timaeus222

Man, that third demo is inspiring a new song from me.

You can get a custom avatar if you ask Larry and you're a posted remixer, but it would have to be 32x32, GIF, and good quality.

Nice, even though the sax is fake, it actually is done really well and fits in context.

So if sometime in the future I were to submit an album that acts as the original soundtrack to my own novel/book, could there be any options to include the novel as merch, or something to that effect?

Awesome arrangement man.

That was pretty darn cool, actually. This could have passed in 2004 or so.

Here are the lines that I couldn't understand clearly enough, because they need their transients (fricatives and sibilances) to be more audible: 0:17 - 0:21 0:24 - 0:28 The other vocal parts sound most like a speech synthesizer since they're more exposed than at those two timestamps. There IS that buzzy tonal character of a vocoder, but it's not a real recorded voice. sounds more like real vocals, purposefully spoken robotically to make it sound more robotic but not unnatural, and chopped to fit the tempo where necessary. Robotic is fine, but it should still sound like a human when you take out the vocoder.Other than that, great dubstep work. Likable wobbles here, and great drums.

Haha, that's me being nice, and giving the benefit of the doubt. Everyone starts somewhere, and this wasn't that far below where I was in my first few months. I used fake guitars too, but I actually amped expressive synths with Guitar Rig instead, and even fooled a judge somehow.

A little iffy here and there with the mixing and orchestral articulations, but other than that, pretty fun track. Kind of a primal feel and sounds a bit like Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure.

Woah, loud. Great performance, could be less bright overall. Dave's also right about the weird diad dissonance at 3:34. Oh well.

I figured I'd polish up my Round 2 mix. It's done, and in the sub queue since August. Funky Moles & Trashy Ducks Moar bass, cleaner treble, clearer stereo image, more variations/fills, fixed levels, and upgraded strings.

Yeah, the drums sound like East West Stormdrums mangled with distortion and a lot of compression.

Yeah, but at the same time, I've heard people say that Gen 3 has the "best" music.

This is actually quite good man. Arrangement-wise, this is really well done for the most part. The first and foremost arrangement issue is what sounds like a sampling of the source tune until 0:14. Minimal sampling is encouraged by the Submission Standards and Guidelines, so that intro could be reworked, just in case of that being a large enough issue when combined with the others, which, right now, it is. The second two of three arrangement things I have the most issues with are the leading at 1:47 and the piano part at 2:04. Like Gario heard (he said it in a different way), the lead is too exposed compared to the previous lead. It needs to fall back in line with the track's overall volume and have some reverb to make it fit into the soundscape. It also seems more basic in its melodic flow than the previous lead, which was more awesome. This sticks out because there isn't much else consciously accompanying. It takes a while to realize there's more than the lead and the more obviously audible elements, and a more spacious soundscape would help in that regard. The 2:04 piano part sticks out as oddly positioned and dry. You've had all these electronic elements, and suddenly this sequenced, mechanical piano part comes in, just like that. Organic instruments in electronic music is fine, but it's the only organic instrument here, so it would be important to make sure it isn't neglected in such a way that it's overshadowed in competency, as it's a large portion of the arrangement. Sure, the piano partwriting sounds stiff and robotic, but to me it just sticks out regardless, due to the mixing exposing it as a sort of low-mids "solo" panned widely for an unknown reason. The abrupt ending by itself wouldn't be enough for a rejection, but fixing it wouldn't be a bad idea. As for the production, it's not bad. The main thing to work on here, with this being Drum & Bass, is the drum programming and the loudness. This is quiet compared to most tracks on OCR, and like Gario said, it'll feel awkward if this is played in between louder tracks. I know it's hard to hear sometimes when something is loud or not because you're not accustomed to paying attention to that, but that's a topic that needs to come up sometime. The drums have basic timbres that sound relatively unprocessed, and would benefit from some layering to get the "perfect" timbres, overdrive/distortion to scale up the harmonics (make something sound stronger) and compression to "glue" the drums to a "ceiling" (the 0dB ceiling) and maximize the punchiness. Some references to loudness, assuming the production is good enough already: , almost too quiet until 0:30, even for orchestral. May be a borderline NO/YES, but a YES would probably have a pretty darn fantastic arrangement. Medium --- Could be louder but is not problematic, and if the VGM arrangement is terrific, this is a YES on the judges panel. Medium Loud --- normal/good enough volume for OCR, for any powerful non-electronic genre, and if the VGM arrangement is great, this is a strong YES or a Direct Post.Loud (Example 1, Example 2) --- great volume for OCR, and approximately where Drum & Bass lies in the non-VGM world. With a great VGM arrangement, this will likely be a Direct Post. Example 2 is ambient just so it's clear that the genre has nothing to do with the loudness. LOUD, but still good to go, and typical of hardcore electronic music! With a great VGM arrangement, this is an easy Direct Post. TOO LOUD ( , Example 2 [The MP3 is louder than the YouTube video]) --- shouldn't listen to this kind of loudness too often to keep your ears safe for music production. This kind of loudness may be overlooked sometimes by a judge and made into a YES on the judges panel or a Direct Post because it's solid *enough* and not clipping. No offense intended. You're at the "Medium" loudness, the way I hear things.

Nice, I like the little ear candy parts.

Sounds great! There are things to nitpick still, but as it is, it still sounds passable on OCR. I'm glad the drum compression worked out.

You can go on the Home page on the OCR YouTube channel to check near 6 PM PST.

Soundcloud is just a common audio host. Box and tindeck work well too. People typically don't link to YouTube since it compresses the audio into an encoding that works with FLV, and that almost always makes the track sound worse and inaccurate to the actual audio file. Remakes are fine. They're like simple remixes.

This is recorded accordion, I think. A little dry, so the whole mix could benefit from some room reverb for individual instruments and some filler sounds to give a sense of spaciousness, but other than that, sounds cool man.

The first thing I notice is that the orchestral hits are more lofi than the electronic elements. Also, the non-percussive elements are quiet compared to the drums. The arp starting at 0:58 has a strange resonance that hurts pretty badly to me. It's at maybe ~15000Hz-ish. Same with the lead throughout 1:13-1:56, and at all other spots where it's used. It makes me skip wherever it plays, which is a lot. Not much weird stuff other than those resonances and the repetition of the arrangement. Yes, it's Electro House, but it could have been less repetitive IMO. In general, this sounds good.

Personally I think the kick is too subby and loud, but other than that, it conveys what you wanted.

Oh, I actually didn't have a problem with starting the song like that, I was more concerned with how it mostly added muddiness at 0:04. Muddiness simply means obstruction of clarity, but in this case I think what happened was the timpani was buried in its placement, rather than the timpani burying the drums. As for the lead guitar reverb, reverb is actually helpful in fitting an instrument in a soundscape. If it sticks out, it sounds less realistic since it's further from emulating the acoustics of a room. Keeping the reverb on the lead guitar is totally fine, and I just wanted the volume to be higher. I didn't have any problem with the reverb quality or the presence of the reverb.

ˈHæpi ˈBɝθ.deɪ do͞od.

At 1:49, it sounds like an anvil and a sleigh bell. Pretty solid orchestral man. I liked the dynamics on this. Good job.

Yeah, the drums felt pretty flat to me too. Oh well, the bass was pretty well done at least. I felt like the repetition was borderline though.