of one that adds a true sense of progression. Last thing is the dynamic shift at 3:51, and the weird arpeggio. It clashes with what came before it and makes the ending more jarring than you meant it to be. Currently this may get a NO (resubmit) based on the fact that 25% of the remix was repeated and doesn't really introduce new arrangement. Personally I'd limit myself to 10% or less repeated in any close form whatsoever.